People – women mostly – often ask Maria how she feels about having her life shared on the Internet. It makes some people nervous. Recently, one friend said she was touched by the way I wrote about her, she wondered if it sometimes made her uncomfortable. Maria can speak for herself, of course this has sometimes made her uncomfortable. But also very comfortable. W are now both committed to sharing our lives, it has become an integral part of our lives and our art.
Openness is something people like to read about but are wary of practicing. There is something viscerally unnerving and uncomfortable about openness, being open has saved and enriched my life. We are taught to be wary of sharing too much. I don’t tell others what to do, but openness has become a part of my ethos and my faith and my creativity. It is both liberating and enriching. And healing.
I think of this as I think of this photo of Maria smiling in the Bejosh Farm barn. I knew Maria for some time before I ever saw her smile, and it was never as radiant and warm a smile as this. As she has opened up, her smile has become a radioactive jewel, I can see the evolution of it in my photographs.
When I first saw Maria truly smile, a year or two after we met, it was as if the sun had appeared in the sky for the first time, there is so much joy and passion in her, but much of it was hidden or buried inside. It cried to come out. Her openness lights up the world around her.
When I see this smile, it warms the coldest day and lights up the darkest night, it wipes away the shadows in my heart and soul.
What kind of writer would not wish to write about this?
I am thoughtful about the parts of Maria’s life that I share in photographs and words. I don’t usually show her face, which irritates many people.
I rarely write about our life inside of the farmhouse, I do not share anything that would make her uncomfortable or that is especially private, I respect her wishes about it, and I am sensitive to her feelings. People do not see, of course, what we do not share, so it is easy enough to assume we share everything. Of course, we do not. We decide what to share and what not to share.
In recent months, Maria has begun to photograph me and write about me in the same way that I write about her. Ironically, it made me very uncomfortable at first, I got a taste of my own medicine. For the first years of the blog, there was never a photograph of me, I wouldn’t permit it. I think I thought if people saw how I really was and looked, they would turn away. But they didn’t. I did not wish to be a hypocrite, for me, the lowest form of life.
And I knew I needed to accept myself and the way I look and am. It is good for me. The sky has not come crashing down.
Maria wanted to write about me for the same reason I wanted to write about her, we are each such an important part of each other’s lives. How could we not, and claim to be authentic?
We have clear and distinct boundaries around our lives and our work. We each have our own work space we are apart for most of every work day. We have our own friends and interests, we often take our own walks and do our own chores. We like to spend time alone with our friends.
She never interferes with my writing, I rarely even enter her work studio. I have no idea what she is working on until she shows me or tells me and she has no idea what will be on my blog until she sees it or I ask her to look at something. She rarely enters my office.
We respect the freedom and space of each other, they are hard won.
Many people comment on my writing about my love for Maria. I was inspired to do this by the author and farmer Wendell Berry, who is an inspiration to me. He is a decade or more older than me, he adores his wife, and writes about her all the time, in stories, poems, essays. He is authentic, he knows it would be dishonest to write about his life without writing about her.
There are people out there who don’t know that older people love just as passionately as the young, and they need to know. I do not ever want to hide my love.
To hide or submerge my love for Maria, to take her out of my story, would be the worst kind of lie. Our love shapes so much of our lives. I would be cheating each one of you if I failed to acknowledge it.
Love is truth for me. I am happy to change my idea of truth if I discover I am wrong. But I always seek the truth, and I do not believe anyone is ever harmed by the truth. It is the people who live lives of denial, self-deception and fear who are harmed, and who so often harm others.