Day: February 6, 2017

Lots of people are starting to ask me how I will fare when Maria heads off Sunday for two weeks in Kolkata, India. I can sense some are worried about me, they have started to ask me if I will be lonely.

It’s an interesting question, and I have to say, I don’t really have an answer, at least not a complete one. I sure know what it means to be lonely.

Maria and I are very close, and we both have drawn great strength and encouragement from one another. I remember when I began to break down in 2008, I was lying on the bathroom floor in an Austin hotel on a book tour vomiting and shaking, I was so terrified. It was 2 a.m. back home, and Maria got on the phone and talked me back down.

She talked me back to life, that night, and ever since.

I can’t count how many panic attacks we each got the other through during our dark days. Anne Dambrowski, our friend and bookkeeper walked into my office this morning and said this year, I was the sanest since she met me nearly a decade ago. I told her Maria was the reason for that, for that matter, so was Anne.

How do you gauge missing someone like that?

I know I will miss Maria. I already do, just at the thought of her not being here, I’m beginning to withdraw and gather myself in preparation. I will miss her in bed, we sleep all curled up like two octopuses. I will miss her working on the fiber chair, seeing her greet her beloved animals in the morning, ferrying out gourmet leftovers for the chickens, cuddling up with Minnie on the sofa, calling me in great excitement to show me a new quilt she had made.

Maria is filled with love and generosity  and kindness, how could I not miss that.

Yet, I believe in aloneness, I know loneliness well – I was alone on the first Bedlam Farm for nearly six years, it is a natural thing for me. I was alone every minute of my life for most of my life, especially when young. I lived in terror and shame and had no idea how to connect with people. It is still a problem for me.

I met the writer Hunter Thompson once, when I was writing for Rolling Stone magazine.  He had a very deep and wise philosophical streak, and I remember him saying that we are all alone.

Born alone, die alone, and in many ways, we are alone the whole way. I think there is much truth in that, for all that I adore Maria and will miss her.

Loneliness is, in a sense, my natural state. It is this wonderful time that is strange to me. Thompson shared one value that is very strong in me, and that is the need for loneliness and solitude.

This is what makes self-respect so important, and I don’t know how I can ever respect myself if I must look to other people for wisdom and happiness and approval. My happiness must come from within. My life is not an argument.

In a very important sense, this journey to India is an affirmation, for both of us. It is Maria’s trip, not mine, I really have nothing much to do with it, and should not be a part of it. This is her show, her circus, her time in the light. I don’t belong there. My only role is to be encouraging and proud.

I believe this is a coming of age for Maria, an affirmation of her growth, strength, creativity and confidence.

For me, an opportunity to be alone again, a different affirmation, a chance to find my center and truth. A lot of us need that now.

At times, this will be sad. At times, liberating. At times a chance for solitude and reflection, the stepping-stones of a creative life. Emotion is always good for a writer, and the absence of Maria will open my up in ways I cannot quite imagine, because it has never really happened. We have each been away from the other for a few days, but not a trip like this, so out of reach, so far, so long.

For me, loneliness is not a strange place, but a familiar one. I imagine I will get broody sometimes, that is cleansing.  Perhaps I’ll permit myself to cry some in the night. The wonderful thing about missing somebody you love – if their absence is temporary – is that you can see clearly how much you mean to one another. That is a gift.

It’s true that technology will keep us more connected than was once possible,  but I hope we don’t stay too connected. It ought to feel different, I hope she has fresh things to tell me when she returns, I don’t wish to feel like I know everything before she gets back.

I know myself, this week, to protect myself, I will begin to withdrawn, to hope up inside of myself, to keep things to myself. Just like the turtle going into the shell. That’s how I handle being alone.

I will be eating standing up in the kitchen, taking long walks in the woods, staying up late, getting up early,  sleeping fitfully, scattering debris everywhere.

Whatever happens, I can handle it, and I will share the experience.  This is my first India Journal.

There is no drama here. Maria will be fine and I will be fine, and she will come winging her way back to me so that we can resume the wonderful big trip that is our life together.

So, a wonderful thing, an exhilarating thing, a sometimes bittersweet thing. That is what I call a fair trade in life, you get something, you give something up. More to come. She leaves at 1 p.m. Sunday.

Several weeks ago, my editor and my wife joined forces to strongly suggest that I hire someone to do the morning chores while Maria is in India (she leaves on Sunday).

This idea shocked me, I was looking forward to proving that I could handle the farm by myself, just like i did for years in Hebron at the first Bedlam Farm. Rosemary Ahern, my book editor, said that wasn’t the point, the point was for me to have a strong creative experience of my own and focus on the book I’m writing for Simon and Schuster, “Lessons From Bedlam Farm.”

Maria enthusiastically endorsed this idea, it would be like an academic fellowship, she said. You could just get up and go to focus on your books and blog, let someone else haul hay out and shovel snow and more in the morning. Under the plan, I’d do the afternoon chores.

This sounds like Downton Abbey, I said, people doing chores on my farm while I am right there in the house. But that argument got nowhere, and I began to see the creative possibilities for me in this, pure creativity in the mornings, when I am at my creative sharpest Drop the ego, and just say yes, was the message. So I did.

(My next book “Talking To Animals,” is out in five months, you can pre-order it here from Battenkill Books and I will sign and personalize it for you.)

Only a fool would ignore these two powerful and intelligent women, they know me as well as anyone in the world. Okay, I agreed, I’ll find a keeper.

One person came immediately to mind: Cassandra Conety.

She is a vet tech who works at Cambridge Valley Vet, she has done message and laser work with Red and treated many sick dogs and cats from the farm. She has nerves of steel, is both competent and professional, and is utterly unimpressed by me. I know her well.

She agreed. Maria said I had a lot of reservations about this idea (can I really sit and work while somebody else is just outside doing my chores on my farm?), Cassandra asked only one question: “are the reservations about me?” No, we both said, nothing to do with you.

She came over to the farm on Sunday and talked about what would needed to be done. She was not the least bit fazed about it, but then, I have never seen her fazed. I have a lot of respect and admiration for Cassandra, she is solid and conscientious and loving. Cassandra grew up on a nearby farm, she is not faxed by any of it.

Fate is insanely crazy about Cassandra, she just melts when she sees her. Perhaps Cassandra will take her to work for the day, and give me a real break (just kidding.)

So Cassandra shrugged off my reservations, she didn’t wasted much time on them, walked around the house. She’ll bring firewood in if I don’t get to it in the evening, which I will.  She’ll run and work the dogs. She’ll clean the manure out of the barn.

I will be holed up in my study, cranking out some great literature with my Chai Tea, candles and bottled water.

Cassandra gave the place a thorough going over. She checked out the barn, walked around the pasture, examined the manure pile, the cat litter box, the wood shed. We agreed on a price, and she was gone, see you on the 13th, she said.

There are not many people I would be comfortable trying this experiment with. I still harbor suspicions that everyone thinks I’m too old and frail to do this stuff. I do see it makes Maria feel good on several levels. One is that I can really make some  headway on my books with Cassandra coming, the chores can be both time-consuming and tiring. The other, of course, is that there will be someone to keep an eye on me if I fall down, get bumped by a pony push things by shoveling snow. or get knocked over while hauling hay.

I’ve also asked Alfreda, who cleans out house once or twice a month, to stop by a couple of times while Maria is in Kolkata. I do not want her to come home to the kind of house Jon Katz would leave for her, despite his best efforts. I am a chaos machine.

I do think this idea is growing on me, I am excited about this very focused time to get over the hump with this book, which I love writing. Distraction is an issue for me. This is precious time, it is to be savored and appreciated, especially while Maria is so far away.

I see that people are beginning to worry how I will handle Maria’s being away for two weeks. I am nothing but excited about this trip. Of course I’ll miss her, and it will make for a great chapter in my book.

When I first posted this piece, Peggy on Facebook immediately said that it was better to have Cassandra than a Medic Alert button. She said she understood Maria insisting on Cassandra if I wasn’t willing to take steps to be safe. This kind of thinking, of course, is precisely why I was uncomfortable with the idea. It is easy to see it that way.

But Peggy is quite mistaken. I don’t need a Medic Alert button, and Maria would never insist I get one.

This is not about safety or danger, its about creativity.

Peggy missed the same thing I missed at first – Rosemary, who does not worry about my safety, saw a chance to encourage me to focus on my book, and so did Maria. That’s what a great editor does. This use of Cassandra to help me focus on my work is a creative gift and opportunity. It ought not to be confused with neurotic worry, the rising currency of social media. I am safe on this farm, as safe as I will be anywhere, and if I topple over and die here one day, what a great way to go.

Maria and I do not take responsibility for the others life, we do not put that on one another (except when it’s snowing and she drives off in that toilet bowl). We love each other, but we take care of ourselves.

So meet Cassandra, I could not do better for a keeper. She knows and loves animals and is herself a farm girl, and I am excited to add her to the wonderful cast of people who are part of my life. Cassandra is a no-bs person, she will come and do her work and vanish, but I will make sure to run out of my writer’s cave and get some photos of her. She’s part of the story now.