Month: February 2017

“Life is a not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. Follow the path that is no path, follow your bliss.” – Joseph Campbell.

It’s about time, I suppose. Maria woke up from a nap this afternoon, turned and looked at me, and said, “you’re turning gray. Did this just happen? Did it happen when I was away?” I don’t know when this happened, perhaps it was her going to India that did it. I mean, I am going to be 70 years old next year, and I am entitled to turn gray.

I’ve been through a fair amount of life, and while I am loving my life more than ever, and am even a grandfather, the spiritualists say you keep all of the bad energy inside of you, it is stored in various parts of the body.

Recently, a massage therapist I know volunteered to do distance energy work on me, over the phone, and I agreed to try it out. She said she had an amazing experience, watching my blood and heart move around from miles away, I felt peace and calm but none of the fireworks. Perhaps that turned me gray.

I kind of like it, to be honest. Gives me a bit of a distinguished hue, a sort of elder statesman kind of look. Venerable writers ought to be gray. I am beginning to respect myself, and so others are beginning to respect me.

I see that the gray goes well with the silk scarf Maria brought me from India, and my favorite L.L. Bean sweater, which I am wearing every single day and will soon disintegrate.

I see myself as beginning to be old, but perhaps I am just old. I don’t really feel old, and  don’t ever engage in old talk, you know, the faux chipper “at our age,” or “we are all slowing down at our age,” or stuff like that. I always say or  think, speak for yourself, we are not all one thing, we don’t all feel that way.

I tell the children at the Dunkin Donuts window to save my senior discount for a young couple with kids, they need it more than I do. And I rarely permit the kids at the hardware store to carry stuff to my car. I am not impaired.

I understand that I have many fewer years ahead of me than behind me, and this is a signal to live and love wisely and compassionately as well. Every day, I ask myself what creative thing can I do, what experience can I pass along, what good can I do for someone in the world. And i try to do it.

In part, aging is physical for me. My legs get sore, I do not bend down as easily, I take medication for diabetes and heart disease, once in a while, I even nap. I do not feel diminished or worn out, I feel more creative, active and relevant than I ever have, I am even beginning to teach well and learning how to be a better human being.

I am boiling over with life.

In part, it is a state of mind. Like Grandma Moses said, you have to make the most out of life. The night after my open heart surgery, I shocked my ICU nurses  by telling them I had to get up and walk. I walked for three days was discharged earlier, the earliest ever in that ward. I am walking still. That’s how I intend to end up.

I meditate, make time to listen to music. I love my  blog and the books I am working on, I think I am just learning how to write.

I have love and even sex in my life. I have good friends who are nourishing to be with, and may hopes and expectations for the future. My granddaughter will be coming to the farm in the Spring, I will introduce her to her first donkey, it will alter her life.

She will have a crazy grandfather on a farm, it will be irresistible to a Brooklyn kid.

I don’t want to let Maria off the hook, since she didn’t notice my graying hair before the trip I can blame it on her. I have been noticing it for a while, although I rarely look in the mirror. Still, two weeks of running the house and the farm mostly by myself left me a wreck and probably added some hue to the little gray cells.

Joseph Campbell says that destiny is simply the fulfillment of the potentiality and the energy in your own system of myth and life.  You have got to say yes to the miracle of life, whether or not it follows your rules and expectations. Life is a miracle and a gift, either way.

Last Friday, the Mansion launched a gofundme campaign to get an urgently needed new van so the residents can get their doctors, take field trips, visit their families, go shopping (and visit parks and farms like mine).

As of this morning, the fund had reached $5,470, or about 55 per cent of the $10,000. It is a wonderful start, and thank you, we have $6,530 to go. The Mansion is a Medicaid Assisted Care Facility, the only such facility for many miles around. They have limited funds, and it appears the funds they receive will be shrinking, according to the new budget proposed by President Trump.

I know almost all of the Mansion residents, and have met all of the staff members. This is a loving, caring facility for people no longer able to care for themselves and without the resources to get to fancier, or more elaborate facilities. Their van is their lifeline to the outside world, it takes them back into the lives they loved and lost and into the wider world.

It is also essential to their health care and emotional well-being. I hope we get get to $10,000, the Mansion’s owner George Scala has raised the other $10,000 necessary to buy a wan, he has spent so much money rehabilitating the Mansion and other facilities he cannot get financing.

In our country, we are great at keeping people alive longer than ever before, but woeful at helping them to lead meaningful and connected lives. We try to shunt them out of sight and away so that we do not see them age and die.  Modern medicine has failed to consider their lives beyond survival.

My photos are devoted to preventing them from being unseen or forgotten, these are not people who should be forgotten. The van is a lifeblood for them.

The stories of the Mansion residents are powerful and compelling. These are not people who wish to leave the world behind, they want to see it and travel through it and be seen and known. Thanks for helping, I hope we can get there. You can contribute here.

Maria sat up at 3 a.m. this morning and cried a bit, a not unusual thing in our home.  She had been home for about 10 hours and was veering in between excitement and exhaustion.

Her emotions are always on the surface, and she cries like I talk, it is just a part of the conversation. It is why the animals love her so much, they read emotions.

Some of our most amazing conversations have occurred in the dark of night, when she sits up, has a revelation,  sometimes shows some emotion and often cries, and then, worn out, falls back to sleep.  I stay awake for hours thinking about what she said. This morning, she said something very important.

She said she understood the lesson of her trip to India.

“A home should be safe and loving,” she said, in tears. “It’s because our home is safe and loving that I could go to India. This was the backdrop, the grounding that make it possible.”

It was a powerful statement for both of us, and deeply gratifying for me. I knew exactly what she meant.

Maria and I did not come from a safe and loving home, and so much of our relationship has been devoted to helping one another heal, to feel safe and strong, to learn to like ourselves.  We know what it is like to be afraid and confused and diminished.

Maria did not feel strong, did not feel heard, did not feel confident. Her fear had taken her voice away and her willingness to do her art or take risks.

I was in no better shape, ashamed of my mental illness and unable to cope with some of the most basic tasks of life.  All my life, I ran from myself, and from others,  only when I met Maria did I believe I was worth saving, or that it was worth it to try.

Before that, the only thing that saved me was my writing, I could always write and earn a living writing. Around that, there was havoc and chaos and fear. I had given up on hope and love.

Maria could not, she said this morning, have gone to India and been strong enough to overcome those challenges and risks for much of her life. And nothing about the trip was easy for her, from beginning to end. There was not a part of it she did not handle beautifully, from the blizzard on the first day to her initial disappointment about teaching there, to the grueling nature of the trip, to the strangeness of India,  to her car troubles on the way back.

She could go, she said, and deal with it all, because she had been granted the time to heal and grow stronger.  Because she felt loved and safe, and that, she said, was the platform on which she was able to build and change.  She knows now that she can handle surprise and adversity. So she does handle it, even when it frightens her.

She has found a way to do her art, find her voice,  make lasting friendships, find her strength and  to be encouraged and supported. This is not something I did for her, it is something we did and do for one another.

For my part, I felt truly accepted and safe. An ugly man in many ways, Maria thought I was beautiful. A disturbed man, she thought I was wonderful. A confused man, she thought I was wise.  I felt like such a bad and damaged person, she saw me as good and kind.  She even loved  me in the recovery room of the hospital where I had my open heart surgery, and if she loved me then, it was for real.

I felt the same way about her. I always thought she was brilliant, creative, intelligent, so alive and honest. She has the biggest heart in the world. I still do think that, she inspires me to be better. I am just amazed at what she does, day after day. There was, after all, a lesson in the India trip, and I think she figured out this morning just what it was.

It is important to love people and help them to feel safe. This changed my life and it changed hers, and we were not little kids when it happened. Think what it could do for them.

When I met Maria, I was lost and broken. I always had the strength to write, but not to write openly and authentically. I was destructive, to myself and others. I lived in terror and confusion. I had lost perspective, and was enmeshed in a life of co-dependence. I was terrified of money, and couldn’t look at a bank balance statement.

I gave all of my money away, deluded to think I was Christ like. I left my family and fled to a new life.

Maria gave me the time and support to put the pieces back together, to heal and learn and grow. We both faces up to ourselves and committed ourselves to growing and learning and to accept and support one another. In this atmosphere, we both grew stronger. I am managing money well, taking responsibility for myself, finding ways to live meaningfully and hopefully, thoughtfully. To do good.

Talking in the night, we both came to see that this was one of the lessons of the India journey. We had become a home and family of love and safety. And in so doing, had opened up so many wonderful and important doors in our loves. India was, in a very literal sense, a metaphor for what we did not have but know is so important. We have built it into our lives, it is what we are about.

And it can open up the world for us both. She’s still sleeping, but I had to get up. I couldn’t wait to write about it. (I think I may have scooped her, heh-heh).

Maria’s photos make me want to go to India badly and take pictures. Walking in Udaipur, she met a fellow fiber artist working on his ancient sewing machine in a small stall. He made some of the most beautiful fabrics she had ever seen and she bought a whole suitcase full of them, and she loved talking with him.

His work is wonderful, and I imagine it will show up in Maria’s work and imagination again and again. It is not like any fabric I have seen, and his use of color is remarkable.

Since she got home, she has mostly been sleeping, with some beautiful breaks for talking and eating. A most wonderful trip – we were up talking for hours – and later today she plans to start writing about it.

She needs another day or two to rest and get  re-acclimated. It is sure wonderful to have her back.

Robin and Emma and Jay returned from a week of vacation in the warm sun of Arizona, Robin seemed to enjoy the flight, she is turning out to be a good natured and even-tempered baby and Emma is wisely taking her many places – restaurants, parks, demonstrations. New York City kids, I imagine, have seen just about everything almost from the first.

She definitely has a world class stare.

When they got over Ohio, Robin decided to chew on a novel Emma was reading, she is ready for her first visit to Bedlam Farm and her first encounter with a donkey. Can’t wait for that.