I guess art happens this way, especially if you are an artist who makes much of her art out of old, recycled and discarded things.
This began when the apple tree was trimmed a couple of weeks ago, Maria saved some of the branches for the donkeys and sheep to chew on, they love bark. Then, it caught her eye and she has been adding to it and re-shaping it every morning. I love this about Maria.
I don’t know quite where this one is going, and the sheep and donkeys come and nibble on it during the day and move it. At first, it was just a pile of twigs to me, but it’s starting to grow on me. Our life is a gallery, really.
My friend Chistie contacted me yesterday, she has been moved from the hospital where she was to the Indian River Rehabilitation Center in Granville, N.Y. It is not where she wanted to go, and she is not happy to be there. I hope she feels better about it, there were no other available beds in the area.
You can write to Christie there and I think letters of encouragement and connection would be valuable for her, the address is Christie L., 17 Madison Street, Granville, N.Y., 12832.
It was a bleaker note than usual, and I don’t want to quote from it, she was heavily medicated for her back pain, and it isn’t appropriate to quote messages written in that context, no matter what they say.
She hurt her back before she left, and she was in considerable pain and groggy. She felt abandoned there, and lonely and exhausted. She had hoped to be in Glens Falls, a few blocks from her mother, who is healthy at age 86.
Christie is at a critical crossroads, and sometimes, the lives of the residents trigger almost Biblical issues of love, reality and responsibility. Almost everyone who knows Christie says that while everyone loves her, she has not always followed instructions or taken the best care of herself. Christie agrees.
She has a lot of serious medical concerns which she has told me about but which I am not at liberty to discuss.
I know that she and I have made a connection and opened up a channel that has not always been easy for her, and the question for me is how can I best help her, while also observing the boundaries between visitor, therapy volunteer and in some ways, friend.
I embrace the difference between pity and compassion, sympathy and empathy. Christie does not need pity or a shoulder to cry on, she needs truth and encouragement.
So Christie, this post is, in some ways another letter from me, since you follow the blog. I know you can do it if you want to do it, I know it will be unimaginably difficult, I so look forward to taking a photo of you when you return to your room at the Mansion. All your things are still there.
I wrote her a one-line letter to me this morning when she told me how unhappy she was. It said: “you need to fight to get out of there.”
Everyone close to Christie, friends and medical people, all say the same thing. She is too young to be in a nursing home for long, and her future is up to her. If she wants to get back to the Mansion, she can. She needs to walk and walk, eat carefully and not quit.
One way to help her is to encourage letters of support and encouragement.
More than anything else, more than any gift or bauble or box of chocolate, it is your letters and messages that mean the most and lift the spirits of the residents. (You can write to the Mansion residents at ll S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816) It means they are known. Christie was shocked that Red and I came to visit her in the hospital, the fact that we showed up meant more to her than anything we did.
So I am walking a fine line here, one I usually avoid in therapy work. This, I think is the hard stuff, this is what love is to me.
My job is to walk around with Red, I am not there to save anyone but feel drawn to Christie, since this connection has been made, and she has opened a remarkable dialogue with me. Christie does not really need sympathy now, certainly not pity. I think she needs to know that if she wants to get out of there and back home, it is within her power to do so, whether she wants to be there or not. I imagine she needs to believe that, this is for real, an important crossroads for her.
I have never heard any patient in a nursing home say they want to be there, who would be? Christie, all I can really do is root for you now, and tell you that I have faith in your ability to write the next chapter in your story. I saw the determination in your eyes, Red reacted to it as well, and I am quite fallible, Red is never wrong.
Christie will be at Indian River for at least two weeks, you can write her there if you wish: Christie L., 17 Madison Street, Granville, N.Y., 12832. Many thanks.
Yesterday, I wrote about an argument Maria and i had about how to best clean up the manure in the Pole Barn. Maria likes a metal rake turned over on it’s flat side, I like the other side. This morning, I had the bright idea of using a push broom to get the sheep pellets swept out. I thought ti worked beautifully (we use the rakes for the larger horse and donkey leavings).
I thought it worked beautifully. Maria jeered a bit, she said she still liked the rake. We were both very civil about it. I’m not done yet.
I write a lot about me and Red, but not as much as I should about Maria and Fate. When I met Maria, her sidekick was Frieda, the wolf dog who wanted to eat me. Today, her sidekick is Fate, the two of them are inseparable, always together, always sharing their joy and love of life.
Fate goes everywhere Maria goes, they are two peas in a pod.
They both love to work, they are both restless and always moving, there are never enough hours in the day for either of them to do the work they wish to do, and they enjoy almost everything they do, from shoveling out the manure to sitting in the School House Studio.
Fate is one of those dogs that is not for everybody, but she sure is for us. She is the kind of dog that lifts you up, her purpose is to remind us of the joy of life, and to be grateful for being alive, for all of its trials and tribulations.
Fate always wants to be near Maria (when she isn’t running circles around the sheep), always wants to see what she is doing, even if what she is doing is shoveling manure.
It is a wonderful thing always to see a dog pair up so perfectly with a human, they almost function as one thing, they support and compliment one another. These two belong together. In a sense, they compliment one another. I can’t help but smile and feel good when I see Maria head for her studio, Fate right at her heels. Whenever Maria goes out to go to the Post Office or visit a friend, Fate heads for the car, riding shotgun happily on the front seat.
Wherever I am, Red is right next to me. Wherever Maria goes, Fate is right alongside. This is the beauty of dogs.
Next to chasing sheep, there is nowhere Fate would rather be.
