Month: May 2017

A friend asked me yesterday why I seemed so tired, and I answered that Donald Trump has been a great gift to me, and I have never worked harder or more intensely than since he was elected. He has changed my life and work in meaningful and significant ways.

She seemed startled, and said “well, you are brave to say that, I’m not brave enough to say that.”

I think we both startled each other, because I am not brave and did not mean to suggest in any way that I am brave.

In explaining my statement to her, I came to see just how the election has, in fact,  altered my life, and done so much good for people who I know and care for, and taught me a number of important things about me and my values.

I am not writing this to praise or criticize our President, or to argue about him. If you want to do that, get on over to Fox News or CNN or a million other places online. You won’t get to do it  here. I am writing this to explain an intensely personal change the election brought to my life.

Mr. Trump’s election and the increasingly bitter aftermath has shown me the pointlessness of hatred and rage, and the value of not arguing my life, but living it instead. Rather than argue, I had a revelation: I simply decided to do good, and a devoted Army of Good, centered around my blog, joined up with me.

It was one of the most important decisions in my life, I think, and it has made me and my life better. It has helped me shed much of the anger and confusion – and fear – I struggled with for so long.

I have  been muddled for much of my life about who I am and what I wish to do. That is being clarified for me, in ways I never imagined or expected.

Because of the election, we have done a stunning amount of good right here.

It is, of course, work I perhaps should always have been doing, and on some level, always wanted to do, but I was too broken. There is no point in looking backwards, we do the best we can for as long as we can when we can.

I have made new and wonderful friends since November. My blog has grown and strengthened, thousands of new people have come to follow it I believe my writing is clearer and more passionate, even, hopefully, more helpful. The blog has definition.  People write me every day to say they approve of this direction: not to argue about what it good, but to do good in every possible way, again and again.

And to share my life on the farm with Maria and the animals here openly and authentically.

They say it is has helped them to find their own ground. I  hope that is true.

“Your days seem vibrant and full of growth and love in many different forms,” wrote Marcia the other day.

“I remember the life you wrote about in your early years in the country and was almost startled by the contrast.” Me, too, Marcia and thanks. The recent trouble in our country have help bring out that love and growth, along with my wife and partner. We decided to commit random acts of kindness, we do many of them together, another facet of our love. Another gift.

I learned last November to turn away from argument and hatred, I hope for good. They are pointless responses, they cause nothing but harm and accomplish nothing.

Our lives are not about what we say they are, they are about what we do.

I will stand or fall on what I do, that is a profound thing for me to learn. And a deeply spiritual gift. In the wake of the election, I have found a kind of peace and joy in my life – and purpose, perhaps – that I have been seeking for many years. We are all on a path, and most of the time, we  have no idea where it will lead.

it is not necessary for me to hate Donald Trump or criticize or ridicule him.

I understand that many good people admire him greatly and are rooting for him, and many good people hate and fear him. I am not drawn to those choices,  the turmoil in the country asks each of us who we are and who we wish to be and  how we wish to live, and we can all act according to our own will and conscience.

The election challenged me to look inward at my values, at my feelings for my country, at my heritage as the descendant of brave and hard-working refugees and immigrants. It inspired me to focus my therapy work with Red on a single place, the Mansion Assisted Care Facility in Cambridge, N.Y. and  to come to know the staff and residents there that I have come to know and love.

Doing good seemed to me to be the best response to anger and hatred. It feels so much better.

This evolution has led me to RISSE, an immigrant and refugee support center in Albany New York, to my new and very dear friend Ali, Amjad Abdullah Mohammed, and the members of the RISSE soccer team. Children from Africa and Syria and Thailand who now throw their arms around me when they see me and call my name and fill my heart with good.

How much is that worth in a life?

More than 100 children instantly benefited from this direction in my life, a Vermont artist named Rachel Barlow raised funds here to give them each an art and creativity kit that they use almost every day of their lives to make their own art and explore their creativity and find their voices.

A busload of refugee children are going to the Great Escape Adventure Park in Lake George in July, thanks to a generous reader of the blog. A gifted young refugee artist is taking classes from an accomplished artist. Another has a pair of new sneakers.  The soccer team gets birthday parties and Saturday excursions to the beach in the summer.

Immigrant families received thousands of dollars worth of badly needed supplies for their new apartments and homes – prayer rugs, pots and pans, blankets, shower curtains, strollers, toys, sheets, silver, notebooks and school supplies. They saw firsthand that we are a generous and welcoming people.

Yesterday, an angel from the Northeast told me she is sending a check for $1,000 to give the soccer team a weekend retreat at Pompanuck Farms.

The Mansion got a new van because of Mr. Trump and the lives of many of the residents have been transformed.

They have received thousands of letters and photographs, Easter bags and chocolate, flowers and puzzles, yarn and a boom box, a new computer and several air conditioners for the summer heat. We have put paintings on bare walls, funded a dozen parties, sponsored an art contest and story-telling competition, paid for a stray cat the residents have come to love to be spayed. They have stacks of DVD’s, books, art supplies to work with.

We have taken several undocumented immigrants to lawyers and give them some reason for hope, and some valuable advise.

Lives have been brightened, altered, changed, all for the better, all for good. And without an argument or complaint.

I understand now that my friend thought me brave for daring to say that something about President Trump brought good things to me, and was a gift. I know many people are living in fear and distress, and it is not a gift for them.

But there is a difference between bravery and honesty. Bravery is running through machine gun fire to save a comrade. Honesty is just telling the truth about yourself. And I can only speak for me. I do not ever tell anyone else how to feel.

Life is a series of choices, we never get to stop making them, from our earliest days to our last. In our time, we all  have a choice, whether to be angry and outraged or whether to do good and work on behalf of our own values. This does not require argument or the approval of others.

Just think if all of our reactions were to define good and do as much of it as we can, rather than spew venom and bile on Facebook and Twitter.

The election of Donald Trump has crystallized this for me, just as he has crystallized the choices of the many millions of people who supported him. This is what it means to be an individual, to live in a democracy, to be free. That is what I meant by a gift.

 

 

I took this photo of Maria’s new wall hanging, “Gorges Unexplored,” this morning with my Petzval Russian glass lens. It’s for sale for $500. You can read about it here or contact Maria at [email protected].

Red is back at work (light duty) sitting on the hill in the South pasture, keeping an order. I’d  say he is 80 per cent better, I’m planning on taking him to his debut Thursday as a therapy soccer dog at the request of the RISSE soccer team, made oup of recent refugees and immigrants to the United States, scheduled to play somewhere in Clifton Park, N.Y.

Red is still on powerful antibiotics for the next two weeks (thanks for the vet-approved probiotics, whoever sent them) and seems a bit restrained to me, but it’s hard to tell with him, he is a very calm creature.

Had to put this photo up, off to bed for me, Robin left me a gift; her fever. Maria too, but she is in much better shape than I am.

It has always been this way for me, I work until I get sick or someone tells me I am exhausted, and then I crash for a bit.

Today, I went to see a friend, a healer, and she asked me how I was, and I was surprised to say I was exhausted, which she noticed. I have been working hard every day all day for months, writing, taking photos, blogging, working on my new book, pushing my current book.

And Robin passed along her fever on her happy visit. I have a good fever and am bleary and fuzzy. And exhausted. Maria agrees. I am getting into bed and drinking a lot of night cough medicine. I long ago used up my codeine cough medicine and do not dare ask for anymore – I was a valium addict for decades.

Maria is cooking up some chicken soup for me, I am surrendering to the liberation of exhaustion. There are lots of things going on her – grandkid visit, refugee kids, Mansion residents, immigrants, Red’s illness, the farm, writing, etc. This weekend was epic, I’m done for a bit.

I laughed when my friend reminded me of my open heart surgery and the need to rest sometimes, and I am no hero, no brave man, but I just never see myself in that way. My heart and I are good friends, but my body whispered in my ear that she was right, and so was Maria. Time to listen and get to bed. See you in the morning.

It feels wonderful to let go sometimes, it is the key to a spiritual center. Thanks for being there.

When I was a kid, one of my great pleasures was watching Saturday morning cartoons. I especially loved Bugs Bunny,  a cheerful wise ass with a strong ego and perspective. His nemesis was the hapless Elmer J. Fudd, a self-described millionaire.

Elmer Fudd’s main task in life was pursuing Bugs, often with his shotgun.

Bugs had no problem fending him off, outsmarting and humiliating him.

Fudd may have been rich but he was not smart. I loved Elmer Fudd, and I  identified with him.

I remember that often, when he was defeated or embarrassed – which was all the time – he would puff himself up and announce “My name Is Elmer J. Fudd. I Have A Mansion And  A Yacht!”

And I do admit – I have to be honest – that these days, he does remind me of our President, who is, in his own way, telling us the same thing quite often. Fudd has endured.

For some reason, Fudd’s declaration became my catch phrase when I was beleaguered or frightened or humiliated, which was also most of the time. When my gym teacher yelled at me, or I had an accident in class, or some teacher was scolding me, or my father was lecturing me, or the principal wanted to know why I was not in school, I would always stop and think “My name is Elmer J. Fudd, I own a Mansion And A Yacht.”

This all came back to me this morning when Maria was kidding me for forgetting to make her toast crisp enough, a long-standing joke between us.

I turned and drew myself to full height – she is, after all, not much bigger than a forest elf – and announced “My name is Elmer J. Fudd. I own a mansion and a yacht!”

And she cracked up. “You are so strange!,” she said.

Elmer is still inside of me and will remain there, a testament of the power of imagination to touch and alter the life of a child. Like Fudd, I used it to preserve my dignity and sense of power.

I remembered that when I was wheeled into the operating room for my open heart surgery a few years ago, all trussed up in a flimsy gown and sprouting tubes, that the last thing I remember saying to myself – I don’t think I said it out loud, but I might have – was “My name is Elmer J. Fudd, I have a mansion and a yacht!”

Somehow, I internalized Mr. Fudd’s determination, pride and conviction that he was meant to get that rabbit.

Yesterday, one of the social media furies – her name was Mary – lit into me for buying a puppy rather than rescuing one. I should be ashamed of myself, she said, there is only one way to get a dog. I wasted no time in replying.

I wrote: “My name is Elmer J. Fudd. I own a mansion and a yacht!” It worked like magic. Mary went silent, she went away and never came back, shaking her head, I am sure, about the madman babbling about his mansion and yacht.

This is, in fact, quite often my secret reply to the legions of peckerheads and toothless ducks who try to tell me how to live my life, not because I asked them, but because they think they can.

Try it. It is better than any argument.  I am Jon Katz. I have a farm and some dogs.