Category: My Strange Life

“Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the Autumn moon is bright.” – Maleva, the gypsy in “The Werewolf” with Lon Chaney. The photo above shows my wolf-headed cane and the mice in the recycling bucket.

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First, I should say that  I got this werewolf cane from a British artist who was and is, like me, haunted by the hapless Lon Chaney Jr.’s touching and powerful (to a child) story of Lawrence Talbot, a kind and good man who was bitten by a wolf in rural England and whose horrified father was compelled to kill him with a silver cane when his son turned on him.

Some stories get in your mind as a child and stay there. This story is always close in my mind.

I vividly remember this movie  – “The Werewolf” – the Talbot character and Maleva, the gypsy (played by Maris Ouspenskyaya), who saw Talbot being attacked in the forest by the wolf and tried and failed to help him.

As a Dyslexic, I sometimes forget to spell some names correctly.  But I have never forgotten the gypsy’s name or her warning. Talbot’s father learned the truth too late.

“You’re the gypsy filling his (Lawrence’s) mind with the werewolf noise, Maleva…” Talbot Sr. told her. Talbot had returned home from a long absence to take over the family estate.

Talbot’s father, Sir John Talbot,  refused to believe in the werewolf tale. He dismissed it as a foolish peasant myth when he encountered Maleva in the forest after Lawrence realized an awful spell had been cast on him.

In perhaps the movie’s most memorable scene  —the “Heaven Help You” scene—Meleva calls Talbot into her tent and warns him that once bitten by a werewolf, a man will become a werewolf.

She gives the horrified Talbot a Pentagram necklace to protect him from the werewolf’s spell and says, “Heaven help you,” as he flees in horror. Chaney’s performance was almost shockingly sensitive and intuitive for a horror film; I still vividly remember the movie and Talbot’s dread at the thought of killing someone.

It took me months to get a werewolf cane, a replica of the one in the movie.

The craftsman who lives in the forest where the movie was filmed took two months to make it and ship it to me. It is always in the same spot, right by the back door, ready to use. I was thrilled to get it.

But what does all of this do with our farm and us?

Last night, Bud alerted us to a mouse that had somehow climbed up into a plastic recycling bucket we keep in the pantry. The mouse was trapped and was scrambling to get out.

We didn’t hear it, but Bud, our conscientious Boston Terrier, who was dozing in my lap, as he does whenever I watch a mystery, took off like a rocket. We feared the rat had returned, but it was only a tiny mouse.

Minutes later, Maria spotted another one climbing up the stairs to escape Bud. She threw a cloth on it and captured it.

I told Maria I would take care of it (she doesn’t like to kill any living thing), and almost without thinking, I went and got my werewolf cane. I love it but rarely use it. My brace has eliminated the problems with my foot; I walk without assistance.

As a kid, I often dreamt of using a cane just like it to kill a werewolf. This was one of the favorite fantasies of a frightened child whose father thought him a “sissy.”

The tiny mouse was hardly as menacing as a wolf, but using it came right to mind. Interestingly, our dreams and fantasies can be so large, but life often brings us down to size.

Since the werewolf in the movie could only be killed by a silver bullet or a silver-headed cane, I grabbed the cane and took the bucket outside to kill the two mice. I know it doesn’t make sense, but it felt good.

I don’t like to kill animals either, but mice and rats get no clemency from me once they enter our house; I’ve seen the damage they can do. If they get in once, they will get in again.

When Maria said they were especially young and “cute,” I quickly took the mice and the cane outside and killed each one using the metal head (not silver). It was sculpted to be just like the one in the movie. I can’t deny it; Talbot and the cane that killed him came to mind.

I heard the Maleva voice quite clearly: “Every man who is pure in his heart and says his prayers by night can become a wolf…”  I do not have a pure heart, rarely say prayers, and cannot be turned into a wolf. The nice were not werewolves,  but the story kept going through my head. I knew what I had to do.

And I brought the cane head down on each of the mice, killing them both instantly. All I can say is that I felt strong.

I noticed Zip, our barn cat, appeared out of nowhere in the dark and almost danced around the bodies.  It was strange. I left him alone with them, cleaned the cane (they both died instantly), and put the cane back in its position by the front door.

Then I thought of the rat. I can’t wait for that rat who ravaged through our kitchen to return. My cane is right nearby. The cane is waiting for him.

I laugh at this in a way but feel something mystical in another. This story has been inside me for many years, and a piece of the werewolf in me howled a bit last night.

That’s all I can make of it. Life is full of crisis and mystery.

Note: I have good news for the kind and caring friends who saw me confuse Bud and Zip’s names and decided my brain had gone dead.

I’m giving both animals new names: Zud And Bip. Perhaps they will be able to tell them apart.

(Above, Bip, below Zud.)

I don’t want you good people worrying about me and my health. Several of you kind souls were good enough to diagnose me without even laying eyes on me once or charging a dime and deciding that my errors were a clear sign of Dementia. It would be best if you got on with your lives.

One of you even suggested I get to a doctor immediately and get my head examined, something people have been telling me to do for years. How thoughtful.

I also want to know who I am and how I got here. I am trying to remember. The last thing I recall is chasing a border collie through a street in New Jersey. And who is writing this blog, anyway?

I don’t want friends worrying about me, so to help you find meaningful lives, you seem to have very little to do. Since you seem alarmed, I’ll call Zip Dud and Bud Bip. Or did I already say that?

God bless you for assuring me that I have Dementia; I know you were looking out for me. Sorry, but I’ve forgotten your names already, and I’d like to thank you personally. You probably know me well to tell me that.

I wonder if Bud is one of the sheep and Zip is one of the dogs. There are all kinds of animals running around here. I’m confused.

Perhaps you can also help me with this: Who was that astonishing woman who recently prowled the farm looking for worms having sex and found some? I am trying to remember her name. She seems to think she lives here.

She had a refreshing way about her. I wonder if she would like to have sex with me. She was cute, and I think she likes me. She calls me all kinds of names.

Brace yourself; this might be the strangest blog post yet. Spirituality can break out at any time and in the oddest of ways. The story is about a powerful meditation I had in a compost toilet while looking at a painting of a red chicken by an artist friend named Pam White. For an hour or so, the toilet was a chapel. It helped.

As I wrote yesterday, on Monday, I had one of the worst panic attacks in my life Monday, and into the night, I thought my whole creative life was about to get shut down. I decided to approach my panic and anxiety differently. The fear inside of me will never be gone entirely, but I can do a much better job of controlling it. It’s like diabetes. It has no cure, but it can be managed if you work at it. I’ve been managing it closely and well for a long time.

Something failed inside of me on Monday.

The first step in my mind was to contemplate my life and meditate on my fear, to go deep and to the roots of it, and to confront that panic by digging deeper and understanding better. The deep breathing exercises all the shrinks are talking about have worked on me as well as on Maria.

First, Maria has a nasty ear infection and is on antibiotics.

She needed to sleep last night, and I needed to meditate in a more serious and committed way.

This attack was frightening and unexpected. It was also, as usual, based on a lie I was telling myself – that I was in danger of losing everything. A couple of months ago, we installed a compost toilet in the upstairs bedroom so we would only have to keep running up and down stairs at night to go to the bathroom. We were trying to think ahead.

I was going downstairs, but I looked over at our quaint little toilet and wondered if it wouldn’t be good to sit on it. I don’t know why; I am just drawn to the space; it seems like a small retreat.

I am still determining where that idea came from, but our compost toilet called to me.

I was shocked to come to love this toilet. It works well, has no odor, and is easy to maintain. The little bathroom we built around it is tiny, cozy, and quiet. I like it in there. I love the darkness and the smell of the wood. I decided to sit on the toilet and do my meditation.

It is warm and calm, the perfect place to meditate and focus on the things I want to focus on. Thomas Merton would have loved it there—or freaked right out.

Our little farmhouse is noisy—dogs, donkeys, sheep, trucks, and birds at the feeder, all kinds of sounds.

(My new meditation chapel. The truth is stranger than fiction, yes.)

I sat down, turned on the small light Maria had installed, and was surprised to see in front of me a painting of a red hen I had bought from my friend Pam White, a very gifted artist. Maria, ever thoughtful,  hung it up for me as a surprise.

The bedroom was dark. The toilet is odorless, but thanks to the moss, it smells like pine trees outdoors.

Maria was asleep. When I came in, Zinnia came over to lie in front of the bathroom door. It was peaceful and quiet there; nothing could distract or interrupt me. It was a wonderful place for meditating.

I felt safe there, enveloped in monastic silence. I didn’t realize how important that is. I began doing the breathing exercises I’ve been listening to: inhale 1 2 3 4, hold 1 and 2, exhale 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. I was getting anxious when  I came in, and to my surprise, the meditation gurus were correct. I could feel my heart and body slow down and calm down. I sat in that bathroom for an hour. I hadn’t disturbed Maria; my faithful dog was outside the door. My faithful wife was snoring softly in her bed across the room.

I felt strong when I left that little bathroom; the panic was gone. I know there is no magic wand for fear; I’ve been wrestling with it my whole life. This was a good idea.

I came out feeling that something inside of me had changed just a bit. I don’t kid myself. I will never be totally without fear, but I know I can bring it down to manageable levels. Other people have done it; I thought I was one of those people. I am still in progress.

I know I’ve promised to be open on the blog, but I never imagined meditating in a small toilet in a darkened room with a painting of a red hen hanging over me like a statue of one of the prophets.

This is what I love about life: if you keep your eyes and ears open, you will see some fantastic and previously unimaginable things sooner or later. I’m going back there tonight. I’ll say a prayer to the chicken. Maria was a little surprised when I told her the chicken might be sacred.

She took it in stride since she had just come in thrilled and excited because she had seen two worms mating in the gross. I don’t think anything can surprise her anymore.

I got my new gun today. When I got home, Maria and I went out into the field, firing it several times. It worked perfectly. It was simple to load and shoot. The next time I had to shoot a sheep or a rabid animal, I would be ready.

When I got home, I locked it away in a very secure place. I had stepped into the other world, and it was lovely. I had to stop and think about my curious and surprising trip to the gun store.

The bottom line is politics and values aside, you cannot live on a farm in the country without having a gun, and people and human criminals are the least of the reasons. Coyotes hole nearby and wake us up. Ferrets and foxes are all over the place. Lambs can die.

Until I moved to our farm in upstate New York, I never thought of having a gun or knew anyone who had one. I was here for one month when a lamb born in a winter blizzard in the dark suddenly cried and shook and bled from the mouth; his mother was frantic.

I called the sheriff, but they said they had too many storm calls to respond to a lamb’s animal problem; the sheriff asked me if I had a gun, and I said no. He said he couldn’t help me; they were trying to save many cows trapped in the snow.

Best to find a gun and kill him, he said.

So I called the large animal vet, and the receptionist said no one could get there during the storm. “Do you have a gun?” the vet asked. No, I was new to this life and never thought I would need one. “You will,” said the vet,  if you love your animals.”

I walked up the road to a neighbor who loaned and loaded his .22 rifle and told me I could keep it until the storm was gone.

I got the message—lesson one. If someone shoots you, they will come. Otherwise, there isn’t much of a 911 system to fall back on. You are expected to handle your trouble unless it is life-threatening.

I made a note to get a gun.

I came back to the barn where I had confined the baby, chased the mother out of the pen (thanks, Rose), and shot the lamb in the back of the head between the ears. It left me shaking and all the wiser.  I cleaned up the blood and thought about calming the upset mother.

As soon as the storm cleared, I bought a .22 rifle and some shells. Last week, I gave it away.

This morning,  I drove to a gun dealer a few miles outside of town, and the store manager, a most courteous and helpful man, came over to talk to me. We were joined immediately by two older men, a volunteer firefighter and a hunter.

They were all gun lovers.

We all got to talking. Two men with Trump hats offered to show me some guns and make sure I knew how to use them. I was afraid they would roll their eyes or laugh about how little I knew about guns. They never did laugh at me. I was grateful for that.

I was there today, I said, because I had to shoot a sheep the other day. After just two shots, the gun jammed, and the sheep shook. She was unconscious and died a minute later. But I knew I needed another weapon.

This was my nightmare come true: I was standing over a dying animal while I tried to figure out why the gun had jammed. Fortunately, my two shots killed her quickly.

The manager and the two men—I guess they often liked to hang around the store—showed me different motels, discussed the ups and downs, and grasped my plea for a simple, basic one with no frills or twists.

I wanted one that made sure I could kill a suffering animal or a rabbit, raccoon, or skunk. I’ve met many since moving up here and shot every one of them. I was instantly comfortable with the men. I wanted and needed the help, and they were happy to offer me some. I learned a lot.

I had used a gun to shoot two vicious roosters, one of whom drew considerable blood from Maria’s leg.”You aren’t the giant rooster on this farm, you mother fucker,” I said, realizing my feeble amounts of testosterone. And I shot him through the heart with a single bullet. It was a John Wayne moment from a man who had little testosterone to spare

My new friends were big and strong men, I would hate to mess with them.

We just clocked. I ended up talking with these men for three hours before I left with the gun. Maria thought I had been in some accident. I had tried to call her, but I couldn’t get through.

It is a gift to be loved and worried about. I wouldn’t wish to be married to someone who didn’t care that I had vanished for three hours.

I liked these men. We talked openly and easily for hours.

We were different people with very different social and political ideas, but it didn’t matter. Each of us had something in common with the other; we had no trouble breaking the ice and keeping it melting.

At the bottom, we were three older men talking about life, politics, and, inevitably, Donald Trump. We all agreed that we were not people who hated people who disagreed. This is a good thing. I joked in a store with hundreds of guns for sale.

We all laughed. The saddest thing I see happening to America is that people have forgotten to laugh. There is hardly any way to connect with other humans if you can’t laugh.

It was important to me to move past our differences and get comfortable with the things that bind us—money, kids, taxes, marriage, health, and a mutual feeling that one should never hate another person for being different or thinking differently.

I laughed.

I almost asked all three if they might consider starting a blog or joining a men’s group, but I didn’t want to push my luck. One said he liked the idea of writing on a blog. He was going to ask his son to help put one together.

Trump, the elephant in many rooms, came up twice. I said I did not need to argue about Trump; we each had to decide for ourselves. One of them asked me if I hated him.

Sometimes, I said, but I don’t hate anyone, really, even him. My problem, I said, is that he is a pathological liar. I was born to people who thought lying was a sin, and lying is a sin, a violation of the Ten Commandments, as well as common decency.

I said I could never entrust anyone who lied so much with the Presidency of the United States.

I said this while I stood in the store talking. I knew they were the kind of people who would want nothing to do with a liar. I would expect to be thrown out in the snow if I lied about me or this gun.

One nodded, and the other two listened quietly. Then we moved on. I said we didn’t need to talk about Trump, and everyone agreed. I felt good about this talk with these good and honest men. We didn’t mention Donald Trump again. I wasn’t trying to change anyone’s mind; I just wanted to get it over and out into the open.

We were having a good time, but we were also different.

I expected to have fun, but I found community and connection. He didn’t know it initially, but one of the men had read A Good Dog, one of my early dog books. He said he loved it.

There were three amiable, helpful, and courteous men there. It was a rare few hours; no wonder it took so long. Conversations with other men like that are critical to me, especially where I live. I felt like John Wayne walking out into the field with my gun on my shoulder pointed upward (I took two safety classes).

Two of us shook hands, and the other slapped each other on the back. It felt genuine and affirming. There is great hope for humanity if only we could step away from our computers and into different homes. Most people are not natural haters.

I believe that will change. There is nowhere to go but up.

The gun worked beautifully for me and then for Maria. It’s ironic, but having a weapon at Bedlam Farm feels good. I will need it, again, and a gain.

Social media has a lot of excellent and worthy things to offer, including my blog. Sadly, it is also becoming a cesspool of angry, intolerant, and cruel people (Thanks,  Donald, you’re a jewel of a human.)

Last week, I wrote a post asking people to stop sending me packages without my knowledge or agreement.

And we live in a small farmhouse. We don’t have a lot of room. It’s a housekeeping problem.

The post was triggered by Clay, who told me he was sending two oversized jackets and a book from the 1950s about homelessness that he thought I might be interested in.

I grimaced. That’s not the way I work. I am told of or identify a need and either take care of it myself or ask for support. Otherwise, the boxes pile up, and I threw them away so we could move through the house. When people contacted me, I ensured the Mansion, Sue Silverstein, or someone else wanted or needed them.

Then I ask that they be sent to the recipients, not me.

The book was about homelessness in New York City in the 1950s.

People in need don’t need everything, and I don’t relish hauling boxes all over time to try and pass them to people who might or might not want them. I like to buy my own books.

To me, there is nothing complicated or hostile in making that request of people, even though it is shocking and threatening to many people online.

I don’t think anyone reading this would like to get boxes of used or old (and sometimes dirty) things without asking for them or knowing about them.

I don’t want to be a Goodwill Reception Center. People I work with tell me what I need, not what I ask them to need.

I wrote a polite message to Clay telling him I would try to find a place for the “large box” he was sending me and asked him to please communicate with me beforehand next time. I’ve asked this a least a  dozen times over the years, and every time I do – every single time –  and no matter what I say,  people from the vigilante  Social Media Police assault team come after me for being an ingrate, rude, obnoxious, or in this case, “an asshole” (this would be Vivian for speaking up.

People like Vivian hate honesty and sincerity because they love feeling free to attack people they don’t know about for things they know nothing about.

People hate to lose power, no matter how illegitimate or temporary. Before I grew up, I reveled in challenging them. It is, of course, a waste of time.

Claudia, one of my Meditation students at the Mansion, loved one of the jackets and is wearing it proudly. I wrote about this on the blog and posted a photo (above).

I braced myself for Clay and for, Vivian and the other members of her unit. I’m learning almost daily how few people were taught anything about good manners.

I would be stunned if my daughter ever wrote a message like that to people; I hope she was taught better.

In my e-mail to him, I thanked Clay two or three times for his generosity.

As it happened (I don’t quit easily), I brought the box to the Mansion and found at least one taker for one of the jackets he sent (see Claudia above).

I wasn’t so lucky on the second one or the book; if I can’t find takers,  they both go to the American Legion Donation Box, and the book goes to the library if they want it (they often don’t; they don’t have much room either.)

Clay was the first one who not only understood and sincerely agreed to let me know before sending me another package. I almost didn’t believe it, which is a sad commentary on how we communicate with one another, and how cynical I might be getting. I’ll work on that.

I told him the apology was due from me, not him, for losing faith in the ability of people online to be civil and to listen rather than condemn. Social media is killing off civility in our culture. Clay is a good person, polite, understanding, and generous. I hope he stays in touch. He belongs here. Vivian doesn’t.

I look forward to getting any packages from Clay that can be useful. He understood how it worked and was graceful enough to respond politely and warmly.

Thanks, Clay; once again, I am reminded by you and your message that most people are good and wish to do good in a medium and culture that has almost obliterated listening and speaking respectfully to each other. Good for you. Send me anything you want. Just ask first…:)

It would be wrong to forget that many people like Clay are in the world. I won’t forget it again.