Search Results for: Simon The donkey

(Simon taking his medicine) Photo By Maria Wulf

I’ve been writing about Simon for nearly five years, ever since he came to us at the first Bedlam Farm. Many of you reading this have a better perspective on him that I do in so many ways, because I live in a kind of tunnel, I write on the blog every day, but do not read it, really, I am too close. I am always shocked by it’s reach and impact. I am not being humble, just oblivious.

Once again, I was taken aback by the enormous outpouring of grief, compassion and sympathy this weekend and today over Simon’s death Saturday morning, I was not prepared for it, even though I created it in some way. I just can only see things from this end, I don’t really like to think about the other end. I write my blog and take my photos, I am not really conscious of where it all goes, I don’t really want to think about it too much, it might get into my head.

So I was, as often happens,  surprised by the e-mails, the messages, the comments from all over the world, the pile of books waiting for me to sign at Battenkill this afternoon.

Simon was not my donkey, I know, but your donkey, he belonged to many people. Thousands came to meet him, touch him, hug him, many more, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions read about him, followed his life and his healing and the emergence of his powerful spirit.

What was it about Simon? First of all, a friend reminded me today that few people know donkeys or love them, our love for Simon was in itself unusual. Donkeys are humble creatures, they are ignored, overworked, mistreated and abandoned all over the world. They are forgotten, forced into the background by pets and more glamorous species. They are not beautiful creatures or fashionable ones, yet they have perhaps the most powerful spiritual and historic connection to humans of any animal, even the horse and the dog. Jesus did not ride a horse into Jerusalem, Napoleon did not ride a stallion through the Alps. They rode donkeys.

Simon was the humblest of donkeys. He was ugly, even by donkey standards, bow-legged, with ears that spun like radar, a long nose and a scraggly tail. He was a farm donkey, poorly bred, shunted from place to place until left to starve and freeze and die on a farm by a poor farmer who had lost his soul. They call them trash donkeys, they are passed around, sold, usually kept alive to keep horses company, to guard sheep, haul wagons and firewood, or are simply worked to death.  It was my fate – and Maria’s – to find Simon, to heal him and bring him back to life, and, as many of you know, there are few more powerful connections between living things than that.

Simon responded joyously to his opportunity for a different way of life, and well beyond my imagination.  He seemed to relish every moment of attention, every hug, every apple, every photo taken of him. He was alert, intelligent, affectionate, his soul and mine connected in the most elemental way, Maria said she saw me change right before her eyes when Simon came, he opened me up in a way that had never happened to me before, and I am opening up still

I see now that Simon was the Prince of the wounded, brother to the abused and mistreated, so many other people made the same connection to him that I did. People flocked to him, listened to his bray, made pilgrimages to touch him and bring him offerings – carrots, apples, cookies.  Simon was a healing spirit, he made people smile, he gave them h ope. He and they touched one another in the broken hearts, their deep wounds and bruised souls.

Simon was the Prince of the Wounded, I am coming to see that, he came with the power of healing and hope, of salvation and second changes, of the better life that is just around the corner for all of us who dream and yearn.

People are asking me what’s going on with my book on Simon, “Saving Simon,” out next Tuesday, and I realized I haven’t been totally candid about it. I don’t care for struggle stories. But I need to be forthcoming, for the sake of me, Simon’s story and my book.

I am committed to being honest and open on the blog, it is how I work things out:

“Saving Simon” is my 27th book, and it is the first of my books to be “orphaned” by my publisher. This isn’t a lament or a complaint, just the truth. I decided last year to switch publishers – after 30 years, I am leaving Random House for Simon & Schuster.

I have been around publishing long enough to know what happens when a writer leaves a publisher before a book comes out – they refer to the book as being “orphaned.” An agent friend told me: “if you think they didn’t do much before, wait until you see what happens when you leave.” He was correct.

I understood this when I made the decision to leave – it was time – and I am nothing but grateful to Random House for publishing my books my whole life. They did a good job. Still, the publication of this book is a new, even unprecedented experience for me. No book tour, no publicity, no money budgeted to send me to a single book store anywhere. This has never happened to me.

Every year for decades, fall meant book tour, an intense month or so of interviews, travels around the country, reviews all over the place, radio shows. It was an extraordinary experience, the way a book is introduced to the wider world.

This year, the great sound of silence, a great indifference.  I have some interviews on Tuesday, the pub date, then nothing. I am doing a talk and reading at Battenkill Books next Tuesday and readings at the Northshire Bookstore in Saratoga and Manchester, Vt. Anything else I will have to do myself, and there’s a lot at stake. How will people even know the book is out?

There was not a single dollar budgeted for my book tour by my life-long publisher. I admit to being a bit stunned, I should have been prepared but am often naive. Lots of writers have it a lot worse than me. My book tour schedule used to be the size of a small book, my tours took me all over the country, to many great bookstores. This book tour schedule is three paragraphs.

I got sad and angry about this last week, fell into a funk – I love the Simon story and the book and it is hard for me to see it – and me –  cast aside like this, it took years to write and is an important story about animals and compassion, the first reviews have been wonderful. Reviews don’t seem to matter much any more, it’s word of mouth online that sells books.

It’s always possible I’m just not facing reality – perhaps I’m over, another mid-list writer wrestling with change and denying reality, like an aging movie star. But I don’t think so. I have never felt stronger or clearer as a writer, or more creative. In a sense, I feel my best writing is just getting underway. And I am excited about my new book contract with Simon & Schuster and they are excited about me. They are already planning my next book tour.

This orphaned book is a condition of my own making, I am responsible for it.  I didn’t have to switch publishers (except I did, truly). I am well aware that publishing has changed, been corporatized like media and music and movies, and it is all about dollars and cents, as most corporate things are.

So what, I asked myself, am I going to do about my book? Am I going to be just another writer whining and bitching about Amazon, e-books and his  publisher, or am I going to respond to my book being orphaned in a positive and creative way? A real test of my notions about new media, individuality, a true test of the blog, another evolution in my extraordinary relationship with my local bookstore, which has ordered 1,000 copies of “Saving Simon” already.

One of the things I love about my books now is that my bookstore is as much a part of the experience as I am. Connie sells a ton of my books, she also makes a lot of connections with people who love the idea of the bookstore, miss theirs, or want to keep a great one going. People all over the country order their books from Battenkill now, they are so classy, so nice. This year, Battenkill will be more important than ever to me, I will almost certainly sell more books there than anywhere else. What a wonderful thing (And they take Paypal.).

So I am going to fight for my book, I can’t stand by and see the story of Simon orphaned.  The term abuse is tossed around casually these days – I think of the New York Carriage Horses – but Simon reminds us what it really means. And how powerful and inspiring the spirits of animals can be. Simon fought to live and heal from the first day, he fights still. And this reality connects the story of Simon much more closely to me – we are being orphaned together, a donkey who was cruelly abandoned, a writer whose book has been orphaned as well. I have to admit, it’s a good story, a continuation of the story.

Simon and I both travel in the theater of chance together, as men and donkeys always have.

Suddenly, the thing takes on a whole new meaning. I mean to convert this experience into something positive, something creative, something affirming. Simon answered his call to life, I am answering mine. I can bray too, I do it every day, right here.

I am not letting a book of mine vanish into the marketing either of 2014.    I am putting together my own “Saving Simon” campaign, on the blog, on my Facebook Page. I will set up some readings by myself, and travel to some bookstores on my own hook. Simon and I have been on a great journey together – this is sort of the point of the book – and the publication of the book is another and seminal part of the trip.

To start, I am shooting for 2,000 books sold at Battenkill Books (518 677-2515) or online.  I hope to even farther. I will sign and personalize any books sold there. I will be giving stuff away on my blog and social media pages – coupons for pet food, notecards, postcards, potholders, photos. I will go where I have to go, do what I have to do.

Next year I will have a different publisher, a different reality. But I won’t quit on this book or on the story of my remarkable, loving and very brave donkey. Simon never gave up on life, neither will I.