The daily eggs

  July 20, 2009 – Hot, sticky. It’s been several years since Jeff Bridges was walking around my town wearing the same L.L. Bean clothes that I wear every day of my life, followed by platoons of techs, teamsters, cameras, dogs and trainers and trucks. There is something glamorous about movies, and it is flattering to have a movie made out of one of your books, but it also an odd experience. For months, there was chaos and drama. The movie dogs were staying in my barn, and this rural county was mesmerized by the movie people running around with their wireless laptops and New York and LA ways. Not to mention Jeff Bridges walking around as Jon Katz.
  Today a disc arrived in the mail from George Lavoo, the director of “A Dog Year,” and a good friend. The movie is done, and is scheduled to air on HBO September 3. I haven’t seen it. It seems strange to get this disc, a tale almost from another life, not really mine. Yet it is my story, and it is my book, and I ought to see it. So some night this week, when it is late and the dogs are walked and the farm is quiet, I will slip it into the DVD and have an other-worldly experience, a view of my life through another prism, in another time.
  “A Dog Year” – book and movie – are about an existentially lonely man who gets a crazy border collie in New Jersey and his life changes. That book gave birth to this farm, to my writing about dogs and rural life, and of course, to this movie, which is supposed to be lovely and touching. (Warning, a dog does die in the movie, as in the book.) It also was the beginning of this journal, and of my return to fiction. Some personal changes as well, including the end of a long marriage.
  I don’t know how much people can or do change. I guess that’s not for me to say. A lot of water under the bridge since that movie and now.
  I believe I have changed in some ways, and not in others. I’m not done.
  My life has certainly changed. Jeff Bridges and I talked quite a few times about my life, and he picked up the angry, somewhat disconnected state I was in when the movie was made. He talked to me about it. A great actor, he saw things I didn’t see. And perhaps seeing those things on a screen will be painful and difficult. Perhaps not. At some point this week, I’ll take a look and let you know.
  As for Devon (renamed Orson), the dog who started it all, he is buried up on the hill behind the farmhouse. I went up to see him this afternoon, accompanied by Rose and the sheep. “The movie’s coming out,” I said. “I’ll let you know how it is.”