December 23, 2009 – I am grateful we are one day away from being too late to get cheap underwear, Amazon kindle’s and every other retail product shipped free before Christmas. Maybe we’ll even get a few minutes to think about Christmas before the credit card bills arrive. Maybe the government will give us a break and take a holiday from releasing confusing and contradictory economic indicators. I have faith we will be okay. Let’s leave it there. And I would be especially grateful if the politicians would go home and stay there.

I am in a reflective mood. I’m taking a strange trip to Brooklyn to have a Christmas visit with my daughter. My wonderful house and pet sitter and good friend Tracy Trudell will be keeping an eye on the farm and the dogs. Until recently, holidays were very different, for her and for me. Divorce changes everything.

I’m coming right back and will spend Christmas Eve here on the farm, with Maria and her family

I am in a reflective mood. Therapy is the butt of a lot of cultural jokes, from Woody Allen to Seinfeld, and those of us who are seeing therapists can be sensitive about it. It is a wicked cliche. It has also helped to save my life. Two years ago, I broke down here on the farm, in some ways (not others) and my life began to change. It was in therapy that I learned to be reflective about myself, and to not allow fear and confusion and manic energy to run my life. I was terrified, and had been for most of my life, and I am still learning to live beyond that, and in a different way. Therapy has made that possible, and I thanked my good and caring therapist for her help in bringing me into my life.

For some reason, I chose to melt down in the open, here on the blog and in my books. And of course, as is now evident, in the photography. Many of you good people have chosen to come along for the trip. Who would have thought?

Then came Maria and Frieda. Life is amazing, really, if you can step back a bit and see it. I’m making room for life. Putting my lips to the world. Telling my stories. I am at the point in life that Thomas Merton called “beginning to be old.” I like it. I am finally beginning to learn something about the world. Hard times are important to me. They are something to measure the good ones against.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to do that. So I’ll be back in the morning to post some photos and journal from the farm on Christmas Eve.  This will be my sixth Christmas on Bedlam Farm.

The cows, goats, sheep and donkeys are gone, as are the chickens. The dogs and barn cats are here, and I am writing up a wicked storm.