Today, a new chapter for me, in a life filled with new chapters. My granddaughter Robin is coming to Bedlam Farm to spend most of the weekend. She is coming with my daughter Emma. It is Robin’s first visit her, her first visit with me in several months.

Family is a very complex and mostly painful thing for me, and for Maria as well. My original family was shattered by mental illness, abuse and disconnection. My family has not gathered together in decades. I am close to my sister but almost never see her. I have not spoken with my brother in years.

After 35 years of marriage, my second family broke up as well. Even though we were mostly living apart for years, everyone we know was stunned with my former wife and I got divorced, including my daughter.

Emma and I had always been close, but I had been crazy for some years and increasingly detached from my life and home and family. I didn’t see until much later how difficult this must have been for her.

For some years, I was running away from my life, emotionally and literally, even to the point of moving to the country on my farm. I fantasized that my family would come with me, it was a delusion, and a selfish one. On the first Bedlam Farm, I cracked up, fell apart, began life over. Another thing for my daughter to contend with.

I take responsibility for it, it was entirely my fault. I’m the father, it was my job to do better than that.  As the therapists say, I was not available.

Emma is very close to her mother, the divorce was difficult for her and she had become accustomed to my absences and impulses and unpredictability. A father is supposed to be a fixed point, not a shooting star.

Emma and I became distant with one another, sometimes angry with one another.

But our love for each other never snapped, we never stopped talking to one another, we never walked away from each another. Still, it was difficult. We lived apart and I acutely felt this new and cold space between us sometimes.  On top of everything else, Emma had to contend with a stepmother, a new presence in her life, a person I loved very much and who was the center of my life.

Emma and I had a lot to fall back on, enough glue to bind us. But it was not easy. I used to shop, eat and cook for her, drive her to school, take her to lessons. Now, we were suddenly living radically different lives, her in urban, hip Brooklyn, me on a farm in a small town in upstate New York. We had little in common, and sometimes struggled to understand one another. But we never quit.

Robin arrived last summer as something of a miracle. She seemed be a kind of magic wand that simply erased the past and brought me and Emma together again. If she were a dog, I would say she was a spirit dog, come to bring my daughter and me back together. Is there such a thing as a spirit baby? I have never heard of one.

Suddenly, Emma and I were so easy with one another.  All the trouble and difficulty seemed to melt away. Suddenly, we talked all the time. Suddenly, she seemed interested again in me and my work. Suddenly, those frightful wounds seemed to heal.

I am careful about having high expectations for me and Robin. She is Emma and Jay’s child, not mine, and there are geographic and emotional obstacles to our getting too close.

That’s fine with me. As much as I already love Robin and enjoy her, the big news for me is Emma. I am thrilled to feel like a father again, to be hopefully helpful and supportive for her when she needs me, and I sense she needs me again.

I’m not sure how it all worked out, but I love Robin for it, and I look forward to showing her my farm and my world and getting to know her better. I ran around like a mad fool this week buying food, toys, baby stuff. Emma shipped some ecologically appropriate diapers and wipes, I stuffed the refrigerator with food for both of them.  We bought cribs, car seats, blankets, etc.

I hope to show Robin off it works out, but mostly I want to help Emma rest and recharge. She has beautifully balanced a high-powered editing job with a new baby, and I know how difficult either one of those things can be.

I hope to resist GrandKid Mania, I don’t want Robin to be the center of my existence, for her sake or mine.

She has great parents who care deeply about her. People scoff at this and keep waiting for me to melt away with granddaughter love,  but I have learned about boundaries the hard way, and I respect and honor them. I am shooting for love and fun and renewal this weekend, for all of us. I hope Emma can drink in the natural beauty, quiet and restfulness in the country. Brooklyn does not I think, offer those things.

She is the most wonderful mother, calm and loving and patient and encouraging, I hope she learned a bit of this from me, I so loved caring for her.

I was anxious this morning. Did I have enough food? Was the bed all right? Did we have space for changing diapers. Would the car seat work? Could I help Emma to get some rest, which she sorely needs? Would we be going out? Where? For how long? And how would Robin take to the farm, the dogs, the donkeys? Would Fate in her enthusiasm be too rough? Knock her down? Would Maria be able to do her work?

But there is much to be happy about and excited. I want Maria to keep working this weekend if she wants to, I want our lives to be normal.

Robin and Emma arrive at 2 p.m., along with some rain and showers. We will meet them at the Albany train station.

The high chair is set up, we will rush out and buy a diaper can, I have toys sprinkled all over the house, the donkeys know what to do – initiate another young person into a love for animals.

I would love for Robin to experience my community as well, if there is time  – to go to Battenkill Books, the new Round House Cafe, dip her toes into the beautiful Battenkill river, walk down Main Street, see the Gulley farm. I sat down and thought about this today, and felt fortunate. A chance to redefine family, to experience it anew and differently, another kind of rebirth and renewal.

I see it will be an emotional weekend, but also a meaningful time. Life comes around and around when you let it. I till take as many photos as I can without making Emma crazy.

Sometimes I feel like a garden snake, the old skin has to be shed before the new one can grow. Hell is when life dries up for me.