I love my life and have no desire to escape it, but sometimes Maria and I wear ourselves out working so hard, and we have to stop to breathe and take stock of who we are and wish to be.

We both have suffered from extreme anxiety, a mental illness. We are committed to supporting each other and have come a long way, cementing our love and trust. It just gets better.

For all the talk of silence, we live at a fast pace, working almost all the time. We get tired, mentally and physically.

Some people get regular paychecks and go month to month. We are in the latter category, and while money has never dominated our lives, it is always there, hovering overhead, as it is for so many people in this country now. We are genuinely a Corporate Nation, and our systems are devoted to more profits. This Spring and summer was rough for us.

Maria and I have managed to jump, run, freak laugh, and cry to a great love for one another. Every day I spend with her, I love her and know her better. Love makes a difference; it turned my life upside down. I learned how to love, how to trust, and how to listen.

We are always working to understand each other; it is no easy task. Retreats help.

We stop now and then, soak up the silence, stay connected, and work on staying calm and creative. We are happy; we appreciate our lives and work and wouldn’t trade them for any other life.

We will never give up on the creative life, even if we end up in a trailer park, as some of my friends have. But sometimes, we must be still and focused on each other and ourselves – to shut out the noise and the din and go inside. We need space and silence to think and come back stronger.

We are committed to our lives, but they sometimes do seem perilous.

So many creative people we know have given up going instead for money and travel and what the bankers call security as if there is such a thing or money could guarantee it.

The economists are right; there is no middle class now, just rich and struggling. Living a creative life requires strength, determination, and focus.

There are so many rewards and so many obstacles.

But it isn’t superficial; nothing worth doing is.

Friend after friend gives it up; it’s too stressful and uncertain. They worry about money. They worried about getting older. They worry about being me.

People say money in America only flows one way, uphill or into the cities. Everyone else is in some struggle or concern.

Our retreat made us pull back and remember who we are, where we are, and why. It was healing, calming, and uplifting to look at ourselves. It gives me strength.

It breaks my heart a little when I see so many creative and talented people giving up their creative or spiritual lives to make the money we are told we need to live in America. I know an artist who chose to live every summer in one of the artist sheds built decades for writers and artists on the Provincetown Dunes, the only place on Cape Cod where artists can afford to live anymore. The fishermen are gone now; the artists and writers followed them.

The dunes and the ocean inspired my friend; I envied him working on that beautiful spot. I walked there often when I was a young writer, aching for inspiration.

The National Park Service is booting him and renting the sheds to the highest bidders – another symbol of where the soul of America is. The artists finally lost out to the rich. It’s America, after all.

 

It’s not my business, but I take the loss of creatives to the whirlwind personally, reflecting on my failure to save or turn them around. It’s an impossible fantasy, even an arrogant one.

But I am passionate about this way of life and my life, and I hope it never vanishes. Our weekend’s purpose was to reform our lives and renew our voices.

Another friend agreed to marry a woman he doesn’t love. “She is nice enough, has a beautiful house, and will pay for my health care,” he said. “I can go to Italy this year. I will learn to love her.”

A stab in the heart for me to hear that.

Maria and I wanted to cry when we talked about his choice and then laughed.

Neither of us at Bedlam Farm will ever see Italy again. That’s the life we chose; that’s the life we love.

Soon, I suspect a few hundred people will have all the money in the world and perhaps leave the rest of us alone and feed off one another.

I am not surprised why so many people are so angry.

Another friend is hoping to go and live with his sister in Maine. A painter living in Boston can not even afford a closet to rent to live in; he’s giving up, looking for a weekly paycheck. His sister has a basement ready for him. In exchange, he will do the laundry and babysit for them. I feel I’ll never see or hear from him again.

I said nothing, but he made me sad. I’m sorry he gave up. He told me that he just ran out of gas. He never could afford health care. Perhaps look for creative work in Maine, I suggested lamely. He won’t.

The Cape Cod cabins just went to the rich; this is how our country works. Nothing stops them, slows them down, or satisfies them.  There is no such thing as enough. I expect a McMansion to pop up soon on the dunes, where I walked so often, a giant shed designed by a fancy architect to reflect the feeling of the huts.

I always fantasized about living in one of the sheds and writing books there; they were free for fixed periods, and artists and painters made the decisions about who could come.

So much great work was done there, from Eugene O’Neill to Edward Hopper— but no more. Artists and creatives no longer get the first crack. We have little respect for our own culture. The sheds go to the highest bidder, the ones who need them the least. I just don’t get it. Or maybe I do.

I thought about those sheds over the weekend; they symbolize much more than their modest and humble construction (no toilets, heat, or running water). I felt fortunate and content. I am where I should be with the person I should be with. I have enough.

In America, God has been replaced by money. Money is more important than anything. But not us; we renewed our vows over the weekend to our way of your choices, the beauty and challenge – and sacrifice –  of the creative life.

Maria and I have chosen to live a different life than most people, and so far, we have pulled it off. We won’t quit. We feel our work and our lives are meaningful. I don’t think we are dinosaurs. We are the future as people seek quieter, gentler, and more straightforward living methods.

We live more simply; we are more committed than ever to doing good. As the country sometimes seems more angry and divided, we feel more and more determined and at peace. That’s what we thought over the weekend; how nice to be reminded and refreshed by it. We are where we belong.

We meditated this weekend several times a day. I went deep and saw more truth about me, the work I must do, and the good works I want to continue.

Moving to a small farm with a small farmhouse just before the real estate explosion was a sound move; even our mortgage has nearly doubled in the past year, thanks to the Federal Reserve.

I wonder if they know what my divorce did to my idea of security. Of course not.

This post is not a lament. I wouldn’t trade my life for anything, and Maria feels the same way.

We are no better than anyone else.

The retreat felt like renewal and affirmation as if we were giving our vows once more to ourselves and how we live, our farm, the animals, our blogs, and our creativity.

We sat together outside, explored new places to eat in the absence of Shift (and found some), cooked Borsch soup and Squash Custard together, read, walked through the Main Street of a small town, and listened to music.

Saturday, we watched Endeavor on Amazon Prime (the best British mystery of all, I believe), and we are hooked on the Morse series.  The British mysteries have spoiled me; the Americans can’t do it as well. We made some popcorn, sat together, and tried to figure out who the murderer was.

We brushed the donkeys, threw balls for the dogs, walked in the woods,  slept late,  set up our humidifier for the basement, stayed away from the computers and phones (but not cameras. I checked on my garden bed and flowers; we went out to soup vegetables and got a couple of colorful flowers for this last summer stage.

I will have beautiful things to photograph up to the end and keep the flower photos coming all winter. But that’s premature; I have a couple of months to go. I will take more Leica lessons in the fall; I want to improve.

One offshoot of the weekend is that I have decided to join Maria and honor the Sabbath on Saturdays. I’m not religious, but I think the idea is terrific. I won’t work on Saturdays from now on; I understand the importance of quiet and solitude. I got hooked on silence again. And I don’t want to be so tired.

I thank my pastor friend Ron enough for offering us a prayer on the eve of our brief retreat. I think it worked. We recommitted to ourselves, our lives, our work, and our faith. Perhaps most of all, we recommitted to our love of one another and life.

What did I learn?

That I am happy.

That I have what I need.

That I have work to do.

I want to lead a meaningful life and leave the world a bit better than it was when I arrived 76 years ago.

I’m joining Maria in our version of the Sabbath (Saturday off.) No work.

I learned I can have a retreat anywhere I wish and as often. Sometimes, 20 minutes does.

How sweet.

___

A brief Retreat book report:

A significant discovery for me this weekend was brilliant writer James McBride’s unique and wonderful The Heaven And Earth Grocery Store. The New York Times Book Review alerted me to this fantastic book; they called it a “murder mystery locked inside of a greater American novel.” They weren’t kidding. The book deserves that and more. The story begins in 1972  with the discovery by the Pennsylvania State Police of a skeleton buried in a well in Pottstown, PA. The corpse’s identity is unknown, but the few clues lead police to question the only Jewish man left from the town’s once vibrant Jewish community.

(The writing, detail, and storyline are over-the-top excellent.)

The novel almost magically shifts back to the 1920s and 30s to Chicken  Hill. In this neighborhood,

Jews,  Blacks, and immigrants lived together and became a community bonded by love, obligation, and decency. Then, the story takes off and begins linking the skeleton to the small town’s Black, Jewish, And Immigrant history. At the center of the story is a Jewish woman who lets poor people run up tabs and never calls them in, her husband, the suddenly wealthy owner of theaters that became the first anywhere to let black people have concerts, and the effort to save a deaf child from the grip of authorities who want to put him away.

Another book I can’t put down; I’m on a tear.

The details and language of these cultures are dazzling. I’m 3/4 through the book; I’m on a book tear this summer. I can’t recommend this book enough. McBride is a wonder writer and storyteller. It is hard for me to imagine a better novel coming out of him, as good as he is. I can’t wait to find out.

I imagine this will go down in history as one of the great American novels.

I’m afraid I can’t say the same about a novel I mentioned last week, The Last Ranger, by Peter Seller, known as a master of nature mystery books. I struggle to get through this one. The writing was lyrical at times, the best parts capturing the beautiful and continually endangered animals of Yellowstone National Park. Your will boil at the stupid things tourists there do to the animals and themselves; Americans suffer greatly – and so do animals – from our disconnection from nature and the animal world. Heller’s writing about nature and the park is beautiful, but the plot falls as flat as a pancake.

I’ve put aside the Rachel Incident to read the McBride book, so far, so good; I just can’t put the other book down.