Search Results for: I Saw An Angel Last Night

It occurred to me over the past few weeks that Robin is doing a great deal of good for people at her very tender young age. It is not about being adorable, there is something more powerful going on. She has come out of the fog to remind us that life is good.

Robin has also brought an unexpected and surprising balance to my blog, my writing and my readers at a time when I am uncharacteristically taking some risks and focusing at times on the elderly as well as immigrants facing injustice, especially terror and expulsion.

To me, those are important subjects to write about, but I am also aware those other voices which say every day: “where are the cute photos of dogs and donkeys? We can get news elsewhere.”

Robin has become the most popular thing on my blog, her likes and shares are even surpassing Red, who has a lot of admirers.

I am inundated with messages thanking me for posting images of her (they come from my daughter Emma) at a time when people need to see the energy and promise and joy that comes with the beginning of life.

Almost unfathomably, I feel Robin and I are in a dialogue about life that I am only just beginning to grasp. “Jon, I want to thank you for posting images of your granddaughter. She is adorable, but that is beside the point. She lifts up and reminds me to be positive and do good.”

Robin is doing good, not a simple task for a sixth-month old child.

I see great beauty and joy in the faces of the Mansion residents, but there is also struggle, loss and sometimes death. It is hard for many Americans to see images about the elderly, I have broken through that barrier and have come to see their beauty and compassion. I thank my photography for that.

This is a shock to me, as are so many interesting things about life, the sudden appearance of Robin as a powerful tool to uplift the spirits of people. Babies are, as a rule, cute and endearing. And all grandparents love their new  grandchildren. But as message after message points out, there is something about her that captures the glory and promise of life. And challenges depression and argument.

Robin has become a Greek Chorus, an angel sent to remind us that life is wonderful as well as troubling, full of discovery and possibility.

I talked to my daughter Emma last night, and I said Robin has become something beyond her own cuteness, her smile and enthusiasm are making an awful lot of people feel good when they get up in the morning or go online.  I asked her if she knew that, she said she did.

This is a special gift, especially now, when so many people feel anxious or angry or worried about our country. It is a way of expressing values without argument. It is a political thing, without being political.

I am always learning about life. I was  surprised at the sudden emergence in my writing and on my blog of people on the very opposite ends of life.  It is not what I generally write about, or wish to write about. Some people don’t like it. Yesterday I put up a photo of Herman before his death, and there were, of course, the usual stunningly stupid and insensitive messages on Facebook about the photo.

“I don’t want to see pictures like that too much,” wrote Jane from Ohio,”I like the farm photos, I would never let anyone take a photo of me when I was so old and sick.” I simply deleted her message, and she went away. It was offensive to me, and by now I have the hide of a rhinoceroses.

I am honored to ask the residents of the Mansion to let me take their photos, because so many people see the beauty in them, the residents see it themselves.

I think it bothered me because I used to think that way myself, I rarely took pictures of the elderly, at the other side of life from Robin. I saw my role as to uplift, not enlighten. Now I try to do both.  Now,  these faces seem especially beautiful to me, they have so much character and feeling in them, they pop up among the images of dogs, donkeys, landscapes and old barns.

Even in the shadow of death, Herman’s gentleness and kindness shone through and people saw it. And that is my purpose, to show people like the Mansion residents and refugees as human beings, not stereotypes or taboos.

Emma too has grasped this, I think.

Robin has brought us closer together in more than one way, she was always aloof from my work and blog and photography, I think it was quite detached from her life, somewhat of a puzzle. That feeling is gone, she understands me in a different way, and that Robin is important to people, and like me, she wants to do good in any way she can.

I love Robin, but the big news for me is my strengthened relationship with my daughter, who I love so dearly and have missed in my life.

So we are partners in this, she grants me permission to share these images and she knows what they mean to me, and perhaps, to many of you. And she is just, if not more, as uplifted by Robin than anyone.  I am knocked over by this new thing, my family come together to do good in this surprising and completely unexpected way. I call Robin the viral baby, if I had that smile, I would sell a million books.

I need to be careful not to exploit Robin or project any feelings or ideas onto her that she is far too young to have.

Emma would not permit that and I would not consciously do it. But I hope that one day Robin will look back on this post and know that she made a lot of people feel stronger and more hopeful for reasons her grandfather is just beginning to explore.

Beyond my own feelings for my first granddaughter, and I am always sorting them out, there is the idea that I want other people to feel the way I do when I see these photos. Another way of doing good.

It is not about cute, it is about the message in those eyes, which says to me, “life is a gift, full of possibilities and glory, as well as sadness and despair.” We get the sadness and despair every minute of every day, it comes through the air. But news like this is not considered news.

We rarely see this message of promise. Robin, at six months old, is full of excitement and wonder, she seems to love almost every minute of her life. I believe she is speaking to me in these messages, and inspiring me to do good and be hopeful. It is our way of talking, as far as we are from one another.

It is a pleasure to share that idea with the world. The images are sustaining and grounding to me, they give me faith and hope, and I will need both to do the work In needed to do, as will we all. My gratitude and love to Robin and her mother.

Lots of Mansion news.

Connie’s ll-year-old Apple computer broke down and can’t be fixed, and i wrote about this and suggested that people not try to fix this problem, it would be too expensive and complicated. Of course, Kristen ignored me and shipped Connie a new Kindle Fire pad, which plays the games she loves to help her sleep at night.

It does a bunch of other things as well. When Connie saw it, she cried, she can  hardly believe people care about her this much. She said she didn’t want any help with this, but I can see how grateful she is.

The Kindle Fire is perfect for her, easy to use, lightweight, portable,  and easy to see. “Hi, Connie,’ wrote Kristen, “I hope you can use this to play games, please enjoy it, it would make me very happy to give you back that ability and the fun you had playing them! I hope someone can help you set it up.”

It is set up, Kristen, and it does make her happy, she is playing games  on it already. Made me happy to see it, also, thanks for your generosity and for not listening to me.

-The Mansion is organizing an April Art Show. The residents will be visited by local artists during the month of April – Maria is going to show them how to make drawings from her free-form sewing techniques, Rachel Barlow and other regional artists are also coming by to teach drawing and painting and watercolor and talk about their work.

Maria and I and a yet to be named artist will judge the art work and pick some winners, their art will be shown at the Mansion.

Some of you have already sent some art supplies, thanks.

I have a list of the additional things some of the residents will need for the show – Canvas Board, 11 x 14, watercolor paper, card stock (heavy paper), acrylic paints and stamp pads are needed. I can get the canvas board, the other items are inexpensive and easily available, and if you can help the address is “The Mansion Art Show, c/o Julie Smith, 11 S. Union Street, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.” Thanks.

They are excited.

-The bare wall art project is moving along. We’ve identified about eight rooms with bare walls, we’ve put art and photographs up on four of them already. I’ll put up a couple of photos. Today we put up art work in Peggie’s room and Joan’s room.

-Herman’s family is grateful for your love and support. He died on Saturday.  I am giving the beautiful tin goat sculpture that was sent anonymously to me to give to Herman to Mandi Mulready of the Mansion staff. She was so good to Herman in his last days, it turns out her grandparents had goats and she grew up with them. Herman raised goats and loved them.

-Today, they received the Deluxe Scrabble game they hoped to have in the Activity Room.

-I discovered today that Madeline, a Mansion resident who was raised in a Bronx orphanage, who traveled the world as a military wife and who is 94 years old, loves crossword puzzles. I saw a pile of them in her room, and she says she loves doing them, she often works on the New York Times Puzzle.. I got hold of several to give her (one has large type), she says she can handle all but the toughest ones. Something to keep in mind, you can write her c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

-The van you so generously helped to purchase is due to arrive at the Mansion tomorrow afternoon, I hope to go over and take a photo to show what you did, and thank you. I am thinking ahead to Easter, it is not far a way and an important day in the lives of the Mansion residents, a day that speaks of family and faith.

Please feel no pressure to do this work or sent letters and gifts, many of you have asked to be notified about what people need, but I am mindful of your limits,you have done so much, and there are not many wealthy people reading the blog I don’t think. But there are a lot of angels.

And it is difficult to even describe the importance of the work you are doing.

“Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being.” – Milan Kundera

Lightness and Weightiness are both linked to a philosophy of life, writes Erik Pevernagle. They are both choices in life. flightiness can often lead to a feeling of fear and oppression, felt as an unbearable burden. Then, if we are fortunate, the time comes to let loose, things can, at least temporarily lose some of their gravity.

I did not watch President Trump’s speech but I woke up in the middle of the night and was drawn to see and read the many comments and responses to it. I felt an easing of weightless, a more bearable lightness of being. For the first time in many months, people felt a bit better, nor worse. I felt lighter.

That is a big deal.

I could almost feel things letting loose a bit. I don’t traffic in illusion. We are terribly divided, and the next years will be difficult and painful. Also challenging and uplifting, I think. We will all figure out who we are and what we are about, and that is not a simple or pain-free process.

It isn’t that I think all of our divisions will be swept away, magically healed last night, or that my understanding of our world will return to the way it was, or that I will be at ease with many of the things that are coming.

But I think I saw some of what some of my friends have seen in this man that I have not seen, which is some compassion and empathy and sense of humanity. We are all different, we have different ideas, but we are all human beings, that unites all of us, and great leaders know that and speak to that. What unites us – life, death, freedom – is ultimately so much more powerful than what divides us.

Last night, I think the President found some of his better angels, and listened to them. He grew up and rose to the moment.

I relate to this in a personal way. He and I are the same age, and I know that change and rebirth are possible at any age, because I have done it. If we open up the rusty hinges to our soul, wisdom can come pouring in. Compassion also.

I felt humanity in him last night, and for the first time, and I was lighter for it, somewhat relieved. I don’t expect to agree with him or like everything he does, but I do expect to not be frightened or disheartened by him every time he opens his mouth or tweets. And I wasn’t this morning, I wasn’t frightened or disheartened. That felt good.

I can handle differences of opinion, I am not a prisoner of the left or the right. I can navigate between the arguments.

But I was having trouble coming to terms with the loss of compassion I was seeing across the new political spectrum, the darkness, the focus on the dark side, the divisiveness, assaults on strong women,  and verbal cruelty. The lack of compassion or humanity.

Compassion is central for me in a political leader, and that was causing my weightiness.I have always seen this as a compassionate country.

I felt some of that compassion and humanity from last night, and I accept it and give it the benefit of the doubt.

It didn’t appear staged or contrived to me, and if it is, that will quickly become apparent. Power can corrupt, but it can also be sobering and humbling.

For the sake of lightness, I hope his phone is taken away and melted down, and he listens rather than tweets. Everyone will still pay attention. In my mind, you can’t be a leader and an angry adolescent at the same time.

For the first time last night, I felt he was aware of me and of people like me, and at least nodded to our existence and sensitivities. We live here too.

The President has some interesting ideas that deserve discussion and consideration, not all this name-calling and childishness and drama. Perhaps that will happen now, he isn’t going anywhere soon. Leaders ought not to frighten and divide people, but work instead to find common purpose and ground, and unite them.

Last night, he showed at least an awareness of that obligation. My friends who supported him claimed they always saw this humanity in him, he just applied it narrowly and in an angry way. But they always argued it was there. Last night, I saw some of it.

For almost a year, every day seem to bring a new cruelty, or outrage or distortion or lie, and that is a choice, a philosophy of life, the Mother of weightiness.

I hope to remain lighter, but equally committed to my values.

Today, I am taking nothing for granted, I am going forward with my own notions of compassion and politics.

Maria and I are going to Albany to meet with some refugee volunteers and talk about helping with an art show the refugees are planning for the end of the month. Sunday, I hope to meet some refugee families, prepare Welcome Bags for the children, see if I can take my compassion farther and help in more direct ways.

I will do my work, the President will do his. I will respect him and be open to him, I hope he will do the same for me and the many people who hope he succeeds, even if they did not vote for him.

If I do, and he does, then there is hope for all of us, perhaps we can actually began the hard work of compassion and listening, even if we don’t always like what we hear, or get our way. Like he said earlier in the way, we will all have to negotiate, we will all have to give something up in order to do anything good.

Even if we struggle long and hard for what we each believe. Perhaps the time has come to let loose a bit, and lose some of our very weighty gravity.

Dear Maria, I know you are somewhere in the middle of India, but I don’t know where, and there is no way to reach you or hear from you until Monday. It finally feels like you are far, far away.

I don’t know if you saw my blog but these are the flowers you sent me that came Monday with a note that read “A flower for everyday I’ll miss you.” Think you, they brighten my day.

I am writing this because I imagine you will see my blog before we talk Monday or Tuesday, I am sitting at my desk writing on your six year-old vintage laptop, the one you retired a couple of months ago. Good thing it is still here. I was going to go the movies tonight to see “La La Land,” again (I saw the Batman Lego movie last night), but I was tired from cleaning out the chicken coop and doing the afternoon chores and teaching this morning

The class was a remarkable one, I asked everyone to talk about how Donald Trump and the political dramas were affecting their creativity, and it was striking to see how much this man has impacted the lives of my students, the lives of every single one was altered and different. He is the talk of the country.

For better or worse, he is changing the country and the way we look at it, I regret his angry and narcissistic manner, it will do him no good in the long run, even if his ideas are deserving. Too many people are frightened of him for his work to be good or for him to succeed. I fear for the people who put their faith in him.

One of my students, an Evangelist,  started writing  beautiful poems of compassion and feeling after the election, another has stopped writing to work on community activism, another is working with refugees, another is deeply worried about her son and his Asian girlfriend, who fears going outside alone, even in Vermont.

I talked about my own deepening involvement with newly arriving refugees, and my desire to live by example, rather than argument.

I am touched to see how much we all love America and wish to preserve the best of it. We will all work hard to do that, I saw it today.

There was so much  feeling in the room we agreed to begin our classes talking about how these political changes are affecting our creativity and emotions. It was affirming and comforting, turmoil and concern often spark creativity and creative change. It is a  teaching opportunity and also a way to support one another. Some of my students are feeling the deepest anguish, and most of them are not political people in any way.

I see we are connected to one another, I am proud of that.  Creativity is a powerful weapon, in the right hands.

My computer repair station says they believe they have fixed my computer, and believe they are working successfully to back it up and restore my words and images and data. They think it will be ready Monday morning, that would be great. I am wary.

In the meantime, I am celebrating a day or two of reflection, quiet and some meditation.

Days without you are quiet and busy, but I think of you often, or actually, always. You are a radiant presence here. Nothing can replace you.

You are never far from my thoughts, and I am excited beyond words at your beautiful words and images from India. Since you are there, you can’t imagine the impact they are having.  Cassandra is doing a great job and Scott calls every day to make sure I am alive and well.

Everyone is talking about you and your trip.

So many good people are taking this journey with you,  you did good, your reports are powerful and beautiful. I know you are offline for a couple of days, but I imagine you will be blogging late Sunday if I read your schedule right.

I am grateful to be able to blog, you and I always seem to get our message out, one way or the other. I guess that makes me a blowhard.

I do miss you, expectedly and appropriately, and much of the time. With you gone, I am busy, all day. There is so much to do here. Tomorrow I water the plants, do a laundry, maybe sleep a little late. Cassandra is not coming on Sundays, it’s her day off.  I cleaned up the chicken coop – yuk, it is spit-spot.

I will blog tomorrow. And I want to confess something, I am spending the night with another woman I love. She is Alison Krauss. Her new album, “Windy City,” is her first solo album in 18 years and the critics are gushing all over it. I don’t need the critics, I love everything she does, and we will spend a quiet night  together with my big earphones on,  two dogs at my feet, two barn cats dozing nearby, and a roaring fire.

I have not yet gotten to work on my book, I had to dig out of the blizzard,  bring the external drive to the repair place for the back-up. I hope it’s all there, the drive was not functioning properly. Eeeek!

People are, as usual, sending me odd messages pointing out that there is a cloud, and that computers can be backed up. As always, and as someone who has been writing online for more than 30 years, I wonder why anyone would think I don’t know that.

I think people just want to do good, which is nice, and I ought not forget it.

But I think I must appear clueless sometimes. And I am clueless sometimes, when I look back on my life, you have often pointed this out to me.

But I am clear about you, my best move in life. Eight days until I see you again. I love and admire you more and more each day, can love like this just grow and grow? So far yes.

I hope you are having the wonderful experience you deserve. Talk to you soon.

Left Behind Jon

Ed Gulley is a dairy farmer, an artist, a sculptor and one of my best and most valued friends.I love Ed, Maria thinks we were twins separated at birth, which surprised me, but is, I think, at least partially true.

Ed does not make telephone calls during the day, very few old-school farmers do, they are way too busy, day and night.  Ed has never called me on the phone. If I had a heart attack and was rushed to the emergency room, Ed would not call me, his wife Carol might text me, or he would just come and visit. He would not call.

This morning, Ed called me for the first time in our friendship.

I worried that something awful had happened. What was so important that it would yield the first phone call?

My frozen latch, of course. That is not a small thing to a farmer.

Ed read on my blog that our latch gate was frozen these last two mornings, and that we had poured warm water to loosen it up. Ed was concerned, he told me that if we poured water on on the latch, it would just build up, freeze all the more and become even more of a problem.

I was touched by Ed’s call (I did grasp the problem with warm water and was planning to go to the hardware store and buy some liquid spray de-icer, but Ed knows I am dumb enough to do it for awhile) and also by his solution. It was such a classic farmer solution and way of thinking that I wanted to share it. He said I should take a handful of rice kernels, wrap them in a washcloth, and when the latch was  frozen, warm it up somehow (the oven, microwave, the clothes dryer) and then take it outside and press it against the latch.

I told Ed my de-icer plan, but he was not enthusiastic. Sometimes, the de-icers corrode metal. I could tell this going to the hardware store was not a Gulley idea, or a farmer idea. It cost money. And did not involve bartering, calling a relative, or going out into one of the barns for some ancient piece of equipment.

The rice/washcloth idea works every time, he said, it was what his father did and what he did.

I actually heard from a bunch of farmers, many are on Facebook now or have e-mail.

One used heated up engine oil, another pressed some warmed-up meat against the latch, another brought boiling water in a canteen and poured it on the latch – “if you bring enough, it’ll melt all the ice,” another used a hammer and tapped it against the latch until it opened. The downside of this, he said, was that eventually the latch would wear out, or if it was cold enough, even break right off.

One more suggested a variation of Ed’s idea – hard corn kernels warmed up and put in an old sock. Another said lima beans would do the same trick.

I noticed one thing about these ideas, and this is always true of Ed’s ideas: none of them cost any money or involved a trip to my sacred shrine and lifeline, the Ace hardware store. I am greeted with suspicion there, Maria returns almost everything I buy my self, and they won’t sell me anything dangerous, like a big saw or an axe at all. Maria has to call and approve it.

But they are generous with their advice and ideas.

Frugality is the farmer’s creed, they have no extra money, they never buy anything new, and they are astonishingly inventive. Not in a million years would I have thought of rice and a washcloth.

But as Ed knows quite well, I am not a farmer, I come from a different world. I love farms and farmers but I am not one. I am a writer with a farm, married to an artist with a farm (Maria is just as cheap as Ed, and she collects less stuff,  she considers buying anything retail a violation of human decency. They are great friends).

So while Maria was volunteering at the Food Co-Op, I decided the rice plan was too complex for me. I’d lost the rice or forget it or misplace it altogether, and would never remember to bring it out to the pasture gate, so I’d have to plod back and forth and root around and microwave the damned thing before hauling it back outside, and then not losing or dropping it (Ed doesn’t hold a camera while he works).

So I drove to the hardware store with Fate (she loves the hardware store, there is a can of biscuits by the cash register and she is spoiled rotten there, as if she wasn’t already). j Bryan was there. I asked him about the rice/washcloth idea and he looked at me strangely, as if a frog was sitting on my head. He sent a staffer  to aisle Four and Beverly came back and handed me a can of spray de-icer, which does not corrode metal, can be stored out in the barn, and works instantly. It can also be used on the car locks and windows.

It cost $2.36 and should last through the winter. I tried it when I got home. As Ed had predicted, the latch was frozen again. One hit with the de-icer and the latch slid open According to Bryan, it will also leave a thin film that will last a day or so in normal winter weather.

I am  especially fond of farmers, they are the unsung heroes of modern life, left behind, taken for granted, but possessed of a way of life that is meaningful and valuable and has fed the earth for all time. They have no extra dollars lying around, every day is a rainy day, and they possess great ingenuity and folk wisdom. When they are all finally driven away by corporate farms and government bureaucrats, it will be an enormous and irreplaceable loss.

Ed’s birthday is Saturday and we are joining him and Carol for dinner. One day he will call me up just to chat, and then I will know the world has really changed.