It was great walking around in the rain today. I did get soaked, but I got some lovely photos, and I LOVED walking in my place again. This latest surgery left me tired today. I will keep up my pledge to sit down, close my eyes, and listen to Bielli Elish, who I am told is about to win another Oscar this weekend.
I’ll see you in the morning after my Zoom meeting with my good friends from the blog. It’s lovely to make a human connection like this, not just a digital one. Stay warm and try.
(Bulletin. The Cambridge Food Pantry has received 126 pounds of donated food in two days. They thank the Army of Good, and so do I. You people are great.)
It was a landmark day, healthwise. We went to see Dr. Daly a week after my last (hopefully) toe surgery. She said the wound had healed beautifully, I didn’t need to wear my clunky surgical shoes, and I could shower, wear my brace, and walk when I chose.
(Education photo: If you look to the lower left of the image while Zip is having dinner, you’ll see a hole between the two hay bales at the bottom. This is where Zip has been tunneling and sleeping. It never gets cold in that space, between his warmth and the hay, and it’s a safe place for him to sleep safely and meditate. He poked his way in there on the first day he was hiding in his new home, but he has burrowed in repeatedly and made it a nice, cozy, and safe space. It’s twice as wide and deep as it was at first. I’m impressed. This is what I love about the barn cats: they know how to care for themselves and appreciate the chance. Like Maria, now that I think of it. I insist on her sleeping in the house right next to me. I’m sure she would love to sleep outside sometimes.)
Our 3 and 1/2 years of work and pain to get my collapsed left foot working, rebuilding, and functioning finally seemed over. I can walk, I can walk. It worked. We celebrated by going food shopping and then picking up some bread at Kean’s home near the Covered Bridge in Shushan.
I lost a bent big toe and had about a dozen different surgeries. It’s all worth it. Maria was with me every step of the way, including today. Dr. Daly says the heeling in my feet is terrific, an excellent sign for a person with diabetes.
When we got home, it was pouring, and I grabbed my Monochrome and Iphone and set out to capture the raw and gloomy but still beautiful afternoon. You are invited to come and see.
I’m exhausted and glad to be home. I’m going to spend a couple of hours listening to Billie Eilish sing.
Maria shot through the ground-floor barn window by bringing hay to the animals in the rain.
Maria is in the rain, bringing out the hay. (And no, the sheep and donkeys aren’t coming into the house at night.)
The birds kept eating, rain or not.
The hens stay dry by hanging out under the roost. And no, they are not coming into the farmhouse; I don’t care what the animal rights people think. It’s not unkind for them to sleep in a roost.
After the rain, Zip came out to say hello and get some attention. He’s back in the big barn now. In my experience, cats are not demonstrative about love; Zip is a sweetheart.
Again and again, I run into America’s sick preoccupation with labels. In our culture, everyone gets a label – red, blue, progressive, conservative, Trumpist, MAGA supporter. People instantly tag one another with labels; they are the laziest way of thinking and knowing anything.
If you favor the right to an abortion, you are a progressive; if you don’t, you must be a conservative or a Trumpist. If you are liberal in your social views, then you woke, and any book you write can be banned; this is all in Floria, our brightest, warmest, and most prosperous Orwellian state.
Big Brother DeSantis and an army of homemakers are watching the books – all of the time.
In 1987, eminent political philosopher Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, an appraisal of contemporary America that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times) and has not only been vindicated but has also become more urgent and evident today.
In clear, readable prose, Bloom argues that contemporary America’s social and political crises are part of a more significant intellectual crisis: the result of a dangerous narrowing of curiosity and exploration by the university elites.
Bloom was decades ahead of himself; what was unimaginable in 1987 is standard procedure today. We are all learning the wrong things. Instead of learning how to talk to one another, we are simplifying the process; we need to hate and ignore one another and then wonder what the problem is with our troubled country..
Today a week after, I pissed off some Amherst art people by saying my portrait of Maria also reminded me of a still life by a revered painter like Vermeer.
I love this series of Maria photos; I call it the “Blogger,” and honestly, I don’t know what to call it in art terms. It is part scene, part portrait, and maybe a tinge of still life. I am not an academic professor; I am curious if this is technically correct, and I realized this week that I don’t care.
One of my favorite blog readers summed up this by messaging me: “It doesn’t matter what these Maria photos are called; they should be labeled “beautiful.” This is so obviously true that I was embarrassed.
The thing about labels I hate the most is that they deprive most people of the need to think or listen. Once tagged, there’s no sense of thinking, listening, or talking. We know all we need to know. As a writer, I find this tragic. As an American, I find it a catastrophe.
The son of immigrants who found America a life-saving miracle beyond belief, it breaks my heart to see our Congress paralyzed and spewing lies and venom.
The American idea was never to freeze disagreement or isolate people with different beliefs; it was to celebrate and use it to come together and solve problems.
I’m working on compassion and empathy, not foolish labels. Maria does not need to have her spirit labeled (sorry, Amherst professor).
To understand how labels in America are choking any meaningful dialogue, think about what it means to be labeled “red” or “blue” in America. The reds have no reason to listen to the blues, and the blues have no reason to listen to the reds. So they’ve stopped talking or listening to one another.
That’s where we are in America, trapped inside an awful mess, one half of the country unable to hear or communicate with the other half. Political scientists from Jefferson to H.L. Mencken have repeatedly written that a healthy democracy depends on one side listening to the other and negotiating difficulties with the other.
The Internet has washed away that tradition; we do not need to take the time to talk to people we disagree with directly; we have X Facebook and Apple iPhones. Everybody talks, and nobody needs to listen. The new idea is to use the latest technology to hate and divide one another.
That is working for the haters.
It’s foolish and presumptuous of me to label these photos of Maria. I got a good and needed lesson this week.
The photos of Maria don’t need labeling. She has many fans and people who love her work, and her blogs and art don’t need to be labeled; they can just be seen and enjoyed, and absorbed.
My reader broke through the smoke and stated clearly and correctly: “Maria is beautiful. That’s all we need to know.”
All True.
I’m not a Buddhist, I don’t practice Judaism, I am not a Muslim, I’m not a Christian, I still go to Quaker Meetings when I can, but I love reading the works and thoughts of people in all these faiths.
Rigid dogma always holds me up, but to me, some of the best and most potent and helpful thinking I’ve ever read comes from prophets and scholars in those faiths. I get to pick and choose without being told what to do.
That’s one great hallmark of spiritual writing.
Lately, I’ve been reading some of the works of the Buddhist scholar and monk Thich Nhat Hanh and the writings of Christian and spiritual writer Joan Chitisster.
As people who read my blog become increasingly anxious about politics, culture wars, and political campaigns, I’ve decided to share some of the things I’m learning in the hope that they are as helpful to you as they are to me.
Below is Hanh’s essay from his book Your True Home: The Everyday Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh.
More than any other spiritual writer, Hanh has helped me to deal with my fear and anxiety. People like me tend to hide their fear, deny it, and talk myself out of it. What about accepting it and sitting with it until it weakens and disappears?
I learned instead to panic from specific triggers. I don’t do that anymore not often.
Here is an essay and idea that has worked very well for me. Hanh has a soft way of presenting big ideas. I hope this helps you as much as it has helped me. We’re in for an anxious year.
__________
Sit with your Fear…
“The Buddha advises us not to try to run away from our fear but to bring it up and look deeply into it. Most of us try to cover up our fear. Most of us fear looking directly at our fear instead of trying to distract ourselves from it or ignore it; the Buddha proposed that we bring the seed of fear up, recognize that it’s there, and embrace it with our mindfulness.
Sitting with your fear, instead of trying to push it away or bury it, can transform it. This is true of all of your worries, both small ones and big ones. You don’t have to try to fight or overcome your fear. Over time, you’ll find that it will be slightly weaker when your fear comes up again.”
______________
This idea of the Buddha and Hanh’s writing about it surprised me. It was so simple, but it made so much sense.
I’ve always found my fear embarrassing and intractable. I always fought it, denied it, and argued with it. I was only successful once I took up this idea and decided to accept fear and sit with it.
It took me a while in meditation and contemplation to step back and figure out where the fear was coming from.
As often happens with men, fear was considered a sign of weakness in my household – not manly like John Wayne – and I didn’t want people working with me or for me to think I was afraid.
But I was, almost all of the time. My anxiety was so intense I chose to leave the corporate world and write alone on my blog and for myself.
It was difficult for me to understand that my fear was almost always neurotic rather than absolute. It often had little relation to the things that were frightening me. Much of it was real, but much wasn’t.
If somebody points a gun at me, I will know my fear is justified.
But the truth for me was that my fear comes from an old and traumatic place. I grew up incorporating this fear into my very being.
It will always be with me but in a different way. I need to live with this fear; I will always have it, but I can put it aside and understand the reason for it now.
This requires me to detach myself a bit and step back. Acceptance has helped – this is who I am and who I will die being – but I can control my fear and put it in its place.
And I can understand it. That is, in itself, healing.
I can control my fear and put it in its place rather than permit me. Through what Hanh calls “mindful thinking.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling in the moment without interpretation or judgment.
Practicing mindfulness involves breathing methods, guided imagery, and other practices to relax the body and mind and help reduce stress.
Mindful thinking has helped me accept the seriousness and fear that is coming out of our political system. It does sometimes frighten me.
But I think about my issues of vulnerability and dangers and can accept the concern and anxiety but not let it dominate my life.
No political candidate will get to control me or my mind. Fear and trouble are a part of life, and the challenge for me is to accept that and understand how it fits into my past and life.
Whatever happens in November, we will be alive to live our lives and be responsible for them. We can do even more good.
I’ve learned that doing good erases or eliminates my anxiety.
Doing good heals and is grounding and repels fear and anxiety.
I recommend it; this idea gave birth to the Army Of Good, one of my best ideas that will comfort, inspire, and turn my fear into a whisper.
Today, it felt like Spring. I’m sure we aren’t quite done with winter, but the bite is gone for now. I’ll keep my archived color and light photos up until May.
Tomorrow, I go to Saratoga to have the stitches removed from one of my toes after surgery last week. This is good news, assuming the wound has healed.
I can shower, wear my brace, and walk comfortably again. Life never really stops coming and changing. I accept life, but I mean keeping up for as long as possible.
Soft color and light, my favorite kind.
I love taking photos of this cat; I think he knows it.
Wherever I go on the farm, Zip finds me.
