Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

I rarely think I know what goes on in Bud’s head, but he makes some wonderful faces, and once in awhile I can catch one on my camera. I call this a “pirate” look, it is pure Boston Terrier.

Dear readers, I’ve decided against video or audio recordings of my talk tonight about Red, and I think I owe it to people to explain why.

I understand that Red is not just my dog, he belongs to a lot of people, but I have learned to put boundaries around certain things, I want to preserve my own sense of self in a world that drowns us in a never-ending barrage of information and revelation – some of it coming from me.

But still, it might just be my memories of the pre-digital age, when there was still such a thing as quiet. But some things aren’t really suitable for sharing for me. Tonight is one of those things.

It is a great compliment to Red that so many people want to see a video of my new monologue,  “The Story Of Red,” or hear an audio of the talk at the Old Castle Theater in Bennington,Vt.

I’m sincerely  touched by the requests, Red is a remarkable spirit, his life is a great story, and I have lived through a lot of great dog stories. So many people love him, almost every post about him draws scores and scores of messages. By writing about him, I have created some of this love and interest, I am responsible for it.

Our lives are complex in 2019.

When people really want to get me to do something, they often message Maria, perhaps understanding where the true power is in this household.

A lot of people are asking her to video my talk. But Maria does not ever pressure me to do things I don’t wish to do. And I’ve got a lot of requests myself.

I want to explain why I’ve said no to audio and video recordings of the talk,  I seek always to be honest and transparent, as I hope you know. I think I succeed much of the time.

We live in a video smartphone world where there is no such thing any longer as privacy or any sense of control over our images.

Everything is not only fair game for sharing, it is an engrained and epidemic ritual – births, deaths, dogs, children, eating in restaurants. Parts of my life are public, yet Red and I have what I would call an intimate relationship, we are fused to one another, I can’t really say where one of us ends and the other begins.

I don’t want that talk to be all over Facebook or on  You Tube. It feels too personal.

A good friend came over to our house for dinner recently and without telling us he took a photo of Maria and I in the kitchen from the dining room. He meant quite well, and then sent me the photo as a thank-you for dinner, he showed them to no one else.

Yet it bothered me because in my own home, relaxed among friends, making dinner I didn’t like being photographed without my knowledge or permission. It seemed invasive. It reminded me of the time another friend came into the house while I was recovering from heart surgery and started recording a video of my lying in bed.

I didn’t want my cooking recorded, the kitchen is a place I let my guard down. I am no star, but I empathize with the real stars who no longer have any expectation of privacy anywhere they go. That is an unnatural and healthy way to live

Not everything needs to be shared or posted or videotaped. Sometimes, I feel I have to struggle or fight to keep a gentle part of my mind intact.

Just because we can share doesn’t mean we must or should. Sharing need not be automatic, or assumed, or expected. It ought in my mind always be a considered choice, not a reflex.  Building boundaries is no longer simple, for me, or for anyone else.

I think it is so important to reserve a space in my life that is just mine, that is shared in real time with real people that I can look at and see. Solitude is precious to me at this point in my life, I need it every day.

I have friends who no longer bother to ever call me or speak to me in person or on the phone – my daughter is like this most times – they just look at the blog to see how I’m doing. They don’t need to see me or hear me.

But I don’t wish to be known only by the blog, there is another me outside of that. When I am close to someone, I want to see their heart and soul, I need to look into their eyes and hear their voices and see what they wear.

I wrote on the blog about a new meditation app I like and what it is teaching me about some personal issues I struggle with, and several very nice and civil people asked quite respectfully if I would share the name of the app. I’m not complaining about this or upset about it, it is the new reality.

I think I’ll say no.

I had the same feeling about the meditation app that I had about the photo, the idea just made me uncomfortable, this idea that people who read my blog would then also share my private meditation space, so important to me.

I also think that choosing a meditation app is a personal thing, people don’t really need me for that, there are many online and on the Apple App Store. Nobody guided me to mine, I went out and looked for it. It’s not hard to do. And when I write about my own revelations, I don’t want them to be everyone else’s as well.

It is ironic, since I share so much myself and strive to be so open, as someone will no doubt point out to me in a snarky post. Yet there are boundaries for me, I am learning, and they are important, which I have also learned. We learn to share on social media, and we all benefit from sharing. But boundaries are the foundation of mental health, that is a bitter lesson I learned at great cost.

I think I benefit even more from putting some things in a different light…like tonight. I write about Red all the time, nobody will miss his story, but this is a personal, intimate goodbye, a tribute to him. I just don’t really want to see it on the Internet.

There are fewer and fewer quiet and private spaces in this world that are just mine. Someone is always – always – sharing a video or blog post or book or movie review  or other message. My inbox is always full,  texting is out of control, there is no catching up to it, nor is there a respite.

Lots of messages say “hi, how are you?” I no longer respond to them.

I am coming to value my own soft time and space around my head more and more in a culture that is choking on connectivity, argument, revelation and information. The more connected we are, the more disconnected we seem to be.

The more interaction I have, the more solitude I need.

One of the things I learned in therapy was this: if a person or friend makes you uncomfortable, run, get as far away as you can. If a request or suggestion makes me uncomfortable, the answer is simple. Say no, don’t do it. Then let go, move on.

I have already avoided a river of difficulty following that simple philosophy, which has become a matter of faith. So that’s why I’ve decided not to do audio or video of my talk about, and I do thank you for caring about him.

I’m writing to the Army Of Good – and any other samaritans out there because Spring is coming up, and there are a number of things that could use some support from those who can or wish to help.

In the Spring,  many of the Mansion residents will need some light clothes, shoes, socks and sweaters. I have a network of Thrift shops I will use, and know the best and cheapest Amazon sites if I need to go online.

I’d also like to fund a boat ride on Lake George in May or June, some music for a St. Patrick’s Day celebration and a horse and wagon ride in the country. The residents are coming to the farm several times in the Spring, and I want to get them some sandwiches.

I’d also like to get some new art tools and supplies, our art program has been a stunning success. And I’d like to build up the library of big photo books. They are a huge hit there.

Beyond that, and as you know, I am working to get full scholarships for gifted refugee children from some of the best private schools in the area. The first of these, Eh K Pru from Myanmar, has applied to the Albany Academy and we should know soon if she wants to go and if she will be accepted.

I’ve just forwarded $4,000 in contributions from the Army Of Good for Sakler Moo’s tuition for 2019, and am also raising money to pay his lunch fee at the school – $375. The school will deal with his tuition from here on. Thanks so much for your support.

I have not been granted access to Sakler to talk to him or take photos, so all I can say is I  gather he is going very well at the school.

Last year, there were some additional pledges for Sakler, if they come in, I will forward them to the school.

If Eh K Pru is accepted, the school will offer her a generous scholarship, but there may be some shortfall or other issues of supplies,  etc. that she might need some help with.

I just don’t know yet. I do intend to meet with at least two other private schools who have shown an interest in this new initiative I’m pushing – one or two full scholarships a year for gifted refugee students.

Two or three lives changed, every year, and for good.

So I could  use some support from the Army Of Good to launch my Spring initiatives for the Mansion residents and the refugee children. The Mansion/refugee fund is low, and will run out soon.

If you wish, you can donate via Paypal, [email protected] (please mark the contribution Mansion/refugee), or if you prefer to contribute by check in any amount, you can send your donation to Jon Katz, Mansion Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

And thanks, I’ve stayed away from fund-raising as much as I could in recent weeks, but the needs are great, and they don’t go away. It is better to do good than argue about doing good.

I have to say I am one of those people who believes that meditation changed my life. I was in different forms of therapy, from analysis to talking therapy, for 30 years, and a Valium addict as well, and I say that after all that time I was perhaps even crazier than before.

I would have perished long ago without all of that help. It does take a village.

At one point, I was put on a mild anti-obsessive medication that caused white flashes in my head when I took the pills. I took this whenever I went out to walk in the woods.

It did calm me down during the days of horror, as I like to call 2008.  We are never really cured, us mentally ill people, but we do get to recover a little bit every day if we work hard.

I started meditating soon after I met Maria, I don’t know if those two things are linked. I had never really turned inward in that way before, not even in Freudian analysis, which hardly exists any more.

It was while meditating that I listened to my own mind, which raced along much like a Nascar championship race, crashes and spins and dizzying turns and thrills at all.

My head was like one of those gypsy carnivals, all lit up, always moving.

Henri Nouwen writes that the real spiritual challenge is cultivating presence.

I was always too busy to be kind to myself, to count my blessings. I didn’t have time, and my head was always spinning too fast to stop and do anything but lost perspective and make bad decisions.

In meditation – my guide was Thomas Merton, who wrote so extensively about the beauty of solitude – I got a good look at myself, and was horrified but also motivated. I didn’t wish to be like that.

I wanted to be grounded, to be present and calm at peace with myself. In meditation, in solitude, I came to see who I was and how my mind works. I came to understand that I could change my way of thinking, of seeing the world.

Shortly after I started meditating, I stopped taking any kind of medication for my mind, and got off the valium. Boy, was I surprised to learn it was addictive. Nobody had told me.

I also came to grasp the importance of letting go in meditation: of not holding grudges, or working things over and over, or harboring  resentments, or doing he-said she-said, of  feeling slighted or being angry.

Life is tricky as you all know by now, there are nasty people out there, and disappointments, and unexpected troubles. Life can get out of hand in a flash. Letting go is the first step towards living in the moment, rather than nursing hurts from the past or stoking fears of the future. I am good today, I am good right now.

I have a meditation app that I love, and I am on a ten day guided meditation about fostering feelings of kindness about myself, so that I may learn to be kinder to others. The instructor knows his stuff, the lessons are 10 minutes each, and I take them one at a time, in the morning after breakfast and the chores. For me, meditation is best at the start of the day, and then again, in the late afternoon, during my Peaceful Hour (which Bud, above, joined in today).

I breathe in and out, listen to my body, enter the stillness, bask in the quiet,  and it was in meditation I saw just how much time my head spent in looking backwards, and remembering hurtful things. Oh my gosh, I had no idea how much of my life I spent doing that, how much energy I was using, how much time I was wasting.

Recently, a friend misinterpreted something she thought I said and sent me a hateful and hurtful message. She didn’t even grace me with a conversation about it, or give me the benefit of an explanation. This, I said, is just what I have to let go of. No drama, no he-said, she-said, no grudges or arguing or huffing, no tears and laments, no puffing in outrage.

It was over, I told myself, move on, there is nothing there for me. There was no conversation to be had, no justice to be done, no apology to come. You cannot have a healthy relationship with an  unhealthy person.  The other day, she ran into Maria in town and she was, Maria said, very frightened. “Oh,” she said, “I don’t know what to say to Jon if I see him.”

And so here I was, I thought, going over this hurtful episode in my mind, and the person who upset me was terrified of me.

What did you say?, I asked Maria: ‘I said Jon will move on, just be normal.” I was proud of that answer.

I sent my friend a message. It was not important, I said, I am sorry of I hurt you in any way, whether I know how or not. Let’s move on, you have nothing to fear from me. Life is too short and precious to waste.”

The grudges and resentments and hurts that have piled up in my head for so many years are almost gone now. I am many pounds lighter.

I seek to be blessed and live in the land of the blessed, and sometimes I know what that means and sometimes I don’t. The spiritual people say that claiming our own blessedness, being kind to ourselves leads to a deep desire to be kind to others and to bless them as well.

I think this is happening to me.

Small acts of great kindness are all blessings to me, they do make me feel blessed, they do make me want to bless others. I think when I really let go and really feel blessed, then I can face my own brokenness and the brokenness of others.

Tomorrow: Red and I tell “The Story Of Red” at the Oldcastle Theater in Vermont. I’m up for it.

“To discover a sense of purpose, to act on it with good intent and a kind heart, free from expectation, is to live a happy and content life.”

– Buddhist teaching.