Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

Three of the class students rehearsing their “Bingo” skit.

We had the final class of Christine Decker’s Acting 101 class Tuesday night, the class was held in the main theater of the Oldcastle Theater Company in Bennington, Vt., a vibrant theater that focuses on community theater and  education as well as plays.

The last class was also a final rehearsal for the free Showcase Friday night, in which almost all of the people in the class are performing monologues, skits or scenes. Some are original works.

I’m opening the show with Red, I’m doing a monologue on The Story Of Red, I am excited to be honoring Red and telling his story.

I’ve only run through the monologue once, I don’t want to repeat it too much or try telling the story from a script or memorized text.

I’ll just tell it the way it happened, the story of Red was – is – a story of life, death, love, God, mercy, it is another in the powerful series of stories about how a dog can change the life of a man, and many others as well.

Red led me into my therapy work with hospice and the Mansion, even the refugees. He guided me towards my goal of wanting to do good. He accompanied me every step of the way.

This remarkable animal began life in Northern Ireland and then Virginia, and then to me. I am proud and happy to be telling his story as he struggles with severe severe health problems, including a fractured spine.

The show is Friday night at 7 p.m. in the Oldcastle Theater on Main Street in Bennington,Vt.  Me and Red, we’re ready.

(Photo: My favorite Ed Gulley wind chime, Spoons, on the back porch, Thanks, Ed)

I call them Identity Troughs, periods or events I see as landmarks, building blocks to my identity, always at peril in a world without boundaries. Tonight, the last Acting Class in what has been an important growing and earning experience for me.

And also, my new weekly radio show, Talking To Animals, tomorrow, Wednesday from one to three, an impossible mission that might, in fact, still be possible. The challenge of life, to try things, stretch myself, grow and learn. And improve, always improve.

Tonight will be the last and only rehearsal for “The Story Of Red,” my personal monologue, a story that grew in my life and took focus in my class. I’m not really presenting the story as an actor would, or as acting.

I’m no actor.

But as a writer and story-teller, the class has reaffirmed that identity for me in unexpected ways.

Many thanks to Christine Decker and to Red and to  T.S. Eliot, who inspired me as always with his beautiful poems, but who also helped me to see what I am and what I am not.

I am not usually afraid of talking in public, but I am somewhat nervous about this one, I want to do honor to Red, and I am determined to improvise rather than memorize and prepare, I want the story to be real and from the heart.

Sometimes, when I talk about Red, I do cry, but I don’t see the story as sad but quite joyous and affirming.  you don’t lament great gifts. It is hard for me to know he is dying, but I am committed to respecting life rather than denying it or emotionalizing it.

So I hope I do it well, for his sake as well as mine.

Both of these things are identity troughs, against a backdrop of getting older, sometimes feeling frail and vulnerable, as older people often do. I grow old, I grow old, said the Eliot monologue, that part touched my heart, yet I revel in the chance to read out, push my own boundaries, and take a fresh look at who I am and who I want to be.

Until the last breath, for me, for Red, I will live my life fully.

This week, I continue to pursue the very spiritual idea of being the beloved.  I am faced with the call to become who I am meant to be, a lifelong quest.

Becoming the Beloved is the great spiritual journey we have to make if we seek the richness of  a spiritual life. St. Augustine wrote “My soul is restless until it rests in you, O’God.”

For some, the search is for God, for me, I seek my own idea of God, I am always struggling in my erratic way  to discover the fullness of Love, always yearning for the truth, for a taste of the divine.

I think trying to act has helped me to find a kind of truth, I can only look for something I have or know, something that is already inside of me. I think that is where the writer and the actor come together as one. How can I search for beauty and truth unless beauty and truth live somewhere inside of me?

Red in his own way is always looking out for me, and he has helped me to see more clearly and more honestly were I am in life. I felt that in the acting class.

Paul Tillich writes that it is our destiny and the destiny of everything in our world that we must come to an end. Every end that we experience in nature and mankind speaks to us with a loud voice: you will also come to an end.

Thanks for the class.

It’s a curious thing about dogs, it sometimes takes awhile before it looks like they really belong. I’ve never had small dogs before Gus and Bud, so my photos of the dogs sometimes seems odd to me, something is out of place. I think the comfort level of the dogs have something to do with it.

I’ve always had larger dogs – Pearl, Lenore, Frieda, Rose, Izzy, etc. – and that’s what seemed normal to me, border collies, big adopted dogs, and Labs. Bud looked out like a new dog, a different dog. But this photo is different, when he was done running around the pasture, Bud came into the back yard and just hopped up on the bench the barn cats use on warm days.

Here, he looked as if he had grown up out of the bench.

Bud has filled out a bit – he was gaunt when he arrived, still recovering from heartworm – and I think he has grown a bit, in body and stature. This photo was different from the others,  the light caught his race and body and he seemed like he had been here a long time, and belongs. That’s a nice feeling. Bud belongs here, and he knows it, and the portrait shows it. A landmark photo to me.

Around this time of year, some of us up her get a little itchy, it’s been a long time since warmth, since color and light, and we are color and light people, if we had a lot of money, we’d sail off South to see some color and feel some warmth about now. But the farm needs us, and we need it, so we just look for ways to reach out and feel Spring. I brought some Gerber Daisies home from the market the other day, and we are showering them with love and intention, I used my macro lens to dive deep inside of one and capture its soul.

Only weeks to go.

There’s lots of cold between us and Spring to come, Polar Vortex Breaks, snow, ice and cold. But I got some flowers at the supermarket last week and got out my macro lens to get closer to Spring. It is coming.