This is one of those photos that you may not see anywhere, and in fact is not supposed to occur. I’ve heard of Boston Terriers working on farms, but I have never heard of a Boston Terrier who wanted to herd sheep.
Even Gus didn’t want to herd the sheep, he just wanted to hang around with us.
Bud is very focused on the work Red does, and on Fate’s love of sheep and passion for being around them, even if it’s not exactly classic border collie herding, to say the least.
I either have some magical attraction for Boston Terrier weirdos or I’m onto something. Bud is actually somewhat serious about working with the sheep, he doesn’t have the border collie herding instincts, but he does challenge them and try to stop them or move them.
He has no fear of the sheep (unlike some border collies I could mention) and he seems to be studying Red and almost mirroring him. And the sheep do respond to him, they don’t challenge him the way they challenge Fate.
How far can I go with this, I wonder?
I don’t want to push it, I can’t imagine Gus actually moving sheep from one pasture to another, but maybe that’s because I’m not imagining it. I’m taking him out for short bursts of work, staying close, encouraging him when he holds his ground and is calm.
I think we are working together now. But I am impressed with his instincts. We’ll see.
I think of Michael as a pilgrim, really, a fellow traveler on the Hero Journey. We are quite different, yet we are also quite similar in ways I can’t really define.
I’ve written some here about my struggle to understand and define friendship, and my failure to keep friendships.
I always seem to be making friends and then leaving them behind, and I want to warn new friends to be wary. I am restless and distracted and obsessed with moving forward, perhaps still too fearful of that kind of intimacy, especially from men..
I have in recent years, begun to redefine friendship as somewhat different from the shallow and impossible comic book notions of friendship that I grew up with.
Friendship has been a source of great pain for me. I wanted it so much that I often lost myself in the search for a true friend, even though I could not really tell you what a true friend is or was.
I got discouraged after the many times when a friendship I hoped for did not materialize, or one began with great expectations and did not last, or ended abruptly and completely, in drama and anger, or for no reason I ever really understood.
In my mind, there is a gallery of friendships lost, faded or just ended, I sometimes see these faces in my dreams. I blame myself, I know something is broken in me.
Michael lives hundreds of miles away, he has been, along with his then girlfriend, now his wife, who is, in fact, a friend of mine, to two Open Houses, one several years ago, one this weekend.
Michael is a veteran, he has suffered greatly from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and has worked bravely and painfully to recover and interact with the world. He and Becca got married and he came up to see our farm with her.
At one point, Michael told me lived in a trailer for seven years and only ventured out in the middle of the night when he knew he wouldn’t see a soul.
And he didn’t. When I first met him, he could barely handle being around people, could not join us for dinner, and stayed in the shadows, if he came out at all.
This time, it was different. Michael looked great, he mingled, looked me in the eyes, talked about his recovery, his true soul seemed to have emerged.
I found myself talking to a shy, but warm and open and honest man, I felt an instant connection with him. He talked very honestly about his time in Hell, I told him some truth about mine.
We were different people, but often ended up in the same places. I lived in a bunker, also, for nearly seven years, my home was a moat, a prison, no one got in until a kind of Princess came and kissed me on the lips and woke me from a dark dream.
Fairy tales do happen, I told Michael, dreams to come true. He felt the same way about Becca.
We know we are both broken, but we both refused to leave it there, we climbed back to a better place.
We all went to dinner Sunday night, and we talked and laughed together for several hours. In the middle of dinner, I talked about my own issues dealing with friends. I was surprised at how comfortable I was with Michael, how much I admired him.
Michael leaned over and came close to me, and said in a low voice, “I would like to be your friend.”
I felt a surge in the heart and offered my hand, and said, “I would like to be your friend also.” And we shook on it, traded e-mails. I told Maria afterwards that I felt a strong connection to Michael, I admired his sensitivity, his honesty, his warmth. He was even proud of the fact that he often cried.
I sent the first e-mail, he friended me on Facebook. A start, a channel opened. If feels a bit like two lovers meeting for the first time.
We’ll see what happens. in a sense, friendship takes courage, you have to dare to love to be a friend. True friendships are eternal because true love is eternal.
The early Christians – you know, the real ones – believed that friendships were a personal gift from God, so that we could learn how to love one another. Love between people, they believed, was offered by God and was stronger than death.
I may not see Michael again for years, or perhaps, ever. There are few ways in which our lives will ever intersect.
We will not go to ball games together or yak for hours on the phone or sit and drink beer and watch football games. We will certainly not play golf. I am making some friends with women, I am hopeful about those friendships.
But I learned a lot about friendship from Michael this weekend, and it gave me comfort and hope.
Our friendship is simple: it is heart to heart, a friendship from one soul to another.
I believe the Prophets when they said that every friendship has no end.
Those we have loved deeply and who have died live on in us, and not just a memories. I felt that with my friend Ed Gulley before he died of brain cancer.
Those friends whose hearts have touched are also forever, the friendships cannot be undone or end in drama confusion.
I felt with Michael that our hearts had touched, and I saw that he understood and felt the same way. So I will keep on trying to find true friendship that does not end, and is beyond the grip of foolish and tormented humans.
The Small Dog Experience Maria, Bud, Becca, Michael
Dogs are not allowed on sofas and chairs in our farmhouse, and yes, that is Bud sleeping on my chair as we talk to our friends and visitors, Becca and Michael.
Let me explain.
The small dog experience revolves around the false idea that small dogs are small.
In fact, small dogs are not really small, that is just marketing ploy, their way of getting inside, of gaining control of people’s homes.
Small dogs are actually quite large, in their minds and hearts in the eyes of their humans.
Some are seen as “cute” because they are little and occasionally endearing. I told Bud that he is so ugly he is actually cute.
The “small” thing is a mask, a ploy to get us to want them and feel sorry for them.
Once they are in, they morph into regal and imperious figures, they are creatures of entitlement.
Nature is clever, it made these small to confuse naive humans. Once they get inside the door, they loom large in our lives, sofas and favorite chairs.
I was out in the kitchen making tea, and when I came back into the living room with the tea, Bud, who lived for a year in a metal pen outdoors in the Arkansas woods, and who has been living in our house for a week, was sitting in my chair, his latest throne.
He is King Bud.
In just a few days, poor vulnerable “rescue” Bud has me right where he wants me – sitting in the big chair chair across the room right near our visitors, while he snores and grunts and goes to sleep. Yes, it is my chair. I am siting across the living room in a different chair, far from the conversation on the other side.
Maria didn’t seem to notice that Bud had taken my chair, not did our visitors mind.
Okay, I couldn’t bear to force him out. And that, I suppose is the point I was making about small dogs.
In the afternoon, when I lie down for a bit, Bud hopes up onto my lap, I scratch his chin and rub his belly a bit, and then we both doze off for a few minutes. This is a very peaceful moment for me, and it is a spiritual connection, a kind of communion.
I’m not sure what the connection point is between Bud and me, but I do believe that Bud and me, like Red and me, have a reason to be together. You get the dogs you need.
I love to watch the people who watch the sheep shearing at the Open House. This ancient art is a beautiful thing to watch, an important ritual in our lives on the farm.
