Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

It is easy to forget that dogs are pack animals, we are so busy telling them how to live like us, we forget that living with us is not natural to them.

A “good dog” is a dog that doesn’t behave like a dog, a “bad dog” is a dog that acts like a dog. The truth is dogs aren’t moral creatures, they don’t have a conscience, there only dogs we can train to live the way we wish them do, or dogs we can’t.

Left on their own, dogs do not need play groups, expensive gourmet treats and complex health care, human beds, or vacation treks with the family.

Dogs in the natural lives sleep for much of the day, can be alone for hours, eat all kinds of natural foods. But they are pack animals. They like being with other dogs at any age. People love to believe in separation anxiety in dogs, they want their dogs to miss them because they miss their dogs.

But a dog doesn’t know the difference between someone going out to get a jug of milk or someone going away for week.

And they don’t much care, unless we teach them to. The  idea that a dog can’t be left alone for a workday is preposterous, yet rescue groups routinely deny dogs to people who work. How insane is that?

I have never had a dog with separation anxiety, mostly because I don’t believe in it or feel it. I would never want a dog going with me on vacation, what, after all, is the point of a vacation unless it is changing my routine, exploring the unfamilar,  and resting?

People often ask me if an older dog can handle a younger dog, the answer is almost always yes, in nature, they do it all the time. Older dogs teach younger dogs how to survive and how to behave.

Dogs mentor one another all of the time, and quite naturally. Three is my favorite number in terms of having dogs. They form hierarchies and pecking orders. Bud loves Red and defers to him, but he does not try to play with him.

Fate and Bud are both dominant dogs, they are still working out who is higher up the ladder. They do this by playing, which is also a kind of hierarchical competition. They are coming to a good place. I don’t interfere, they must have space to work it out.

We think that dogs play for the same reasons human children do, but that is almost never the case. In the pack, this is how they work things out. They also work things out by growing, snapping and snarling, something that upsets human beings but it essential for dogs to do if they are to live and hunt and work together in groups.

So my pack is getting settled.

Red is the leader, he sets the tone. Fate and Bud are the siblings, playing, learning to get along, still working out their positions here. Bud is a much more dominant dog that Gus was,  I would  not wish to be a rat in a hole when he comes around.

I am forever fascinated by how dogs work things out, and always surprised and discouraged by how difficult it is for humans to do the same things. I love them because they are not like us, not because they are.

I could not begin to describe, or even feel, the kind of Hell Carol Gulley has endured this past six months. Her much beloved husband Ed, with whom she shared every minute of every day for 47 years, died a hard death from brain cancer as she not only watched helplessly, but also had to decide how to help him leave this world in comfort and grace.

Carol does not know how to ask for help, and has never, in the course of our friendship, done it. She is a student in my Writing Workshop, and she came to our class today.

She has had a hard time writing about her pain and her grief, she doesn’t want a “pity party,” she said, as if that were even possible.

I don’t pity Carol, not as a friend, not as a teacher. That would be patronizing, she would hate it. I decided to be a teacher, not a counselor.

I told her the people who worry about being a “pity party” are never the ones seeking pity. The pity seekers never know it.

We all talked to her about the fact that she should be as free not to write as to write as she struggles with shock and grief.

Carol has struggled to write often in these past weeks, and who could ever blame her? This intense grief is staggering and draining. In a way, it is like losing one’s own life. Carol wants to write again, and today, she took a huge step towards doing that, she showed great courage and heart.

But I also urged her to consider writing honestly about her grief, not to gain pity or entertain anyone else, but because I sincerely believe it would be helpful to her to remain connected to the many people who have followed and support her and Ed’s blog the Bejosh Farm Journal, which Carol wrote herself every day.

Carol is a gentle and beautiful soul, and her world seems to be falling apart. She is on that line between loss and rebirth, it is the loneliest place on the world. I told her that she is a writer by nature, and that good writing is about vulnerability, not only strength.

“Today,”she  wrote, “I went back to writing class for the first time since last Spring and the entire group urged me to write about how I am feeling.  They assured me that what I am going through is perfectly normal, I told them I don’t want a pity party, just to be true to what I believe.”

And this, I told her is what good writing is, being true to what one believes. You can’t worry about what people will think.

“Time and writing honestly and openly is that will help,” she wrote. “I know there are those out there who can relate to this process of grieving and will understand…Please, just bear with me for a bit…I need to find that safe and secure feeling again.”

As a witness to the sickness and death of Ed Gulley, and Carol’s devoted and unwavering care for  him, I can say there is nothing “normal” about what she went through, just as there is nothing “normal” about her or her writing.

You are writer, we told Carol, and writers write, and not only about the good stuff. It is itself healing and liberating.

And this was a very big deal for her to write: “So don’t vive up on me quite yet…it will no longer be My Farmer and Me…perhaps just me – moving forward.”

And that is so much the truth.

For several years, Carol wrote mostly about Ed, a dominant, sometimes overwhelming, presence. He defined and shaped their narrative.

Now, the story is different. The story is her, someone who always was content to be in the background.

Carol, if she wishes – and she does – will take her time and  define herself and her own writing. I have no doubt she will do this, and in her honest, unassuming, authentic and inspiring way.

I am  fortunate to have her in the Writing Workshop. And proud of her today.

So far, I’m enjoying working with and getting to know Thomas Toscano, a conductor and composer and the Executive Director of WBTN, the much struggling community radio station where I begin my new radio show Talking to Animals, on Wednesday of this coming week from 1 to 3 p.m.

Thomas is the rarest of American figures, the individualist. He follows Joseph Campbell’s exhortation for each of us to know our myths. Thomas knows his.

He is through living the lives other people want him to live, and he lives by what he calls “The Russo philosophy” first outlined by a dear friend who was once married and decided never to do it again.

He is his own person, living his own life, and if anyone doesn’t like it, they can go stuff it. This kind of man might just save his little radio station from doom and extinction in the Corporate Nation.

When Russo was asked by people “are you married?,” he said, “no, I am happy.”

Thomas and I are getting to know one another – we are both cautious about friends, I think. The Katz philosophy wonders if friends are as necessary as we are led to believe. Do I have a lot of friends? No, but I am also happy.

Thomas and I are bonding with one another, I wouldn’t go so far as to say we are friends,  we have both seen a lot, but it could happen.

Sunday morning, Thomas has programmed Gregorian Chant for me at 7 a.m. because I told him that was among my favorite music. I was touched by that, and I will be up at 7 a.m. with my earphones and Iphone.

I asked Thomas if he was married or had a family. We were chatting late Saturday through  e-mail messages. I doubt we will ever speak personally on the phone.

“Never married, no kids,” he said.

“I’m a devotee of the Russo philosophy of life,” he said. “Had many, many relationships. Now I consider it a public service that I spent my time alone. And each time I see couples in conflict being portrayed on TV I look up at the sky and thrill at the fact I don’t have any such problems any longer.”

Thomas has given up on that part of life, traded it for other parts.

In the West,  writes Campbell in Pathways To Bliss, a bible of mine, “you have the liberty and the obligation of finding out what your destiny is. You can discover it for yourself, but do you?”

Campbell also wrote: “I’ve taught students of all financial strata, and the most fortunate are not always the very wealthy ones. In fact, they’re very often the least fortunate because there’s nothing to drive them. A very common experience is a student who has all kinds of possibilities and talents and essentially limitless money and becomes nothing more than a dilettante. The student is not forced to follow one path, to make a decision: “I’m going to do this.”

I get the sense Thomas, an opera singer and producer from  New York City, has found his destiny. It is music and WBTN.

It doesn’t hurt to be blessed with the accident of money, writes Campbell, and some margin of free time. “But let me say,” he adds, “that people without money very often have the courage to risk a life of their own, and they can do it. Money doesn’t count; it’s not that important our culture, it really isn’t.”

In a sense, WBTN and Thomas underscore that idea. There is no money, but plenty of purpose. The place has found its myth.

Thomas told me he was up late Saturday night making apple pies, something that surprised me.

“Why apple pie? I have a lot of apples (people gave them to me). I made two. I have to make a lot more. And then freeze them. Last year it was peach pies. This year it’s apple.”

I didn’t ask Thomas where the pies were going. It didn’t seem to matter.

Thomas apologized for the problems afflicting the new WBTN Amazon Wish List. It isn’t functioning quite properly yet. They are excited about it and will get it all fixed on Monday.

Our dry run last Thursday was a big success. The station couldn’t get over getting a call from California, the first such call to the station in its history as far as anyone knew. I hope they call back. 866 406-9286.

On Wednesday, my new radio show, “Talking To Animals’ debuts on WBTNAm 1370, Bennington, Vt., a community radio station meant for the people, not the politicians. Just click on the “live” button at the top of the page, it will take you right to the broadcast.

You can live stream the dog/animal show here. You can call me with questions about animals at 866 406-9286. You can e-mail me questions to discuss on the radio: [email protected].

Please call if you can, we will have a running conversation about the animals that are so important in your lives. Thomas will be sitting right alongside of me, trying to keep his Korean War equipment (really) going.

(By the way, Maria will be on the “Living Arts” hour on WBTN Sunday morning from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Thomas says she is a fascinating and original artist. This is true. Tune In.)

If you wish to support community radio and Thomas’s myth, and perhaps mine, you can donate here. All donations are precious to them.

Although the broadcast will focus on dogs, and to some degree, cats, we are wide open to discussions about animals, I’ve lived with plenty.

Audio: Money Isn’t That Important: Me Reading Joseph Campbell

Today my Writing Workshop cranked up for the 208-2019 season. The Workshop meets in our dining room at Bedlam Farm. There are nine students in the class this year, most have been my students for five or six years.

The class is free, I’ve never liked to charge money for writing. This class is remarkable,  it has produced five different self-published books of poetry and essays. It was important this year for me to re-emphasize what it is I teach and what we do.

We had one new student, her name is Carolyn and she moved to the country from Seattle. She was educated in British Board Schools and  has never published her  work, she would like to change that. She has a lot of cats.

Writing classes and workshops  often drift into therapy workshops, the line between writing and therapy is often blurred, and people’s reasons for writing often mimic reasons for therapy.

Often through the year, we affirm the centrality of writing in the class, that is why we all are her. I am no therapist, but I have been teaching writing for 22 years. I don’t charge because I believe it is my duty to give something back, as a writer of 26 books.

I am also a firm believer in using new technology – blogs, graphic printers – to bypass the greedy and outdated system of commercial publishing and share our work. People who only write for themselves run the risk of just talking to themselves, it is hard to grow as a writer without feedback.

In our workshop, our feedback is gentle but honest. No nasty or cutting word has ever been spoken in any of my classes, and I am very proud of that.

In the workshop, we spent the first hour talking to each other, listening to each other, supporting each other, that veers close to therapy but it essential to establishing trust and confidence.

My classes have been all female in  recent years, and I find women often struggle to believe their stories are important, or discouraged from telling them to others. The class if about seeking authenticity in writing and confidence in voice and the important of our stories.

The women sitting around the table are remarkable women, more than half the class is using new technologies to get their work out in public and share their beautiful stories.

I like doing this at the farm, it is comfortable and infuses creativity into the farmhouse. Some wonderful stories are hatched her, talked about, revised. Writing is really about voice, vulnerability and honest, and this class is so special we might just keep at it till the end.

Once in a while, Maria joins us, she knows a lot about finding voice and being authentic. It’s nice having dogs wandering around too.

Friday, a milestone in my continuing recovery from Open Heart Surgery four years ago.

My heart attack and resultant surgery in 2014 and recovery triggered an epic reconsideration of everything about my health care, from my providers to medicines to specialists.

I have two chronic diseases, Diabetes 2 and Heart Disease. When I had my heart attack, I was seeing a  holistic  practitioner, I wasn’t even monitoring my blood sugar and the surgery jolted me into a different reality.

So did my high blood sugar numbers.

I was methodically killing myself, and I was astonished by my heart attack, my puffing up hills while walking should have alerted me. I knew I had to change.

Since then, I have surrendered mostly to Western ideas of medicine, although I have great respect for holistic care, and have scrupulously monitored my diabetes and A1C numbers.

That first number is currently at a very strong 6.0 and my average blood sugar level is 97.

My care is mostly in the hands of dedicated and communicative  Nurse Practitioners who take no nonsense from me and inspire me and help me to take care of myself. They always have new ideas for me to consider. And I do take care of myself.

When you have Open Heart Surgery, people are always coming up to you with a worried look and asking “how’s your health?” with great concern. Fine, I say, resisting the impulse to slug them.

Finding the right health care provider is important. My long-time NP, Karen Bruce, left the area recently to work in the Adirondacks, her replacement Janet Oliver is  great.

But Friday was not about all that, at least not directly.

It was about the final culmination of my years-long goal to put my health care entirely in the hands of female practitioners, doctors and NP’s. I finally did it, all of my health care providers are women. I can’t handle male doctors any more, I don’t want to see any. I know that seems like a horrid, even  sexist, generalization, and I am certain there are wonderful male doctors.

But they haven’t worked out for me.

Friday, this great transition was complete.

I went to Saratoga to the Saratoga Hospital Medical Group’s Cardiology Special Services and turned my heart over to Dr.Nicoleta Daraban, a Romanian cardiologist who studied in New York City and moved to Saratoga because she thought it would be a good place for her children to grow up.

This ended a three-year struggle with my male cardiologist to get off of statins, a mean wonder drug medicine that reduces cholesterol but can cause severe and sometimes crippling joint pain,  and to which I was seriously allergic.

I have not written about my struggles with rashes and hives, and my doctor’s insistence on staying with statins. It was life or death for me, he said, with two chronic diseases. So I kept on taking them while experiencing them sometimes debilitating side effects. This enraged Maria, who kept pleading with me to switch doctors. I was afraid to.

I don’t know if my doctor was right or wrong and don’t much care. The problem was I couldn’t really talk to him about it, he had no time or interest in what I wanted to say.

I am finally on a new anti-statin medication that I inject every couple of weeks and that is said to be a powerful medicine to keep cholesterol low, an important consideration for me. So far, so good. No pain, no allergic reactions.

This issue drove me to Saratoga in search of a second opinion, and hopefully, a  female cardiologist, I  hoped she would listen to me and understand what I was trying to do. And she did!

Lots of people can’t take statins, she said, and there are lots of good alternatives. My new medicine is one of them. You shouldn’t have had to suffer that much.

Her office has a 24/7 hotline, I can call anytime. I can also call her anytime, she said.

She said down with me for a half an hour, she said my heart was strong and her goal would be to make certain, if at all possible, that I would not need  heart surgery again in my life.

She went over my blood work and said it was excellent, she said she would not need to see me very often, but if I did need to see her, she was always there.

And we talked a bit about New York, about our children, about the virtues of living in the country for us, and the things we missed about the city.

This personal conversation only took a few minutes – I am not a needy patient – but it meant everything to me. It meant that everyone one of the doctors and nurses who treat me, now all female, know something about me and took the trouble to understand me as a patient, not just a  data point.

Dr. Karaban wanted to know me as well as my heart data, I think she thought both things are important.

We had a good talk about exercise, I said I had no  stomach for gyms or equipment, I am active, walk often and feel strong. Good enough, she said, do what comes naturally to you.

When Dr. Daraban asked me why I had come to her, I said Shiela Scofield,  another woman, and the Nurse Practitioner who oversees my diabetes care, recommended this practice, she said I would find what I needed there. And I could sense from the minute I walked into that office that it was true.

I felt I was in the right place for me.

My male doctors were all quite competent, I told her, I had nothing bad to say about them. But none of them knew how to talk to me or bothered to try beyond their data. In the past few years, I have come to trust, in some cases even love, these remarkable women who have helped me stay healthy and active and strong.

I believe they listened to me and care about me. I believe they have almost been honest with me, and never hesitated to be blunt when I needed to hear something I didn’t want to hear.

So Dr. Daraban completes my long search for female health care providers. I like her and trust her, she knows how to talk and took the time to do it.

Nobody can promise me a long life or perfect health. But at least they can know who I am and fight for me when I need an advocate and listen to me when I need honest answers.

That is no small thing for someone whose Open Heart Surgery altered the trajectory of my life those four years ago. For me, a long overdue  health milestone.