Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

I was working when Bob showed up in the afternoon the other day. I hate to be interrupted when I’m working.

“I hope I’m not interrupting your work,” he said in the driveway when he arrived. I had come out to meet him.

Bob had been riding around with his cookies for hours, wishing his friends a Merry Christmas and offering cookies. I wasn’t irritated. New friends are small miracles for me. Bob is a new friend. The visit turned out to be a landmark for me.

In my mind, Bob is unusual in many of the same ways that I am. His work is essential to him, and he doesn’t slack off or complain or ever think about retiring. He doesn’t tolerate trolls or rude people, either.

“You are interrupting my work,” I said, “but let’s sit down and talk anyway. I’ll make you some tea.”  Bob laughed at me; I thought others might not have laughed or gone away.

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Friendship has always been a difficult thing for me, as it is with people who have a history of mental illness.

So, I have a lovely Christmas story to tell about friendship.

Bob came to see me the other day, Thursday. It felt like a parable to me. It marked something different. I am changing. Bob is a good friend. I don’t recall any other man coming to the farm to talk with me this way. I don’t recall ever inviting one either.

Fear of hurt and intimacy has slowed it down for me; I am hardly in touch with anyone in my life that I worked with or knew before moving to the country. I was so preoccupied with my emotional and mental health troubles that there was no way for me to be comfortable with other people who got close until Maria came along.

By then, I had moved up to a farm in the country and was a strange immigrant for the people here – a city freak they made a movie about. That made people uncomfortable and drew all outsiders to my farm and me.

I was besieged by stalkers and people who were determined to be my friends but who were often troubled, needy, and unhealthy to be around.

Many people want to be celebrities, but it isn’t much fun.

After the movie, people drove hundreds of miles to show up and wanted to be friends. It was never good when somebody I didn’t know pulled into the driveway to see the donkeys or talk to me.

I learned to be wary of people I didn’t know and people I did, and I wasn’t even a celebrity, just a minor one. One woman came into my house while I was working the sheep with Rose, and Rose alerted me to the woman taking one of my dogs out and trying to get it into her.

I called the police, and they caught up with her, the dog was a border collie. She dropped the dog and fled as Rose came roaring down the hill right at her.

She had hundreds of photos of my dogs and the interior of my house that she carried in her car. Fortunately, I’m no longer a celebrity; the stalkers have moved on or become trolls on social media. Bloggers are not glamorous and are never portrayed in movies by Jeff Bridges.

I was comfortable being alone; until Maria, I I had been alone for a long time. As a couple, we have made some good friends. By myself, I haven’t made any male friends.

It’s still uncomfortable for me; I’m no good at small talk, I don’t generally get along well with men (I have too little testosterone, I think), and women rarely are comfortable having male friends, and for good reasons.

I know what I don’t want to be – a man who undermines his wife or female friends or who tries to dominate them.

That’s one of the reasons I like Bob. He is a good man, gentle and kind. He is honest and open. He admires women and their right to be free.

It is easy to be around Bob. And he has good stories to bring. At his age, many men are heading for their condos in Florida. Bob is traveling all over the world and making crepes with his wife.

I have a rough time being friends with older people, men especially; the conversation too often is about pain and aging and doctors and medications and drug prices. As a rule, men do not open up about their interior lives. It makes them uneasy.

Older adults in America – primarily men – are taught to give up, retire, disappear, and go quietly into the night. I’m not doing that. I’m never giving up on life.

I don’t want to do that as I move through my 70s; aging is exciting, sometimes beautiful, sometimes difficult, but I never do what I call ” old talk “or speak poorly of my life. Bob and I know how ridiculous older men can be; we laugh about ourselves when we meet.

A friend once kept telling his son to “never get old.” I told him this was stupid and cruel.”What is your son supposed to do?” I asked. “Die?” We aren’t friends now.

I met Bob a couple of years ago (he and his wife set up a Parisian Crepe cart in the summer; it’s a hit); he is my age, is familiar with doctors and all the trials and tribulations of age, and has a wide range of interests – he’s a musician, a world traveler, a teacher, and a warm and open man.

Bob was a car salesman when he was younger, and I suspect he learned how to talk to people.

This is rare, and we hit it off. I went to him to learn how to play the ukelele, but my Dyslexia torpedoed me after a two-month trial. I gave up on it. Bob tried hard but understood. It would never work.

We had lunch soon after, which was delightful, and I didn’t see him for months. Then we had another lunch, this one even more accessible and better. Bob is everything I couldn’t find in a friend – striking, kind, optimistic, creative, and open.

Like me, Bob is busy, often teaching or on the road, and is not at ease with small talk. We don’t keep up with one another every day or even often. When we meet, we have a lot to catch up on.

Bob invited me to lunch after my collapse and concussion; I could barely finish a sentence. We had a fun meeting and a welcome. I appreciated his taking the trouble, and I was battered and frightened. He told me how much he loved my flower pictures. He was empathetic without being fawning or invasive.

Talking to him made me feel that I would be okay. He just assumed it.

He isn’t the least bit uncomfortable around me (I have a history of making people uncomfortable.) Neither of us is into texting or phone chatter, and time always passes between our talking. It doesn’t seem to matter.

When Bob and I talk, we pick up where we left off; we laugh, tell stories, and listen. We are honest but not dramatic. And we go about our business.

It’s nice; I haven’t had a friend like that in many years, if ever. There are some things about being an older man that only other older men can talk about quickly and comfortably to one another – things like painful knees,  sex, and frequent urination.

They aren’t things I like to talk about, even with Maria.

Bob and I talk about them occasionally, but it feels good when we do. We never bring each other down.

At my age, my body is constantly changing, and I work hard to keep my heart disease and diabetes at bay. I’ve learned to live with my Dyslexia; it has never stopped me from doing what I want to do, except it is often tricky in my writing to keep things straight.

___

I’ve only been to Bob’s house once, and he has never been to the farm. We usually meet at a restaurant nearby. We have the same instinct: stay in touch but avoid drama, whining, health care, and arguments or laments about politics.

Maria and I met Bob and his wife one night for dinner. We had a great time and conversation but were too busy and private to socialize.

The other day, I got a rare text from Bob saying he had set aside a day to drop by close friends and wish them a Merry Christmas. I was surprised. What a thoughtful idea.

Bob has more friends than I do, but I can’t recall any man ever coming back to the farm to talk to me other than Ian McRae, our young poet friend and unofficial family member.

Bob and I are very close in many ways and have lived in different worlds. We like each other. We’ve told one another our lives stories and then moved on. Like me, Bob has no interest in joining the fray.

When I wrote, I was phobic about having visitors during work hours, but I thought Bob’s idea was welcome and thoughtful.

I said sure, came on by, and forgot about it. I can feel myself changing, loosening up, opening up. I liked the idea of a male friend my age coming over to talk. It was Maria who began the process of opening up, and it is a process, and I’m in it.

Around 3 p.m. – I was writing something – the dogs started barking, and Bob pulled up in the driveway in his SUV. I wasn’t irritated by the interruption or queasy about seeing him. I felt glad that he was here. This surprised me; he shook up the hermit in me. Nothing interrupts my writing.

I went out to meet Bob, and he brought a sack of cookies he bought.

He gave me a warm hug, which surprised me. I am not a hugger, but it felt nice, and I hugged him back. I hadn’t thought to get him anything for Christmas. I didn’t expect to see him and am not into sending holiday cards.

We did sit down. Maria came into the house to work on her business accounts and went into the other room to leave us alone to talk. Maria is super sensitive about things like that; she never needs to be asked or told.

Bob and I sat in the living room in front of the fire, talked, and sipped on our tea.

All three dogs, intuitive as they are, came in, greeted him, and curled up on the floor in front of us. I was almost shockingly comfortable.

Bob and I talked for an hour and a half until it got dark. My post was sitting on the computer, waiting to be finished. I wasn’t anxious or eager or disconnected. Having a male friend, I had come to trust and like felt good. We are different in many ways but the same in many others. Bob is creative; like me, he is not afraid to live, change, and follow his heart and bliss.

We get one another.

We caught up, traded a few brief health issues, and he asked me for ideas about traveling. He leaves home every year for a few days to explore a different, presumable, troubled, and exciting city he has never seen before. Last year, he went to Providence, Rhode Island, my birthplace.

He asked me for ideas about this year. I suggested Detroit, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn, now the cultural capital of America and the creative young. These are exciting cities; I worked in or near all of them. They’ve all had troubles but have rebounded.

Bob likes them all. I’m voting for Detroit.

After we had talked for a while, Bob said it was time to leave, and he got up. I walked him outside and to the car, and we hugged again. Bob plans to go to the Middle East and Africa between his teaching and the music world.

I doubt I will see Bob again for months, and we don’t talk much in between. It’s a comfortable thing for both of us, and it means a lot to him and me. I’m not sure Bob even knows I was ever a celebrity, but if so, he doesn’t seem to care.

I do not make him uncomfortable by being too direct or honest, and I am comfortable like him.

It’s nice to have a friend; I considered it all a Christmas message and a gift. It’s up to me; life can get more prosperous and better, or life can get worse. I only learned recently that it’s up to me.