Bless the flowers. They bring a lot of joy and comfort into the world. I’ll continue posting one a night until May of 2024. It won’t be as far away as it feels in the dark.
Here we go; winter is beginning to show its teeth. Heavy rains all day and night, some real snow tomorrow morning, up to five inches.
Maria and I went out to clean the barn and feed the animals; it’s an awful mess. It’s already getting dark, so I took some photos and am glad to share them with you.
Stay warm and dry if you live around here, and warm and dry if you don’t.
The pasture is a hot mess, mud and water are pooling, flood watches are up, and power loss is possible.
In the photos, I’m trying to show what this is like on the farm. The pole barn is dry; they’ll be in there all night and for most of tomorrow morning.
Asher, hiding from the rain but ensuring he’s not missing the food.
The sheep don’t seem to notice the rain with their wool coats; the donkeys don’t like it but endure it to eat. If it’s awful we feed them in the pole barn.
This is our new theme and mantra, explaining who we are and what we do.
Three pigeons came back to sit on the roof in the rain. And the rain is pretty heavy right now.
Manure, the pile is getting huge again. We shovel it out twice a day. I’m able to help again.
Hens in the rain, covering themselves. It’s time for the roost; it’s plenty dark allready.
It was muddy, smelly, cold, and soaking; Maria was all smiles.
With her, the sun is almost always out. She is the sun here.
She loves the animals, she loves the rain, she loves caring for the creatures here. How did I find such a person, she says she found me.
We found Zip sleeping on a chair in the barn, one of the few times we’ve caught him still. Tomorrow morning, our first snowstorm.
I’m looking forward to taking some winter storm photos of the beauty of the winter pasture. It’s good to be home, although we had a great time in our very basic but clean and warm $89 motel.
We came home today to a pouring rain that will turn into heavy snow in the morning. We are excited to be home.
The weekend brought a neat new motel ($89 for the night), the discovery of a new and excellent Korean Restaurant, and a powerful musical production that offers gifted young blacks a chance to speak about their culture and the impact Step Dancing has had on their college lives.
Watching some dancers and singers last night in Massachusetts, I heard one of the singers say during a Q&A afterward that he loved the production because “I want to create better art.” This rang a big bell in my head.” He was so sure, so young, of his life mission. It took me decades.
I turned to Maria when we got back to the motel and said this is what I want; this is why I am radically altering the comments page on my blog. ” I want what that dancer wanted: to improve my art, writing, and photography. Next to you, that is where my heart and soul are.”
Maria started to cry; I wanted to cry. I’ll save it for meditation.
Thanks to my faithful readers for recognizing the idea; they know it will make me better, happier, and more comfortable.
I’m re-structuring the blog comments with Mannix Marketing to limit the blog posts to readers I know who will or already have committed themselves to being civil and thoughtful.
Three things contributed to this compelling realization about what I want to do in life: Maria, a therapist, my blog, and my photography all led me to accept that making art that touches people is what I want to do.
I don’t want to spend my time arguing with people, drowning in their often silly corrections, or being shamed by people who have no idea what Dyslexia is or how it affects the writing of a prolific daily blog.
This is not anybody’s problem but mine. The rude and intrusive social media messaging – believe me, it’s not just me – is an ugly distraction, and I won’t accept it in my life any longer.
I know what I want to do, and I plan on doing it.
I’m grateful to that gifted singer last night for setting me straight. Very little in my life is more satisfying than improving and sharing my art with people who notice. I’ve learned what is essential in life and what isn’t. Having a blog and being open doesn’t mean I have to be a toilet bowl for broken people; it means the freedom to do the best possible work and improve it.
No regular or civil blog reader will be put on any list or blocked from posting. The pompous and the peckerhead will have to go somewhere else. I reject the self-serving (unhinged people) idea that writing openly on my blog gives people the right to be cruel and dishonest about me and my work and life.
I am worth more than that and entitled to more than that. So are you.
My readers have been urging me to do this for some time now, but I am working to know them and learning to trust them rather than shut them out. There is some advice I need, and some I don’t. Yes, I’m complicated. Sorry.
Today, I begin pruning and blocking the rude, the addicted correctors, the people who can’t handle a Dyslexic blogger, or who are pompous, polluted by politics, hateful, or cruel and have nothing purposeful to do.
Blog Reader Amy W. calls this decision “filtering the effluvia.” I loved that. The definition of the word is “unpleasant smell or exhalation, as of gaseous waste or decaying matter.” This perfectly captures the people who exploit the Internet’s freedom to hurt others and violate their space.
That wipes out a massive chunk of the people on social media, which has gotten much worse since 2016.
Even when disagreeing, my readers are never malicious, judgmental, invasive, or rude. That’s how I know they are regular readers.
They don’t have to do anything to remain on the blog. I believe the Web people can set it up so that regular readers or posters can post whenever they want. We’ll take care of the others and make them disappear or cut off.
This may take a few weeks, given the holiday season. Still, it was a significant revelation, a thunderbolt last night, to finally come to terms with what will fulfill the dream of a safe and calming place to go every morning, every day, to feel grounded and hopeful in our tumultuous world.
I got a score or more of messages, all thanking me for doing this. I get it.
I know this is better for me; I am coming to understand it is better for all of you of good hearts as well. This change is not about disagreement. I love to argue, as is obvious. The problem is contempt, lies, and cruelty. Civil conflict is fun and suitable for all of us. I can skip the lies and death threats.
You’ll see the results immediately. You will not see another hostile, rude, or cruel message on my blog posts as of right now. I can do this manually until Mannix can change the software when they get to it. I don’t want to wait.
We had a sweet time at the Mass MoCA Museum in North Adams, Mass; last night, we went to see Maxine Lyle’s new work, Step Show: The Musical, a two-act theatrical product, hoping to get to Broadway. The musical is a two-act theatrical production with the famed dance program Jacob’s Pillow. It is a work in progress that showcases the African-American step dance and its significant role in Black college life.
The dancing and singing were both powerful and deeply touching.
I see now – my readers are most often way ahead of me – that I am accepting my Vocation as an artist; my heart and soul are yearning to be a better writer and photographer. I am working on both things all of the time. There is no happening other than death that will make me stop wanting to be better.
I want to focus on making my blog a creative, successful, and uplifting place. I’m very close. The blog is the home of the Peaceable Kingdom, two people whose vocations are now clear and which we are both working hard to fulfill, and of Zip, the dogs, and our beautiful animals.
I’ve been working towards my vocation for some time now. Behind this understanding of Vocation is a truth my ego doesn’t want to hear because it threatens the very ego itself – making money and being powerful.
Almost everyone I know has a life different from the one they want, from the true self. I was one of them.
Every poet, artist, or writer knows this: there is a vast difference between what I was taught, how I put up so many protective masks, and self-serving fiction and ran from my true self. It’s time to let my life speak for itself while I still have a life. This has brought me great happiness, not money.
“It takes time and hard experience to sense the difference between the two, ” writes Henri Nouwin, “to sense that running beneath the experience I call my life, there is a deeper and truer life waiting to be acknowledged. That fact alone makes listening to your life a difficult counsel to follow. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that from our first days in school, we are taught to listen to everything and everyone but ourselves, to take all our clues about living from the people and power around us.”
I’ve learned in my spiritual searching that the idea of a “vocation” is not just for religious people seeking God. It’s for everyone who has a dream, wishes to be creative, wants to live a creative life, and listens to their heart and soul. It means living up to the promise of my life, not surrendering to a culture that workshops only money and this curious idea about security.
I am fortunate to live with an artist who understands and lives this idea alongside me. She has helped to turn my life around just be existing.
Because I started broken and troubled, it has taken me a long time to get there. I was often distracted and derailed by opening up my life and writing about it. Many people responded to this and were very clearly threatened by it. Instead of sympathizing, it too often got angry. I took the bait.
The damage of the troll (you don’t have to be a young geek to troll) is that they hate sincerity, honesty, or empathy. It seems to threaten their existence, their new power to hurt.
They have been taught and are being taught that compassion and love are weak, hypocritical, and the opposite of them. It isn’t personal once you get used to it – none of these people know one thing about me or care – but it certainly can feel pintimate I don’t have enough testosterone; they often got me down and left me feeling poorly about myself. I’m done with it.
I felt bad enough about myself already. After 2016, strangers suddenly appeared like a horde of mosquitoes, swarming and striking. They drive many people into secrecy and silence. They soiled the idea that respecting diverse opinions was a precious American tradition. Their Vocation is cruelty and grievance.
I can promise you I will not be one of them.
My Vocation now is to move forward with my life positively and learn how to make better art, and I am working hard on this, using my writing and photography. Honesty plays a huge role in this, and so do identity and dignity.
It’s not simple being creative; it’s not simple being a troll; it takes a lot of work to be either. The point is humanity.
It’s also a choice.
I don’t wish to be a troll or to fight with damaged and angry people. It’s a complete waste of time, energy and life.
I want to create an exceptional blog that helps comfort and touch people through tough times. I want it to include beautiful and authentic photographs and words. I want to be honest about myself. I know of enough flaws to keep me going for a long time.
I don’t want to fight with people who care nothing about me or know nothing about me.
Earlier this year, I was astonished to invite eight people who read the blog regularly to a weekly Zoom meeting with me when she made it. I wanted to reconnect with the humanity I know exists in America and on the Internet.
The first eight people who signed up are still with me, and I hope you newcomers will be with me for years. They are lovely, honest, warm, intelligent, funny and wise. It was almost magical how this first group of people became the best possible group of people to talk to every week.
How foolish of me to mistrust the people who follow, know, and support me. I am learning to trust and believe in the many good people in my life. I’ve often felt alone. How self-destructive it is to focus on the lost and the angry. How sad to be the person who lives to harm strangers. All my young life, I fought with hostile and bullying people.
Fighting back is a tough habit to shake.
The blog readers on my Zoom have done much more for me than they perhaps know.
They are restoring my faith in humanity and helping to teach me – a notoriously willful and stubborn man – that humanity is essential and exists. We talk about everything; we differ in many ways, and there is never a second of hostility or cruelty.
There is nothing for me in anger and cruelty. It accomplishes nothing other than the diminishment of the people messed up enough to embrace both.
We have all been manipulated into thinking the world and the country are falling apart. This is false, a horror pushed by extreme ideologies to keep us angry and hateful towards one another so we won’t turn on them. The Army Of Good reminds me almost daily that there are so many good people worldwide.
You will never see them on the news.
I’m clear now for the first time in my life. Maria was immensely relieved and pleased by this decision; she matters to me more than anyone.
I often talk to people who tell me they want to do what Maria and I did – leave our vocation and creativity to the fullest, even if it took a while and cost too much money. But almost none of these people can break free and take the plunge. That’s up to them, and I don’t judge them or tell others what to do.
But I hope some of them learn what I have learned: not to listen for guidance from everyone except from within. That’s where the answers are. Nothing in life is simple or easy, especially being cruel to people and angry about life.
I’m not going to end this way. Thanks for listening, supporting, and understanding. I think I’m a pretty good man after all.
I promised. Color and light every day. See you later.
We’re heading to Massachusetts for one night to see a dance concert, Step Show, The Musical, African American Step Dance, And Its Impact On College Life.
Because the concert is later in the evening and there is a prediction for lots of rain, wind, and snow, we will stay in Williamstown for the night and have some Mexican food for dinner. We’ll all be back on Sunday. There is no more fun in the world than traveling around with Maria. She is Willa Catha, a woman who knows how to have fun.
We’ve had fun together since we first met, and Random House hired her to take care of me on my book tours. She told me she began to fall in love with me when she discovered that I wasn’t an asshole and treated people well.
I don’t wish to be anywhere near assholes, certainly not on my blog. I’ve left that world behind.
The sun came out in full glory, and Zip and I wandered around the farm to capture the moment of light and beauty.
Also, I’m considering closing down the blog’s comment page for a while. The comments I value are those of regular readers who understand the blog and write stimulating and thoughtful comments.
The ones I dislike come elsewhere, mostly first-time Facebook people.
Unfortunately, the Internet is constantly changing, and the one-timers who find the blog on Facebook are primarily interested in arguing, criticizing, or correcting. As you know, I am Dyslexic and also prolific and am prone to typos and some mistakes. I have little time for frustration.
And I will make mistakes.
Whenever I mention this, someone writes to say I should have a blog if I don’t want criticism and response. I consider this a mindless rationale to enable the mindless and broken, like telling a young woman it’s her fault if she wears the clothes she likes and gets harassed or assaulted. People don’t deserve to be assaulted because they are honest and open about themselves.
Thoreau didn’t have to work about jerks on social media sticking their noses into his business at Walden Pond.
He probably would have drowned himself if he wrote about Walden on Facebook. I wish to focus my energy on improving my art, writing, and photography.
Curiously, most corrections are off-base, dumb, or not very important to me. Honestly, I have no tolerance for arrogant, pompous people with no manners and no ability to communicate civically.
I have real trouble with bullies. The problem is that I hate them.
I have no tolerance for myself when I get sucked into hating either; that was happening more frequently. It’s not who I wish to be. There are just too many disturbing people out there feeding off other people like vampires. Somehow, being cruel has become okay. I won’t accept it.
This coming week, I’ll ask Mannix Marketing to set up a new communication system; people I know and approve can post anytime they wish about anything they want; people I don’t know and haven’t signed up can’t. It may take them a while.
I want people to know where I’m going. In the meantime, I will delete correction addicts, people who learned nothing from their mothers, and people with nothing better to do than write nasty notes to strangers. Facebook comments won’t change, people can post there if they wish.
My deletion campaign has been successful; I need to expand it. I won’t have the blog join so many websites and blogs whose comment sections have become cesspools of angry boors.
I’m happy to correct mistakes if they are significant or misleading. And I love thoughtful criticism and comments; I wish I could receive more.
The issue is how I wish to spend my time, and it is not about arguments and “corrections.”
The social media culture is changing, becoming more vicious, polarized, distracting, and presumptuous. I didn’t permit comments for years, which helped me focus and concentrate. I must try that again until our country becomes kinder and more gentle.
Mr. Trump was not only an awful President, he’s become his own disease. Maybe there’s a vaccine for ignoring him.
People who comment must have something to say, pro or con, about the posts.
I find that a more significant percentage of blog comments are from people looking for trouble, not enlightenment or truth.
And the corrections are surprisingly inaccurate, meaningless, or irrelevant. I’m not looking for arguments or rants from strangers—details to come. I learned to dislike people who can’t or won’t mind their business from my grandmother, who called those people “yentas.”
I’ll approve regular blog readers I know to comment, pro or con—just no jerks, correction addicts, animal rights fanatics (I’m sad to learn that few animal rights activists know the first thing about animals and have no use for the truth), or yentas from the Social Media Police.
This idea makes me happy.
Correcting for detail or ideology has become a pandemic online. Almost everyone I know now hates social media, which is a tragedy. My blog will never go there. I want to do my writing, photography, and proofreading in peace. I’m sick and tired of obnoxious windbags; I’d rather be the only one.
I need to be able to think, not fight; that’s my vocation.
I remain interested in thoughtful comments on the subjects in the blog. I’m not interested in unwanted advice, ignorant or angry rants, nit-picking “corrections,” or people who can’t accept the challenge of reading a Dyslexic blogger. Sorry, but I can’t change. And I don’t wish to.
With this one sweep, I believe I somewhat eliminated rudeness, cruelty, and anger from the site. Anyone can contact me in the usual way, e-mail: [email protected] any time. I’m not looking to be a hermit. I’m tired of being a toilet bowl.
There will be a welcome space for intelligent and valuable posts; people who want to join need to be accepted first- this will be in January, not now. America is having nasty and rudeness trouble, and I need to work around it, and I will.
I don’t write to please other people; I write to tell the truth as I understand it and provoke thought. I’m not running for Congress; God help us.
I can assure my regular readers and commentators – you know who you are – that you are very welcome and will have full access to the blog comments page. You deserve better than nutballs from the world over looking for a place to spout off.
I’ll write more about this as it develops, and thanks for your patience.
I attached these photos from this morning and will return them on Sunday afternoon.
Zip and I marched around recording the sun, which had been absent for a while.
Bud and Maria love one another in the first light.
This is my Willa Cather woman doing her Willa Cather thing.
I love the old and original fixtures in the house. There is more craft in a doorknob from 18oo’s than in most new homes being built today.
I rarely see the curator who puts up followers and plants on the windowsills all year. I saw her doing her work this morning and took the photo. I love her dearly.
Soft landscape in a bright sun.
I call it the morning meeting; Zip and Fate meet every morning. All peaceful.
The first sunlight slit up our table candelabra, stunning.
Manure, every morning. She says she loves doing it, and I believe her.
The sheep light up when the sun rises, and the wool takes in the light and shines.
Off to Massachusetts, have a beautiful weekend. See you Sunday afternoon.
