Unfathomable Mysteries of the Cavalier Mind

Bisou has a new friend, a big, blond Cavalier fellow named L***.Whenever they see each other, they fall into each other's arms, like Tristan and Isolde after drinking the magic wine. But unlike T&I, the love scene doesn't last long, and they each quickly return to their private obsessions, Bisou with her ball and L*** with squirrels.

The latter didn't manifest until L***'s owner brought him over for a play date with Bisou. At first all went as usual: joyous greeting followed by racing around the cottage looking for the cat Telemann. Unfortunately our sun room's sliding glass doors give directly into the backyard, which functions as the village square for the local squirrels, who come in search of spilled bird seed, water from the bird bath, and the society of other squirrels. The minute L*** saw a squirrel at the bird bath, he stuck his nose to the glass, eyes bulging, tail wagging, shivering with excitement, and there was nothing any of us could do to distract him.

"This is so weird," his owner said. "At home he never watches the squirrels, but it's probably because there is a screened-in porch between our glass door and the backyard."

After a few more play dates during which even Bisou gave up trying to lure L*** away from his obsession, we reasoned that if we gathered at L***'s house he would be able to concentrate on playing with his friend. Our arrival chez L*** elicited from both dogs the usual yelps of ecstasy, frantic circling and thoughtful mutual sniffing. L***'s owner brought out a selection of balls and squeaky toys that immediately got Bisou's attention.

But where was L***?

L*** was at his sliding door, nose pressed to the glass, looking for the squirrels that he assumed followed Bisou wherever she went. "Bisou is here," he reasoned. "Therefore, there must be squirrels."

So certain was he of this that, again, it was impossible to distract him. He did chase a couple of balls, but his heart wasn't in it. His heart was with the invisible but nevertheless very real entourage of squirrels that accompanied Bisou like rodent paparazzi.

Compared to other dogs I've known, Cavaliers often strike me as a little odd, albeit in the nicest possible way. I've heard of some that have to be kept indoors in the summer so they won't exhaust themselves chasing butterflies. In her youth, Bisou was obsessed with the frogs that lived in the pond behind our previous house. Not that she wanted to bite them, God forbid. But she delighted in bopping them with her nose so that they would jump into the water with that satisfying plop. Half the time it was Bisou who ended up in the water, but that did not dissuade her, and if we hadn't moved away, I'm sure she'd still be hanging out by the pond, hoping for frogs to bop.

Sometimes when I ask her to sit, or to come to me, she looks at me with a strange, not unfriendly look that seems to say, "Have we met before?" And that's when I'm reminded that she's not a little red person with a tail, but a dog, and that most mysterious and quirky of dogs, a Cavalier.

Life's Too Short

I was scrubbing away at my once-white sofa with one of those magic eraser thingies the other day when I suddenly stopped in mid-stroke. Life's too short to be doing this, I thought. Who cares if my sofa is white, or just white-ish?

I put away the eraser and sat down to hem some pants. I am an excellent pants hemmer, at least at first. Look at those tiny, barely visible stitches, I say to myself. Sister Dorothy would approve! But it doesn't last. By the time I'm a quarter of the way through the first leg, my stitches grow imperceptibly longer. When I get to leg #2 I can barely restrain my impatience. How much longer is this going to take? Life's too short! I bite off the final thread, and see that my stitches would appall Sister Dorothy.

Then there's ironing. Life is surely too short for that. I own an iron, and an ironing board, but years go by without my disturbing their repose.  This despite the fact that I don't really hate ironing, and I wear lots of linen in the summer. But ironing, especially ironing linen, is the ultimate Sisyphean task. There is nothing I like better than a pair of well-ironed linen pants--until, that is, I sit down and when I stand up  my legs look like they are encased in those pleated paper lanterns. So I wear my linen wrinkled, and try not to look in the mirror.

When we moved to our cottage after the Grand Downsizing four years ago, I put  the few items that had survived the purge--half a dozen pottery salad bowls, some crystal, a silver champagne bucket, and a couple of wooden spoons carved by me-- in my glass-fronted china cabinet and closed the door. The other day, I went in to get a brandy snifter and saw that the base had left a dark circle on the shelf. Somehow dust has been getting into the cabinet! I should take everything out, dust the shelves, wipe each glass and dish and spoon, and put them back. Is life too short for that?

Then there's the silver, which now that we're in our golden years I insist on using every day, but it has to be polished every few months...

Remember that weird Zen saying: "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water"? Whoever first said it did not think that life was too short for these mundane tasks, but that in fact these tasks were life itself. If you are truly enlightened you perform them with all the care and attention of which you are capable, every single time. The saying reminds me of Saint Benedict's advice to the monk in charge of washing dishes to treat them with the same reverence as he would the vessels of the altar.

I am not totally lacking in self-awareness, so often when I'm struggling with some tiny,  boring, repetitive task unworthy of my higher talents, I think about the potential satisfaction to be found in chopping wood, carrying water, washing dishes. And sometimes I do manage, for a couple of minutes, to banish thoughts of important stuff and focus on the next stitch or the next dish. But it doesn't last, of course, and I shouldn't attach to the idea of its lasting.

It's not easy, this Zen business, but once you come across it it's hard to ignore. What is life not too short for: producing masterpieces, ending wars, saving the earth? How many of us have the talent or the opportunity to do those things? I sure don't. But I can try to pay attention to the heft of the ax, the crack of the wood, the coolness of the water as it sloshes out of the pail. And when the last fork has been polished and the last clean dish put away, I will have truly lived another day.

Magpie Cat

These days, when you walk into my house, you are met with a barrage of warnings:
"Better hide that scarf inside your coat pocket, or the cat will play with the fringe."
"Let's put your boots in the closet so the cat won't chew the laces."
"Please do NOT leave your purse on the floor, or the cat will rummage in it."
In the past, I've neglected the purse warning, which is how we've ended up with:
#1 a tube of lip balm
#2 a felt zippered bag, containing ear buds
#3 a soft eyeglass case (empty)
#4 many tissues, some used, some not.

Whenever I bring something into the house, even if it's just a stack of mail, Telemann is on it like a flash: What is it? What are you doing with it? Can I have it? Not that I wasn't forewarned: at nine weeks old, when he saw me filling out the adoption form, he jumped on the page and tried to grab the pen out of my hand.

He'll be two years old this month, and he doesn't break as many things as he used to. Now he just appropriates them. In the night, when we are sleeping, he roams the house looking for interesting stuff--paper clips, small ornamental objects, the contents of unsecured wastebaskets--then plays hockey with his findings until they disappear under the furniture.

His favorite toy is a long "snake" of fuzzy fabric attached to a stick. I can get him to chase it and do air-borne pirouettes for a minute or two, but then he catches it, kills it, and, with his head held high, drags it into the mud room.

The mud room is his territory. Not only does it house the litter box, but the hot water pipes run under the floor, which remains toasty winter and summer. The mud room is also where, a year before we got Telemann, a mouse squeezed through the hole where the heating pipes come into the cottage. My spouse stuffed the space with crumpled chicken wire and we've had no more mice. But that doesn't deter Telemann from spending hours staring fixedly at the spot where that mouse once entered, hoping to add him to his pile of loot.

True, my magpie cat is a pain sometimes (often). But when he jumps purring into my lap, gives me a slow blink, and says, I'm the BEST thing that's ever happened to you, I am almost tempted to believe him.

 

Bag Balm as Metaphor

Driving down Vermont country roads these days I often see a sight that breaks my heart: a small dairy farm in the process of dying. It happens in slow motion: the roof begins to sag, the equipment to rust, the fences to lean. And then, one day, the cows are gone. In the spring, dandelions sprout in the barnyard and Virginia creepers climb the silos which, by the time winter comes around again, stand decapitated in the snow.

There were over 11,200 dairy farms in Vermont in the 1940s, 1,091 ten years ago, and only 749 last year. It's mostly the little dairies that go bankrupt, while the mega-farms, those with over 700 animals confined in barns, have doubled in number. Falling milk prices, government regulations, high equipment costs, and, especially, the change in Americans' drinking habits (less milk, more beer) are all to blame.

The situation is so depressing that last February the co-op that owns Cabot Creamery sent farmers a list of suicide prevention hotlines along with the milk check (See Seven Days).

Fewer farms, more macmansions: Vermont is not quite what it used to be. If you doubt Vermont's drift away from its rural, farm-based identity, all you have to do is look at the change in the Bag Balm tin.

Created in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom in 1899, Bag Balm, that panacea for skin-related cold-weather ills, originally came in a green tin with a picture on the lid of a cow's head framed by a garland of clover leaves and blossoms. The side panels featured a drawing of an udder along with indications and directions for use: "For minor congestion of the udder due to calving, high feeding, bruising or chilling..."

The farmer was instructed to massage the balm gently into the udder fifteen minutes twice a day, or oftener. After a few sessions, those old-time farmers noticed a smoothing and softening of their own chapped skin. And this is how, despite the "Veterinary use only" caution on the tin, Bag Balm spread from the cows to their caretakers and then to village dwellers, skiers, tourists and assorted flatlanders as a sovereign remedy against winter skin woes.

This year, when a succession of weeks with below zero temperatures gave my spouse's hands that old sand-papery feel, he went out to get more Bag Balm and came back with a smaller tin that proclaims itself "Vermont's Original Bag Balm." The formula is the same, as is the pungent, uncompromising smell of the ointment, and there is still a picture of the cow's head on the cover, albeit much reduced. But the drawing of the udder is gone.

In fact, there is no mention of udders at all in the new tin. Gone also are the instructions to "thoroughly wash treated teats and udder before each milking....[After milking]strip milk out clean, dry skin and apply Bag Balm freely." The manufacturers must have figured that all this talk of teats and stripping would freak out customers who don't want to think about where milk comes from. Instead, they are now marketing the Balm as a "skin moisturizer for hands and body," Vermont's version of Jergen's or Eucerin.

Not that I blame the makers of Bag Balm. They are just trying to keep their business afloat, and with fewer cows with sore teats around, they had to expand their customer base. They have a gorgeous website which includes a video of real farmers talking about the product. But I miss the old tin, whose no-nonsense instructions transported me, every time I opened the lid, to the steamy inside of a dairy barn at winter milking time. I imagined the Holsteins, big as school buses; the doe-eyed little Jerseys; and the farmer making the rounds from cow to cow, filling his bucket and squirting an occasional milky jet into the mouth of the waiting barn cat.

This (admittedly romanticized) scene is becoming as rare as the original tins of Bag Balm.What can we do to help small farmers hang on, not just in Vermont but all over the country? Those of us who are neither economists, politicians, or farmers can start with what is right in front of our noses: we can buy, eat, and think local. And if like me you don't drink milk, you can still help the cause by buying local cheese--in Vermont, we have an astounding 150 varieties.*

*France supposedly has 1,000 varieties of cheese, but also 67 million Frenchmen, vs. fewer than 700,000 Vermonters.

Some Pesky Paradoxes

I have been tormented of late by a quote from the Prajnaparamita Sutra: "Live with skillful nonchalance and ceaseless concern." I can do the second part just fine, since ceaseless concern is pretty much my constant state, especially since November, 2016. But skillful nonchalance AND ceaseless concern at the same time? It sounds like the spiritual version of trying to pat my head while rubbing my stomach.

The "chalance" part of nonchalance is related to the French chaleur, which means "heat." So a nonchalant person is a cool person. Is it possible to be simultaneously cool and concerned? When I try to think about this, I feel like I'm teetering on a tightrope strung between two mountains. To my right yawn the depths of nonchalance; to my left, the abyss of ceaseless concern. One twitch and I plummet.

Here is another paradox that my overly Western brain struggles to embrace: Wu Wei, the action of non-action, or the art of effortless striving. In my twenty years of schooling in three different countries, no nun, priest, or lay person ever mentioned the wisdom of "effortless effort." From violin to trigonometry, all my teachers believed that, if some effort was good, more effort was always better. Where work was concerned, the law of diminishing returns didn't apply.

When I began to study the violin, my father told me, hoping to inspire me, that the great Catalan cellist Pau Casals used to spend six hours working on a single trill. Now I have to wonder, was Casals striving effortlessly towards the perfect trill? Was he nonchalant as well as concerned?

WuWei. Skillful nonchalance. These seeming oxymorons remind me of my mother's well-meaning advice to the angst-ridden adolescent me: "Don't think so much. Be spontaneous. Just be yourself!" Whereupon I would rack my brains trying to figure out who Myself was, so I could go to work being it.

Now here I am, well into my eighth decade, striving to unlearn everything that I was taught, everything that seemed to make so much sense and guarantee results. I'm trying hard to unclench my jaw and loosen my grip, to accept things that sound insane, to combine constant concern and skillful nonchalance.

Clearly, I have a long way to go. Didn't I just write "trying hard "?

"I have known many Zen Masters, all of them cats," Eckhart Tolle
(Telemann at 8 weeks, already master of Wu Wei)

My Final Farm

Never more than a dozen hens for eggs, and two does for milk. A vegetable patch big enough for everything except potatoes and corn. Some apple trees, a plum, a pear, and half a dozen blueberry bushes. Given what else I was dealing with, my forays into micro-farming were insane, but at least I kept one principle firmly in mind: small is beautiful.

My adult life is marked by three separate ventures into self-sufficiency, all of them harking back to the  farm that kept my teenage mother and her family alive and fed during the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. When she wasn't plunging into creeks in the middle of the night to escape from bombardments, my teenage mother drank goat's milk and ate home-grown rabbits and pigeons and chickens and eggs and grapes and almonds and olives and cabbages and kale. Meanwhile, in their elegant Barcelona apartment my father's family quietly starved for the three years the war lasted, filling their stomachs with water from the faucet every night so they could sleep.

I was born five years after the end of the bombs and the hunger, carrying in my DNA the conviction that when times got bad you could grow your own food and survive, or live an urban life and starve.

My husband and I bought our first house from an older Austrian woman who had probably had some of the same fear-and-hunger experiences as my parents, and had filled her acre and a half with an ambitious vegetable garden, 25 fruit trees, a berry patch, a chicken house. I, who had never grown so much as a tomato in my life, plunged into self-sufficiency like a nun into her vows. That was farm #1.

It was succeeded by #2, after I had to give up my career following a diagnosis of CFS. I was in survival mode and thought, well, everything is going to hell in a hand basket, the least I can do is try to grow some food.

Farm #3, my best-loved, was in Vermont, where we moved when my husband retired. Besides the usual goats and chickens and vegetable beds and apple trees  there were for-real woods where I could gather ramps in spring, and fields where the nearby farmer harvested for-real hay. I used to stand in the front field watching my goats gobble dandelions and think, am I really here? Is this really mine?

But farming even on a micro scale and CFS don't age well together, and one day I threw my hands up and declared that it was time to be realistic and responsible and move to a retirement community on the shores of Lake Champlain. Still in Vermont, still beautiful, but not, by any stretch of the imagination, a farm.

I now live in a small cottage with all mod cons and never have to worry about dinner, which is served in the community center up the hill. But this hasn't extinguished my farming drive. My tiny enclosed porch has become farm #4, my final farm.

In it, on sunny afternoons, I sit with my dog Bisou and the cat Telemann. In a Japanese-style tub beside me Yin and Yang, the goldfish, lead seemingly contented lives, protected from Telemann by an electrified scat-mat. Pots of houseplants, the successors to my vegetable gardens, surround me: geraniums prompted into bloom by the light reflected off the snow, an ancient jade plant almost too heavy for me to lift, a Christmas cactus that my cat loves to chew. And, because I haven't given up on my dreams of self-sufficiency, a Meyer lemon tree and a Calamondin orange that gives enough fruit to make marmalade in case of an emergency.

Just outside the window are my substitute chickens.  Nuthatches, titmice, chickadees, finches gold-, purple-, and house-, and woodpeckers large and small eat the seeds and suet and drink at the four-season bird bath. Beneath the feeders, obese squirrels squabble over spilled seeds, and at sacred moments clever Reynard, my red fox, trots past on his slender black-stockinged feet.

Whiny Writers

Why are we writers such a whiny lot? And it's often the best writers who complain the most. E.B. White kvetched endlessly about having to write his weekly Talk of the Town piece for The New Yorker. He moved to a farm in Maine, where he hoped to be able to write more easily, only to discover that he would much rather farm than write. He lamented that, as he went about slopping the pig or gathering the eggs, he couldn’t “watch the show just for the fun of it,” but had to be constantly thinking how to write about it (see Scott Elledge, E.B. White).

Whenever Flaubert wasn’t writing, he was complaining about it to his friend, George Sand: “You don’t know what it’s like […] to spend an entire day with your head in your hand in order to find the right word[…] I spend my life gnawing at my heart and my brain.”

And here is the great Colette, at her peak, telling an interviewer, “I don’t like to write. Not only do I not like to write, but I especially like not writing […] I am so happy, so happy when I’m not writing, that it’s clear to me that I shouldn’t write…” Asked what she’d like to do instead, she answers: “Anything! Anything except writing! Carpentry, gardening, polishing the furniture …”

Colette in her eighties. Her right pinky was permanently bent from decades of writing.

Like Flaubert, she labored endlessly over every word. The appendices of the Pléiade edition of her works show that for every line of finished text there are often half a dozen lines of false starts, reversals, and erasures. So fond was she of not writing that at the height of her career she opened a cosmetology salon. Fortunately, it was a failure and she was forced to return to writing.

Me, I don’t like not writing, but I love having written. Even if I’m just writing about something cute that the cat has done, after I’ve poured my daily ration of words onto the screen I feel cleansed somehow, purged, at ease. It’s the way I imagine skilled meditators (of whom I am not one) must feel after their daily sitting.

There are times, of course, when I don’t like writing. These occur mostly when I haven’t written for a while. Then I find myself stumbling over prepositions, enmeshed in clauses, entrapped by tenses. The main thing I lose when I have been away from writing is the discipline of the first draft, which for me consists of shaking out whatever is in my head onto the screen, as if I were dumping out a waste basket.

At this point, if I allow myself the slightest backward glance over the piece, I always turn into a pillar of salt. The backward glances are the second stage. But by then I have something to work on. The page is no longer a trackless desert over which I must wander alone. There’s stuff—mostly stupid stuff, but stuff--already there. Now all I have to do is fix it, mostly by the enthusiastic use of the delete key.

When I was a sculptor I would start with a block of Indiana limestone and then make a head, or a cat, or a human figure by slowly chiseling off what didn’t belong. As a writer, I first have to produce the stone itself, by quarrying words out of my brain and hurling them onto the screen. Then I chip away until the mess starts to make sense, and becomes something that someone might want to read.