“Oh, monsters are scared," said Lettie. "That's why they're monsters.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Greeting Dear Ones!

There is a raw and dreary beauty in these mornings wrapped in river fog. The dullness of the sky actually shows off the foliage to its best advantage. In that seasonal union of the sublime and the ridiculous, all roads north are clogged with “leaf-peepers” this time of year—people (quite literally) driving very slowly to look at the silent fireworks of sumac and sugar maples in full glory. The locals shrug and roll their eyes. Deep down, we are all somehow gratified that so many feel the invitation to wonder, to marvel, to savor life (and death) in this moment. They came to “be here Now” and bear witness to the grandeur. A grandeur we who live here might forget to see, so common it becomes so soon. They are both a humble reminder to look around and a reason to add an extra twenty minutes to each journey, as “Now” starts to soak up a little of “then” too. I bless them as I drive.

On a recent drive to Massachusetts, I passed through a series of small towns getting all decked out for Halloween. There is a new kind of oversized skeleton that seems popular with those who like to festoon their lawns and shrubbery with phantoms and fake spider webs—as if enormous vegetarian arachnids feast on pumpkins and chrysanthemums. What is it about human beings that make us want to garland our dwellings with such grotesquery? I have enough real monsters at home and in my shop, never mind adding a few more synthetic ones massed produced in factories that are themselves probably one of Dante’s rings of hell.

I’ve been thinking about my own monsters lately and what I am doing about them. The first little monster is a wee chap named Chip. He was christened “Charles” but was too tiny to carry the weight of such dignity when he was born. He was just a few ounces of chocolate wool in a basket by the wood stove the day he decided to live. The phrase “gentle as a lamb” has not applied to him for some time now. He has become an obnoxious pest. When I discovered my terrified neighbor dangling from a peach tree, screaming, because she was afraid he was going to come after her and ram her, I had to have a little chat with him—a chat that involved me sitting on him so that he could “hear” me better, via his entire, non-verbal, wooly carcass. From then on, it became a daily necessity to “flip Chip” and teach him some manners. I told him in no uncertain terms that he was turning into a monster that nobody liked and that his little uninvited visit to the party up the street, where he rudely ate all the crudités, tipped over the table, and chased the teenagers, was not to be forgiven soon. No one likes a party-crasher who brings nothing, eats everything, and annoys or terrifies the other guests. (Such is the enduring problem of confused sociable beings with poor boundaries.)

Chip has a buddy called Wally who, though normally tame and sweet, has been attempting to court all of his aunts, sisters, and cousins in the herd. Wally also has a horn defect that means his horns, if left unchecked, will grow around his head and right into the back of his skull and pierce his walnut-sized brain, which is composed mostly of an irrepressible ego convincing him he is suave and adorable. (So it is, so often, with lusty males who assume they are Breeding Stock…) When I saw him trying to get it on with his elderly Grandmother Willow, I called the vet.

So! Last week, we went through the barn and castrated all the eligible monsters, including the bulls. As my witty lodger wryly noted, “Since you are still looking for a new name for your farm that is preferable to ‘The Land of Lost Plots,’ perhaps you should consider calling it ‘Wethering Heights’?” Indeed. I can see the brochures now: “Welcome to Wethering Heights: Feral Females at Play. No Balls Allowed.”

Personally, I think it is a tragic thing that too much testosterone causes an abundance of trouble on a farm. I have nothing against males in general nor testicles in particular and I understand how traumatic castration can be to an animal. (Don’t worry; ours were done humanely, with anesthesia!) The surgical recovery is hard for a day or two and the risk of infection genuine. But it is a truth universally acknowledged that eunuchs are far more manageable and less dangerous, so we do it. The bulls, approaching five and six months of age respectively, were hardly dangerous yet but very likely to be soon. They are getting stronger all the time and even their affection can lead to bruises. (I took a horn bud to the chin last week that left a blue robin’s egg on my jaw.) Uncut, an angered dairy bull can be genuinely murderous.

I want these boys to remain the sweet, gentle, open-hearted chaps they are. I love how they put their chins up to be scratched and roll their eyes back in their heads as if they have just eaten a peach when I get exactly the right “spot.” My biggest fear is that I might become afraid of them. I know they could become “monsters” if not handled correctly—with consistency, affection, and discipline, so I show up every damn day to redraw our lines and to teach them that their world is safe, that things like bicycles, mailboxes, and yapping dogs are to be ignored. I tie them up and flap things like tarps, feed sacks, sweatshirts, and newspapers at them from a safe distance until they are bored, relaxed, “Unflappable.” Dangerous Monsters can only grow in the presence of extreme fear.

The way to keep them from becoming monsters is to teach them that the world holds no monsters. Of course, they never imagine that they are acting like a monster—they think the strangers (boys on bikes, people walking dogs, mail trucks with flashing lights), the others are the unsafe creatures who will harm them. I makes me think of every major world religion that has ever gone to war with another major world religion—they say ‘is not we who are the monsters, but them.’ SO wrong. They should all be tied up and flapped at.

The very word 'Monster' probably derives from the Latin, monstrare, the root of 'to demonstrate', or maybe monere, 'to warn'. The first known use of monster was in the 14th century but the idea of dangerous creatures possessed of warped super-human characteristics is as old as storytelling itself. My favorite literary monster is Beowulf’s Grendel, probably because he had a mother, which I somehow find endearing. Is he descended from Cain through his matrilineal side? We don’t know. (It might explain so much.) It’s not clear to me that Grendel is not some form of human, albeit with trollish qualities. He evokes my pity because I know his mother failed him. She did not teach him that his isolation is an illusion, that flappy things are safe, that to be a welcomed member of community, one must not arrive to the party empty-handed, drink everyone else’s beer, then insist on playing fiddle tunes only he knows… He feels maligned and misunderstood, fearful, rageful. His lack of place within a tribe, his lack of identity through knowing himself and others is what makes him not just obnoxious but truly dangerous.

Monsters aren’t just yard ornaments for no reason. In literary terms, Monsters are demonstrative. They reveal, portend, admonish, advise, warn, instruct and reveal necessary horrors to those who would be heroes. Such stories help us to do battle with ourselves and our own psychological demons.

What replaces fear? Love. How do we begin to love? By being familiar. By Recognition. By the steadfast repetition of work, boundaries, expectations, service, and affection. With glad and joyful hearts, we show up in small ways until nothing is scary any more. The thing that is making me not fear having two giant animals capable of uprooting trees on my property is the solace that I will know them and know how to handle them because I started when they were tiny and never let them feel too big for me because I kept at it. Having a working team of oxen seems like a badass thing to do. It’s not. The badassery occurs in the hellish micro-moments it takes me to convince myself to get the hell out there and do my time with them. Daily. So it is with writing, with practicing a musical instrument, growing a garden, or having ten yards of vintage Chinese silk on the cutting table that needs to be two blouses by Friday. (Oh, how I quake in my boots at the thought of taking shears to that!)

There are so many things that feel like “monsters” to us—because the size of the commitment seems too scary. To love another person, raise an ox, or rear a child—requires facing a lot of monsters. Over and over, we must ask ourselves, “am I creating a monster?” or worse, “am I the one becoming the monster?” (like when I didn’t immediately bury the surgical remnants on operating day and Iris, the visiting Great Pyrenees who works the night shift guarding the barn, discovered the gory bucket and well… um… ‘had a ball’ as they say.) But the monsters shrink when we look at them straight on and keep looking. They dwindle to little chores that are do-able. One day, three thousand pounds of muscles and horns will stop dead in its tracks and meekly back up, just because you ask it to, if you’ve done your homework well. As a twelve-step buddy tells me “One day at a time… and if you can’t manage a whole day, half a day works too.”

Well, my Darlings, I’m off to chop that silk and shrink the monsters and do what ever small, kind thing I can do to keep Fear from winning today. I hope you are too! Good Luck! Thank you for your Good Work. Let the Mending Continue!

Yours aye,

Nancy