The Blue Room
I had a beautiful dream. Truly beautiful. I am not going to try to describe it. I couldn’t do it justice anyway. It was so poetic and emotional. I wish I could go back to it. Is it any wonder I love to sleep?
It is remarkable how much of a difference the playground can do to my life. Sitting at work on Wednesday (with my underwear on the wrong way) I was so tired that I could barely stay awake. Barely think. After work I went to the playground and suddenly I felt all good. I know some of the change can be attributed to the difference between sitting in an office in front of a computer and then sitting outside in the fresh air and occasional sunshine. But still. It’s such a huge difference. It’s as if you take two completely different days and mash them together. As if a painter painted half his painting in cubist style and the other half as realism. Kinda like watching From Dusk Till Dawn, the first part is fairly normal and then suddenly it’s a vampire shootout.
When I talk to social workers or therapists or doctors or other well-meaning people and they ask what I want to do with my life, what kind of work I want to do, I always have problems coming up with a good answer. I just don’t have a clear view of what I’d like to do. Inevitably the talk always turns to something with computers or writing or typing or something like that. But maybe I’d be better of with a job where I have to be outside. With animals. Something like that. I wish I was better with kids. More comfortable with them. I can do okay in small doses at the playground. When kids want to go in with the goats but they’re afraid of Mads and I help them. Or answer questions about the animals. Or even myself. But actually doing something where I’m responsible for the kids, I don’t know if I could ever do that. Otherwise I would love to have a real, full-time job at the playground. That would be perfect. It’s a socially important job, it has lots of animals and kids and other outside things. But I’m sure you need some qualifications too. Too bad they can’t hire me as a full-time goat keeper.
Hmm, I have lost track of my thoughts now. I will finish with some pictures, just to share my cubistic well-being.
Hehe. I like that picture. Mathilde reaching out as the girl offers her a plant.
A boy feeding Mathilde.
Ah, they grow so fast. Little Mandela humping his heart out.
3B and Vanilje.
in a dream we are connected
siamese twins at the wrist
June 10th, 2006 at 1:46
Lasse, so how do the people who take care of the playground animals make a living? Do they get paid for running the playground and farm or have a second job? Might be worth your while to ask them. They sound like really nice people who definitely like you and your way with animals. They might be easier to talk to about such things since you already know them.
You have some wonderful skills: photography, writing, computer skills, get along with animals, good one-on-one skills with people or in small groups. Maybe you could do some free-lance work at home on the computer for people and have a part-time job working with animals.
Goat story: our pygmy goats like to sleep outside at night on the big empty cable spools we have for them to play on. (The spools are like the old wooden spools that thread came on, only much, much bigger. They use them for cable/wire by the utility companies.) The goats sometimes sleep on their own spool and sometimes they will be asleep next to each other on the same spool. You know you’ve got it bad when you like to watch sleeping goats or goats eating hay. Sigh……. Wish I knew what they were thinking sometimes.
June 10th, 2006 at 6:00
You already have some very important qualifications – ones that aren’t learned through school or apprenticeship. You’re observant, patient, and you connect with the animals. The people who work there know this about you already and that’s why they trust you to look after the animals. They also seem to appreciate you in a way that’s different from how they are with other visitors. You’ve become special, a member of their club.
When someone asks you about the kind of work you’d like to do, what you might want to do is think about how you’d like work to make you feel. Happy, energized, fulfilled, challenged and then think about activities that make you feel that way. Being around the animals and the children and the people who care for the animals fulfills you, so you could safely say, doing work that supports animals and also helps to make people feel good.
Where I live, people who own dogs, – some of them – take the dogs to care homes for the sick or elderly, because the dogs help people to feel better, much like the goats have helped you to feel better about yourself and the world. I could see you doing that. Being a bridge between an animal and a human being.
There’s no reason you can’t also include writing and some computer work with your passion for animals. For example, you could make films or produce a website for the farm, or educate people about the place. You could write stories about it.
Most good things kind of evolve on their own. For example, before you discovered the play ground you didn’t think that’s where you wanted to spend time. You just stumbled on it and kept going back and here you are now…you didn’t plan it. You might find that happens with how you earn a living too. That things just develop and one thing leads to another thing…and everything kind of fits together nicely.
One day in 1993 – and I remember the day perfectly as if it were yesterday – I happened upon an article on elephant orphans. That article changed my life, but I didn’t know it then. Thirteen years later and all I want to do is stuff around elephants. I had no idea before that day in 1993. Who knows why? I used to ask why. Now it doesn’t matter why. I’m just grateful I have a passion for something, that I believe in something, that it’s very important to me.
We all need to feel passionately about something, to believe in something. I think you’ve found something that’s really important to you, that connects you to the world. And you are important to it. That’s what makes it special and enduring. You are important to it.
June 11th, 2006 at 20:56
Deb – They get paid for their work there yes. I’m not exactly sure how and how much and so on, but it’s fulltime work. Thank you for all the nice words. And thank you for the goat story. That made me smile big. One of my favourite things is just watching Mads, when he’s sitting in the sun and making little groaning/snoring sounds and closing his eyes. Bliss. And when they eat hay too yes, chomp chomp chomp. We got it bad, eh. Hehe.
June 11th, 2006 at 21:01
Katherine – Yes, that’s true. But I might need some qualifications on paper too. Maybe I’ll talk to them sometime. It can’t hurt. Maybe I can take over the whole place when they retire. Now that would be something.
I once thought about being a vet, but I’m not sure I could handle all the negative parts of it. Skye and I once talked about breeding dogs or so. Of course then I’d have to be able to let the little guys go. Heh.
I love your love of elephants. Some people might think it’s odd to love animals like elephants or goats. I remember the first time I gave Mads a timid touch, half expecting him to bite my arm off. You just never know before it hits you.