GROWING FREE OF EXPECTATION

adolph gottlieb

I found another measure of my own psychological maturity, or so it seems from the point of view of the interior life. I think I mean by psychological maturity the ability to absent self from a tiresome situation right away without hanging about trying to look like I'm interested, without pretending. I used to try to please people around me who ruled by disapproval. I'd try so very hard to at least give the appearance that I'm approval oriented. I went to a psychotherapist over that one. Had a highly educational experience on the path of Know Thyself. One of my many core questions was why I allow self to be manipulated by disapproval. I've recently seen that approval does not have the hold on my psyche it onetime did. I don't dare attempt to fool myself by saying I don't lean toward approval, and disapproval has no power with me. That would really be fooling myself. I don't take disapproval in this time of my life like I did young when the preacher's wife, who didn't approve of anything, ruled absolutely. I came to a place I said to preacher friend, Millard Pruitt, Since everything I do and can do is a sin, I'm free, I can do anything I want. So what if I sin when I can only sin? No, it's not like that. This is how many of our conversations went. He was still pre-Copernicus and I was post-Darwin. Two cosmologies lay stretched out over several hundred years between us. He was pre-Renaissance and I was post-Modern. It was quite a gulf. I felt like we met on a bridge between his world-view and my own. We were of very different cultures. His culture was in the past of the culture I came from, but he had no reference for my culture. When I talked, it put him to sleep. I encouraged him to talk; I loved hearing stories from his life. He represented for me at the time mountain culture. He was one of my more significant teachers, who, like his brother I worked the farm with, taught without teaching. 

jean arp

I didn't even bother about his disapproval. His disapproval was so absolute it was meaningless. I learned in childhood never to say anything that might provoke judgment. More than likely, that's the origin of much of my character. It was an easy lesson to learn, because it was hell to pay if I ever slipped up and said something like shit or even worse. The kid learned young to edit everything spoken. We start individuating at about three, so by eight or ten we're individuated. I was and it seemed to me the other kids around me were. I recall at about age eight sending a message to my future self, my adult self, to remember that kids are a whole lot smarter than adults can see. I've remembered it every time I've been around kids. I recall one of the random times I saw the Tonite Show with Johnny Carson, he had a woman I supposed was famous and I didn't know it, Selma Diamond. I enjoyed her so much I remembered her name. She was chatting about baby-sitting kids, taking care of kids she knew whose parents were out. Carson expressed dismay she could be so long-suffering. She made it clear the kids are wonderful fun. She said, "They're just little people." As indeed they are. I think of Roman Polanski's film, The Pianist, Warsaw in the time of the German occupation. Polanski, himself, was an eight year old Jewish kid in Warsaw in the time of the film's story. His parents and extended family were taken away. He slipped out of the city and disappeared into the countryside to be taken in by a farm family where he stayed and worked with them throughout the war. That eight year old made some serious decisions. They didn't destroy him. Decisions made in that time gave him the drive that makes him go.   

eva hesse

I've found when I'm around people who disapprove and wait for key words to get in a huff about, I see them like a hawk sitting on a wire waiting for something, waiting for It. Gives them something to talk about later in other company. I don't like to be around people I can't talk with as I talk with my friends. An experience popped up in the front of my mind from several years ago. I was visiting some people I knew who were new here from Florida. They also had invited to my surprise the biggest gossip in the county and her husband. I was miserable. I couldn't talk, knowing everything I said would be told in altered form to a given gossip circle all day next day. I could name many in the circle. I felt like Martha the dog stuck at the door between me urging her out and Caterpillar outside hissing at her, not allowing her to step forward. There wasn't much I could do. I just didn't talk. Couldn't talk. I imagined anything I said misquoted on the phone a dozen different ways. You might say I was struck dumb. Of course, I was judged all the more mercilessly because I didn't talk. It was actually quite obnoxious, but I didn't know how to break the spell of silence. It was like knowing you're being recorded by surveillance cameras. Alone in a room watched by surveillance cameras, I would tend to sit still. Do a meditation. Take a nap. Surveillance cameras have become a new form of the disapproving eye. Add to the disapproving eye the approving eye of the cell phone camera that can also be a disapproving eye. The cell phone camera is subjective, the surveillance camera objective, the eye of law enforcement. A song is playing in my head by Chaka Khan, God Is Watching You. She sings it that God is watching in loving support, yet in certain religions God watches you in disapproval. You sin. The omniscient surveillance camera has a video file on you. You don't have a chance. That's the God I grew up under, the god of disapproval. I prefer the God of love; approval, understanding, allowing, supporting, embracing. 

jaap mooy

It seems like what happened was I took one more step toward freedom from other people's expectations. That's a great freedom in itself. For a very long time I cow-towed to expectation. It got incredibly confusing after awhile. So many different expectations from so many different egos unto conflicting expectations. Finally, it came that expectation is another form of control, especially the silent expectation that can easily be denied if called on it. When I start feeling silent expectations coming on, I'm gone. The humor is that when I saw the light that other people's expectations have nothing to do with me, only with them, that was the end of being expected of. I didn't understand it, still don't, but that's how it bore out. As far as I know I'm free of other people's expectations. When somebody projects an expectation on me now, I pay it no mind. It pisses them off. My attitude: leave me alone with your expectations that are for you, not for me. This is a time in the life that if somebody gets bent out of shape because I didn't say or do what they expected of me, I say: You bent yourself out of shape. I had nothing to do with it. A good one: You're an artist, I expect you'd want to be on the studio tour. I expect you listen to MO-zart. Actually, there are other composers I prefer. We expect to see ye, next week, brother. I had to cut out paying attention to other people's expectations for my own personal behavior. They sent me on an endless maze like a Kafka story, going from bureaucratic office to office looking endlessly for why. It took a long time to learn that other people do not know what's best for me, what I'll love. Netflix recommendations based on what I watch very seldom have one in twenty I would want to see. Amazon's recommendations are closer than netflix's, though they're still way off. I expect you would want to (fill in the blank) is always as far off the beam as a netflix recommendation. I've come to see expecting of others another form of control. I have the choice to participate or not.
     

jasper johns

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DROPPING IN AT THE JEWELWEED STAINED GLASS STUDIO

varieties of colored glass

Dog Martha from Allan's house down the road came into the house. I leave the door open for Caterpillar to go and return at will. Martha sometimes comes in and eats Caterpillar's food. I didn't let her eat Caterpillar's bowl of catfood and told her to go on outside. She sat just inside the door. She usually obeys when I tell her to go out. She sat just inside the door. I went over to encourage her to go and she looked up at me with sheepish, pleading eyes. Caterpillar was just outside the door glaring at Martha. If Martha were to move, Caterpillar would swat her. Martha wanted to go, but squealed instead. Caterpillar hissed. I encouraged Martha to go by opening the door a little wider for her. She passed by Caterpillar within an inch or two. Caterpillar hissed and Martha tucked her hind end and hurried out of Caterpillar's reach. The look in Martha's eyes was so beseeching it was pitiful. They said she wanted to obey with all her heart, but Caterpillar was looking at her. Dog couldn't move. Couldn't back up into the house and couldn't go outside. Stuck. Caterpillar hissed as soon as Martha moved. Martha out of Caterpillar's way, Caterpillar stepped into the house, not in a good mood. Dog smell in her house, not acceptable. Martha is a grown dog with white hair on her face. I've known her since she was a pup. She's a good dog all the way around. She needs to be yelled at to get her attention, but that's the only part of her short of ideal. She's a good guard dog and a good guardian. Any dog that might try to dominate me would have Martha to deal with. Martha is a tough country dog. She has good stamina and she's strong. She has shorter legs than her big sister Jolene, and when they were young, Jolene could easily outrun Martha. Martha kept at it and taught herself to run faster than Jolene. 

caudill cemetery by tj worthington, 1990, 16x20

I went to see Allan next door. I was taking him a painting I'd made years ago of the Caudill cemetery in Air Bellows. Allan does genealogy and frequents graveyards. He said this is the only painting he'd seen of a cemetery. He said, People don't paint cemeteries. I said, People don't buy paintings of cemeteries. Surely, some have been painted, like old Southern cemeteries I'm sure have been painted. Seems like most people are afraid of cemeteries. Fear of dying. Don't want to face it. A picture of a cemetery kinda speaks of mortality and runs a crack through the liberty bell of denial. I was hoping Allan and/or Gary would be in the stain glass studio. I was wanting to see what they're doing. Hadn't been there in at least a month. Thought I'd drive. It's a little far to walk carrying something. To get out of the car, I had to struggle with Martha and Jolene, both wanting to crawl inside the car onto and over me the moment I opened the door. I had to put my leg up for a barrier, use an arm to push them both back. They're like cows in a stockyard crawling over each other to get to the gate. I yell at them, tell them to get back. They tussle in a pretend fight. They're jealous of each other like the donkeys. A human nearby and both dogs want to be first with equal zeal. Once I'm out of the car they settle down, but only after I've had to struggle through both of them crawling on each other trying to get to me and I'm putting up my leg to stop them. The opening to get out of the car amounted to two dogs struggling to climb onto me while I'm still in the car, desperate. I've known both dogs all their lives. They're good dogs. It's an expression of their affection. I was in no danger. With these two dogs around I'm not even in danger of a bear. They would fight anything for my sake, or for Allan, or for Gary.

gary medley's project

Both were in the studio. Gary is working on a big window-sized piece of a palm tree, a beach, foliage, sun in one part of the sky, moon in another part of the sky, playing with different textures and colors of glass, piecing them together as puzzle parts. Harvest moon when the moon rises in the sky opposite the sun setting. It's quite a production. His next project is another large one of Hills To The Sea landscape of Blue Ridge Mountains and a bicyclist. I can't even imagine how he will perform that one. I saw so many pieces of colored glass, I was awed seeing so much can be done with glass. Glass is a whole study in itself. It wasn't very long ago in years that nobody knew what glass was. Glass is a relatively recent invention or discovery or both. Allan has his own projects in his own station. I have to applaud what they're doing. They're making it work for them. They keep at it. They've learned that it is necessary to sell a lot of low cost items. They sell crosses and stars, then wonky stars, wonky peace signs. Wonky means lopsided, no straight lines. They're nice. Gary has begun to make owls with big round eyes. They get commissions for windows, for doors, for things to hang in a window. These are people doing what they want to do and making it work. They are making beautiful objects, actually working with light, playing with the whole spectrum of light. The pieces are put together on a tabletop, how it will appear in the light has to remain in the imagination until it is finished and held up to the light: the moment it comes to life. I've enjoyed seeing their individual progress in the years I've known them.      

by allan joyce

Allan's designing eye leans more to the geometric abstract. Gary likes to translate scenery to glass. Makes it easy to tell their work apart. They have samples showing in the River Rock restaurant next to the bowling alley, the coffee shop, and a few other spots in town. Over the years of knowing Allan, he has educated me in the possibilities of stained glass artistry. I went with him to West Jefferson to see a place with some nice stained glass several years ago. He took me to a stained glass place in Winston-Salem and someplace else, places where he buys glass. The stained glass world is a whole world unto itself. I had never considered there would be such big business in making and selling colored glass in varieties of textures. I've been surprised by the business Gary and Allan have of making pieces with colored glass every day and selling them consistently and often. They evidently have created their own market. Quite a number of people like what they are doing and the number is growing. Before I knew Allan, I knew stained glass was a form some people made some beautiful art with. But I never thought about where they found the glass, how they designed and soldered the pieces together. It is fascinating for me to see the production, like Gary's layout with the palm tree, determining the shape of a piece of glass, cutting it, wrapping its edges in copper foil. I say plural edges. Seems like a piece of glass would have one edge all the way around, but that doesn't seem right either. I can see Gary growing one step at a time. Each piece he puts together is a bit more complex than the one before, using what he learned before and stretching out looking for something new. Allan's eye I see growing conceptually. By conceptually, I mean his visual ideas in the abstract grow more interesting, in some ways simpler, in some ways more complex. It was a good feeling in the studio, good energy, colored light energy.

by allan joyce

allan joyce

gary medley foreground

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HIGHER UP THE MOUNTAIN

larry rivers

I'm seeing new reasons why I'm glad to live on Waterfall Road. Almost anywhere Appalachian would do, but this particular spot, my home, is the very place that will do. Every day when I see the news of the day before, it affirms a saying by a friend of several years ago, It's time to move higher up the mountain. I feel like I am in process of moving higher up the mountain again. My periods of moving higher up the mountain have been enough that I feel like a Himalayan climber; climb as much as you can in one day, set up a new camp with tents for sleeping in to go from there in first light. I'm satisfied with my separation from the worries of what is going on "out there," the world around me, the world of commerce. Alas, commerce is all that's going on out there. It's too boring to participate in. Anywhere I go I'm required to have money to spend. I stay home more than I ever have, and want to more. I don't know if I pay attention to current events and develop an attitude from what I learn there and project it onto the world around me, or if the human condition is getting as weird as it seems like it is. Or maybe I'm not the only one made crazy by media. I've found that when everybody is doing something, tv is the influence. The styles I see change in the people around me are from television. I can read the attitude of television seeing it in the people of my life, peaceable people not generating headlines. And for the first time in my life, I'm hearing somebody say every once in awhile, "I don't watch television anymore," or, "I don't watch much television." I seldom know what to say when somebody says they don't watch tv anymore. I want to tell them this is the beginning of a new and better life for them, but don't. I can't say I'm heartened to find a few people aren't paying tv any mind. I'm not an anti-television missionary. I figure it has its role for the people that need it. I don't need it, don't want it, can't tolerate it for myself, but don't believe it's necessary for me to browbeat anybody with my point of view. My point of view is my own. Your point of view is your own. I can appreciate yours without denying my own. What you can appreciate of mine does not deny your own.

larry rivers

It has happened several times in the last months that somebody I'm talking with mentions they don't watch television anymore. It comes about because I expect everybody around me is watching it, so I mention something I got from internet assuming they got it from television, and am told they don't watch. I'm wondering if this is a trend. Everyone who says they aren't watching it anymore says it almost apologetically, like they're admitting to feeling patriotism wane. I can't assess anything from my new findings that some people are turning away from its influence, though it feels good to see someone I know taking a turn toward a better life. Better in that the clutter of commercials jangling in their heads takes less precedence. I still have in my head commercials from the 1950s, the last decade I watched tv: halo is the shampoo that glorifies your hair; from the land of sky-blue wa-a-ters; he said that she said that he had halitosis; Meeska, mooska, mouska-teer, mouse cartoon time now is here. I've carried that nonsense in my head about all my life. Individually, memories of commercial jingles are more or less benign, but a head full of them from watching tv all my life would be maddening. I'd be a master at trivial pursuit. Back when I had the misfortune to be caught into playing Trivial Pursuit, the 1980s, I did terribly on the low score questions. They're all about television. People in the game would taunt me about not being able to answer the questions. You can do better than that. Like I'm not participating. Then we get into the high score questions and they're often from reading; suddenly, I'm scoring and they're not. I win and they're pist with me for my arcane reading. When rape is epidemic, look to television for the key. When cops killing people and saying he had a gun is epidemic, look to television for why. I call much of our social unrest artificial, because it is created by television, not by life circumstances. It is important to me for self to live everyday life ethically. I cannot have a head full of television and live ethically. Driving home from watching tv all afternoon on Sunday, the race, golf, football, basketball, baseball, at least a thousand commercials, my head is spinning and I need a week of no tv to be able to face it again the next Sunday.

larry rivers

Why do I do this to myself? Friends I watch the race with all work. The only chance we have to get together to visit is Sunday afternoon watching the race. It's not like cartoons, our attention can drift away from the tv and we can talk freely. It's like the tv is a focal point for us, the car we're riding in by way of metaphor. We talk and laugh, interact with Vada, watch her play. I started a game with Vada a few months ago, finding a coin in her ear. One day it occurred to me to find a dime in Vada's ear for a fun thing to do. Next visit, she turned her ear to me, "Do you see something in my ear?" I said, "No, I don't see anything right now. We'll look again in a little bit." To give myself a chance to scour my pocket without being seen. She knew what I was doing, but it was the game that was important. After a few times of pretending, I'd just take a coin out of my pocket and stick it in her ear and pull it out, gently, just enough so she can feel the coin with her ear. Sometimes I forget to take a coin and it's so disappointing to her I can't find money in her ear, I remind self to remember next time. It's become simply a way to give her a quarter each time I see her for her piggy bank. We both know that's what we're doing, but the game of pretending to find it in her ear is where we have the fun. It's more fun than handing it to her and telling her to put it in her piggy bank like a disinterested uncle. I wasn't even thinking about piggy bank. I do it for a play interaction, a game to play together. It's turned into something expected now, and that's ok. It's not the money in it that matters, but the play. I value in myself the freedom to play games with kids. I love about our coin in the ear game that we both know it is pretend. The fun is in the pretending, a game of fun like rolling a ball back and forth. An interaction that bridges the gap between a baby and a greatgrandpa figure is fun for both of us. I'm incomprehensibly far from her and she's incomprehensibly far from me. We have a gulf of experience between us, yet we find a way to communicate, like two people who speak different languages can find ways to communicate.

larry rivers

Some weeks ago, watching the race at Melvin's house, his girl, Beth, 13, told us she could talk to us in a way we would not understand anything she was saying and it would be perfectly clear to anybody at school. She also told us anybody that likes Star Wars is a geek. Not only do we have years of experience between old and young now, we have generation gaps. There are so many generation gaps between me and Beth, the bridge is one of those rope bridges that is one person at a time. It made me laugh, took me back to 1955 when I was 13 and rocknroll was in its beginnings, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Bill Haley, Elvis, Buddy Holly, and new words were "hep." That's Fifties hip. It changed in the Sixties, anyway for the white young. Cool was new. Every other word was crazy. Bill Haley had a song, Crazy Man Crazy. We had a new language coming in with the new music. Pop was new. Parents were partial to the big band sound and Frank Sinatra. "Rocknroll will never last," they said. Alas for them, it was big band and Sinatra that didn't last. I see a similar change has occurred with the cell phone generation. Like the band Government Mule. They're still recording and doing concerts. It doesn't mean they're the latest word for hip. I feel like such a gap has occurred again. Rocknroll has become irrelevant. Only parents and grandparents still listen to it, largely. The music has changed radically. Rocknroll is now one of a thousand genres. After a quarter century of punk, the original punk ideal has come into play, the freedom to do whatever musical expression trips your trigger. It's in this same way cultures become irrelevant. Old time mountain culture has zero relevance for now. The oldest people who lived it are long in their graves. The greater American culture that television has guided will change too. There will come a time geologists will be unearthing our tombstones too. I've watched the changes all along my way, until by now I'm glad I got to see it, because I wondered how rocknroll would eventually become irrelevant, wondered if I'd live to see the change. There are so many generation gaps between me and the people around me that I've learned to communicate in that place where you don't need the same common language or culture. It's a curious time. We're conforming with all our might and individuating to the same degree. All I know to do is roll with it.    

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DONKEY JACK AND DONKEY JEN

donkey jenny

The donkeys are such good natured donkeys that I am able to know them as I would know a dog. Big powerful beasts I would not have a chance attacked by one with murderous intent. They don't have court. It would take a lot to make a donkey kill a man, but mistreating one is a very dangerous thing to do. There comes a time they've had enough. They know my size and they know their size. They know I'm easy to push over. I'm not as certain on two feet as they are on four. I'd be gone in half a minute if one of the donkeys went at me furious. So I don't make them furious. I treat them the way I want them to treat me, and they do. Every living thing gives what they get. It's natural law like gravity and the speed of light. This is why it's in all the scriptures of all the religions. I don't hit donkeys with a stick, they don't kick me. I love having a friendship with a beast as powerful as a bear and with a brilliant mind that catches on as fast as a child's. I feel completely safe with the donkeys. Children are safe with them. They adore kids. I've tamed them not by training, but by loving them. I love them, they love me. I recall in the first weeks of becoming acquainted with Jack, one day I was visiting with him and said to him, You're my friend. He snorted and shook his head like in a slight uncontrollable spasm. He understood what I said. He liked hearing it. Every time I call him Friend, a mild calm runs through him. My familiar name for him is Donkey Jack. He likes Donkey Jack. I have both of them proud to be donkeys. I praise their beautiful donkey nature, their donkey minds, their donkey faces, donkey ears, donkey body, donkey legs and hooves, donkey speed, donkey power. I tell them both daily they are beautiful donkeys. At carrot time, I get down and look Jenny in the eye and say, I love you, beautiful donkey. Her eye responds by showing a degree of relaxation. Jenny's familiar name is Donkey Jen. She likes her name and Jack likes his. Both like to hear me speak their names. 

donkey jack

One day before Jenny arrived in the meadow, I was in the donkey shed with Jack. I said to him, I'd like to be able to ride you. He snorted, wiggled his head and held it down. I felt like he was saying he'd like me to ride him too. I said, But I'm so heavy now, I wouldn't want to risk hurting your back. He smiled, snorted and it felt like I heard him say, Thanks for the consideration. I heard those exact words in my mind's ear. I wondered if I might be tapping into his telepathic zone. I feel so certainly they read me by way of telepathy, I go to them with clear mind. The only danger I have in the meadow is they get so jealous, they'll take turns keeping the other away from me. At the fence in the morning for carrot time, Jack in his Alpha role comes running. He squeals and brays. I give him carrot while Jenny takes her time walking along. She approaches for her carrot, Jack squeals and snorts, donkey growling, turns his rear end to her telling her to stay back, MY ice cream man! Jack settles down as quickly as the gesture was begun. Jenny backs up a little to get out of range if Jack were to kick. He doesn't kick and she reaches to me with her lips reaching for carrot. Jack settles down and they stand side by side munching carrot. It was quite different in Jenny's time as Alpha. She would arrive at the fence first. As soon as Jack was anywhere near, see went at him kicking him, biting at him, sending him in a big half circle around her on his way to the carrot. I'd step over a ways to make it easier for him getting past Jenny. Once he took his first carrot, Jenny settled down. She was haughty with him, bold, a very difficult woman with Jack, and kicked him so much he took to liking it. She is bigger than Jack and feistier. However, when Jack goes into action, he is fierce as a dog. I saw Jenny and Jack fight enough during their early months together to get the picture, they are powerful. They fight like horses. I know better than to piss off a donkey. Like I say, they don't have court, nor do they have the Ten Commandments. 

jenny trickles down

It's by the force of their will they allow me to live. Both are free to swing around and let me have it any time I'm around them. Once, I stepped in the way when Jenny was about to pop Jack with a back hoof and she touched my leg. It was no more than a touch. At the moment of contact she realized she'd hit me, not Jack. She withdrew the power from the kick immediately so all I felt was a mere touch. Another time, I stepped between them just as Jack was hauling off to let Jenny have it. His hoof touched the back of my hand about like a butterfly landing. He realized on contact he'd hit the wrong one and pulled the power out of his kick so it was just a touch. I didn't scold him. I was impressed. I said, Thank you, Friend. I heard a statistic from a reliable source that in the course of a year more people around the world are killed by donkeys than die in plane crashes. That was the only thing I knew about donkeys when Jack took up here. I imagined an awful lot of men who work donkeys are not good to them. According to the range of human nature, some are good to donkeys and some are not, in degrees from one pole to the other. The statistic tells me a donkey will take abuse like a dog, but unlike a dog, a donkey doesn't have loyalty unto death in its nature. Donkeys want to please us. Don't allow the opportunity to be pleased, hit them and only scold them, there comes a moment the donkey says, I have given you my all and you did not deserve it. The western USA has wild donkey herds. I'm sure the mountains of Central and South America have herds of wild donkeys, herds that came from donkeys that escaped perhaps an abusive human and reproduced into a herd. Surely the Middle East has donkey herds in its remotest regions. Iran is covered with mountains. Surely donkey herds live in those hills. Southeast Asia surely has wild donkeys, rural China, Siberia. Original donkeys in Somalia are endangered down to around 500, the number shrinking fast. They eat them there. They also live in extreme poverty.

jack sniffs it

I want my donkeys to have a good donkey life. Ideally, they would live in a herd, but herd is not practical in circumstances here. I don't want a herd to deal with. I don't want a dozen kick-boxers stamping around me jealous of each other, back ends hopping up and down, legs kicking. It's weird enough between two of them going into a kick fest, even knowing I won't be kicked. I don't like to test trust. Trust gets tested by way of unforeseen circumstances enough without pop tests complicating it. I step out from between them and say, I'm going back to my barn. They settle down and return to grazing. The donkeys have shown me what I've seen in other four-leggeds I've known, dogs and cats, they hear, see and pay attention while giving the appearance they are not. We learn from the time we're babies that we are required to show that we are listening when talked to. They've never been taught you have to at least act like you're paying attention. I talk to them while they're grazing and they show no sign that they're listening, except I can see it in the way they're grazing that they're multi-tasking, grazing and listening to the ice cream man. Jenny and Jack are so familiar with the camera now they get frisky with it. Invariably, they, both of them, will run their nose right up to it just as I'm about to take a picture of a donkey face, giving me a donkey nose, and sometimes donkey teeth. Both act like they want to bite it but I know they only want to feel it with their lips and teeth, so I let them. Jenny made a dive for the camera, I held it for her like a carrot and clicked when she opened her mouth. Now that Jenny has given Alpha over to Jack, which she did in May, she is gentle and sweet all the time. She's still frisky Jenny, but only when Jack gets too close. Her eyes are different when she's not Alpha. Alpha, her eyes flash, she's in control, she's in charge, she wants all concerned to be aware of it. I so seldom see that flash in her eyes anymore, I sometimes wonder if she's not well. Her eyes are calm and serene all the time. She seems like she's in meditation with eyes open. Jack is a let-it-be Alpha. He is the lookout for the territory and first for carrots. Jenny defers to him as her conqueror. Once Jack conquered Jenny, she fell in love with him and passed Alpha to him.      

   

jack curls his lip

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