My Gentle Barn (10 page)

“Clearly,” Scott said, standing up, “it feeds you more than I ever could.” And he walked out of the room.

I felt his hurt like a punch in my own stomach, but I didn’t see any way to go backward. If I stopped doing what I was doing, I’d be horribly unhappy. Yet if I kept it up, he would be equally miserable.

Scott had always known about me and animals. I’d told him all about my childhood and the way I’d brought home hurt animals and tried to make them well. I’d told him how animals had been my
only true friends, my only true family. And I’d told him—more than once—about my vision of having a haven where animals and people healed one another. He’d always smiled and nodded, but apparently he hadn’t been listening. Or maybe he’d just figured I would never actually follow through.

Truth be told, I was not thinking my way through some grand design to create my vision; I just kept following my impulses, sniffing after those whispers that had always led me. I’d stashed that dream away so many times it had sort of gotten lodged at the back of my heart. Frozen in place and forgotten. But little by little, with each new animal I brought home to the barnyard, my heart had melted just a little bit more. Until finally, two months after the last petting-zoo rescues and just a couple of weeks after our second horse, Shy, had arrived, that frozen dream was fully thawed. And it dislodged and fell with a thud at my feet.

“Oh my God,” I said out loud. I was standing amid my now-healthy farm animals—fifty in all—and there at my feet, laid out before me and filling my yard in full, glorious color, was my vision, plain as day. The baby goats springing around the yard, the chickens scratching and pecking at the dirt for bugs, the pigs in their pig pile in the barn, the horses and goats and sheep commingling in harmony. “This is it. This is my haven.” I had healed all these beautiful beings, and they were healing me, daily. How I’d not seen what I’d been up to was beyond me, but finally I was in on the secret.

It’s time to share this with other people
, I thought. The name The Gentle Barn came to me in a rush, traveling the same pathways as the whispers that connected me to the animal world. I snapped up the name, saying, “Thank you!” to the sky. “Genius!”

“You’re going to open to the public?” Scott said. “Our house will be open to strangers?”

“Not the house,” I assured him. “They can come in through the
side gate.” Then I added, thinking it would ease his concerns about the growing cost of caring for the animals, “After the grand opening I’m going to ask for a donation to get in, every Sunday, to help with food and vet fees. Eventually we’ll be self-supporting, and I’ll even earn a salary.”

But Scott wasn’t the least bit assured. “Strangers in our house?” he said again.

Slowly, limpingly, Scott joined the parade. Not that he ever got on the bandwagon, but grudgingly he followed along behind it.

I spread the word about the grand opening in every way I could think of. I took out an ad in a local parenting magazine and I papered the town with fliers. The event even appeared in the calendar section of the
L.A. Times
. In preparation for the big day I bought extra brushes so people could try their hand at grooming the animals. I bought popcorn to pop and lots of drinks, as well as extra treats for the animals. Five neighbor kids signed on as volunteers, to remind people: “When a sheep or chicken walks away, he’s saying
no
.” The kids would be stationed in various sections of the barnyard to help teach “animal-speak” and to be sure all the animals, as well as the people, were safe.

The day before the grand opening, I scrubbed the barn top to bottom and spread sand over the dirt in the barnyard to make it softer on the animals’ hooves. Early the next morning I covered the picnic tables in the grassy part of the yard with red-and-white checked tablecloths and tied pink bows in the two horses’ manes and tails. I also re-raked the barnyard every time an animal relieved himself. My barnyard was going to be spotless.

The grand opening was held on August 25, 1999. Though Scott wasn’t anywhere close to thrilled, he tried to be supportive and helped out by taking care of Jesse so I was free to interact with the visitors. I was planning to open the doors at ten, and by nine thirty there was already a crowd of people waiting outside. When I finally opened the gate, a flood of kids and their parents filled the small grassy yard just
behind my house. Before I ushered them past the second gate and into the barnyard, I introduced myself and the Gentle Barn and talked about the animals they were going to meet; I explained the signals an animal gave when they wanted to be left alone and asked people to pay attention to their cues and to please not chase them. Then I led everyone into the barnyard and toured them around. As I told each animal’s story, it occurred to me that my barnyard was like a giant walk-through storybook; everywhere you turned, there was an incredible character with an awe-inspiring tale of courage and triumph.

By now almost all the animals were comfortable with humans and wandered happily from child to child, nibbling treats. In the heat of the afternoon, I brought out a huge basin and a hose, and the kids gave our horse Shy a bath. And Katie, who was still not terribly happy with people, was used as an example of animal-speak: When a horse puts her ears back, she’s saying,
Back off
.

The entire day I had a huge grin plastered on my face, until my cheeks hurt too much to keep smiling. I kept looking around, my eyes wide, not quite believing so many people had shown up. Some small part of me didn’t believe it was real. I’d created something that I thought was the most beautiful thing in the world. But for years, everyone in my life had shot this dream down, had scolded me for bringing animals home, had gotten rid of them when I wasn’t around, had begged me to just stop that “nonsense” and be a normal human being, and yet here was a crowd of people praising me and congratulating me and asking all kinds of questions about the animals. These strangers cared about what I cared about. What a shock. What a thrill.

The day filled me up with so much excitement and so much joy, I wasn’t just walking; I was hovering. I floated to the gate to shut it after the last visitor had left. I floated through the cleanup of the yard. I floated to recoup Jesse from Scott, who had been on parenting duty all day long.

OK, Ellie
, I told myself as I gave my son a hug.
Now it’s time to be
present with Jesse
. But I kept catching my mind wandering back to the opening, wanting to replay scenes from the day. I’d pull myself back into the moment, back into my son’s world.
Be in present-time now. Jesse is just as important as this morning was
. But again I’d catch my mind wanting to drift.

The entire afternoon and evening was like a tug-of-war with myself. The Gentle Barn Ellie on one side and Ellie the mom on the other.

By the time Jesse was fed and bathed and put to bed, I was exhausted. I found the guestbook and sank into the couch to read over the names. I counted 150 visitors in all. What an amazing start!

When I finally went to bed, Scott was already asleep. I slid under the covers next to him, my body weary but my heart brimming. I let the bed have my weight, but for a long time I lay there awake, replaying the day over and over in my head.

Just a few months before, when Mary’s gaze had locked onto mine at that godforsaken petting zoo, I’d had no intention of changing my life, or of stealing time away from my little boy or putting a strain on my marriage. But that little goat had nudged at my sunken dream and had begun buoying it to the surface. Each animal who followed had joined in, urging me on and bringing back to light my very reason for being. What I didn’t yet see, however (and wouldn’t fully see for years to come), was that the more my dream became a reality, the further it would edge Scott’s dream—and his needs—out of the picture.

The Gentle Barn puzzle was coming together. Two major pieces were now in place: the animals, and the public who were coming to meet them and learn their stories. But there was one more critical piece that needed to be snapped into the puzzle. The at-risk kids.

I’d done an internship with at-risk youth back in college, and I’d recognized myself in them right away. Most of them had been abused or neglected. Many had tried to commit suicide or were addicted to drugs. I’d seen one teen after another whose eyes were blank, like the light had gone out; they’d experienced so much pain that it had just been easier to shut down entirely. And just as I’d always been drawn to the most damaged animals, the ones no one else wanted, I was drawn to the kids no one else knew how to help. Many of those kids ended up
in the juvenile justice system. Some of them ended up dead. Most had had people give up on them. I wanted to act as witness to these children. I wanted to tell them, “I see you, and I see that you’re good. I see that you’re whole and likable and have something to offer the world.” And I wanted to let my animals help me with that task.

Now I finally had the chance to bring animals to those kids, or rather to bring those kids to the animals. I could finally put this idea into action. So, right after the grand opening, I started calling around to rehab centers, group homes, and schools in at-risk neighborhoods. I also called facilities for special-needs kids. I expected to run into resistance or at least a little red tape, but one facility after another said, “Great! When can we come?”

Oh
, I thought.
Wow. Wonderful
. And yet, some part of me froze. I expected to have time to prepare—like months … or a year. Not that I needed to prepare the barnyard; the animals were ready to meet these kids.
I
was the one who wasn’t entirely ready. As soon as I penciled the first group of at-risk teens into the schedule, just a few weeks away, I started to panic. What would I do with these teenagers? Would they even listen to me? Maybe they’d think the barnyard was boring. And what if something went wrong? What if an animal spooked and kicked or bit someone?

This first scheduled group was from Daybreak House—a local probation camp; these kids were tough. Maybe they’d get out of control and I wouldn’t be able to rein them back in. And the worst possibility of all: maybe they’d laugh at me or even hate me.

Over the coming weeks, I planned and replanned the first session of my first group. Every step of the way, I questioned and doubted. I’d always been so sure animals could help these kids, but maybe it was just a misguided fantasy. Maybe it wouldn’t work at all. The night before the group was to visit, I went over my plan again, tweaking this or that part of it, then second-guessing myself and changing it back.
We’ll start with the horses; kids love horses. Or maybe it would be better to start with the smaller animals and work our way up. Some of the kids
might be scared of big animals
. I’d written down the lines I would speak, like a script. I wanted to be sure to come off as wise, and maybe even witty. I wrote down facts about the animals I wanted to share, as well as each of the animals’ stories. When I finally went to bed that night, I set my papers and a pen on the bed next to me, just in case I got any good ideas in the middle of the night.

The next morning I woke up before my alarm went off and jumped out of bed to feed Jesse and get the barnyard ready. The group wasn’t coming until the afternoon, but I wanted to be certain everything was just right. With Jesse on my back, I fed the pigs and goats and chickens and ducks, and the entire time, inside my head, I was going over and over my plan for the session, practicing various lines. I wanted so badly for this first group to go well. I wanted to connect with these kids and to show them there was a path out of the darkness.

When the barnyard was spotless, I gave Jesse lunch and got him ready for the Mommy’s Helper. Finally, at ten minutes to one, I slipped out the gate to await the van from the probation camp. As I waited I tried to read over my plan one last time, but I was so nervous I wasn’t able to focus on what I was reading. And besides, so many things were crossed out, with little scribbles in the margins, I couldn’t make all of it out.