Pushy Visitors

When I came back at noon from running errands today, Lawrence had to tell me that Bow had misbehaved while I was gone. Bow was making a lot of raspberry sounds, so it was hard for me to hear what Lawrence was saying. "It's because ... came by," was all I could hear.

"Who came by?"

"Jehovah's Witnesses. ... You've heard of Jehovah's Witnesses?"

Well, who hasn't heard of Jehovah's Witnesses? Of course, I had. In fact, Bow and I have met a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses. There was a time when Bow was riding on my back all day, and the only kind of rest I could get was to sit with him on the front porch for a while. It was before he was confined to the pens. Before there were any pens. But it was after I could no longer allow him to move freely through the house. As long as I held him, or he was riding on my back, Bow behaved well. But if I put him down, he would run around like a madman, leaving destruction and chaos in his wake.

At first, I told myself that I would get things done while we sat there on the porch. I brought out a canvas and paints, but Bow would not let me concentrate even on that. The moment I had my back turned, he'd snatch a tube of paint, and before I knew it, he had swallowed all of its contents.

So it was that when the Jehovah's Witnesses dropped by, they always found me sitting on the porch with Bow, doing nothing. They would come by, and they were polite but persistent, and they would not leave unless I  accepted a pamphlet. I tried not to argue with them so as not to prolong the visit, and also because Bow can sense even the slightest animosity between people, and it can set him off. But as soon as the Jehovah's Witnesses had driven away, I would turn to Bow and ask: "Do you want to read this book?" He was always very interested, but as soon as he had finished reading it, he would start chewing on the edges. This would happen every time the Jehovah's Witnesses came by, until one day they caught Bow with one of their pamphlets. "These are very valuable, and they cost a lot of money to print," they told me. "If that's what you're going to do with them, we're not going to bring you any more."

"Okay," I said as meekly as I could. And that's how I got the Jehovah's Witnesses to stop coming by. And they haven't been here for years!

But today they dropped by again, and they wouldn't take no for an answer, even though Lawrence told them that he had his own beliefs, and that he doesn't live here, and that he was working, and that he had to get back to Bow. Nothing could convince them not to leave their booklet. So finally in desperation Lawrence said: "Fine, give me the booklet."

When he got back to Bow, Bow had peed in several different places in protest.

"Why were you bad?" I asked Bow at lunch.

"Because a bad man came to bother us."

Bow's Concern for My Image

I've been working hard on trying to master the CreateSpace publication path. I have various manuscripts in memory in each of my old laptops, and the hard disk can fail at any moment. Yes, I have hard copies, too, and some things are backed up on CD and DVD, but it all seems very risky, and I want to stop sitting on old manuscripts and just get them out there to the public. The best way to preserve a document is to continuously make copies of it, and CreateSpace offers to do this for free. So even if I don't look at it as a potential revenue stream, it's a great system for archiving.

However, I do have to learn a few technical skills before I can make use of this service, and Bow doesn't like it when I concentrate for long periods of time on any one thing. Just as I try to influence Bow to focus his attention, Bow tries to influence me to scatter mine. Because we have no choice but to spend twelve hours a day together, this is give and take goes on all day.

"You never finish," he spells. Then he tickles the bottoms of my feet, and we play chase. I jump up and down with him, or we play music and dance to it. But just as he can't stand to concentrate on a task for long, I can't stand to stop working until I have finished. So I go back to the computer, and he goes back to fidgeting.

Finally, I finish a hub in which I share my frustrated efforts to put together a CreateSpace book cover. I go over to the other side of the glass to play with Bow. He spells: "Mommy, don't tell them it's hard for you."

Bow is concerned about my reputation! He wants people to think I am smart.

Bow's Fame

A reader of this blog emailed this morning to ask whether Bow is aware that he is a little bit famous. She suggested that while this might not make up for the fact that he has no girl friend, it might be some consolation. The answer is yes, he knows about his fame, and in fact he has an exaggerated awareness of his own importance in the world at large. He often asks me not to write about certain things that he has done, because he doesn't want people to think that he is "bad." Right after doing something not so nice, he will spell: "Mommy, don't tell them that I did that."

I am now reaching an uncomfortable point in chronicling my family's life, because both my kids have become aware, painfully aware, that I write about them, and I have to exercise a little more caution about what I say. I myself up until recently thought that I was writing for an audience of strangers, only to find local people to be among my readers. I have to watch what I say more now, so as not to hurt the feelings of my children or of the people they interact with.

In Bow's case, his awareness of his public image can sometimes grow way out of proportion. He knows that many people do not believe he can write, and he is not planning to enlighten them. He'd rather they continue to think that, because someone once told him that his life would be in danger if the truth came out. This has created a sort of paranoia that puts him at center stage, even when what is going on is not about him at all.

Once, somebody knocked at our door by mistake.   He was trying to find one of our neighbors, but  these country roads can get confusing, and he was lost. I gave him directions, and off he went. All this time, Bow was watching the front door from  the pens. When I went back in with him, Bow spelled. "That man lied. He's not lost. He came to see me."

"Bow you're not the center of the universe," I tried to tell him. "Not everything is about you." But he was not convinced.

The best thing in the world for all of us is if Bow stopped worrying about other people and their opinions and started thinking of his life in a more down to earth context. He needs a social life a lot more than he needs fans. And he needs to start doing something productive for his own support, rather than expecting everyone to provide for him.

We do get donations, and we are grateful for them. But the best thing would be if we could also contribute something to the community we are a part of and trade value for value. Bow is so smart! It would be a shame if he didn't eventually find something constructive to do with all that intelligence.

Two Things

I've been busy writing on Hubpages, while Bow has been making rasberry sounds all day. Every once in a while I go in to deal with potty issues, and I always ask him if he wants anything. "Bow, do you want anything?"

Finally, after the umpteenth time, Bow spells: "Two things."

"What two things?"

"I want not to hear about locks."

"Okay." I've been writing about locks all day. "And what else?"

"I'm bored."

I guess it's time to stop writing, and time to start jumping around. So I'll make this post brief.

A Visitor for Bow: Friendship and Sharing

Yesterday Bow had a special visitor. Linda, the daughter of our computer consultant, Tracey,  had a day off from school, and she came by with her dad just to see Bow. She was shy at first, but Bow did his best to show her his friendly side. He knew in advance that she was coming, and he was on his best behavior.

Bow can be quite intimidating when he chooses to be, flinging himself at the pen doors and displaying his strength to anyone who doubts it. But with Linda, who is eight going on nine, just like him, Bow was friendly, jumping up and down and trying to engage her in a two way interaction. He restrained himself admirably and did not start showing off his strength until she was more comfortable in his presence.

"Does he ever laugh?" Linda asked.

"Yes, he does, but he does it without using his voice." I demonstrated by doing a voiceless "ha, ha, ha", which is more like panting, and less like talking. As soon as I started, Bow joined in with his voiceless "ha, ha, ha", just to demonstrate. Then I tickled him, and he laughed louder, and this time for real. It's hard to tickle a chimpanzee, because they are all muscle. You have to apply a lot more force than with a human. But the laughter is the same, only without vibrating the vocal cords.

When Linda felt really secure with Bow, she let him have some cherry/lime soda that she had brought in a styrofoam cup. Though Tracey and Linda could not go in with us, they could share the soda with Bow through a straw that fit into the holes in the grid. Bow finished the drink, but there were still a cherry and a slice of lime deep within the styrofoam cup. To get those, I would have to bring the cup into the pen for Bow.

"How about you thank Linda for the soda," I suggested to Bow.

He spelled: "No," in Hebrew.

"I think you should," I insisted.

Bow switched to English. "T-H-A-N," he spelled, but there was a huge pause at this point.

"K-Y-O-U," Linda suggested.

Bow spelled: "K-S", opting for the shorter version.

He ate the cherry rather quickly, but the lime piece took a lot longer to consume. First he sucked all the juice out of it, slowly, puckering his lips at the sourness. Then he ate all the pulpy part. And after that, he kept chewing on the peel as if it were the greatest of delicacies.

"You make that look so good, Bow," Tracey said, "that after I get home I'm going to get me some, too, and try it."

No sooner had Tracey said this, then out came the lime peel from Bow's mouth, what was left of it, and Bow tried to stuff it into a hole in the grid so Tracey could have some. And they say chimpanzees don't like to share!

"No, no, that's okay," said Tracey, who didn't really want to share Bow's treasure. But Bow kept trying for a very long time to get that slice through the grid.

Accepting the Things We Can't Change-- and Fighting Tooth and Nail to Change the Things We Can

I have a friend who is in her late eighties. She and I speak on the phone about once a week, because we  live in different states and cannot meet in person. She is about thirty-seven years older than I am, and we met when I was in my late twenties. My friend is vibrant and alive and healthy for her age, and she is a happy person with an active social life. In fact, her social life is a lot more active than mine. As we were about to hang up the other day, she said: "You shouldn't let your animals run your life."

She meant Bow, but she could not remember his name. She can't seem to remember that he is a chimpanzee, anymore, either. But she knows that I have to stay home all day with him, and she doesn't really understand how I could let that happen.

"If I were you," she tells me, "I would not let my animals run my life. I would go out whenever I wanted to, and if I found they had misbehaved when I was gone, I would punish them with such dire consequences that they would not dare repeat it! I would beat them within an inch of their life."

Bow is sitting there right next to me, and he hears every word she says. It used to make him very angry when she said such things, and he would act up, and spell "she is bad" on the glass, and I used to have to caution her to stop, but now Bow sits placidly by and tolerates this. He's long since stopped trying to correct her when  she refers to him as a dog. "She is not okay," he will tell me later. "She doesn't remember anything."

My friend suffers from short term memory loss. She is still the same person she was before. Her personality hasn't changed, and her wit can be quite sharp. She remembers the great depression very clearly and can tell you how to grind wheat into flour by hand. But she's not good at remembering what I told her last week, or the week before, or a month ago, and she doesn't remember things that she knew about me nine years ago.

Now, normally, I am very critical of people for not remembering things. If I have an acquaintance who doesn't remember anything I tell him, I figure this acquaintance has not been paying attention, and I ease up on the contact. But this friend can't help it. This is something that has happened to her recently, and I know that it can't be helped. So Bow and I forgive her for saying what she says.

There are other friends, more distant ones, who voice similar concerns, or who fail to voice them, but give off that kind of vibe. There are friends who do not understand why I can't go visit them but insist that they come see me. Or who, when they do come to see me, don't understand why I have to stay  in the pens all day, unless Lawrence relieves me. They have animals: dogs, cats, horses, and they love their animals, but their animals do not run their lives.

For people, especially rural people, who have never dealt with a chimpanzee, but who have plenty of experience with other animals, it may seem as if I have failed to discipline Bow, and I have ceded my life over to him. But among the chimpanzee activists, I have critics who voice the opposite complaint. I once had a volunteer who chided me for hosing Bow down for a potty violation. As far as that volunteer was concerned, Bow could do no wrong, and I should let him get away with anything he wished to do, because after all, he is just a chimpanzee.

I don't punish Bow for things he can't help, but I do hold him to the highest standards in matters that are within his ability to control. I do not force him to talk. He talks because he wants to. But I do require him to abide by certain minimal rules of hygiene and respect for others. The fact that he does abide by those rules is proof that he can. To the extent that I am not able to enforce other rules, it is because he can't seem to control himself. But I am forever testing to see if perhaps he has acquired more self control.

Bow and I are in the pens, because he can't be trusted outside the pens to abide by the rules of the society we live in. I've received angry messages from some readers, along these lines: "Shame on you for putting Bow in a cage. You're the one who should be in a cage!"

Well, I am in a cage. I'm in the same cage with Bow, and I will continue to  be in the cage with him, until he is able to have more freedom. This may happen in one of two ways: either Bow will develop the self control that will allow him to live in our world outside the cage, or I can get him a much bigger cage -- like that island we dream of-- that can be like a world of its own, a self-sustaining ecosystem that will support him, even as he lives apart from human beings.

I believe in discipline. I believe that whatever freedom we have is due to our own self-discipline. I'm doing my best to foster that in Bow. But it makes no sense to punish someone for what he cannot help. I apply exactly the same standards to human beings.

And this is why Bow and I no longer try to correct my  friend when she urges me to beat him within an inch of his life. We understand that she can't help it, and that we can't change her. We accept her the way she is, and we don't walk out on her. We don't cut her out of our lives. Just the way I don't walk out on Bow.

Stormy Weather

Bow hates stormy weather. Last night, around dinner time, we had a gale blow through. The sky grew dark quite suddenly, and the trees bent in the wind, and the rain came down as though it meant to flood the whole world. Bow started to rock back and forth, concerned. He always takes the weather much more seriously than I do. He almost refused to eat, but I told him that the storm was not putting us off our schedule, so he ate and rocked simultaneously for a while, until it died down. When the storm was over, he completely relaxed.

I wonder, sometimes, how Bow would do if he were on an island of his own. How would he deal with the weather? We used to go  outside a lot, on my property, on some other property that we have access to and even in the Missouri park system. Whenever there was dew on the ground, early in the morning, Bow refused to tread on it. He insisted on sitting on my shoulders or riding on my back. Of course, he was still a little one back then. If he had others, younger than he is, who were counting on him, would he take care of them? Would he put them first?

Leadership, ultimately, is more than bullying others into doing what you want. It is also taking responsibility for your decisions on behalf of others. I hope that Bow will be able to handle that challenge when it comes.