Glimpses of light; or, one for the Dog People

Rather madly, I decide to sit up all night and watch the election. I have worked out secretly in my mind that it will be an Obama landslide, and I must see if my psephological chops are still sharp.

Actually, this is mostly sheer wish thinking. And partly predicated on my inability to understand how anyone would vote for a man who once strapped his dog on the roof of his car and drove it to Canada.
I slept badly the night before, and am in the blank exhaustion stage of grief, so at first I do not enjoy it as much as I normally would. I start to get a little testy with Chuck Todd and his implements. Brian Williams cheers me up a bit; there is something about his wry intelligence which makes me feel better about almost everything.

Then, something lovely happens. Obama begins to win. He wins because the Americans, whom doughty Britons occasionally think of as rather antic and flighty where we are prosaic, who do not have our obsession with the Blitz spirit or the insane Dunkirk pride, are queuing round the block. Egregious partisans in some states are performing blatant voter suppression, but the voters will not be suppressed.

All the pundits except for Rachel Maddow have been muttering knowingly about the enthusiasm gap. Obama’s base, apparently, has no taste for the fight any more. The feckless young people will not pitch up; the African Americans are demoralised. It is the tea partiers and small staters and the pro-lifers who have the bit between their teeth. Peggy Noonan even writes a hilariously wrong column about how the President seems joyless, how his campaign is ‘small and sad and lost’.

In the end, the African American voters come out in greater numbers than ever before. Somebody says it is because they are so furious at the attempts to deny them. (Voter suppression gets targeted at non-white neighbourhoods, apparently, although my mind has to stretch and twang to comprehend that someone would do something so wicked.) The Latinos come out, and the Asians. The college-educated women, which is another vital demographic, marches out in droves, dreaming of Nellie Bly and the Pankhursts.

Suddenly, there are pictures of happy, smiling crowds. People are still queuing in some states, even though the result is now certain. Some of them waited for eight hours. I love them. Someone on the BBC jokes: if we had to wait ten minutes to vote, we would turn round and go home and have a nice cup of tea.

My Twitterstream explodes with joy. I send incoherent messages to people I have never met, congratulating them on the sweep of the battleground states. Mitt Romney ran an ugly campaign, and I am really pleased ugliness did not have its day. I imagine Paul Ryan consoling himself with a nice comforting copy of Atlas Shrugged.

At half past four, light-headed with tiredness, I go to bed. I cast a glance at the Pigeon’s bed, beside my desk. In 2008, she and her sister sat up with me all night. I say, out loud, to the empty space: ‘You would have been quite bored’. She liked the racing; not so keen on the politics. No barking and cartoon jumping for Cuyahoga County.

This morning, the air is light and mild, and the sun shines, and I spend two hours with the equines. I work the mare; I have a long conversation with the Horse Talker, which soothes me. I think about the election again; I realise that I am really, really delighted.

The World Traveller comes out and I tell her the result. She had missed the news. She smiles all over her face. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I am so glad.’ I too am glad. The very fact that there can be gladness feels like a bit of a sign. It is the first thing I have been properly glad about since Friday. I tried to watch the racing, but even the sight of the imperious Silviniaco Conti putting down his marker for a glittering future could not lift my heavy heart. Now, for the first time, there is a glimmer of lightness.

That’s the thing I have to look out for, the first gleam of light. I find that I have to concentrate very hard on learning loss, all over again. What do I do? Is it chicken soup or small acts of self-kindness or hot baths? Is it writing it down, giving sorrow words so the burdened heart will not break?

It is, I think most of all, looking for the light. I stare, stare, stare until the first watery ray is glimpsed. Then, I know I shall be able to bash on. It’s quite odd that the election of a man in a faraway country should prove to be that first glimmer. But it felt like a triumph of the better angels.

It’s not that everything shall now magically change, and Congress shall do good work, and perfect policies shall fall into place, and everyone shall have jobs. The political situation is much as it was. But there was something profoundly moving about those hopeful queues of voters; I am glad most of all that their stalwart endurance was rewarded.

My friend the Expatriate calls, from Santa Monica. ‘I think that Barack Obama is a proper person,’ she says. ‘I’ve been watching him and his wife, and I think they actually are really good people.’ I think so too. Good people don’t always make perfect politicians, but it is oddly reassuring sometimes to see that virtue is given its due. Obama could have taken his glittering Harvard degree and made millions in the corporate sector. Instead, he went to work with deprived communities on the south side of Chicago. That is a mark of character.

Plus, he is really nice to his dog.

As my sleep-deprived brain grows more whimsical, and I search hopelessly for my final sentence, I think perhaps that is why I am quite so pleased. It was a triumph for the Dog People. It was one for The Pigeon.
 
Today’s pictures:

Morning light:

















The happy herd:







They really were amazingly contented today. They have settled so well, and relaxed into themselves, and that too is a ray of light:



I imagine if the old girl were still here she would be saying – you didn’t really think they would elect a man called Mittens?:



No, no, not they. They remember Seamus the Dog:



The very thought makes me do my Lady Bracknell face:



Forgive me. No sleep really does make for inexcusable whimsy.

The hill, very blue today:

The ship sails on

A friend sends me a text. Her father died, suddenly, last Thursday. She is not only someone I like very much, but someone I admire. She is doing good things in the world. I think of the battening down of the hatches she will have to do as the storm of sorrow hits, and grieve for her.

At least, I think, this is in my wheelhouse. I can write to her. This is something I know something about. I have words for this. I know that nothing can comfort at such a time; when people use that word, I think they fall into a category error. They are, hopefully, humanly, putting loss into the same box as the things in life which can be fixed. It cannot be fixed. It is a vast, rough thing, that goes right down into the very depths of the spirit, and can only be ridden out. (The question, I suddenly thought this morning, is not how do I make myself feel better; the question is – can I take it?) The kind words of condolence do not comfort, but they do touch the broken heart, and that is important in itself.

I sat down to write, and there was nothing. Stilted, paltry sentences fell lifeless onto the page. I stared in astonishment. But I know this, I thought; this is my damn special subject. I could win Mastermind on this.

Still nothing.

I thought: I know what this good woman is going through, I must have the precise right thing to say. Then I realised I don’t know what she is going through at all. I have an inkling, because I lost my own father, but each bereavement is unique; there is nothing else like it. There are some coloured areas on the Venn diagram of sorrow, but each person must feel it in a different way. And the thing is so vast that however much I think I know it, my words are still tiny things in a howling gale.

In the end, I wrote what practically everyone writes. I am sending you love, you are in my thoughts, your father must have been so proud of you, my heart aches for you. It turns out that all my expertise is not quite as shiny and comprehensive as I had thought.

The comfort thing is interesting. Matthew Parris was on the Today programme this morning, talking of grief. He was quite indignant and grumpy, in a rather wonderful way, about the idea that one should get over it, that there should be healing, that loss is treated like some kind of mental sickness which may be cured.

‘You don’t get over it,’ he almost shouted at Justin Webb.

He is right. I remember being quite shocked, months after losing my father, when I thought I was rocking back to some kind of normality, to find that the Railway Children tears could still hurl me to the ground. What was that about? Was time not supposed to heal?

I worked out that it is not healing so much, as room for other things. At the beginning, the whole world shrinks to the size of the loss. Words on the radio are meaningless, food has no savour, ordinary people going about their ordinary business seem alien, even callous. (How can you be laughing when MY FATHER IS DEAD?)

Usual daily things like tidying the kitchen or washing the hair seem insurmountable. I am currently in the mad hair phase. Luckily, I discovered that vanity flees, in the face of sorrow, so at least I do not have to mind about my piggy little eyes and my whey face and my crazy-woman barnet.

What happens, or rather, what happened to me, is that I had to learn where to put the sadness, to fold it into a safe place in my heart, where it could still be felt, but would not overwhelm. That is the slow process that time allows. The problem with the instinct to comfort is that it can cramp this; it can put pressure on you to get on with it. The people who love and care for one do not like to see one in pain; of course they want to wave magic wands and make it all go away. But what I really need is the space, the permission to feel like hell for a while, until I can get things back in their proper order.

Parris says you damn well should feel the hole; that it is meet and right so to do. I remember thinking something very much the same last year. I remember suddenly thinking: how horrible it would be if there were no tears.

I miss my old girl so much that there are moments I can hardly breathe. I see little flashes of her everywhere. I remember all her sweetnesses, her kindnesses, her generosities. I remember the feel of her and the sound of her and the scent of her. She was a glorious creature, a rare spirit, and she leaves a gap behind that shall never be filled.

So, I asked myself this morning the serious question: can I take it? The answer, of course, is yes. I have to work out the balance. I have to allow the pain, which is immense, but I am aware that I must not fall into the pit of self-pity, and self-indulgence.

I think: go back to the small things. Each day, find something which is good, as well as feeling what is bad. So I made chicken soup, and rearranged the white roses sent to me by the dear old friend in California. I thought of The Playwright, who called yesterday from Manhattan and showed me his hotel room on the Skype, and made me laugh five whole times. I thought of the family. I thought of the astonishing kindness of the Dear Readers, which daily makes me smile. I thought of my mare and my funny little pony. I thought of all the lovely horses I shall watch this winter, as the National Hunt season swings into action.

These are not comforts; that is the wrong word. But they are goods which still exist, to put beside the bad. They are the small, hopeful winds which shall keep this ship sailing.

 

Today’s pictures:

It was a gloomy, murky day, but the hills and trees still carried a mournful beauty:

The white roses:

There is a lovely simplicity to equine breakfast time. They are all so happy and contented:

Pigeon, from the archive:

 

It’s funny. After the Duchess died, I put some pictures of her up and then stopped. Could not bear it. Now, I can’t conceive this blog without the Pigeon on it. I think perhaps she shall stay here forever.

The Hill:

America goes to vote today. Normally, this would be full festival political geekery day for me. As it is, I just hope that President Obama is re-elected. I think he is a good man doing his best in a difficult season.

I never did do my promised post on Mitt Romney. My central question was this. Everyone who knows him personally says he is a good family man, who brought up fine sons, who is faithful and true to his wife, and kind and thoughtful to his friends. But on the campaign trail, he has lied and lied and lied. These are not just the usual political evasions, the small economies with the truth that almost all operatives indulge. They are proper lies.

His campaign even seemed to acknowledge this when they said they would not allow their agenda to be dictated by fact-checkers, as if people who check facts are dark and dangerous.

And then there was his searing disdain for the 47%.

I know complexity is at the heart of the human condition, but I found it hard to reconcile these two Mitt Romneys. I also found it impossible to understand how someone who could say so many provably untrue things could be taken seriously as a candidate by such a great nation.

President Obama may not be perfect, and has failed in some areas, but crucially, I think the private and the public man are the same. Unlike his opponent, he really does believe in Americans. I think it would be rather a lovely thing if they repaid the compliment.

 

PS. As I re-read this, looking for howlers, I realise that my brain has gone into the kind of fugue state which means I have no editing capacity. I have no idea if this makes any sense at all, or if the grammar is correct, or if the thing is littered with errors. Thank you for bearing with me. Oh, and I am aware it is all a little dark at the moment. Do not fear. The light shall come again. There shall, in the not too distant future, once again be jokes. I am British, after all. We are not allowed to be serious for too long. It is written in our DNA.

The momentous news

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

The rain fell. I rather oddly ate quiche for lunch. I never eat quiche, not through prejudice, but mostly because I do not much fancy it. I had a sudden seventies moment and had some. It rather reminded me why I don’t eat it very much. There’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s nothing hugely right with it either. If I were a whizz at pastry, I might make my own, but I’m mostly in ham sandwich territory just now, on account of the book.

I did work. I snuck a peek at the Chester Vase. I was dimly aware that Andy Coulson was saying things to Lord Leveson which seemed to be making people on Twitter snigger and make naughty Rebekah Brooks jokes. And then I, rather randomly, followed a link to MOMENTOUS NEWS. I mostly shun the erratic use of capital letters, preferring the quiet dignity of italics. But sometimes capitals are the only things which will do, and this is one of those times.

The MOMENTOUS NEWS is that Barack Obama has declared himself in favour of gay marriage.

This is huge for about twenty-seven reasons. The farther reaches of the Republican and Religious Right have been saying many disobliging about gay people lately; Mitt Romney even let a spokesman go, apparently because of his sexuality. North Carolina recently added an amendment against same sex marriage to its constitution. There appear to be some people who genuinely believe that homosexuality is the work of Satan. I do not think they are being metaphorical.

So, for President Obama to say this is a truly historic thing.

When I read the story, I felt incredibly happy. I also felt oddly relieved, as if I had been holding my breath. I had not realised how much I minded about this. I watch a lot of Rachel Maddow via the miracle of the internet, and she covers the darker shores of the argument quite a lot, so perhaps it had gone into my consciousness like a thorn, and lodged there.

I’ve never really understood the argument against gay marriage. There are lots of arguments with which I do not agree which I understand perfectly. I am a fairly big government person, but I completely get the small government side, and think it makes some good points. (I believe in government on quite an emotional level, and am willing to admit my faith in it may sometimes be misplaced.)

But the idea that two people may love each other and want to commit their lives to each other and then are told they may not because of their gender seems to me inexplicable.

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, say the true believers. But why? Marriage used to be between a white man and a white woman; interracial matches were outlawed. No one could explain that either. History moved on; it moves now. The young people do not understand the fuss. (This is when I love the young people very much.) They have gay friends, they have straight friends; the vast majority of them cannot see the difference.

Oh, civil unions, people say. There is a faint whiff of the throwing of a bone. Chew on that, Gays, and let us get on with our day. You can have your piece of paper, but you can’t have real marriage, because you are not good enough. You are not quite up to it, like the Straights are. It slightly reminds me of the time when women were not allowed a university education, because it was felt their intellects were not up to it. The ladies were sentimentally lauded as the angel in the house, but could not go to Oxford in case their tiny pink brains exploded.

I was really pleased about civil partnerships, because it was so much better than what went before. One of the happiest days of my life was going to one, in the blinding sunshine of south London, holding a fat bunch of tulips. I called it a marriage; it felt like a marriage; it is being lived as a marriage. Now I think: come on, let everyone have the real thing. This odd first class, second class situation makes no objective sense.

I felt incredibly proud when David Cameron declared his support for gay marriage last year; I like very much that some Tories are calling it a truly Conservative argument instead of harrumphing about tradition. There is some backwoods backlash, but I really hope the Prime Minister sticks to his guns. They are great guns.

Beyond anything, it is a simple matter of fairness, and I think the British like fairness very much.

Love is love, says my wise sister. When you see love, why would you try and tell it it comes in the wrong variety? We need more love, not less. If people are so devoted that they wish to promise love in sickness and health, for richer for poorer, we should put up bunting. The human heart beats and yearns and lifts and falls just the same in the chests of all sexualities; it knows no difference.

All the same, there are people for whom there really does seem to be a difference, and that is why I think what President Obama did was brave, and fine, and, most of all, true. So I am hanging out more flags.

 

Despite the rain, I took some garden photographs:

Red the Mare, from yesterday, when there was some light:

Myfanwy the pony:

Their view:

Pigeon, with patient, waiting for the ball face:

And yesterday's hill, as today it is hiding bashfully in the murk:

Can't do it

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

After all that, it turns out I cannot show you the Pigeon in action. The internet is against me.

So, instead, here is another very sweet, very short video of President Obama, acting as a baby whisperer. Most politicians, faced with a wailing child, might get awkward. Obama just grins and says Oh baby, oh baby, then picks up the small person, who instantly falls silent. My best bits: the joking look what I did face Obama pulls at his wife, and the uncontainable excitement of the little girl in the front row.

It's not the Pigeon, but it's the next best thing:

Ask and Tell

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

You know I don't normally blog on a Sunday, but today is a day of such moment I can't resist. The American Senate, finally, against all the odds, voted to repeal the nasty little law that is Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

I shed actual tears, which was a bit odd, considering all this happened three thousand miles away and I know nobody in the American military. I think it was because I had got so used to bad news coming out of American politics. Every day, some idiot senator would say something egregious, or some dimwit congresswoman would peddle arrant nonsense, or some crazed governor would refuse  desperately ill people liver transplants, or Sarah Palin would shoot a caribou. The voices of intolerance rose high in a twisted chorus, and the voices of reason seemed drowned out.

I think it was because I love and admire America, and I did not like to watch it being mean and petty. Refusing to repeal a law which said that men and women could fight and die for their country but only as long as they kept their sexual preferences to themselves was the ultimate in meanness and pettiness. It also involved hypocrisy and prejudice and a turning away from all empirical evidence.

I think it was also because I still keep faith in Barack Obama, and he seemed so battered by all the forces arrayed against him. He has been called a fascist, a communist, and a socialist, by people who clearly have no idea what socialism actually is. (Repeat after me: the control by the state of the means of production.) He has been accused of being a secret Muslim, a natural-born Kenyan who took the oath of office under false pretences, an anti-American, a kow-tower to dictators and despots. The Left said he was a sell-out who rolled over for the big banks and the insurance companies. The Right said he was a maddened statist, who was coming to get their guns and kill their grandmothers. The press said he was, variously, weak, aloof, out of touch, too stubborn, not stubborn enough, driven by political calculation, not driven enough by political calculation, deluded in his attempts at bi-partisanship, and a general failure on ten different counts, heading for a disastrous Carter-style single term.

I think he is like Mohammed Ali in that great rumble in the jungle against George Foreman. I went to see that film with my friend D at the Fulham ABC, a hundred years ago, and I still remember watching with my mouth open as Ali took punch after punch, sagging against the ropes as violence rained down on him. I could not believe that a human could sustain such a beating, let alone turn around and win. But Ali took the blows, and just as you could not believe he would survive, he got up and landed the knock-out punch.

I think Obama is like that. Everyone said his healthcare bill was dead, and he got it passed. Everyone said the tax plan would never fly, but he got it through. And everyone said that there was no earthly way that he would fulfil his promise on Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The forces of reaction were just too strong. The Republicans had their tails up, and all they said was no. It was open season for bigotry, as opponents of repeal all but insisted that if such a thing happened, the armed forces would decide to regale the Taliban with show tunes instead of shooting them. There were endless threats of filibusters and procedural road blocks and the reading out loud on the floor of the Senate of eight hundred page bills; anything to stop the legislation coming up for a vote. But the president kept his head down, while all about him were losing theirs, and pressed doggedly on, and suddenly, like a miracle, this good thing happened.

It is a good thing for everyone who has a gay brother or sister or daughter or son. It is a good thing for anyone who believes in fairness. It is a good thing for all those fighting men and women who no longer have to fear dismissal because of who they love. It is too late for the 13,000 service members who already lost their jobs under this horrid law, but it means there will not be another 13,000.

The President said: By ending Don't ask, Don't tell, no longer will our nation be denied the service of thousands of patriotic Americans forced to leave the military, despite years of exemplary performance, because they happen to be gay. And no longer will many thousands more be asked to live a lie in order to serve the country they love.'

That was why I shed a tear. It's Christmas, and there is, for once, some Good News.

 

In other good news, the poor stranded niece is finally on the train, chugging north. I have instructed her to stock up on emergency sandwiches, in case the points are frozen at Montrose.

'I had a little wail on the blog,' I said, 'when I heard you were stuck at Luton.'

'I wailed all over Luton airport,' she said. 'You should have heard me.'

This what she will see when she gets home:

There will be SNOW DOGS coming to greet her.

Marks:

Set:

Go:

GO GO GO:

I know these pictures are a bit blurry and out of focus, and also there was snow falling at the time, which did not help, but I cannot resist the SNOW DOGS in action.

Here they are in their stiller moments:

And then back in the warm, all wrapped up:

Exhausted after all that snow dog activity:

Finally, here is today's view of the hill, almost entirely obscured by the snow. If you look very closely, you can just see the trace of its outline through the white:

PS. I got a lovely comment yesterday from a reader who was stuck in a demoralising hotel, so that she could get to work early the next day. She was obviously longing for her own bed, but she said that my little domestic post had cheered her up. There is usually a voice in my head that says: must try harder. I don't mind this voice too much; I think it is good to strive. But sometimes I do worry that a post has been too slight, or rambly, or even self-indulgent. To hear that occasionally something I put up here may dispel a little gloom is a very fine compliment indeed, and has made me smile ever since. I know that some of you will be struggling with travel, or unable to get where you need to go, or without longed-for family or friends because of the weather. That is why I gave you extra snow dogs, because it is my secret belief that the sight of funny black dogs running wildly through the weather must act as a tonic. They keep me incredibly happy, anyway. I hope that they put a smile on your face, wherever you are.

And may I say, one more time, ASK AND TELL. Oh yes.

PPS. Oh, and here is the lovely face I shall see when the train finally arrives: