Love and trees

‘Don’t write about the thing,’ says one of the wisest men I know. ‘Write about anything else. I don’t know. Write about jam.’

He had been talking about Pirandello only moments earlier. For five days, I wondered if I could somehow work in some marvellously clever preserve-based theatre of the absurd parable.

I failed.

I loathe unsolicited advice, almost as much as I detest dangling modifiers. The wise man is one of the very few I take it from. But this time, I cannot quite obey his good instruction.

I have to write about the thing, just a little.

Here is what happened:

I was hurt.

I got better.

It’s not the most urgent drama the world ever wrote. It’s a very, very small thing. It was salutary in many ways. It reminded me that I have absolutely no defences. If anyone wishes to shoot an arrow at my heart, it shall hit its target. On the other hand, what I am very good at is talking myself down off the ceiling. I wish I did not have to get to the ceiling in the first place, but we all have our weaknesses and that is mine.

In some ways though, I don’t want to build defences. I don’t want to be guarded, to put up sea walls, to tread with caution. My heart is worn, recklessly, on my sleeve; that is why it is so easy to hit. I’d rather it was there, than hedged about with chilly barbed wire. If I wanted never to be wounded, I should never leave the house, literally and metaphorically.

There’s an awful lot of quoting going on on the internet at the moment. Some of the quotations are the most bogus things I ever saw, like that fake Shakespeare one doing the rounds, where honour is spelt without an O. There are a lot of counterfeit Wildes cantering about, too. But some of the true quotes are rather good and often come in a curiously timely way. The one I saw three days ago which really struck me was by some old Yogi or other, and it said: meet anger with love.

Oh, I thought, do I have to? That really is quite tiring. Much easier to rant and rave, to lash out, to be intemperate, to wail and flail. Do I really have to a sodding grown-up?

Unfortunately, I am a grown-up and it’s too shaming if I can’t behave like one.

I could not not write about the thing, but I refused to write about it until I could meet anger with love. That was my rule. There would be no snide remarks or horrid passive aggressive grandstanding or phoney fatalism. I had to wait until the hurt was gone and perspective returned and I could return to love and trees.

Luckily for me, the dear old perspective police staged a massive raid. I went to HorseBack twice. I’m doing a lot of work for them just now and each time I lay my foot on their turf I am reminded how tiny my own miniscule troubles are. (For a start, I actually have a foot.)

It’s quite a good life lesson to stand in the sub-zeros, talking to a twenty-three year old who has had both his legs blown off. He is matter-of-fact and cheerful. He is funny. He has a puppy. He works hard. He does not give in to self-pity and navel-gazing. There is another fellow up there just now who has such bad post-traumatic stress that until he came to HorseBack, he had not left his flat for six years. He could not conduct a normal conversation or look people in the eye. Now he builds fences and constructs beautiful saddle racks and makes jokes.

Perspective and time and love; those are the balms. That’s all it takes to come back off the ceiling and realise one’s own absurdity.

There’s another really good saying which zooms about the Facebook with lovely regularity. It is from Plato, who knew a thing or two. It goes: ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.’

 

Today’s pictures:

Love and trees, my darlings; love and trees. That’s all she wrote.

HorseBack, dogs, love, perspective, and a remarkable gentleman

Author’s note: this is stupidly long. And this is the edited version. You might like to sit down with a nice biscuit.

 

Today was a HorseBack UK day. I almost called to cancel, because I’ve now got the clock ticking down, and every minute with the old dog is precious. But it’s important that the Mother and Stepfather get some time with her too, and she adores them, so she would spend the morning there.

It was a good decision. First of all, they are really nice people who know all about animals, and the love. Second of all, it’s a place of profound authenticity. I remember this when I was grieving my dad; I craved authenticity like a drug. I can’t really explain it. There’s a crashing feeling of: there is life, love, death, and, in my case, trees, and everything else is bullshit. I can’t be doing with the bullshit when life gets this real.

Third of all, there are horses; fourth of all, there are hills. We drove up to look at the winter quarters, where the herd shall go in a week or two. The road runs through thick Scottish woods and then breaks out at the top of a rise, and you turn in, and suddenly all the mountains open like a book, rolling in high blue waves, so beautiful and majestic it makes me catch my breath. It was that with which I fell in love when I first came here; it was why I threw everything up in the south and made the whimsical move north.

Back at headquarters, one of the volunteers, whom I had not met before, approached me. The way this operation works is very clever. There are specific courses for wounded servicemen and women, which are important in themselves, but almost more important is the voluntary programme. Those wounded in war, with scars internal or external, come back to this extraordinary place, with its beauty and its peace, and do all kinds of work, with the horses, on the buildings, and find a safe place, where they do not have to explain themselves. It is the most potent therapeutic tool, and brilliantly organic and real.

Anyway, one of these fellows came up to me and said: ‘You’re the blogging lady, aren’t you?’

‘I am,’ I said.

He looked rather grave, and I had a sudden terror that he was going to say, oh please don’t write that, or don’t use this word, or just: you’ve got it all wrong. Every time I sit down to write about all this, I have a keen sense of responsibility. These are people who have experienced things I can hardly stretch my brain to imagine. I am acutely aware of the spaces of my ignorance. It is a delicate subject, and one to which I must do justice. More than in any other area of my writing life, I feel it is vital not to get it wrong.

In fact, the grave look was because he was filled with seriousness of purpose. He had embarked on a fund-raising exercise, and now was the moment he was to present the cheque. He was giving something back, for all that HorseBack had given him. He wanted me to record it.

I felt stupidly, absurdly humbled. Also: honoured. I damn well was the blogging lady, and I was going to be able to show the lovely virtuous circle that exists in this place.

The gentleman told me, with the ready honesty that I find everywhere here, of his history. He served in the first Gulf War and in Northern Ireland. He had PTSD, which suddenly morphed itself into acute agoraphobia.

‘I did not go outside for six years,’ he said.

I’m getting reasonably good at this now. I do not exclaim, or say oh no poor you, or put on the pity face. I sense, without having to be told, that the pity face is the last thing any of them want. Although pity can come from the good human emotion of sympathy, it can also be patronising and distancing. Now, when people say things like this to me, I nod, seriously, and take it on the chin, and listen, and let them tell me their story.

Six years inside is a long time. Now, this gentleman was lifting his eyes to the distant hills, at home in his surroundings. Now, he was working with horses, which he had no experience of until he came here.

‘I could hardly lift my head up,’ he said. ‘The horses taught me to raise my head.’

I nodded, on easier ground now. I know horses.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘because you have to.’

‘Because you have to,’ he said.

You know what I said yesterday about the Perspective Police sending me a note? This was the note. My heart will break, but hearts mend. Perspective does not lessen grief, but it bloody well makes me realise all the good fortune I have, and reminds me not to throw out babies with bathwater. It restores sanity. Everything will not end. 

The cheque presentation was lovely. The amazing fund-raising gentleman said to me, out of the corner of his mouth, as we all went into the office: ‘Sometimes I’m not very good at talking to one person, let alone a whole room.’ But his short speech was gracious and fluent and perfect. ‘The first thing I felt when I left,’ he said, ‘was that I had to give something back.’ And so he did, over eight hundred whole pounds, which means a huge amount to this organisation.

The boss stood up to take the cheque. ‘It’s not often I’m lost for words,’ he said truthfully. There was a pause, whilst he found some good ones. At the end, he looked at the gathered veterans and said: ‘It’s a real privilege to work with you guys.’ Right on the money. Everyone clapped and I quite wanted to whoop and holler, but I restrained myself. I took some pictures instead.

There is a slight hippy dippy idea that the universe sends you the things you need, when you need them. I’m not quite sure about that, but Jung had a similar idea, which he called synchronicity, and the Buddhists go there too. There might just be a grain of rational truth in it. I don’t know who sends what: universe, fate, give it the name you like. But I got sent something really good. If it had not been for the mare, I might never have discovered HorseBack, and it is the absolute definition of a one true thing, and it really is a privilege to work with those guys, just like the man said.

I got home to my Pigeon. She was a bit dopey and wobbly after her anaesthetic yesterday. She gave me the Disney eyes and I fed her treats and stroked her and made encouraging noises and told her she was a very marvellous creature indeed. The Playwright called, with jokes and words of wisdom and the exact right combination of understanding and encouragement. Also, there was a call from one of the very old friends who has known the Pidge since the very day she arrived in our lives, a small bundle of black fur. The old friend is the mother of my goddaughter M. ‘The Pigeon is M’s favourite dog in the whole world,’ said the old friend. ‘Even more of a favourite than our own dog.’ She laughed. She sent love.

And talking of love, the thing that never fails to astonish me is the kindness and love sent by the Dear Readers. You did this after the old Duchess went, and you do it again now. It touches and cheers me more than perhaps you know. If it had not been a HorseBack day, this entire post would have been devoted to the miraculous nature of the Dear Readers. Who knew so much generosity of spirit and cleverness and kindness was out there, on the wilder shores of the world wide web? 

After Frankel won the Lockinge, Tom Queally said: ‘He belongs to racing now.’ In my fanciful mind, I think: the Pigeon belongs to the internet. I did not expect to have a dog who was beloved from the Antipodes to America, but it turns out that is what I do have. That’s a lot of love. Thank you for it.

The old lady is chasing rabbits in her sleep now. I take this as a GOOD SIGN. We’ll bugger on for a few days yet, I think.

 

Today’s pictures:

The happy HorseBack horses:

The view from the top of the hill:

The cheque presentation:

My sweet girls:

The Pigeon, after I brought her home from the vet last night, swaddled in blankets:

A day of two halves; or, the perspective police read me my rights

The morning started badly. It was an ugly, brown day, everything dour and muddy and blank. The mare seemed in a fairly decent mood, but once I was up on her she decided to be mulish and difficult, spooking and mucking about. Even though I know well that horses are horses, they are not naughty or wicked but just doing their horsey thing, even though I know that the faults come from me, I felt furious and frustrated and took it all horribly personally. We had a disastrous ride, redeemed only by the fact that I bashed on and bashed on, until there was the glimmer of hope.

I felt my confidence falter, and had to concentrate incredibly hard to bring it back. My last act was to walk Red past the spot where the ragged spook happened, with no reins, with my arms in the air to convince myself that all would be well. Finally, she relaxed and went forward sweetly, so we could end on the good note. You must always end on a good note.

I know that we have not been together long, and that I am asking her to embrace an entirely new life, radically different from the one she was used to. She is so good and offers me so much joy. But on days when everything goes wrong, it is easy to forget all that. I have to dig deep into my reserves, and sometimes they feel a bit sketchy. This is character building, I say to myself. Nothing worth doing in life is ever easy.

In the same way, sometimes when I write, everything falls apart. I can hardly remember how to construct a sentence, all the adjectives are the wrong ones, my rhythm falters, just as it did in the field today, and my prose falls dead and leaden onto the page.

I get the exact same feeling of humiliation and failure. The danger is that then the extrapolation express takes over, roaring down the track like a freight train out of control. It’s not just one bad ride, or one rotten writing day, it’s that I am clearly pointless and feckless and useless. There is no health in me and I might as well give it all up and breed goats. (I’m not sure why it is always goats, but that seems to be my default failure option.)

Then I pulled myself together and went up to HorseBack, for my weekly visit. I am doing quite a lot of work for them just now, in a proper and meaningful way. (Sometimes I feel I just go up there and meet remarkable people and charming horses and hear fascinating stories and the benefit is all on my side.) As always, apart from the fact that it always soothes me because everyone is so funny and nice, I get the excellent corrective of talking to actual humans who have actually been blown up.

In the American elections at the moment, thoughtful commentators like Rachel Maddow are complaining that the war in Afghanistan hardly gets mentioned, as if the eleven-year-old conflict does not exist, as if both the populace and the politicians would almost like to forget about it. It strikes me that many people incline not to mention the war, as if they were in an old episode of Fawlty Towers; they especially do not want to see the consequences. Soldiers coming home without legs is just too difficult to contemplate.

This is understandable. It is common instinct to shy away from the more inexplicable, gnarly aspects of life. Let us paint over the cracks and carry on. I like HorseBack not just because of the brilliant work it does, but because it allows me to face reality. There is the authenticity; this is the thing that has in fact happened. I may not put my dizzy head in any convenient sand. It is salutary, and a keen privilege. It brings me perspective, and reminds me of the indomitable nature of the human spirit.

So, as I get back to my desk and return to work, I think, of my frustrating start to the day: it was just one bad ride. Everything is not crashed and broken and sullied. It really does not have to mean I am a hopeless person who should not be let out in public. I can butch up and take it on the chin.

Tomorrow, I shall ride better. Who knows? I might even write a dazzling sentence. But even if I do not, it shall not be the end of the world.

Today’s pictures:

HorseBack, junior division:

No courses today, so just gentle work with the horses:

Yawning competition:

Love:

Coming in from the field:

The lovely equines:

The dreich, looking south:

At home in the garden, some autumn colour and a brief glimmer of light:

My herd:

Yeah, yeah. That butter would not melt in your mouth look is not fooling anyone.

THE GOOD NEWS is that The Pigeon has bounced back from her operation like a Trojan. A polyp an inch big was removed from her ear, she had a general anaesthetic, and she is running about like a puppy. There is still a biopsy to come, but I am hopeful. She is so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed:

Oh, that beauty.

No hill today; hidden in the cloud.

The anatomy of a bad mood; or, in which I show you my dark side

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

The anatomy of a bad mood.

Moods, unlike proper, rubber-stamped emotions, are difficult to map, and hard to disperse. I like a reason for things. If I am sad, I usually know why; if I am angry or happy, I can see the origin of it. I am quite intolerant of people who indulge their moods, and let a rotten one infect the atmosphere like smoke, so that everyone else must suffer with it. I have read all the damn psychology books; I know that you cannot change the thing itself, but you can change the way you think about it. I like to believe that we have some dominion over our own selves; we are not unregulated pre-rational creatures, constantly startled by woolly mammoths. I am a tremendous believer in the wonderful attribute of free will: somehow, somewhere along the line, for a reason that even the neurobiologists still cannot quite explain, we developed oddly large pre-frontal lobes, which gave us the power of reasoning, and choice. One of my enduring beliefs is that humans, unlike other mammals, do not have to be slaves to our baser natures, chained by our own instincts. One of my crazier ideas, nurtured by too much education, is that you can think your way out of almost anything. Come along, fire up that grey matter, and all manner of things will be well.

So when I wake up, as I did this morning, in a five star stinker of a mood, the kind that you can’t dodge (everywhere you go, there it is) I have several instantaneous reactions. There is a cussed refusal to accept it: this is not right, this should not be happening now. There is a dogged desire to hunt it down and find out where it came from: there must be a reason for everything. There is a slight sense of disgust: oh for God’s sake, you are not living in the Congo, butch up. And there is a determination to find a remedy: now, how am I going to shake this off?

Then there is the slide into a disconcerting division of self. There is the good, rational, well-brought up self, which knows that life is earnest, life is real, and you just have to get on with it. This self understands how to call in The Perspective Police and write a little gratitude list: I have all my arms and legs, I live in a nice house with two enchanting dogs, I have command of all my faculties. I am not being held in a Burmese prison, or watching my children be sold into prostitution. I do not live in a theocracy, where I may not go outside without a close male relative by my side. Even as I count these blessings, and remind myself of the reality of things, there is another self, the one that slinks out of its lair when the bad mood hits. This second self is like a furious child, who cannot be reasoned with. This self says: I feel shitty and I won’t do my work and I’m not going to tidy the kitchen and why won’t everyone just bugger off and leave me alone? And then there is a shouting match between these two entities going on in my head, and I mostly want to go and lie down in a darkened room until it has passed.

There are remedies. I find that drinking a great deal of black coffee, putting Janis Joplin singing Take a Little Piece of My Heart on the stereo and shouting along to it at full blast is tremendously cathartic. Sometimes just jumping up and down in a room and shouting fuck fuck fuck fuck very loud can get those demons out. Walking in the open air can be good, although when I am really grumpy I may refuse to go outside. And, of course, there is writing it down. Writing a thing down is the surest way I know to draw its sting; there is something about getting the hurling words out of the head and onto the page which has an almost miraculous restorative effect on the sanity.

But thinking of this now, I wonder: must a remedy be the first resort? Clearly every functioning adult must work out a way of banishing hideous moods, so as to avoid spreading the contagion over innocent bystanders. It is unfair to drag other people into your demonic day. But what if the house is empty, and you have a little space? I tend to think of bad humour as a moral failing in myself: I must be a little ray of sunshine, come on, of course I must. Jung had the idea that deep in our dark side lies a lode of gold; by refusing to countenance the blacker side of human nature, we cut ourselves off from our greatest potential. Which is all very lovely in theory, but quite alarming in reality. It is so much easier and more comfortable to be sanguine and blithe. I begin to ponder: perhaps, sometimes, in the safety of my own room, I should just sit with my filthy mood, and see where it takes me. It’s not the end of the world. It’s just a thing. (Oddly, even as I write those words, I feel my shoulders begin to come down and my mouth curving into a small smile.) My co-writer Sarah, who has a good practical streak in her which I lack, is quite straightforward about these things. ‘I am in a terrible mood,’ I say, when she calls up for our daily morning talk. ‘Oh, all right,’ she says, unfazed. ‘I’ll ring back when you are less grumpy.’ She knows that not all things can be, or even must be, fixed. Let it run, and it will pass. I, on the other hand, must anatomise every element, explain it, put it in its place, until order is again restored to the universe. She knows that a bad mood is just a bad mood, not a national emergency.

I wonder how much of this is a woman thing. I know that not everything in the whole wide world can be put down to gender, but there is still, even in these post-feminist times, a low expectation that women should be sugar and spice. We are not really supposed to get scratchy and shouty, because we are the ones who are spilling over with empathy until our ears fall off. There is, even now, a lingering idea of the importance of being ladylike. I think this might be a contributory factor to my excessive alarm at a bit of bad temper. But I think the real fault line is my own irrational belief that everything must be rational. I don’t like things that just gallop up for no reason and take over the day.

Much as I long to imagine there is an answer to everything, and an explanation for everything, and a nice neat solution to everything, I may have to concede that this is not always the case. Maybe I should finally learn to understand that life is messy and muddly and unpredictable, and, however much I might want to, I can’t make it shiny and straightforward and explicable every day. The entire underlying premise of Backwards is the importance of accepting one’s very human flaws. I know this to be true. It’s just that every so often I have a slip, and fall back into the mad idea that the human condition is, in fact, perfectible. So I am going to sit very still, and embrace the random and the messy and the inexplicable, and put on Janis Joplin very loud indeed.