The Measure of Love (Tigers And Horses. A Prelude)

May to August are always busy months for people living in the northern hemisphere who are working with animals and plants. I am no exception, though were it entirely up to me, I’d spend my job from morning to sunset outdoors and have no office hours whatsoever until September at least.

I love the days before the solstice, which are already so bright and long that true, astronomic night does not fall for weeks. One day, I would love to experience the midnight sun. And I love the summer days after the solstice, which still linger on and on and make us feel like we had so much more time.

There is nothing more precious than time.

As the season shifted this spring, I finally caught a sense memory of that tug towards life, towards the light, of that urging and becoming and growing. And now, it has become something precious that is finally a persisting experience again. It is coming to me slow, like a hesitant, fey creature. I am sitting in a sunny clearing and hardly dare to breathe for fear of startling it. It reminds me of an unbroken horse: if I turn my back towards it and pretend I am very busy doing something out of its line of sight, I can soon feel some swift, light steps behind me. Eventually, a soft horse mouth nibbles at the hoodie or the collar of my shirt (a tad unaware of its large teeth), like, whatcha dooooing? So curious, so playful! This small horse is making me laugh with joy. She smells of the earth and grass and wind, she is real and warm.

This picture came back to me while I thought of a Sunday this spring, when I took someone to see a small herd of mares my workplace utilizes to increase biodiversity through grazing. They are a particular breed which, research suggests, should cope very well with the local conditions and can stay outdoors for long stretches of time. A lovely side effect is that one frequently gets to check up on them, and that there is always time after testing the water pump and walking the fences to pet some very, very curious and impudent young horses.

And as I had someone with me who truly understands and loves horses, I had the pleasure of watching her, too…

It is the oddest thing to witness the wind picking up after the longest doldrums. It resembles a migratory rush, or a stampede: all of a sudden, there is a powerful movement of limbs, a dash towards the green pastures, a surging towards the pull of the moon. I am a little stunned on the side of the event, watching it unfold and taking note as I do. It is different from how I used to be torn away and glad for it, reckless and careless, with abandon; I do not believe I am that woman anymore. What has happened to me in 2024 has transformed me deeply. And while sometimes I notice that and wonder if I ought to grieve what is past, nowadays I catch myself as look up at a smile that could doom angels and a pair of eyes which, to borrow a turn of phrase by Susan Cooper, seem like they can see the wind. So, yes, I grieve. And at the same time, I am hoping. At the same time, I am joyous.

Later in July, I have some very sad news from home. This is what I am dreading all the while I am living, by my own choice, in another country. Getting that one call, that one message. Knowing there is nothing left to be done but to endure, somehow. To what end? Must we truly lose one another, one after another after another, until the pain of losing is so great that, finally, losing our own life will seem bearable in comparison to having to carry on living with loss? Is that its purpose? Not that I really believe in a purpose to anything… what is, just is…

But I often find myself wishing I did.

Weeks pass before I am able to catch words to express myself. We lose Dolly, and then, more unexpected to me and way too soon, we lose the wonderful, wonderful Cassandra Wilson, who I always longed to see live again. (Yes. That double meaning here is apt.)

Only then, while I am commuting to work in September, finally, language returns with a gift of one elusive, precise phrase:

‘Why is the measure of love loss?’

It takes me two fully days to remember who it is by. I do now.

(And for that inexcusable brain delay, my sincerest apologies, Jeanette Winterson.)

Winterson, Jeanette (2001), Written On The Body. Vintage Books London.

Cooper, Susan (1997), Der Graue König, Ravensburger. Original English edition The Grey King, Atheneum Publishers, New York. 1975