Pop 89: The Passion-for-Animals Gene
By Madonna Hamel
madonnahamel@hotmail.com
I look out my living room window at a field. Some days the field is full of cattle, and in the spring, calves skip and scurry back and forth like puppies. Recently the field’s been graced by horses. “Graced” is the only word for it. Unlike humans, horses never seem to strike a bad pose. Even their rear ends look elegant with those muscular haunches and swishing tail. It’s no accident we refer to long hair pulled back as a pony tail. And whenever I see a woman toss her hair, in laughter or conversation, often in flirtation, I think how much like a horse she is, tossing her mane. I am reminded that we, like horses and cattle, are herd animals too.
And then there’s those muscular cheeks and jawlines beneath those big soulful eyes. In art school, we were encouraged to draw from life. I did my best to find critters, mostly birds and dogs. But when I drove away from the city and home for the holidays, I would pull over once I got to ranch country, sometimes in Merritt, always in Naramata, to draw horses. Their lean legs and barrel chests stirred in me a kind of infatuation, a respect for natural beauty.
In an essay called “Creature Comfort,” Marie-Lynn Hammond writes about how a horse saved her from falling into a deep depression. She writes: “I want humans to remember we are animals too and ought to stop fouling our nest. Because maybe you don’t need a guru, a therapist or a million bucks, maybe all you need is a cat.” Or a horse. Or a ride on a horse.
Yesterday I went horse-riding with sister Michele and my pal Avril in the hills just north of the dam on the West Flat. I have not ridden since I was eight and got bucked. I wasn’t hurt, but I was frightened. And I remember feeling sad that the horse did not like me, or could not feel my awe and respect. Instead, I assumed, he felt my fear and would have nothing to do with me.
Later, when my family moved to the Okanagan, my grandfather, out of the blue, called my mom and said: “Aurore, you have to come out here and see this horse. You need to buy it for the girls.” My mom rode horses as a child around Val Marie but hadn’t ridden one in years. My sisters - Mich and Jody, definitely inherited the passion-for-horses gene. And my grandfather was known in Fox Valley as a horse whisperer; it says so on his gravestone.
Mom took me and Jody with her to check out the horse, a feisty palomino. I remember being, once more, in awe. My grandfather was holding the reins, and as mom and Jody approached it, it reared up. “He’s beautiful, Ed. But where would we put him,” she said. I stood back, frightened by its power and feeling sad, once again, that I was afraid when I wanted, more than anything, to bond with a creature so powerful, so beautiful, so untamed. I leaned against the Rebel Rambler, the car I would inherit in two years. Cars, it turned out, became my horses. Cars and bicycles were my getaway vehicles, my chance to fly and flee. Still, I wanted to get back on a horse. I knew I had a chance to do so when I ran into Carmen one day taking a group out on a ride. Carmen, the woman whose horses graze in the field outside my window, Carmen the chillest person I know, would be just the person to get me back on a horse. And what better time than now, when Mich visiting and Avril back in town. Both of them have been making noises about getting out for a ride. I’ll call Carmen, and she’ll encourage me to ride, too.
We arrived as the sun was making a slow decline. We were joined by Carmen’s eighteen-year-old son Arliss - brown as a berry after ten hours in the community pasture checking on 3,300 head of cattle, white hat and teeth glowing. “Did Central Casting send you?” joked Avril, who works in the movie business. There was no one else, just the horses and us humans and the sublime landscape of a native prairie that has not changed its look or shape or content - and I suspect its feel - in thousands of years.
And I am in heaven, with only an occasional jolt of fear when CeCe, my chestnut mare (perfect, I think, recalling my days as a blues singer when CeCe Rider was one of our covers) plunges into a ditch or a draw, then boots it back up the other side. Carmen and Arliss, a couple of vocational cowboys, give occasional hints to make the ride easier for both horse and rider, but other than that, there’s no alarm bells, no raised voices or eyebrows. So, I conclude that I must be doing ok.
At the beginning of her essay, Hammond ponders if maybe scientists will soon discover a “passion for animals” gene. At one point in her life, she seriously considered suicide but buys a horse, instead. “Financially, I’m broke,” she writes, “but I’m no longer wishing I were dead, and my doctor agrees he can now stop pushing Prozac.”
Near the end of our two-hour ride, I feel a sob rising up from the eight-year-old in me. I hear her little voice say, “Wow, I can do this! I didn’t think I could!” My heart goes out to kids “triggered” by something as unchallenging as a mom telling them to clean their rooms. How will they ever know what they are capable of? How will they ever connect with their own animal bodies or the sensual world of other creatures? How will they discover their passion-for-animals gene? I want to say: Call me. I have a couple of cowboys you need to meet.