To be full

Frank is home

I am making a pie.

I am making a pie and reading a poem.¹

Butter, flour, a sprinkle of salt, a tablespoon (or two) of sour cream. Mix.

Before that, fish caught, gutted, scaled, pin boned, cooked in milk and leek and

pepper cracked.

The first line of the poem is I have learned to need the body I spent years trying to rid the world of.

The recipe² says to leave the fish and the pastry to cool in the fridge.

*

Frank is home. He’s been down at a friend’s place remembering he is a horse and not a pet. My friend is an excellent rider. It seemed sensible to have her ride him for a few weeks after his (and my) six months off. He is only young and I am middle-aged. In the lead up to riding again I have asked myself why is it so important to me? Why do I want to do this one thing that serves no purpose in my life except to gift delight? Can I not find delight in walking through the bush or on the beach (I can), so why do I want more?

I swing my leg up and over and there I am, after all this time, simply sitting on his back. My friend asks, how does it feel? Completely normal I say, and cluck to the horse. His ears twitch back. I ride for ten minutes and my breath comes ragged. The next day I ride for longer. She coaches me over some very small jumps. Afterwards we drive home up the winding highway back to the coast. I unload him in the dark, he stands on the ramp and snorts in the familiar pine scented sea air.

I have a lesson with friends. It’s a day of blue and gold and green. The skylarks have gone from the paddocks and the hedgerows are red. There is cake and champagne to welcome us back. Last time I was here the skylarks were building towers of song and the country was rippling in the riot of spring. I push my fingers into Frank’s thick coat. I feel my plain brown horse lift himself over the trot poles, bend his back, carry my weight. I feel him make us graceful.

*

The poet says I have learned to crawl backwards into the wilderness to ask, to eat, to steep in your gentleness.

I have a complicated relationship with my body. I suspect most of us do. I have marvelled at its strength but I have also felt foreign in it, deceived by its changing shape, by the unwanted looks it attracted. When I was young I wanted it to stay straight, unencumbered by breasts or blood. When it changed I spent years wanting to live as if I didn’t inhabit it.

Riding, I became something else, I didn’t end in awkwardness. Is that what I am chasing again?

*

I roll out most of the pastry and pile the fish onto it, then roll the rest of the pastry and place it over the mixture, crimping the two layers together. It sort of looks like the picture in the book. It goes in the oven and I walk out into the golden afternoon. I catch the horse who is waiting to push his nose into my hand for the crust of bread he knows I have. Clouds puff up against the ranges. The grape vine is a blaze of red, the apples and cherry trees are yellow and tattered. Only the oak is still green and even its crown has turned golden. The afternoons are quickening, soon the dark will gather. I lead Frank onto the mown grass and put my foot in the stirrup. I make myself light. When I’m in the saddle I turn his head one way and then the other. Hello, I say, here we are, the two of us, let’s go taste the world. And we do.

mm

Reading

The talent who is Catri Menzies-Pike has reviewed Trent Dalton's novels. It’s a ripper of a review and about more than the books, it’s about how we think as a society and why Dalton’s books fit so snuggly into Morrison’s Australia. SRB’s newsletter offspring The Circular gifted two little jewels of essays. There was Alice Bishop’s Woolgathering on day dreaming. Taking note is an act of defiance and Daydreaming is barely prioritised in modern city living, but studies repeatedly show that regular sessions of wandering and wondering can build connection between people and their surroundings, and scaffold our senses of self. Also, for all you knitters, Aleesha Paz’s essay on knitting in public - loved it. This interview with a dog walker in New York had a sort of magic clarity. Need a giggle, read this - All Possible Plots by Major Authors - so clever. I think my favourite was Cormac McCarthy “Nothing can ever be right again. Here’s a horse.”

Listening

I listened to Robin Wall Kimmerer’s conversation with Krista Tippett about moss and life. It’s not recent, but the thing I love about these conversations is how relevant they remain, in fact more than relevant, they are prescient. I recorded a podcast with Women Behind Wool. I have learnt so much about producing wool since I moved down here, but I still feel a novice in this world. Where I don’t feel a novice is face to face with a ewe in the yards, so that is the place I spoke from. // Song of the week, Julia Jacklin’s Lydia wears a Cross.

Doing

Cleaning out kitchen cupboards and mouse proofing everything. I know, the glamour.

1. The poem is salvage by Rachel McKibbens. You can read more about her here.

2. The pie is Sophie Hansen’s Fish Pie from her book In Good Company