Gratitude (Part I)

The Power of Being Seen by an Elderly One-eyed Pony…

A friend called round recently and we walked the tree-lined perimeter of our fields, wrapped up against the grey chill of a late winter morning and deep in conversation about painful things they were grappling with. The two tenant-ponies who inhabit the winter paddock escaped our notice, grazing in the distance, but as we moved along the fence, one of them - a 34 year old one-eyed horse called Emma - walked purposefully in our direction.

With the donkeys, it’s all about food: do I have a carrot, an apple or banana-skin? (no, I didn’t know they ate them either!) so my assumption was this was where Emma’s interest also lay. But no – it became clear to both of us that she’d approached us with the intention of greeting us; we all said hello, and she allowed us to stroke and nuzzle her for a while. In fact, it felt like she actively participated in this, which brought about a lovely shift; it felt almost like a welcome and acceptance - a small gift given to each of us that made us smile, and filled me for a moment with a sense of happy gratitude. I felt then that I’d missed out, overlooking her constant presence in the distant field, and I wished I’d engaged more, gone over to say hello, taken her a carrot.

Next we spotted a buzzard hovering over the space where we stood, circling slowly and showing off its impressive wing-span. We paused to examine a tree, fallen some time ago across the fence, and ripe for a day of appealing outdoor exertion, chain-sawing and splitting and stacking. Climbing a gate and descending the incline where the pond water overflows into a nearby lake when it floods, we came across another cause for joy – a hidden bank of snowdrops, clustered where they remained sheltered and invisible from the house. We stopped to pick some, to give as a gift.

Small, simple pleasures. Unexpectedly coming about from a stroll outside. Putting on our boots and coats with no expectation, stepping into the outdoors, gave us something we’d not anticipated was there for us. Later, we shared a lunch and had a good laugh, unselfconsciously peeling off the tops of our yogurts and licking them clean in unison, clearly at perfect ease in each other’s company, testament to the decades of our friendship.

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