Of horses and idleness in the city
It is early in the morning and I am standing in the middle of a field, watching two horses graze idly. They look peaceful and calm, a state that seems to transcend their bodies and seep into mine, as I feel my own breathing deepen and slow down in time with theirs. I feel joyful and carefree, like a child that has discovered a hidden treasure. And in a way I have — on this Sunday morning, I am re-discovering what I always knew was there, but had pushed to the back of my mind for the past twelve months or so. A piece of countryside with green pastures in the midst of central London, mere footsteps from our house. Now even the horses seem to be taking a break during lockdown, I think — and immediately question myself. I do not know whether they are taking a break, but I assume they must be, as riding lessons have stopped as surely as visits to the hairdressers or the shopping mall. I have often wondered what it is about horses and horse riding that captures and fascinates so many people’s minds. Their ability to move with both strength and elegance perhaps, and the possibility of somehow taking part in that. I remember my own short-lived interest in taking up riding and its abrupt end when I witnessed a classmate’s lessons and an instructor who, in my eyes, was treating the horse less than kindly. Still, the fascination remains.
I describe those horses as grazing idly, but I don’t mean that in the negative or judgmental way I’ve often heard the word applied to. Rather, my implication is that they are doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing, a perfect balance of breathing, chewing, advancing across the field.
Their purpose on this morning, it seems, is to just be.
I am reminded that I too, am free to be idle for now. And I wonder why it is that I can remember only a handful of moments where I was afforded — or allowed myself — to be so with the many children I’ve looked after over the years. What is it about idleness that scares us so much? The idea of, at least outwardly, appearing to be ‘doing nothing’? And more importantly, how have we ever come to the conclusion that we could be, should be living without it? If the absence of idleness is constant activity, putting one task in front of the other, moving forward, what are we moving towards? What goal or final end point are we trying to reach? Isn’t the purpose of life to just, well y’know live? We don’t have to execute a constant stream of chores in order to move forwards. Time will do that for us, and likely faster than most of us would like it to.
Perhaps there is another element to all this — letting our children be idle ultimately means giving up control. It means letting them be in the moment, with no direct link to any of the moments that came before, and no means to predict what might follow the current one. I often think that we adults are so desperate to show the children that we love and care for how to be in the world that we forget they already are.
As with the horses, there is this impulse that makes us want to take the reins and lead, not only to witness and take part in our children’s lives but to actively raise them, in the literal sense of the word. Yet most of us have come to accept, and would agree, that the most fundamental processes of life move at their own pace. You cannot teach a baby to walk. Nor make it grow faster. And most recent research from neuroscience seems to confirm that those processes take place in their own time, slightly differently for each individual. Why can we not extend and apply this principle to our older children? To acknowledge that each of them will continue to develop individually, beyond those first steps of learning to walk, or talk? Instead of trying to have them arrive at some elusive point somewhere in the distant future by putting things to do in front of them, we could try to just be present together, in the here and now.
As for us adults, we might distract ourselves from the finality of life by being ‘productive’, yet paradoxically many of us would associate art and creativity itself to arise precisely from moments of idleness. After all, what could be more infinite than to let ones thoughts roam freely, unrestricted by perpetual busyness and the sheer immediacy of all of the moments that will follow?
