Paths (not) taken

At work the other day, my boss asked me about the horses. He said he thought I missed having that outlet. I said that boxing and running and yoga compensated to a great extent. That I hadn't enjoyed my horses a great deal for the last few years. I remember that I was seeing a man who envisaged me 'galloping across the fields'. Ha! I got throw half the time I cantered.

The love I felt for those horses though... but I kept taking the paths less traveled and ended up in a place where few would want to go. Not a horsewoman. No. But I had so many dreams of riding in the countryside, as safe as I was when I child exploring on Syringa. We were the intrepid two. The thrilling three as the dog, Blitzy, often came along. Nothing scared us. Nothing. Home was where the harm was.

But anyway.

He also asked if I sought to change myself. I said that I couldn't change my mood or feelings but I could change how I reacted. I said I'd tried to become, in the last year, more tolerant, generous, patient. It's noticeable, he said. And told me I had been becoming a bit of a bitch. He said 'sharp edged', but I knew what he meant. I was. With him.

It's not quite true that I can't change my mood. There is a feedback loop. By being more tolerant etc, I don't feed into my own resentment and I don't cause negative reactions in others - both of which make life more pleasant. Worth remembering.

These paths. So, I left the horse path and took the boxing one. It's funny how impressed people were by my boxing in Moscow, my friendship with Grisha. The way I created that life away from home. My adventures there - the museums, the theatre and the opera... the nights walking the streets alone.

Boxing has taught me some courage, but also a greater connection with my bodily self. The knowledge of how this body-me can act with its own wisdom and such speed, such power.

Peter Godfrey-Smith talks of the complexity of the octopus with its one-plus-eight brain. How the legs can do their own thing or be part of the whole. And how when the octopus is in a state of attention, prepared for action, it draws itself into unity. This... this feeling of at-one-ness... how I can feel when I punch and so seldom otherwise... the feeling I sought with the horse... I get it with my own body-self...