It is a risky business, falling in love - with people, with animals, with the world - but we have to take the chance - we cannot afford to give up.
Please please visit the substack version of this update, I would love to hear your thoughts. There are also lots of photos.
In the last post I mentioned the memorial I had been to - and those words, ‘grow your heart to the size of the world.’
I did not know Romain Roch well (who is in the photograph, along with Kate and me (thank you Zoe for taking it)) - but he came and stayed on our sofa two years running. He was one of the volunteers at the wonderful Oxford Real Farming Conference - and came with his girlfriend - who I do know well - Kate. It was a delight having these youngsters in the house so full of energy, enquiry, interest … as I said at the memorial - Romain was a voracious reader (as poets really have to be) and had a great advantage when it came to my shelves … that he could reach the top one without assistance!
We would get back from the conference - where I am the photographer - and, despite all of us being exhausted, slip quickly into a book driven conversation … I remember telling him how much I thought he should read Olga Tokarczuk (and if you haven’t please treat yourself to Drive your plow over the bones of the dead - superb) - or Kathleen Jamie … I probably also sent him towards Jeanette Winterson.
He was French - and had a command of that literature that left me behind and I really should have taken notes, but also really needed to get to bed!
Our house is small - so having an extra two adults in the living room, with the sofa bed extended, did make it cosy! Both Kate and Romain were so kind and accommodating to our two neuro-spicy adult kids …
Kate’s mother, Helen, I first met at the Twyford Down protests in 1992 - and was immediately both attracted to and intimidated by her - she is one of the bravest and most principled people I have ever met - her honesty was always gently delivered, but could be quite devastating.
Kate I met along the way - at festivals - I think one of the first times was at a reunion for the Newbury by-pass protest. She and my eldest, Raine, in their waterproof all-in-ones, joining in with the brilliantly scruffy veterans of fights to save the trees - and ending up in a hot bath back at home.
When I heard the news, about Romain taking his own life, I was shocked. I had a message only a few days beforehand talking about my visit to come and talk in Wales - he was clearly thinking of the future. I do not know as much as I should about suicide - and discovering that there is a mental health first aid course is something I need to look into.
The memorial was such a testament to the impact Romain had on people. The outpouring of love from different quarters - the male voice choir who spoke of the ‘scruffy bugger’ who turned up wanting to join - and was welcomed enthusiastically; the friend who found him - search parties had been sent out when he had not answered his phone - spoke so movingly and then played music; Romain’s mother talked of her love - a poem of all the things she loved about him.
The church, in Talgarth, where this took place, was organically pagan - and the vicar was amazingly welcoming to the wide variety of folk who came through the door. Greenery everywhere, despite it being Lent (we had to remove it at the end) and candles in the font - and love - vast amounts of love.
Many of the people there had deep connections with Earth First! - the environmental protest group I feel very connected to. Muddier than XR and JSO! And also - so young! As these were the children of the people I had met in the early days! I felt so at home amongst this bunch of strangers!
So - why am I writing this? Because of the idea in that phrase - ‘Grow your heart to the size of the world’ - that very risky idea. Many years ago I found a phrase that worked for me - from Stephen Jay Gould - he said, ‘We will not fight to save what we do not love.’
Love is risky - it is much easier to remain at a remove - to ‘like’ - rather that commit to love. I have argued in previous books that one of the reasons people feel unable to commit to loving the natural world is because they know, deep down, that this is a love that will end only in grief. But we need to be brave enough to love in order to fight. We cannot give up without that fight - whether it is being on the frontline as a hunt sab, or up a tree trying to save it from being killed - or working in a wildlife hospital - or … just being kind - to yourself, to the people around you and to the nonhumans you meet as well … the fight can come in many forms.
I read a short poem at the memorial - one that I had tried to read in memory of dear Neve, who died at just 10 years old (I got one line in and broke down in tears) - this time I managed it - the words are by Rob Macfarlane, from Lost Words.
Lark
Little astronaut, where have you gone, and how is your song still torrenting on?
Aren’t you short of breath as you climb higher, up there in the thin air, with your magical song still tumbling on?
Right now I need you, for my sadness has come again and my heart grows flatter - so I’m coming to find you by following your song,
Keeping on into deep space, past dying stars and exploding suns, to where at last, little astronaut, you sing your heart out at all dark matter.
ps: Zoe, my wife, is walking 100 miles in March for Mind - stimulated by Romain’s death - if you have the capacity to support her fundraising- please do.