Hagintha Woods

Inspiration for this think piece. Part 1, part 3

With time and experiences, the living of life tends to result in a shifting of ideas, a gaining of new perspectives, the gradual collecting of wisdom. It can come in bits and pieces, sometimes all at once. Yet some others, however, only set themselves right in the presence of a fitting community.

I am an avid horse girl. Born a child on the weaker side, horses give me freedom and connection, and the grounding thump of hooves against the ground below me.

With their very presence, they gift a person warmth. Any time spent near equines allows the soul to settle, the mind to cut through the noise. There is only the present moment, two breaths commingling.

The only thing I might profess to love more is when I get to ride with friends.

To experience all of the above, but also share smiles and laughter. To race across the plains, wind in your hair, your body poised into an arrow as you lean into the wind, with people you love and trust beside you-it is the headiest drug I’ve ever felt.

As such, when we had opportunity for horse riding in Phuket, I jumped at the chance.

There was a group of 4 of us in total, and they were all wonderfully intelligent, focused in their goals, fun-loving and independent women. They were funny, interesting and supportive, and were all people I was glad to call friend and build bonds with.

All three definitely knew their way around a house better than I did.

As such, I did feel pretty nervous when I learned that in our trip, we were considering staying in an airbnb. No cleaners, and cooking was on the table. At this point, I was close enough to all of them individually and as a group to know that they would not hold my inadequacies against me.

However, as any person in a reciprocal relationship would, I wanted to do my fair share. Coming from sparse pickings of knowledge, even if I took on an equal share, it would consist of me playing catch up, which they would have to make concessions for and teach, which already put more pressure on them.

Additionally, it would be the first time we all gathered as a group. Though something might be fine in the privacy of a one to one conversation, some things changed once more people came together and the interaction would form a shared group, or community.

But there was also a thrill of excitement.

Though I knew little, I knew I wanted to learn, and here were three of my trusted friends and a period of a week so I would not be as large a burden as I might be upon one for a prolonged period of time. Here was the chance of time away from anyone else I knew, their preconceived notions of my identity, and a house that I could slowly learn within where the stakes were not too high.

Somewhere in my heart, I nurtured the ambition to try and learn what I could.

And oh, what a microcosm it was.

I expected to be able to experience competence, and the feeling of working together as a team. I envisioned being able to fold clothes next to someone, silly as it sounded to say out loud-and I did, along with a disclaimer of my very sparse ability before we went ahead with booking the accommodation. (I often find myself waylaid by unspoken expectations, and though my friends are infinitely better at understanding what goes unsaid, I prefer to state what I know, if only for my sake.)

I expected relief, perhaps, at others willing to share the load of carrying a complete beginner. A mix of mild disdain but encouragement, likely, for something I should already know.

As it turned out, not only was I met with acceptance, which I hoped for but also was relatively confident of receiving from my friends, but to my astonishment, I was met with the enthusiasm of someone finally cajoling a loved one to try their favourite food.

I didn’t understand it at first.

If anything, it felt vaguely suspicious, the way one would pretend vegetables tasted good to convince a child to eat their own. Yes, chores were something that should be done and was important, but surely it didn’t deserve a glint in the eye, the life with which it brought?

And yet, as I joined them and allowed myself to submerge within the experience of living within this community, I started to understand.

It came in ways I was primed for first.

As we went to the market and bought ingredients for meals, a friend’s eyes would come alight as she snatched up a packet of silky tofu and sneakily slipped it into the basket, another friend’s favourite. We’d press around fruit, holding them up to the light, bringing out faces close to smell them.

Coming from a family bonded by food, I understood this easily enough. Later, as we sat round the table, exclaiming in delight as the berry burst flavourfully unto the tongue, or grimacing as a sourness pursed our entire faces, there was an additional layer of satiety that was not solely from the fruit. When my friend found the tofu and gave a little shout of surprise, my heart stuttered to the rhythm of her excitement.

As I tailed a friend puppyishly, my arms full of the day’s dirty clothes, she showed me how to turn out the pockets, which items to place in laundry bags so the person removing them later wouldn’t be driven insane trying to unite a pair of socks.

When we hung them out to dry, we chatted with the others about shows and gave each other advice and encouragement about riding form. We punctuated activity with little snippets of the day that passed, each retelling carrying it’s own personal tint of the same event.

As we did so, we pointed out wear and tear, made a game of matching articles of clothing to their owners (I was not good at this). When we went shopping, I took a pair of pants that I could see fitting with the other clothes in my friend’s wardrobe, knowing that some of the seams were coming loose. She considered and ultimately refused, but I’d never held such knowledge before.

The next day, as I made for the laundry with an eagerness to show off newfound talent, another friend held me back to sweep the floor with her instead. We brushed the sand from the tile and scrubbed at stains. I realised that during my toilet trips in the middle of the night, not once had I stopped between rooms to rub the dust off the soles of my feet.

When I mentioned my wonderment, all my friends laughed. “You’re really unobservant sometimes, you know that?” It was true.

But I was used to complaints, of people proclaiming when they wiped the table, expecting praise and visibility. I was used to communities where you fought for your labour to be witnessed, lest it be taken for granted and another task being heaped unto your plate. I was used to attention being leering, a cocky grin on someone’s face as I struggled with ‘my’ task.

“It’s good for you to get experience.”, they’d say, or they’d pretend to take a video, laughing as I struggled with my inexperience. “What a rare thing I’m witnessing right now!”

Compared to that, the good natured criticism was sweet on the tongue.

When a friend became ill, another friend and I waited for her to head upstairs, before sneaking off to do the laundry so it would be a literal load off her mind.

As we turned, we heard the sound of the washing machine starting up (I’m proud to say I recognised the sound at this point), and the last friend of our quartet slipped out.

Seeing us standing there, understanding flickered through her, and she smiled. “It’s done.”

There was no one in charge, no chore chart or assigned tasks, and yet the floors were cleaned, the dishes washed.

I made some tea for us all, and my friend peeled some oranges as the other picked a movie. Watching it on low volume with the subtitles on, we fed each other slices of fruit between sips of tea.

When our friend awoke and went down to change her ice pack and settle the laundry, fruit and a hot cup of tea was ready by an empty chair instead. She smiled, and sat down.

Around them, chores transformed into love.

Even then, it was not something as simple as love, something I would have classified as acts of service. With them, chores became the opportunity for love.

Within them, there were ways to ease a loved one’s mind, to tell them that they were cared for.

In the doing of them, there were ways to learn more about the other, if you just paid attention. Mess became an opportunity for understanding. Wear and tear, and idea for gifts, a hint as to what was loved.

In the consistency of it, the doing of it when one had time, came the foundation of trust. The communicating that the minutiae of living was precious, something we could tackle together, and something we could lean on each other for. That life had to upkept, dusted and swept and washed, but that did not mean it had to be maintained alone.

With that, I grew in confidence. I felt like a better friend, like my ideal was within reach. I could say that I belonged, that whilst not as knowledgable as my peers, that I was putting in the effort.

More importantly, that the effort was what mattered as long as I kept at it and was consistent.

I dipped out with confidence for a swim, happily returning to clean floors and dinner, feeling a warmth that stayed with me long after I’d washed the dishes.

When they went to bed for an early night or went out, I wished them a good time without resentment as I swept the floors or hung out the laundry.

When everyone could be trusted to do what they could when they could, there was no longer a need to keep anyone up to task. If anything needed doing, the mention of it was enough for someone to get up, as was the understanding that we all had down periods.

If anyone stepped out, they weren’t questioned because the foundation was there, and we kept showing up. And within the four of us, everything got done and we all had time to ourselves.

What years of guilt had failed to push me into, my miniature feminine community had seamlessly done.

And I was beyond excited to bring my discovery back home.

(to be continued)