Raising Hare: A Memoir

by Chloe Dalton

Are minds of men, become so voyde of sense, That they can joye to hurte a harmelesse thing? A sillie beast, whiche cannot make defence? A wretche? A worme that can not bite, nor sting? If that be so, I thanke my Maker than, For makying me, a Beast and not a Man.

I felt a new spirit of attentiveness to nature, no less wonderful for being entirely unoriginal, for as old as it is as a human experience, it was new to me.

It was July, and the crops were thick around the house, the wheat tall and lush, a vast sea compared to the vanishing figure of the leveret winding its way between the stalks. I tried to picture the experience from its perspective, imagining it to be akin to the experience of swimming along the sandy floor of an ocean, with the sun flickering above through the ears of wheat or barley like light seen through water.

Through the leveret, I had rediscovered the pleasure of attachment to a place and the contentment that can be derived from exploring it fully, rather than constantly seeking ways to leave it and believing that satisfaction can only lie in novel experiences.

If my habits could be overturned by a hare, I questioned what else I might enjoy that I had never considered. I’d been waiting for life to go back to normal, but if I could derive this much pleasure from something so simple, what else might be waiting to be discovered?

I rapidly reached the limit of my understanding, losing my way in thickets of scientific language, absorbing gleams and glimmers of new information.

No wild animal dies of old age. Its life has soon or late a tragic end. It is only a question of how long it can hold out against its foes.

Had it not been for the unique circumstances of the pandemic, I would never have come across the hare, and my life would have continued along its familiar grooves.