Raising Hare: A Memoir

by Chloe Dalton

I am content with the small part of her life that overlaps with mine. Ours are different worlds. She can cross into mine, but hers will always be out of reach to me, and that is as it should be. Perhaps, like Cowper’s hare, she might live to old age if she were kept shut up in the house. But that would be to alter her nature. Instead, she lives the life of the wild hare: hard-pressed, short perhaps, but free.

For the first time in my life, I have had cause to study animals rather than people, and to see that we are not diminished by making way for them. Coexistence gives our own existence greater poignancy, and perhaps even grandeur. My wish now is for an environment that is safer for hares and other creatures of the land, wherever they may live: not at the expense of humans, but in balance with our priorities. I wish there were more wild, undisturbed places, for both wildlife and for us as humans, and a greater understanding that restoring and appreciating nature meets needs we sometimes forget we have. Under the subtle influence of the hare, my own wants have simplified. To be dependable in love and friendship more than in work. To leave the land in a more natural state than I found it. And to take better care of what is to hand, seeing beauty and value in the ordinary.

How glad I am now that I did not leave for the city the moment it became possible. I am grateful for every additional day that I gazed out of the window. If I had gone, I would not have seen the leverets born. I would not have built the relationships I formed around the hare, with other people and with this patch of land, and felt this unexpected, uncomplicated joy, and learnt not to tamp down the emotions it generates in me. I would not have looked at my life from a different perspective, and considered both what more I might be and the things I might not need. Whereas before I sought out exceptional experiences and set myself against the crowd, I take comfort in the fact that this process of self-discovery has been felt by millions before me, and that there is nothing original in finding consolation and inspiration in nature. It is there for all of us, perhaps our one true shared heritage and source of hope for regeneration in our own, hard-pressed lives. As we jostle for space on this planet, for position and place and name, and agonise about missteps and paths lost, and feel the fragility of our hopes and all that we hold dear, I think of the hare, stepping lightly on the earth, taking cover if the wind blows. We are not so dissimilar. If we do not achieve all upon which we have set our hearts, or are beaten back by headwinds stronger than our desires, we too can lay up a while, watch the glitter on the grass, and renew our strength.

There was a time when I knew nothing about hares and gave them little thought. The same can be said, I have realised, of the many other aspects of life that have opened to me as a result of this experience. It has been like acquiring a new set of faculties and a greater degree of perceptiveness towards my physical environment. When I travel, I notice now not just people and places but the tracks and traces of nature that surround us always, wherever we are. And I have been reminded that we are creatures as tied to the seasons of nature as the hare, and as affected by its reverses, even if we are unaware of the fact.

Despite having spent thousands of hours asleep in the house, the only traces the hare has left are a shallow, almost imperceptible indentation in the carpet across the doorway to my office, where her warm, long body has worn the surface smooth with its minute daily adjustments; six of her whiskers, scattered over the years; and a few weightless tufts of fur. The damp footprints she leaves on the floor on ...

She showed me a different life, and the richness of it. She made me perceive animals in a new light, in relation to her and to each other. She made me re-evaluate my life, and the question of what constitutes a good one. I have learnt to savour beautiful experiences while they last—however small and domestic they may be in scope—to find the peace to live in a particular state of feeling, and to try to find a simplicity of self. The sensation of wonder she ignited in me continues to burn, showing me that aspects of my life I thought were set in stone are in fact as malleable as wax, and may be shaped or reshaped. She did not change, I did.

I will remember her leaving, but will know that before she did, she always, first, looked back.