#but they seemed genuinely so excited to visit Vegas and race there

[leclercskiesahead]

“Can I make the ceremony though?” “Yes. I will hire you as the master of ceremony.” “Ahhhh beautiful. Amazing.”

[jerseydeanne]

When I last sat down with Prince Harry for an honest, candid, funny and frank interview, he told me he would use his “privileged position” for “good stuff” for “as long as I can, or until I become boring, or until [Prince] George ends up becoming more interesting.”

Harry, then 31 and one of the most popular royals, seemed aware of his sell-by date. “There’s nothing worse than going through a period in your life where you’re making a massive difference and then suddenly ... you drop off. You want to make a difference but no one’s listening to you.”

Recently it has been almost impossible not to hear Harry, although the jury is out on how much people are still listening. So when he announced last week that at the age of 36 he is writing his “intimate and heartfelt” memoirs, “not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become”, it felt as if Harry thinks his greatest hits are already behind him. After settling in America, why the rush so soon after the soul-baring interview with Oprah Winfrey and a glut of other interventions?

A friend of Harry’s says that while he was still a working royal, he harboured a Prince Andrew complex of slipping down the pecking order and becoming irrelevant: “Harry has always been in such a rush to make an ‘impact’, because he thinks he has a limited shelf-life before the public want to hear more from George and his siblings and he worries that after that, he’ll turn into his uncle.”

Harry now wants to tell us about his “dedication to service” and how he’s “worn many hats over the years”, because “my hope is that in telling my story — the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learnt — I can help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think.”

The privacy-obsessed prince will let us into his head for a rumoured multimillion-pound advance, with “proceeds” from sales of the book published by Penguin Random House in late 2022, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee year, going to charity. Harry is said to have been working on a manuscript for more than a year with the American ghostwriter JR Moehringer, who worked on Andre Agassi’s memoir. Whatever is — or isn’t — in the book it is certain to outsell Meghan’s The Bench, which has shifted 6,195 copies here. Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Harry denied reports of a four-book deal, with a second book after the Queen’s death, as “factually inaccurate”, confirming “there is only one memoir planned” and “no project co-ordinated around” the monarch’s demise.

We are likely to hear Harry’s take on the very public breakdown of his parents’ marriage, the impact on his childhood and more on the devastating effects of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, when he was 12. He has said he failed to deal with it for years, leading to a period of “total chaos” and a near “total breakdown” in his twenties. Of walking behind his mother’s coffin, Harry has said: “I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances.” Will the book reveal who asked him and what choice, if any, he was given?

How Harry chooses to relay the “party prince” years, when he was living it up in London nightclubs and smoking cannabis at his father’s Highgrove home, leading Charles to arrange a visit to a rehab centre, will be fascinating. Will the period be analysed retrospectively as the reeling aftermath of his mother’s tragic death? Or will there be candour about a young, privileged prince having a blast and doing what many young men in his position would have done?

“I never thought he was out of control then,” says a source who knows Harry well. “In his new Californian guise, I think he’ll tell it honestly, framed in the context of his ‘journey’ towards ‘healing’. I think there will be a lot of the old broken me versus the new fixed me who dealt with the pain, and a lot about Meghan as the woman who liberated me to deal with it all.”

A seasoned royal watcher says they are “looking forward to the Vegas chapter”, one of Harry’s most notorious escapades when he was photographed naked playing strip billiards in a Las Vegas hotel suite in 2012 shortly before being deployed to Afghanistan. “Too much army, not enough prince,” Harry later said, admitting: “I let my family down.”

Having become so outspoken on race and “unconscious bias” after meeting Meghan, the first mixed-race woman to marry into the modern royal family, what will Harry tell us he learnt after calling an Asian army colleague “our little P*** friend” while at Sandhurst military academy in 2006? The incident was widely condemned, a year after he was forced to apologise for wearing a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party. “He’ll be smart enough to know that to gloss over those incidents would undermine the book,” says a royal source who knows him.

Harry’s account of family life will be intriguing — how the triumphant trio of William, Kate and Harry briefly became the “Fab Four” with Meghan, their fairytale wedding with the no-show by Thomas Markle, the father-in-law he has never met, William and Harry’s rift, the painful split from the royal family and their new life in America, right up to the controversy last month surrounding the naming of their new daughter, Lilibet. The Sussexes called in lawyers to dispute a BBC report that the Queen was “not asked” about the intimate nickname. “False and defamatory” said team Sussex. The BBC stood by the story. Buckingham Palace did not dispute it.

What will Harry’s version of life inside and outside the royal goldfish bowl look like? He has pledged total honesty, and is “excited for people to read a first-hand account of my life that’s accurate and wholly truthful”. But as the Queen’s statement following the bombshell Oprah interview in March pointed out, “some recollections may vary”.

In that interview, and in the mental health documentary series Harry made with Winfrey, he claimed talking about mental health with his family was off-limits. Royal life “wasn’t an environment where I was encouraged to talk about it”. His comments left some scratching their heads. After all, Harry, William and Kate championed ending the stigma around mental health for years in their hugely successful Heads Together campaign.

On the Armchair Expert podcast in May, Harry also credited “a conversation I had with my now-wife” for his decision to have therapy. Yet in another podcast in 2017, Harry said he sought professional help “three years ago” encouraged by William, who told him: “You really need to deal with this.” The inconsistencies in some of Harry’s recent recollections have been well documented, leading some to describe him as a “revisionist historian”. Harry’s rumoured ghostwriter has spoken about the importance of honesty.

There is little hope in royal circles that will happen. The Sussexes’ recent outbursts have driven once-loyal aides to despair. “I fear they may sail into the sunset now, convinced they did the right thing by speaking ‘their truth’,” says one. “Now I hope everyone shuts the f*** up.”

Charles has been portrayed as an emotionally and financially stingy parent. A source close to him says: “He has genuinely been so upset by it all. He just doesn’t recognise any of the examples or narrative.” Friends of William and Harry say William, who was forced to publicly defend his family against accusations of racism after the interview with Winfrey, “despairs” of his brother but the shock factor is wearing off.

Harry has done brilliant things in his time. Moving the dial on mental health, serving his country at war and launching the Invictus Games are just a few of his achievements. Nobody should begrudge him wanting to bang the drum there, and if he wants to bare his soul on how he has coped with undeniable adversity and tragedy in his life, fair enough. But if his book becomes the main course of a score-settling feast then he will lose many more hearts and his greatest fear will be realised — “no one is listening”.

[thegreenhorseman]

As with everything all things must come to an end. For the past year Zeno Bay and Vai Via have been in my care and I have loved and adored them as they if were my own. They are incredible horses, full of love, and I have been blessed to be part of their rehabilitation in all aspects; physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Zeno Bay has put on weight.  He has blossomed into a loving, amazing, very genuine horse. Vai Via has overcome a lot of anxiety. He still needs some time on certain things but he is a completely different being than when he first arrived at my home.

Unfortunately the time has come for them to move on as I am parting ways with the rescue group for personal reasons. I am heartbroken to lose them but it has been a long time coming from behind the scenes.  The horses have been wonderful.  Perfect.  I’ve enjoyed having them.  I’ve enjoyed training when I can.  I have enjoyed getting to know them.

With the two boys departing soon I am faced with a terrible yet exciting new opportunity to find blade a permanent sibling.

This has not been an easy decision for me.

I have two amazing horses right now that need and deserve my love and at the same time I need to do what’s right for me. With my next horse I have decided I need to be selfish. I need to find a horse that is young, physically fit, and sound to be my next partner for the activities that I currently enjoy.

I only live once and right now I can’t guarantee that I will still be riding like this later on in life and as we all know I typically bring animals into my home for life. When I adopted Blade he was for life; though his body cannot perform to my needs he is happy and healthy otherwise.  Until he’s no longer happy nor healthy he will forever be safe.  This is why I’ve decided to be selfish and this is why it has been such a hard decision for me.

Another problem I’m facing is that I don’t have savings for the purchase of a brand new horse. This is not something that I planned to do just yet, in fact, I was hoping to get the truck and trailer before I get my second horse. So my budget is very tight. Regardless I began my search to see what I could find.

Remarkably, I was overwhelmed by the amount of beautiful, sound, sane, horses that are available within my non-existent price range. Within a course of a week or two I had been offered about 20-25 horses.  I didn’t have to aggressively search.  There was a mix of people that reached out…people who know me, people who have never met me, people who have mutual friends.  

Most were people with whom I have mutual friends (and of course my friends serve as great references).  Everyone offered up some incredible options. I did not expect to have so many to choose from; though I’m excited about the options it makes it very difficult to walk away from a really good horse.

My search criteria.

Sound

Good brain

Under 15 years

Good size for a petite chunk like myself

Prefer gelding (but will consider the right mare)

Prefer barefoot

Any breed

Will be using horse for my next partner to do hunter paces, jumping, and who knows what else.

I had a number of great contacts at first.

There was a beautiful paint horse that was in a lesson program and loves to jump.  He was 19.

…and a beautiful black QH gelding that also loves jumping.  He was 18.

There were a couple of friends who have some friendly lovable mares.

I sifted through all of the information.  Finally I began to visit a few…

I began my search with a friend who brought me to a wonderful family’s home that had some great horses available.

The first horse we saw was a little Mustang gelding named Vegas. He had the mustang shaped face which is not a deal-breaker but it’s not lovely. He had a solid little body.  He was a decent height but he was little pigeon-toed. Looking closely you could tell his legs were straight but his hooves had not been trimmed for a long time. Perhaps regular trims would correct the issue.  He also had a divot on his right shoulder.  He didn’t flex as well to the right either which made me think perhaps it caused him discomfort.

Looking at his face he had kind eyes, but he had a worried look. He wasn’t so sure of himself or the situation. I did not have much space to work with him but he could tell that I was a leader and wanted desperately to stay with me.  

I tried to teach him to lunge but he didn’t want to leave my side and with limited space, there is only so much I could do.  I asked him to back up and he resisted; a few times even reared up. He wasn’t a bad horse but I don’t believe he was the one for me. I don’t know how his body would handle training and I don’t know if that was a project that would have worked out for me.  There’s a lot of uncertainty here.

VEGAS

Another horse we saw was a sweet appaloosa gelding. He was a great size and very friendly.  We were told he is extremely herd bound.  I’m unsure of his age because we didn’t look at him very long.

Another horse was a handsome red dun quarter horse about 11 years old named Reggie. I am a sucker for red dun.  His training under saddle is unknown. At the time somebody had already decided to buy him but I believe he became available again shortly after we saw him.

Regardless I’m not sure I want to devote time to training an 11 year old horse.

The same family also showed me their standardbred mare, Duchess. She is 15, very sweet, and a good size. She was well trained though she had not been ridden in at least five years. I lunged her a little bit and even decided to get on her for a walk around the pasture. She was extremely good especially considering she had not been ridden in years. She was looking around a lot it seemed like she would be a reactive type of horse but we all know Blade has gone through his reactive moments too. It’s what I know well.

My biggest concern is how attached Blade might become with a mare.  He was devastated to lose Happy even though he had Zeno Bay and Vai Via.

  DUCHESS

With Duchess lived another Mustang; a 12 year old appaloosa mustang gelding named Coco. Coco is owned by somebody else but has also not been ridden in 5 years. I really liked this horse a lot end fell in love with his face and personality.

He has a gentle eye, solid body, and was very smart. I lunged him for a couple minutes and he responded really well and was in tune with me. I decided to get on him as well.  He was not nearly as reactive as Duchess and I liked his willingness; it was a vastly different feeling I got on him.  He gave me the “let’s explore” vibe. 

Unfortunately, I learned that the owner is not yet ready to re-home Coco…that he might be in the near future but not on this particular day.

I have kept Coco on my list among the top in case the owner changes his mind.

  COCO

    Shortly after our first excursion I was offered a gorgeous large paint who came from Hawaii. In fact he was probably at Kualoa Ranch when Zac and I went to Hawaii in 2013.

First… I love paints…especially ones with solid markings and a perfect blaze.

Second…how ironic that I was at the very ranch he came from 5,000 miles away?

Hawaii 2013

Nahe is 14 years old, has big solid body, and has great feet.  I LOVE his markings and he has a perfectly kissable face (and that blaze!).

He has some sensitivities to bugs and slightly crooked legs but he’s sound regardless. He had a great personality and I got along well with him. He has jumped at a foxhunt recently.  I loved that he was challenging but willing and not mean at all. He’s set in his ways and I can’t fault him for that.

We took him on a trail ride and I was amazed by his sure-footedness. Being the chicken I am we descended steep hill coated with dead leaves; I was concerned about slipping but this horse knew exactly what to do and took care of me.

This is what made him stand out from everybody else immediately. I was very happy with him.

NAHE

On the same day I visited the farm Blade came from. I had the opportunity to meet Blade’s half-sister, Abby,  who is 2 years old and just back from the trainer.  I was told she was one of the quietest foals they’ve had and a pleasure to work with.  It seems so cool and rare that I could have siblings living with me.  

Unfortunately she has a small windpipe. She roars. I was told the vet said this should not limit her riding but it will cause some noise. She certainly cannot race and be ridden flat-out, but I wouldn’t do that anyway.  She has had surgery to help correct her situation as much as possible.

I could call the vet and talk to them one-on-one regarding Abby’s long-term ability as a riding horse. I’ll repeat this a lot…for this second horse I am being selfish and I want to make sure that the horse I choose will be my partner for the long term.  

I am aware that things happen but I can at least choose the horse that will give us the best chance of long-term success in writing. I was concerned that this beautiful little filly could not hold up to hunter paces or whatever else I may want to do with her.

It was really nice to visit this farm again.  I can’t believe it was just over 4 years ago I first visited and met Blade here.  It’s an absolutely stunning property.

While I was visiting I learned Blade’s dam, Jet Black Magic, is available and unfortunately may be put down if not given a good home. This is the part of horse shopping that hurts me the most. I can’t provide a home for all of the horses and I hate that even though I have a space open I have to turn my back on them.  I’m sure Blade’s mom is a great horse though I don’t think she’s truly a riding horse and she’s 18 years old. Putting her to sleep may be the most humane thing if a safe permanent home cannot be found…but it’s still sad regardless.

  …and another broodmare that will be available once her foal is weaned!

As I continued my search I applied for New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program.  The program rehomes horses from the track, both thoroughbreds and standardbreds alike.   Unfortunately I was rejected because I don’t have stalls. Of course I would confine them to a stall if stall rest was required but I don’t believe keeping them in a box for hours entirely necessary.

I have nothing against stalls and Blade lived in a stall for years but I don’t see how it should be detrimental to my ability to provide a great home.  This was a bit frustrating especially considering I successfully kept 3 thoroughbreds happy and healthy (2 were older with bad teeth mind you) all throughout the worst of winter.

My second mom (my mom’s childhood friend and the lady who got me into the horse world) has a number of horses on her property.  She had reached out to me about a filly she rescued last year from the slaughter pipeline.  The filly is about 1.5 years old, bay, and growing to be a decent size already.  When I visited she immediately ran to greet us, ignoring her herd-mates.

  FILLY

She spent time with us, picked up her feet for us.  She was a lovely young lady growing up nicely.  She moved nicely.  She LOVED Zac.

  I have never trained a young horse before.  I’m sure I could do it, and I know I’d start her the right way.  Lots of groundwork.  I like the idea that I can still give her plenty of time to grow and mature before riding her…that perhaps I’ll have a truck and trailer by the time she’s under saddle.

She is standing behind Casey.  A wonderful QH that I used to ride.  They match!

The last horse I looked at was owned by a family my trainer placed me in contact with.  Their daughter went off to college and they were looking for a home for their 6 year old thoroughbred gelding.  I began talking to them and at first they were concerned about my 24/7 turn out situation. My trainer reached out to them unbeknownst to me and personally vouched for me along with my ability to provide excellent care to my animals. Within the next week they reached out again and told me I was welcome to come meet him if I was still interested.

I grabbed my childhood friend who shares my love of thoroughbreds and we visited R Tom Cat at a gorgeous equine facility less than an hour south of me. I admit I felt very self-conscious visiting this barn.  It was stunning; picture perfect with picture perfect riders.  I am a good rider and I claim to not care what others think but I can’t help that it still crosses my mind.  I’m heavier that I want to be.  I don’t wear pristine clothes….heck I’m lucky I even have a pair of breeches (thank you Ashley!). 

When I got in the saddle I instantly felt at ease. 

R TOM CAT, the photo that was initially sent to me.

R Tom Cat and I clicked immediately and became one being; together we moved around the ring. He was soft, willing, and brave. We took a cross rail effortlessly.  At that point my insecurities held me back from trying the vertical and the oxar in front of everybody. In truth I would have done fine but I got in my own head…and my head is not a good place to be while riding.  After a few laps around and changing directions we decided to take it outdoors.

I was told he was more forward outside. True; he was forward…but he was in no way like Blade forward. I felt in control of the entire time and he moved effortlessly through the field. My dream came true riding through an open grassy field, something I’ve always wanted to do and we were doing it! At the end of the field I reined him in some and he adjusted his stride to a much more collected canter.

Just like that.

No fuss.

No arguments.

He just came back.

I finished our ride smiling and was honored to hear the farm owner say he liked me.  It was great news because I really liked him too.  At this point I wasn’t 100% certain his owners would select me since there were several other people interested in seeing him.  At the very least I can say I’m super happy to have had a chance to ride this horse.

THE FINAL LOOK

I have been given a lot to think about.  My future may be vastly different depending on the horse I select (or the horse that selects me) to become my next permanent family member. 

WHO WILL COME LIVE WITH BLADE?

VEGAS

DUCHESS

COCO

ABBY

NAHE

FILLY

R TOM CAT

VEGAS

PROS: Mustang, Good height, good age, kind, trusting

CONS: Crooked legs/pigeon toed, lacks training, lacked confidence, rears when confused

THOUGHTS: Concerned about long-term rideability and soundness

COCO:

PROS: Mustang, great body condition on pasture only, great feet, great mind, soft eye

CONS: Owner not ready to part with horse

THOUGHTS: Mustangs are a very hardy breed, bred by nature the way nature intended. 

DUCHESS

PROS: Good height, kind, good body condition on pasture only

CONS: Mare, possibly reactive, cow kicking during ride

THOUGHTS: Hard to decipher pain vs bugs in one ride. Concerned Blade might get too attached to a mare

ABBY

PROS: Blade’s half sister, great build, perfect height, great age, good temperament

CONS: Small windpipe

THOUGHTS: Concerned about long-term health and soundness, would be cool to have siblings

NAHE

PROS: Surefooted, great build, calm, kind, comfortable, sound, great hooves,

CONS: Sensitive to bugs, might resist direct reining, can be stubborn

THOUGHTS: I love paints.  I’m not worried about training, as long as he’s willing to try.  Medication for allergies is cheap

FILLY

PROS: Young, nice conformation, great personality

CONS: 1.5 years old, never started a horse, Blade might get attached

THOUGHTS: Having a baby will give me time to get my act together and get a truck and trailer before we are ready to go do things.  I’m concerned I may get in over my head starting a young horse.

R TOM CAT

PROS: Ideal age, ideal height, great temperament, trained exactly for what I want to do

CONS: Shod, Other interested parties, well trained may be out of my league

THOUGHTS: I loved this horse but shoes can be expensive and I need to make sure I ride often as he is accustomed to a certain standard

Fast forward a bit…my new horse is coming home tomorrow morning.

WHO WILL IT BE?

The Green Horseman’s Latest Quest As with everything all things must come to an end. For the past year Zeno Bay and Vai Via have been in my care and I have loved and adored them as they if were my own.

[qeicorey43726-blog]

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This reclusive life: what I learned about solitude from my time with hermits

When the chaos of the big city began to drag, Paul Willis wondered if solitude might be the answer. Would his encounters with hermits yield what he wanted?

A few years ago, beset by the same malaise that I suppose afflicts everyone who spends too much time in the bustle and chaos of a big city, I wondered if solitude might be the answer. I began to read about hermits and became obsessed with the idea of meeting one.

As you might imagine, hermits are a difficult sub-group to track down. But I found out about a newsletter run by a couple in the Carolinas aimed at solitaries and, after posting an ad there, began writing to a few.

The correspondences never led anywhere. The closest I got to an actual encounter was with a woman in rural Oregon called Maryann. We planned to meet but at the last minute she got cold feet, writing to say she could not risk letting a stranger visit her “in this crazy age of violence”.

It was winter by then. Desperate to flee the city, I flew to Vegas with a vague plan to hitchhike in to the high deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, which I had heard were good hermit hunting grounds.

In the canyons of central Arizona, in Cleator, an inglorious little town of tin-roofed cabins an hour’s meandering drive west of the interstate, I heard about a man who had lived alone for 20 years guarding a disused silver mine. The next day I walked up the mountain to find him, watching the ground for rattlesnakes as I went.

I had high hopes; I had read accounts of those who had gone alone into the wild and come back laden with deep personal insights. I wasn’t exactly expecting the Buddha, but a minor-league Thoreau would have been nice.

As it was, I met Virgil Snyder. The first thing he asked was if I had brought beers. I had, and for the rest of the day I watched him down them, one after the other at his cabin, a ramshackle place cluttered with old birds’ nests and the bleached skulls of pack rats he had found on the trail.

Virgil’s home in central Arizona. Photograph: Paul Willis

He didn’t understand why I had come. When I told him I was interested in learning about solitude, he looked at me like I had just flown in from Planet Stupid.

“I didn’t come here to prove a point,” he said. “I don’t do this to be unique.”

I wrote down everything he said, poring over my notes at night, searching for some searing insight among his professed hatred of, well, everything, and the litany of insults he had thrown my way. (I was at different times called “a faggot”, “a motherfucker” and, more bizarrely, “a Tootsie Roll”.)

After several visits, I was forced to admit that he was not the mountain sage I had been looking for. He was an angry drunk.

• • •

The idea that those who withdraw from the world accrue great wisdom is an old and powerful one. In Hindu philosophy, all humans ideally mature into hermits. As the Indian guru Sri Ramakrishna put it: “The last part of life’s road has to be walked in single file.”

In the west, the idea has had a profound cultural impact. Peter France explores this in his book Hermits, attributing the creation of monasticism to the example set by the earliest Christian hermits, the Desert Fathers of Egypt.

One of the historical ironies France notes is the way hermits have been sought out for their advice on how to live in society. The Desert Fathers’ thoughts were considered so valuable that a collection of their sayings – known as the Apophthegmata – were written down in the late fourth century. In Russia, 19th-century hermit Startsy Ambrose’s fame drew illustrious visitors like Dostoyevsky, who consulted the hermit several times following the death of his son; their encounters were immortalised in The Brothers Karamazov.

The trend continues today, most notably in the case of the so-called North Pond Hermit. A Maine native, Christopher Knight lived alone in the woods without human contact for 27 years; his story came to light only after he was arrested for a spate of robberies in 2013.

Michael Finkel, the author of the GQ article that brought Knight to wider prominence, was similarly obsessed by the idea that the hermit had some “grand insight” to share from his time in the wilderness. In the piece – reportedly the most-read GQ article ever – Finkel keeps pushing Knight on the subject and at one point it seems like he is about to spill the beans.

“I felt like some great mystic was about to reveal the Meaning of Life,” Finkel writes. Except all Knight has to offer is, “Get enough sleep.”

• • •

The same afternoon that I left Virgil, a Catholic monk I had been corresponding with left a message on my phone to tell me about Doug Monroe, a religious solitary who had been living alone for a decade in New Mexico’s vast Gila Wilderness.

The monk described Doug as an “exceptional soul” and his hermitage as “the real thing”. There was no road or habitation within 10 miles of him and apart from a trip to Albuquerque once a year to restock his supplies, the monk said that he never left the cabin.

Buoyed by the serendipity of the timing I decided to go find him. The route to Doug’s place switched back and forth across a stream gushing with snowmelt.

Doug at home. Photograph: Paul Willis

I was greeted like a long-lost friend. “Boy, it’s such a treat to have ya here,” Doug said in a homely southern accent, fussing over me, feeding me rice and tea.

Unlike Virgil, he understood my interest and tried to convey what the solitary life was like. He described moments when the silence around him was so profound it left him frozen to the spot, afraid that the noise of even one footstep would be deafening.

The desire to be a hermit had first come to him in his mid-20s, he said, but it was not until his late 40s that he finally plucked up the courage. When he first came here he had just $150 in cash and an 80lb pack on his back and trekked out into the forest determined to “entrust my survival to God”. For the first year, he lived in a metre-wide shelter he built below an exposed rock face using slabs of stone and fallen trees.

He eventually built himself a one-room cabin. Compared with the melancholic decay of Virgil’s home, there was a calm order here: all his supplies were arranged neatly around the room. On the shelves were boxes of crackers, bucket-sized tubs of peanut butter, dried milk and grains, tins of tuna and Spam, cocoa and powdered mash.

On the wall were photos of the family of his benefactor – a businessman and devout Catholic – in Albuquerque. On Doug’s annual excursion in town, the benefactor takes him to a wholesaler and buys him yearly supplies with change from $1,000.

Next, Doug took me outside to show me the 6ft-deep well he had built in a small creek. Piping ran from the well to the water tank that sat on raised ground behind the cabin and he had a small generator to power the pump.

As I followed him around, I thought about how Doug’s experience with solitude was nothing like Virgil’s. While Doug’s faith gave his life in the wilderness a structure and a purpose, that was completely absent with Virgil.

Apart from a rudimentary contraption for trapping rainwater, I had seen few clues about how Virgil survived in Arizona. He had hinted at well-wishers bringing him supplies, though when I pried further he refused to be drawn. Perhaps it would have undermined his hermit status, which I think he secretly enjoyed, despite claiming he didn’t care what folk called him.

Doug’s one-room cabin. Photograph: Paul Willis

I had the sense that Doug was genuinely content with the path he had chosen, but there was an eccentricity I saw in him too. He talked non-stop, jumping from one subject to the next without any clear connection. At first I thought he was just excited by my presence but he admitted that it was the same when he was alone. He held imaginary conversations with absent friends, with dead saints, even with the Virgin Mary.

He said his inability to stop talking went back to childhood – he estimated he could have filled an encyclopaedia with all the lines he wrote for talking in class – but it crossed my mind that the solitude might be exaggerating the trait.

Solitude, after all, is known to do strange things to the mind.

• • •

In 1993 the sociologist and caver Maurizio Montalbini broke the record for the longest time spent underground, during a spell in a cavern near Pesaro, Italy. During his isolation, Montalbini began experiencing a slowing down of time. His sleep-wake cycles nearly doubled in length so that when he finally emerged he was convinced only 219 days had passed whereas in fact a year had elapsed.

While there are numerous studies showing the harmful effects of solitary confinement on prisoners, studies of the general public are rarer because of the ethical concerns around subjecting someone to prolonged isolation for the purpose of a clinical trial.

Back in the 1950s, however, Donald O Hebb, a professor of psychology at Montreal’s McGill University, did just this. Hebb had his volunteers spend days, or even weeks, in sound-proof cubicles, deprived of human contact.

After a few hours, the subjects became restless, talking to themselves to break the monotony. Later they grew anxious, highly emotional and their cognitive abilities began to wane as they struggled to complete arithmetic and word association tests. At some point many began having hallucinations, both visual and auditory. One man even hallucinated being shot in the arm and felt the sensation of pain. The subjects became so disturbed that the trial was cut short.

The most notorious example of the mind-distorting effects of solitude is the case of Donald Crowhurst, who took part in a 1968 race to become the first solo sailor to go non-stop around the world. From the race’s outset, Crowhurst ran into problems with his boat and, faced with the prospect of returning home a failure, he sailed aimlessly around the Atlantic while sending back false reports of his position.

Fearing financial ruin and overwhelmed by the scale of the subterfuge, he cut radio contact. His boat was discovered floating in the Sargasso Sea months later. Crowhurst was nowhere to be found, but a 25,000-word diary discovered on board detailed the Englishman’s descent into madness.

During one visit to Virgil, I found the door to his cabin open and Virgil passed out at the table, an empty liquor bottle beside him. Afraid of his reaction if he suddenly came to and found me there, I went outside and knocked hard till he stirred. When he finally emerged he stared at me like I was a ghost.

On Virgil’s property grounds. Photograph: Paul Willis

It was a tense encounter, his mood volatile. One minute he erupted in anger, upsetting beer cans and thrusting a finger in my face, and the next he was crying uncontrollably. At one point he blurted out about a wife and two kids he had been estranged from for nearly 30 years. When his marriage broke down he lived destitute on the streets in Phoenix, he said. His father, who was caretaking another silver mine further down the mountain at the time, found him and brought him back in his pickup. After a few years the old man drank himself to death.

“Big fucking deal!” he said at the story’s close. “What do you care!”

• • •

Among the Apophthegmata is a saying by an unknown hermit: “It is better to live among the crowd and keep a solitary life in your spirit than to live alone with your heart in the crowd.”

In other words, if you go into solitude to get away from something, your troubles will probably follow you. This, I suspect, was Virgil’s story. It was probably my own, too, and I returned to the city unhappy that my hermit encounters had not yielded more. To my disappointment, Virgil and Doug had proved all too human.

There was one aspect of the experience that had surpassed my inflated expectations: the environment where the two men lived. And as I became entrenched once again in city life, it was to the stark beauty of the high desert in winter that my mind kept returning, to the saguaros, dwarf junipers, pinyon pines and magical starlit nights.

In the 1968 race that cost Donald Crowhurst his sanity, another competitor had a very different experience.

French sailor Bernard Moitessier fell utterly in love with life alone at sea. So much so that instead of turning north towards the finishing line in England and possible victory, he dropped out of the race and sailed on to Tahiti.

In his book The Long Way, Moitessier describes sailing one night by a headland with the Milky Way overhead. It occurs to him that were this view only visible once a century, the headland would be thronged with people. But since it can be seen many times a year the inhabitants overlook it.

“And because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will,” he writes.

It was a direct encounter with the quiet magnificence of nature that was the real gold I brought back from my wanderings in Arizona and New Mexico. It was probably what I had been looking for all along.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/10/15/this-reclusive-life-what-i-learned-about-solitude-from-my-time-with-hermits/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/10/15/this-reclusive-life-what-i-learned-about-solitude-from-my-time-with-hermits/