‘Sometimes, you’ve just got to run.’ Erin Dunigan.
And sometimes, the words of wisdom need a context to go with them.
I found this line this morning when I wasn’t even looking for my daily wise thing. I was having a little ramble through Instagram and marvelling at how clever it is at giving me delightful things to look at. (The algorithm elves there are so much nicer and cleverer than on other social media sites, so some bright programmer or engineer deserves some flowers.)
I had been looking at people with followers in the hundreds of thousands, the ones where each post gets four thousand likes. And then I happened upon easily my favourite little snippet of the day. It was a gorgeous chestnut mare, galloping free down a bright, empty beach in Mexico. The little snippet had so much joy in it, and so much simplicity, and so much connection - to the earth, to the landscape, to the sea and the air, from the rider to the horse.
And it had that one beautifully liberated line. Sometimes, you’ve just got to run.
I’ll quite often say this to my writers, particularly those who are wrangling with a first draft. I’ll say, ‘Throw open the gate and run.’ I’ll get them to imagine they are galloping over some endless prairie or steppe. I’ll tell them that the only limit is the horizon.
Erin is - full disclosure - my friend. She has the same passion and admiration for the red mares as I do. Of course I’m going to love the fact that she can transport me from Scotland to Mexico on a cloudy Monday morning. I’m going to feel the power of that, ‘you’ve got to run.’ I’m primed for it.
But my objective brain still says: yes, good, that’s the kind of thing which will lift the heart and liberate the soul.
It got five likes, not five thousand. Because, I suspect, that account is about posting for pleasure, showing glancing glimpses into another world, not vamping for business or clickbait. I know all this, but for a moment I felt a little sad. Some of the big accounts are truly enchanting, but some are rubbish - pure gimcrack with a rancid side-order of cynical charlatanism. I think: more people should know about Erin and her mare flying down the beach.
But then I thought: sometimes, the private, hidden pleasures are the keenest.
Anyway. Sometimes, you’ve got to run. This much is true. And if you can do it with the wind in your hair, so much the better.
PS. The photograph is from the evening walk I took yesterday with the red mare. I wanted you to have the colours.