The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District by James Rebanks
2015
Weight: 12 oz
Method of Disposal: Giving Away
I bought this book while visiting Harriet's home, friends, and family this past November. I am always wanting to understand more about the place she grew up. Harriet was definitely not from a family of shepherds, but there are shepherds and sheep all around that she has told me so much about. She always grew up close to animals and helping other people with their horses, ponies, and other critters. I found this book in a Waterstones and just started reading it this month. I absolutely loved it.
The author's confidence in who is, his place, and his connection to time is powerful. I cannot remember the last time I met someone who felt so connected to their home and ancestry. I think that, in my life, it is only something that can be read about but, sometimes, a glimmer will shine through the fog of city life, a college education, and a family of people who all have different careers.
I know physical labor at the animal shelter makes me so much more happy than all the meetings, computer work, and whatnot that make up much of my days now. In kennels, you are aware of the changing temperature, the weather and what is to come, how the animals are feeling day to day. There are clear tasks and a clear timeline. The work is hard physically, though nowhere near as hard as a shepherd's work, but it is extremely rewarding.
This book had nothing to do with me and my life though. It was about a family raising sheep in Northern England, and their place in an ever changing world. The author particularly focused in on his grandfather, his father, and himself, though he also speaks about his mother, wife, and children. I love how traditions have been passed down for so long that there are some things that are still done that no one really even knows why they are done, though they can speculate, such as "redding." I also love how the sheep's genetic code ties the past to the present, sometimes over centuries. That the effects of a decision made today may not be able to be seen for years. That those effects may even show up after the person who made them is passed and gone.
Northern England is absolutely gorgeous from a visitor's perspective. I remember the first walks we took around Harriet's village on my first visit. I thought, now I understand why people have dreamed of magic and fantasy for so many years. I had never understood before. I remember the smells, the rain, the animals that were everywhere. The little rules that everyone just knew about what to do with certain gates, with their dogs, with the grazing animals, even with driving on the narrow roads. I was shocked to think of all the walls being handmade and to know that her grandfather had built so many--that she had helped.
This man though. His connection to the land is from someone who is completely and always connected to it. Not as a tourist. It is not magic so much as it is a consistent, though evolving relationship, that is at once predictable and also completely unpredictable. There are viruses, weather changes during lambing season, dogs to be training, outsiders coming onto the land, family crisis that shape the days and weeks, but everyone knows what needs to be done and there are all sorts of learned tactics to tackle problems that arise. Verbal communication is not always so important, but hard work always is.
This book is powerful and insightful. I know more about sheep now after one book than I have learned in 34 years, and I still only know .00089 of what James Rebanks knows. I see and respect the pride that comes from knowing where you belong and who you are, the value in doing many things the way they have always been done for centuries. That is not something that I have spent much of my life recognizing. As a lesbian identified woman in the Dirty South, I have always seen value in changing the status quo. It would appear that, at least sometimes and for many people, that is not the answer. I think I still have a lot to learn about from James as I think and dwell on this amazing book he wrote.
