Vulnerability as strategy for relational ethics
Telling my stories doesn’t absolve me like a Catholic confessional.
Is it guilt that drives me to dig up the past and offer dirty truths to strangers? Whatever it is, it blows past ego and renders me vulnerable, better able to connect with people for the purpose of manipulating them toward my conclusion and joining forces. It is calculated, and it’s my calling.
Things change, even when we rest in their seeming permanence. Take a tattoo, for instance. Mine was a horse, of course. And I had to had to had to have it. Just like that black leather jacket I had to had to have, and wore riding on the back of the motorcycle down to the tattoo shop. I was underage, and it was some famous artist in Philly. I was escorted by my older boyfriend – later husband, 20 years later an ex and still bearing the barbed wire arm band branded that day – dating the deal back to the fashion height of 1987.
As much as I had to have it, I had it removed. The Japanese-style block cut, ears laid back and mean-looking in black and white, save the most ridiculous rose in his mouth – why? – sat on my right shoulder. I had something to prove, alright, and that horse followed me in left-hand turns around a whole bunch of racetracks. Until I woke up and realized the crimes committed on the horses beneath me. The suffering and the abuse.
Years later, the technology at my small-town dermatologist’s office was insufficient to extract all of the green ink from the leaves of the superfluous rose. Bits of green remain to this day, causing people to wonder, occasionally ask, What is that on your shoulder?
A symbol became a stain, a reminder of a time before and after I wanted to be the first woman to win the Kentucky Derby.
I share this particular story to say it’s OK to change your mind, even when it’s hard, even when it changes your plans, even when it blows up your life.
Sometimes the letting go happens in an instant but, more often, it takes time. Even though I stopped riding horses for money, I was still madly in love with them. Sometimes not eating animals is very easy, but not using them for our enjoyment is very hard. It took me decades to become fully horseless. Fully vegan.
But I still have lessons to learn. One came in the form of a wild bird.
I named him Little Bird. Of course I did; naming is the first way we tether another being to our story.
He was tiny, had a yellow head, and was now accepting individual pomegranate seeds from my hand. On the hammock at first and then from anywhere in the yard where I held my palm up to the sky. He joined us at the outside breakfast table and, one time, he was waiting for our return at the driveway gate.
He even became comfortable enough to land on the hands of quiet friends who visited us. It was pretty magical all the way around. I couldn’t pet him, control him or own him. Gut check: Was I using him? How was I doing?
I didn’t have pomegranate trees myself, and as winter came on, I was afraid he’d leave (red flag waving). A neighbor supplied me with enough fruit to overwinter. I froze the seeds in baggies and crossed my fingers. Not only did Little Bird stay, but he built a nest right outside the house. He felt like family. How was I doing?
He spent the first season alone in that man cave, calling at all hours for a mate. I felt sorry for him. The second season I was thrilled to see him dancing through the air with another verdin. The two began to make a nest together, but then the girl verdin disappeared and Little Bird returned alone to his nest every night before dark.
The next season, Little Bird disappeared for a while. I felt my attachment and the grief of loss – my reminder not to covet what must be free, not to control what must be autonomous. How was I doing?
Then LB reappeared. He had a fledgling in tow, brought to me for the briefest of introductions, and they were both gone again. How was I doing?
When a young male took up residence in that same palo verde the next year, and then a pair of verdins began reconstructing an old nest in the Joshua tree – and then baby verdins were all over the place, bouncing from creosote to creosote between their parents – I told myself it was LB’s son and his family, but I did not interfere. Not one pomegranate seed did I offer.
But I put out mandarin oranges and water. And I still do, years and bird generations later.
There are no horses in my yard, but there are lots of birds through which to examine my relational ethics. It’s a way of being; the alignment of our actions with our values is a living, changing practice. And something as seemingly permanent as a tattoo or a marriage vow or the love of a lifetime can be removed, divorced, let go.
This essay grew out of Allie Irwin’s Relational Ethics Challenge, where readers can explore the questions behind the piece and share their own reflections. You can find it at www.goveganwithme.com/relational-ethics-ethical-vegan-lifestyle
The Humane Herald 