1. BLESS YOUR HEART text
2023
During the summer I went horse riding on the back of an Icelandic horse named Amor. We rode through a forest in Southern Sweden, on a thin gravel road that waxed and waned depending on how much the moss crept out from the forest borders. He was short - as Icelandics always are - 21 years old and I butchered his traditional Nordic name into a rendition of Dean Martin’s ‘That’s Amore’. We giggled as I plaited his spaghetti mane.
I rode horses when I was small as well - when my hair still reached my hip. The horse I rode was white, with dirty legs from the dusty arena we rode through and her name was Sapphire. I chose her from the stable line up because of her jewelled name - at eight I wished desperately to be called Ruby. She threw me off one day, stepping on my foot as I landed beneath the tree she was spooked by - I was bruised all down my side for weeks, but still, l cried and cried when she became sick and passed a year later.
I am always surprised how muscular horses are, the sheen of their coats and the power in their legs. No matter how much taller I get I still feel as if they are as big as Sapphire was when I was thrown off under her. ‘BLESS YOUR HEART’ is made of the blood that fed the growing bruise on my hip, as I lay there in the dust. The moment that the body no longer belongs to the mind and your reality has thrown you somewhere you couldn’t have anticipated. The smooth muscles you once admired have dissolved into nerves and the nerves evolved into a loop of dansband music reverberating between your ears.
The story told is disjointed - a collection of moments that feel slightly predatory, perhaps melancholic or strange for no reason other than their lack of context. It is a feeling that sits at the bottom of your throat. Uncomfortable. A feeling that presents in these moments we lose control of the body we inhabit.
It is my friend Felicia who is dancing in the work. She has beautiful collarbones that become more pronounced when she performs - we met on an island. I filmed her late one night in a basement where we played Du Är Mitt Öde on repeat in the echoing acoustics. She started with quick movements, lifting onto the balls of her feet and spinning, her hands held above her.
After the third time the song played she stopped spinning and the dance became a self examination. In the spotlight lamps, her veins became as pronounced as her collarbones and Du Är Mitt Öde acted as a metronome - her destiny - the ticking that clips her body, her muscles, her nerves and her veins, together with these slightly ‘off’ moments in life. A mermaid, a group of dovekeepers, a carousel, and little dolls’ first holy communion… The two sets of juxtaposing scenes tied together at the centre by a riddle of cliches. A verbal bandage to brush off the uncomfort of having to sit between the two.
During the summer I went horse riding. On the spaghetti-Icelandic-horse-Amor. As we neared the end of the trail in the forest, his older legs gave in when he tripped on a root. He buckled forward and I followed along with him. My helmet hitting a rock - the rest of me landing in moss beneath him. My tailbone ached and I heard a strained heave coming from my own mouth, but I felt the weight at the bottom of my throat first. Dean Martin’s ‘That’s Amore’ started playing and a carousel rotated in front of me. It’s hard when you’ve been tripped up, lost in the dust and confused. Poor Amor… bless his heart.