Work Horse.
When i quit being a unit manager on film sets I was ecstatic to put my radio down. The headset radio chatter had become what we call “phantom-funk”, where you hear in-ear commands and voices even after you’ve clocked out. The radio that made me feel so cool and important when I started in my early twenties had become the bane of my existence. Taunting me with it’s blinking charger light during the 4 hours of sleep one usually is so graciously granted working any crew job.
Then I got my next “cool career“ ...patrol, and the first thing they handed me: a radio. Put the (literally) life saving functionality and necessity of the radio aside for a minute. What bugs me about it, is what it represents:
That I am a work horse.
When I was in my teens I was fascinated by ballet, and dancers, and VOGUE magazine, the theatre, and basically all the girly things you’d expect. (Still am, though I shifted to Interior Design magazines...more attainable). I pictured growing up into a stylish big city dweller, sex-and-the-city-ing it up jet-setting around, cocktails in hand, gossiping with my aspirational friends about the gallery opening or the show we just booked. Now, I did all that, kinda... I went to university in London, studied theatre, and even though I loved it, I always felt out of place. On the hard days I dreamt of the mountains, and on the even harder days I felt like the city wouldn’t let me breathe.
Working film crews was a great middle, it was physical, outside, but still in the arts world. The backend of making movies is essentially a complicated logistics circus, and the better I became at running it, the more I got promoted into positions that are further and further away from the artistic end of the game. I would see all these make-up artists, and wardrobe assistants, and set decorators and actors, all working hard, but still being majestically stylish. Meanwhile, I was in my Gore-Tex, with my radio, lugging heavy, muddy cables into a truck, wondering why some of the mud smelled funny, only to realise it was covered in dog poop. Oh, the glitz and glamour of the movies.
Whatever I touched, wherever I went, the laws of natural disposition seemed to land me in the more physical, more dirty jobs. And when I tried to become white-collar and worked in an office as a producer, it made me physically ill. So I quit and went back to skiing and set work.
I always saw these people, the stylish people, as pure bred Lippizan horses.
With shiny flowy manes, polished saddles, shimmering coats, long legs elegantly prancing about life. I longed to be that:
I hated that I wasn’t one of the aesthetic, slow living girlies. And when I stood next to a poised gorgeous person, I would feel scruffy and rough…still do sometimes.
I would feel envy, and feel lesser than, and sort of...useless.
But we can’t escape our genetics. (Yet. Hopefully never.) Because, you see, I am not a Lippizan. I am a Haflinger.
The ultimate Austrian workhorse:
Our military uses them for support, mountain farmers have used them to survive for centuries. They are sturdy, blonde, built for crossing mountains, a wild but gentle demeanour.
Just like me. I seem to have built in all-terrain endurance, and my hereditary factory settings were never gonna let me be a ballet dancer.
I didn’t understand for a long time that beauty also comes from being placed in the right environment.
By putting myself into wind and weather, I learned that within that literal work-flow, I started to feel beautiful. Messy hair, dirty clothes and all.
These days, when I read Vogue, or watch aesthetic DITL videos on youtube, I feel no envy. I am in innocent awe of the pranc-y people, and just enjoy their beauty and elegance.
So next time you feel out-of-place, or envious, don’t turn to bitterness or cynicism. Maybe your beauty is lost in the wrong environment.
Maybe you’re a powerful show pony standing in a field of dependable draft horses.
Maybe you’re the draft that’s been accidentally placed on the starting line next to high-strung race horses.
Maybe you’re the race horse reined in by a bunch of hardy Haflingers.
Whatever you are, the world needs you to be it on purpose.
Me, I’m a working Haflinger. And I feel beautiful.
P.S.: Maybe it's no coincidence my boyfriend used to be a Haflinger handler when he served…🤔🥰
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