Search and Rescue

‘The worst thing is not finding someone.’ 

~ Sonia Evers

For a while, as part of research for the novel I’m writing, I interviewed search dog handlers. I started out with the idea that these people were superhuman, and worked back from there.

I clomped across lumpy bogs of tussock and flax following handlers as they followed their dogs. The training days were long, sometimes the pre-planned search didn’t go well, the handler struggled, the dog lost the scent and couldn’t re-find it. I asked how they got through the lows, the no-progress, the miles of walking. They laughed, ‘dirty jokes, chocolate, barbecue lunch.’

I lay hidden in flax and watched the sky, listening to the slip, rustle and clatter of tough leaves in the wind. I strained for the sound of approaching dog paws over grass. The moment when the face of the dog appeared was electric. Found you. 

Like writing, search dog handling is obsessive and voluntary with very little pay, ‘Everyone wants to make a find,’ Sonia said.

I did not want to make a find. This was the part I didn’t get. Training was fun, but finding a body? A person injured? Just the thought made me tearful, overwhelmed. I figured that search dog handlers, were just greater, better, stronger. I suggested this idea to Sonia. She looked a little puzzled, and shook her head, ‘No,’ she said, ‘They know they’re gonna feel-it, they just go anyway.’

Feel-it.

Seriously?

But.

Where does the confidence to feel-it come from? 

So, for a while during interviews, I asked the search dog handlers this question: how do you develop confidence? (What I really meant was: can you tell me how to get some confidence?) Again, like Sonia’s response to my are-you-superhuman question, there was a moment of puzzlement. Then the answer was always something like: well, you start here, then you consolidate, then once you’ve consolidated, you build on that; just a little each time, then consolidate again; and keep it fun. You have to keep it fun. 

In terms of the confidence of the dogs, the handlers were clear, delicacy was required, too much bossing, too many instructions and a dog could lose its confidence. But bottom-line, if you’re having problems: it’s you, not the dog, and it’s probably because you have tried to move on too quickly, and haven’t consolidated. So go back a step, or two steps. You had to work with the dog you had. Each dog was different, and some dogs didn’t have the drive required for searching. When this was the case, you accepted it, retired that dog to the status of pet, and got a new search dog. This was hard, but it was the job.

I chipped away at the novel. Sonia and I became friends. I started painting to ‘sit with my emotion’— could I at least be a tiny-bit like the search dog handlers and feel-it? I painted shame, anger, rage, guilt, fear, fear, fear. I painted gratitude. I painted prayers, an open form of unknowing. 

After a while, I began to notice my emotions even when I wasn’t painting. And maybe for the first time ever, I didn’t always shy away. I just noticed: okay, this is [insert emotion], and it feels like crap, and then at some point I would notice I didn’t feel so crappy anymore, like a cloud had sailed through, and now I was feeling what, some kind of sort of calm?

Because fear was a recurring subject in my paintings. I started to write a book about fear alongside my novel. I thought: I’ll write a book about it, and then by the end of the book, I will have cracked it. Fear no more. Something like that. I made a flippant comment at writing group, ‘I’m working on a book about fear,’ ha ha ha.

‘Next you’ll write a book about trust then,’ said one of the wise writers.

Trust?

I started to think about trust. Not in an aggressive, turn over every stone sort of way, just mulling it around in the background, occasionally noticing light-fall on the subject. Slowly a new question formed from the dense and slippery foliage, a flax flower against the sky.

What if confidence is a form of self-trust?

          Poem
          rain at sea
          each drop
          a crater of relief

Rain At Sea, watercolour on paper by Kirstie McKinnon

Upcoming Events

Thursday 11 July: I'm reading as part of the Arts + Science Ekphrastic Writer’s Night reading at the Community Gallery, 26 Princes Street, Dunedin, 5-7 pm.

Tuesday 16 July: I’m thrilled to be the guest speaker at the Horizons group in Timaru. I’ll be speaking about my work with the book CUMULUS, and the brain-and-emotion-work involved in painting and writing.

Thank you for being here.

Kirstie