Caring Into the Void

The world is the world. I follow as much of it as I can. Because I was born in England, the concept of journeying to foreign shores was real to me. We arrived in America for the duration, but even as a child I never stopped looking back and looking out, to countries beyond my reach. Grown now, I follow stories of other places from the smallness of my own because the world is still the whole world to me. Within it, there is the horse as touchstone, as a common symbol that helps me feel connected even when I never will be. There's more power in that small commonality than I can find in We Are The World or Imagine.

Here's a Palestinian boy riding in beautiful balance alongside Israel's West Bank barrier. Lives still have to be lived.

Here, mounted policewomen patrol Stockholm astride big, beautiful warmbloods after the recent bombing.

I see horses present and useful in places affected by the consequences of seeming irreparable human conflict.

And then they're not. The New York Times published a heartbreaking article today, Hardships of a Nation Push Horses Out to Die. The piece, written by John F. Burns, describes what is happening to horses in Ireland as the country fights to prevent total economic collapse. It may be better not to know when there's nothing I can do, but I can't help dreaming of an airlift to pick these horses off the former landfill where they now wander. This is Ireland: horses run in the blood, they run deep as history.

Stop Your Face

That's what I think when I look at Spud, because he's just too ridiculous. Someone dumped him out of a car two years ago and he ended up with us. He's a treasure.

"And stop your face too," I tell Mouse from time to time. She was found newly born, her tiny sister beside her, their mother dead in the road. Mouse is so pretty I can rarely walk past her without stopping to look. That box she's parked in measures 7 x 9 inches.
But really, today it's me who needs to stop my face. I was on the phone at work, involved in epic conversations, every day, all day, this week. Long, long conversations. Hours and hours of talking, listening, and talking some more. It's hard work. My face does not want to move, it just wants to hang around. I'm aware of my ears. Now would be the time to let them flop sideways, horselike. So for now, I'm not talking, but I am thinking.

This upcoming Tuesday, Scout will have a soundness exam. On May 2nd, it will be six months since her surgery. I shut down the endless loop in my head about Scout and me a couple of months ago, when the pressure of having to decide anything at all about either her or Dar began to grind at me in a way that tainted how I saw them both. I just had to stop the obsessive one-way dialog to wait for the next piece of information. That's what I'll get on Tuesday. So that day is coming, that moment when I'll have to think of Scout, about Scout, all over again.

Sheesh, It's Not Even January 24th Yet

British scientists determined, a few years ago, that January 24th is the worst day of the year. I don't know what science they used to arrive at that date, but it rang true to me the moment I heard it.

When I think about this blog -- this journal -- and why I started it, I can't help but be rattled by how things have changed since then. Scout was up for sale, a decision which had taken me an agonizingly, stupidly long time to make. Dar was a sleepy-eared, crabby oaf who seemed calmer in his temperament and movement than Scout had ever been; it felt easy to take him home. I had faith in the moment, because I thought I was moving toward dealing with my fear by starting over with another horse. As they say, the best-laid plans of mice and... well, mice, because that's how I'm feeling. It's been a hard, unhappy, oppressive few days. I'm overwhelmed with the new circumstances, anxious and sad, and I can't think my way out of how I'm feeling. This picture captures some of my dilemma.

In the foreground, Scout snarfs her way through a flake of hay, happy outdoors as if nothing's changed. What was probably the hardest part for her is done, but she needs weeks of simple turnout before I can ride her. She's been the horse capturing most of my attention over the past few months. In the background stands silly Dar, not able to believe Scout's lack of interest in him. Five months ago, it seemed certain to me that I'd be deep in training with him by now. Scout might not have found a new home, but I was prepared to wait for the right person to take her. The picture should have been the other way around, but circumstance has reversed it. I'm not prepared for that, and I don't see what to do. Some of this is simple self pity, I know. But not all of it. Some of this is just the winter; I know that too. But not all of it.

I certainly didn't imagine that I would not ride a horse for five months. But I haven't. I didn't imagine that I'd have two horses. But I do. And neither of them are easy. Dar pushes hard at his gate and destroys tank heaters with his mouthiness. Scout's injury means everybody at the barn has to work harder. Yes, I've been a good farmhand and honest boarder, but I'm out of the flow for not riding, for not having a viable horse. I feel the absence of it terribly.

These are just some thin thoughts I've put down to try to sketch in where I'm feeling, if not what I'm feeling. It seems harder than it should be, but maybe it is just that hard. I have to accept that possibility if I am to say another word. The pressure of my hopes, wants and fears has settled, for now, on the question of the horses.

Accidents of Circumstance Mean Now What?

With this, everything has changed, no matter how well I thought I had it all worked out. The urgency of the moment created in me a relentless energy that I tapped to get Scout through her surgery and into recovery. Putting her needs first pushed me into the background, pushed my reactions down. She's been home for a week now, and a routine, of sorts, has been crafted. In that week, I found the time to write my long, hard letter to the barn where she was injured. When I dropped it in the mail, it seemed to put a frame around all of it, containing it as one long event. That's when I began to see how hard all of this is going to be.

It took me so, so long to decide to give up Scout. For two years I listened to a loop in my head, a festering chatter of questions and answers, delusions and bravado. I always got hung up on the same few things.

1) In the right person's hands, she could be a wonderful, athletic little horse. Then I would regret giving her up, forgetting that I decided the right person wasn't me.
2) She's so herdbound, I can never just take her out for a ride alone. Then I have to change my life so I can work with her more.
3) She intimidates me too much. Really. Then I'm validating my fear by walking away from her.
4) I must have brought the fear with me, Scout didn't cause it. Then no horse can fix it.

The trouble with these themes that I obsessed over? I can't tell whether they came from my head or my heart. I only know that I felt relief when I finally decided to let her go. But now she's back. The fierceness of my love for her surged in the face of her injury. She awed me with her ability to go through things she didn't understand. The needles, the surgery, all the strangers around her. Through all of it, she looked for me. Don't I have to try again? Shouldn't I?

As I knew she would, Scout hates the separation from the herd. The first few days were so hard for her that we raised the sedative dose from once daily to twice, but she still paws the floor in frustration and sometimes spins.

I stood with her in her stall yesterday. It was stupidly cold. For an hour, we both stared out the window, watching the other horses wandering in their paddocks. I talked to her, as I have since the first day I got her. She rested her head on my shoulder. I could feel the warmth of her body beside mine. I know I calm her. On the ground, our relationship can be sublime. Once I'm up, though, things change for me. I ride with an anxious anticipation and contaminate my skill with the tension I feel. That changes Scout. She absorbs my tension, and then we're pulled into a cycle of mutual mistrust that I don't know how to ride through, don't believe I can ride through.

Maybe nothing I think today will matter in a month or two, but I'm worried and sad. Scout's not for sale now; I don't think she ever will be. Winter has come; the cold feels sudden and shocking. Soon Dr. B will come and look at Scout's leg, maybe remove the stitches, and, above all, tell me when she can go out, and how she can go out.

I have too many thoughts and reactions to organize. For now, I'm left with the feeling of having suffered a blunt-force trauma. The story has changed too abruptly. Now I have two horses, one who is injured and another who is gaining energy, impatience and idiocy every day. I can't do much with either of them, preempted by the snow and ice.

I've long had the sense that winter time is when life withdraws into itself. I know how I shut down and go quiet then. That will still be true for me this year, but I won't be able to hide from the decisions that have to be made. Right now, I don't want to make them. What could be hard seems too hard, and my reactive, jaundiced eye often overlooks what could be simple. "It is what it is," they say. But I always want to know what it is; that's my vigilance and my handicap. It's easy to say that fate has thrown me a do-over. What if it has?