Backblogged, Gazing into the Middle Distance

I went to the barn last night feeling low and on the edge of being nuts. Some kind of sense prevailed, though, and I found myself outside in the quiet, hand grazing Saxony and Scout side by side with a good friend who's come to stay for the summer. What kind of a metronome is perfect? The metronome that is a horse. They steady my breathing and decelerate my thought process. Beholding them, I have to slow down.

And I did, I slowed down. It's hard to say how horribly wound up I got about Scout's bucking caper this Saturday past. When I'm in the run-up to the opening of the summer festival I work for, everything bottlenecks to the same forward-leaning, hurtling place. My perception turns funnel-like and peripheries begin to vanish even though there are people, places and things living there. I can miss important things.



My friend, K, has a very different view about Scout and the bucking, but I didn't take the time to see it in the moment. Rushing and reacting, I didn't even ask. It's hard to admit that.

I've wanted to write the story of what's been going on between Scout and K for a long while now, and boy, I really wish I'd made the time to do it. Now I have to gist and compress it to acknowledge K's perspective. In one year she's ridden more miles on Scout than I have in all the years I've owned her. She's done things with her that are unimaginable to me - road riding, solo riding, galloping, pushing her to deal with life as a trail horse. K just has a handle on how to cope with this hot, anxious, nosy, distractible mare.

My knowledge of Scout presumes my own failures with her; she's defined as the horse I can't manage. When it's your failure, it's easy to make excuses even if you think you're over it. The hyperstimulation of a new stable, two days spent indoors during inclement weather, inadvertent feeding of oats by the barn owner, running out of the Mare Magic sample we tried on her, all these things auditioned in my mind until I settled on a girth sore being the root of her bucking K off. I don't even know why it mattered to me. But K doesn't have my baggage; she just sees a horse to ride. A horse she loves something fierce, but, all the same, a horse she insists does not respect her, a horse she will have to have it out with in the end. I never went to that place with Scout; I didn't have it in me. I don't have it in me. When K told me that Scout bucked her off out of piss and vinegar and sheer disrespect, I was shocked and wanted to defend her. But why? This is the very horse that broke my confidence. Be surprised, why? Maybe because I wouldn't know what to do about it, seeing what K has seen. I think it tells me a lot that I never even saw that place with Scout, the place where respect must happen.

What is it that I want to say? I think K is right. She faces Scout in ways I never did, has ridden her deeper than I ever could. I should have seen it.

Backblogged: Realizations and Revelations

On Monday, I moved Scout to a new barn and Special K moved her adorable little Arab with us. It was a long and wonderful day, one in which revelations and realization occurred throughout.

Philosophical revelation: Go to a place where life is new.

Born at the new barn, not even 24 hours old.

Logistics realization: Where possible, move your horses together.

You'll be just fine here, you'll see. You've got Gambler.

Practical realization: Some horses know hay feeders, others, not.

I don't get it. I am hungry. How is he eating?

We rode to our new barn in spirit-lifting weather, dawdling and looping for 90 minutes, engineering to arrive with the horses a little worn out. Scout and Gambler went into a paddock together, and it became clear that for all her posturing and bossing, Scout is entirely dependent on Gambler. Nose pressed against his withers, she clung to him throughout their exploration of the new yard.

Emotional revelation: Wary Scout is so attached to her people.

You guys are coming back, aren't you? Can you come back now?

It was the best of days, it really was. As the sun moved west and shadows fell over the east side of the big barn, K and I sat together on an old park bench, bagging Equi-Shine and watching our horses reading pee-mails and patrolling their new perimeter. Next chapters are inspiring and exciting when begun together, for the horses and for their humans, too.

Backblogged, and Another First

Carharts, circa 2007

My boots, beloved to me, recently underwent professional restoration. These everyday shitkicker boots are things of perfection. I got them in the autumn of 2007, during a road trip with D. We stopped at a farm supply shop somewhere near the eastern edge of the Ozarks because I always like to see what kind of tack is sold where. There wasn't much; it was the kind of place where horses are considered livestock. But there were these Carharts, men's size nine, roomy enough for both summer swelling and double-sock winters. I hugged them close, bargaining with myself, as I wandered around the store with D. She's a chiseler from birth; her mere presence compelled me to think cheap. The Carharts were on sale, but still expensive for me. But these could be them, I thought, the footwear of a lifetime. I wore them out of the store. Since then, they've logged hundreds and hundreds of miles. When the sole on the right one began to separate a couple of months ago, I resisted the decline, hating to lose my perfect Carharts. Instead, I found an old-school cobbler. "That's a decent boot," he grizzled at me, handing me a pickup ticket. The beauty of his work proves he meant it.

Another Winter, A Better Winter

This morning brought 15 degrees and a breeze. The sun was out and the snow squeaked like styrofoam underfoot. It's the kind of weather that makes me want to kill myself, always has. Something about the brutality of the cold, coupled with the blinding sun, drives me inward, away from the assaultive insistence of nature. I take it personally.

Let's go riding, K said to me the other day. I love her. I didn't want to chicken out, but I pretty much assumed I would. Turns out I didn't. It was the first winter ride, first snow ride of my life. I loved it. K took Scout and I rode Gambler, fuzzy as a seal, white-like-snow Gambler. The trail was untouched save for deer tracks here and there. The naked trees, branches woven close, blocked the breeze and checked the sun. We rode under a canopy of quiet and stillness, the horses' hooves cutting softly through the snowcrust. I felt happiness drifting up in me, an unexpected warmth hard to put into words. When we finally turned for home, Scout started jigging, so K and I decided to work. Back and forth we serpentined along the trail, schooling like minnows one behind the other. "Leave her out of it, K," I said. "We're just working on our aids together. Remember, outside rein, inside leg, switch, outside rein, inside leg." Behind me and Gambler, I felt Scout coming back down into peace.

H.G. picked me up, and as we drove away from the barn, I pointed out for him the hoof prints we'd left in the snow. Just then, it felt like Christmas to me. Thank you, K.

Backblogged

This is my favorite picture of Mr. Tabby Man. Tab-Tab, a sweet, shlubby guy, died a few years ago. He was kneading me when I took this photo, which explains his stoned expression, but I also look this way tonight because somehow I came down with bronchial pneumonia during the summer and just got it diagnosed today. I only knew energy was draining out of me faster than I could store it and I was getting too good at hacking up chunks of blondish spackle. Ah, well.

None of that was enough to prevent me from going on a two-and-a-half-hour trail ride with K on Sunday morning. It was chilly, and rain spat through the wind from time to time, but it was so good to ride. I left Saxony alone over the weekend, not wanting to involve her with a less-than-present me, and rode Gambler while K rode Red Death. The ride didn't do my chest any good, but it did wonders for my head, so I broke even.

There I was practicing my sitting trot on little Gambler, whose peg-legged, steppy Arab trot demands a deep, relaxed seat and flexing, opening hips. I found my way to the elusive moment when those abstract concepts converged into a simple physical harmonic and I stayed there, again and again. You have that moment where you say I actually get it, I really actually understand it because you feel it.

It's a lifelong, ever-sustaining pursuit, riding, and rare for being one that's more fun along the way than not. That's how I feel about it, and that's what I talk about with friends who've never had horses in their lives. Then I gloat when I become an enabler.

Which is exactly what is happening here. A dear friend relaxes on Gambler, riding on the buckle, both of them enjoying a lovely stretch after a session on the lunge line. This was only the third time she'd ridden Gambler, but what seemed to have begun as a minor case of the 24-hour horse bug may have flared into ... full-blown horse pneumonia. Presenting symptoms include, but are not limited to, unrepentant grin, reluctance to dismount, and sudden use of the word "lease." I recognize the moment when someone discovers their love of riding, their love of horses, and I never tire of sharing it. I know what beginners don't yet realize, how that sense of discovery never leaves us when horses are in our lives, and how it can help us even in those parts of our lives that have nothing to do with horses.

Which makes me think of K and what's going on between her and Scout. I still had Dar when Scout passed her post-surgery-and-recovery soundness exam. With Dar in training then, and Scout long ago cast in the role of beloved nemesis, I could only nod silently when Dr. B said, smiling, "Put her back into regular work."

Dar played out as he did and then the high season of my job drew me into its four-month maw. Scout idled happily in the pasture and uneasily in the back of my mind. Until the day K asked to ride her. That was some 15 rides ago, and now I know "K" stands for Kismet.

Riding with them on Sunday, watching their growing connection, I continued to think about how they are matched, about how the right fears can sometimes dovetail with precisely the right horse in the best way imaginable for the horse and the rider. That's happening here, and I'll write about it when I've understood it well enough to explain what I mean. For now, it'll stay in my backblog, along with Saxony, thoughts about dressage, questions about endurance, and new steps to regaining confidence.