A different kind of 'Bunny'

I love riding therapy horses.

Most people would not say this. Well, most horse people would not say this. Most therapy horses are donated to programs due to their flaws or their age (or both). The show ring and the hunter course aren't always forgiving on older bodies, nomatter how willing the spirit may be. Trots are no longer symmetrical. There might be a hitch here and there. They may have grown sluggish, or unwilling to move faster. They may not like to be saddled, they may have started cribbing on wood, they may have stopped eating, or become obsessed with eating.

So they come to us, sometimes a little overweight or underweight, or off on the right front at the canter. Some of them have forgotten how to bend and flex their backs, their hindquarters. Some of them never learned the fundamentals, some of them refuse to remember.

Cantering Bunny around the arena has been both a source of pain for me and a source of great pride. She had been sluggish and out of practice, unhappy with riders and riding. I figure, at the end of the day, all horses just need to move. They are built for that, it's in their blood. Like any natural athlete, when fitness falls to the wayside, they start to get sad.

Bunny's canter was hesitant. We started at a jog-trot, then I pushed for her to extend. I began to post (rise and fall with the leg on the wall) as she found a little more momentum. We rounded the south end of the outdoor arena, and I sat deep in the seat of the saddle. I lifted my inside rein, applied my outside leg, and made a kiss/hiss with my mouth.

My legs are long, which makes cueing relatively easy. When my leg moves slightly, horses really feel it, feel my weight shift or my seat engage. It's my own sort of advantage in a world of 5-foot nothing riders. So, when I asked once, I knew she'd know what I was telling her with all that body language. Bunny flicked her ears back at me, and her trot got lightning fast.

I asked again, and again, and again with my legs and my hands and my voice. Bunny was trotting so fast and breathing so hard trying to avoid cantering that I knew she had it in her. She was just out of practice, and feeling lazy.

I reached behind me, and slapped her rump and growled. That did it - quite literally, this fast-trotting mare bounded up into a nasty canter that threw my hips out of alignment as my seat, upperbody, and legs fought to keep her balanced. We went about 15 strides before she broke back down into the trot.

She's gotten better, I'll admit. Bunny canters now without a crop, a growl, or even a hard cue. She rushes into the transition a little bit, but I'm hard pressed to complain. My hips now sit level in the saddle, paralell to the horizon, and though I still have to really work to get her to bend around the corners without crashing into a fence or cutting straight across, she goes and goes and goes. Today we cantered 2 complete laps - her ears forward, her body pushing from behind.

I look at these angel horses and marvel as they tolerate screaming clients, balls being thrown at their faces by excited children, clumsy volunteers cinching up their girths too tightly. Some of them bite when a rider gets too wiggly - but they'd never buck or rear to put that person in danger. They have a voice, in their way. They have a look when they're scared, when they're relaxed, when they're unsure, when they're very happy. They wear it in their walk, their head carriage, their ease of transition from faster paces to slower paces to standstills.

When a horse is really happy, they listen.

Therapy horses taught me that the happiest souls are those with their ears always searching for input, and their bodies stretching, bending, and moving.

Thoughts from Colorado, a Few Years Later.

Did you know that people bike on precarious mountain roads, over 7,000 feet above sea level?

Well, they do. And sometimes on Saturday mornings, when you're dressed in a long sleeved Wrangler shirt (with breast pockets perfect for a can of chew that you don't have) and wearing spurs someone made from old horse shoes, sitting astride a big prancing idiot of a horse who has no business trying to herd cows, trailed by about 5 beginning adults who either know what they're doing or want desperately to get their overweight asses out of a leather saddle, you see the bikers as they pass your small herd of cattle. Actually, it was more common for them to break for a while and stare. You'll quickly contrast your dusty grunge and tense horseflesh to all that neon spandex and plastic straddling an economic display of titanium alloy and wheels. They almost always wave and smile, these bikers - and your heart dips a little in your chest because they remind you of the city and where you come from, not just the person you're being paid to be. They remind you of the kinds of people who work in a physically idle state, and have to persue exercise as a hobby because they'd be worthless lumps of overthinking fat and hair and bones without it. Even you can remember that desperate need for escape into something vast yet navigatable, to feel like you can make your body do things it doesn't want to do, go places it couldn't normally go, just for a few minutes or hours a day until you recage it and re-invest it in mundanity.

Now you're a a 20-something girl on a massive bay gelding came striding onto County Road 40 pushing 20 cattle ahead of her. There's a lot to think about up here - the even pressure of weight in your sturrups, the tension in your reins, pulsing your hands to remind your steed that he needs to listen, listen. Waiting for the last cow to get ahead of you, because rushing in the middle would scatter them. You watch the others and make sure their horses are behaving, making sure they're beside you as you cross the road. Making sure they're not walking their horses through holes or over barbed wire. You're tense, you're not thinking about much else besides your physical actions, the job at hand. But you look up, and that biker waves - that biker that you used to understand really well. You might still understand him, but right now you feel like worlds are colliding. A semi truck stops and idles as you push cows past. The other riders wonder if we're doing something illegal - but no, here, the cows have a right-of-way. You're allowed to stop traffic, to make jaws drop. You have a job to do.

But in the end, you feel oddly homesick as you look at idling drivers in minivans or bikers or even people out walking their dogs. Your life has become some kind of warped version of a western - or a reality show, depending on the day. You wouldn't trade it, really. Every once in a while, though, you wish for the perspective of the biker and not the wrangler, even if just for a minute.

Being clean, being pretty, being eloquent, being well-read - these are not things valued where you are. Half of the contents of your brain are completely useless here. This is a place of reflex, of literal touch-and-go, of sunburn, of manure, of hill and dale. It's a place where the biggest puzzle you have all day is how to match guests ("dudes") with your herd of horses, or the best way to get Scottish Highland cattle off the sides of very tall hills. You've fallen off, you've bruised yourself, you've gotten lost at this point. You've probably lost 10 pounds at least from sheer motion for 14 hours a day, 6 days a week. Your cell phone doesn't work anywhere out here, and you get mailed week-old copies of the New York Times to stay abreast of the world outside. No, looking at that biker on a Sunday morning makes you more than homesick, it makes you envious. Things are easy, fast from that bike.

Things are gritty, painful, sometimes even mindless from this horse. So much of you loves it, and yet so much of you is left behind.

Even now, so far from that place, I wonder which parts of me I'm supposed to leave behind.

Walk on, walk up, and whoa.

She's nervous, you see.

I could tell when she walked into the waiting area in the barn--suddenly pacing, repeating, "I'm going to the mall." She'll be going to the mall tomorrow with a school group, its true. She flipped her head back to look at the ceiling lights.

I knelt down to get to eye level. "Hi, my name is Andrea."

"I'm going to the mall," she said, looking left of my head, into the arena where horses were warming up. I adjusted her helmet a little, shortened the chin-strap to fit her head. When it was her turn, I took her hand, and her mother asked if she could come, too. I agreed.

At the gate, mom had to go. It was just me, the instructor, her, and the horse now.

She protested. She dropped to her knees. She pulled against us. She whined, waled, turned limp in our arms.

Up the block, step by step, we practically dragged her. When we lifted her onto the back of the horse, she whimpered, screamed, began to kick. Her horse stood there patiently against the panicked blows, and we pulled her away, back to the block, then to the waiting area.

Her horse was brought over again--for grooming this time, not riding. Mother and I held her hands and I put a brush in my back pocket. She began to get weak in the knees getting into the arena whimpering as before. Mother cradled the back of her neck while I pulled her arms along until we were next to the horse again. I held the brush in her hand and we ran it down his neck. "I'm going to the mall. I want to go home. " No, you're here, with your friend, the horse--we told her these things again and again. After 5 minutes of brushing, watching her horse's ears flick back and forth as she repeated his name, and eventually reaching her fingers into wooly winter coat, she went back out of the arena to regroup with her mother. She returned later, helmet still on. Her mother's jaw was set, her movements were brisk. They came over to me at my post by the gate.

We talked. "I'm going to the mall." Let's go see your horse one more time, okay?

Volunteers positioned the horse at the block for the second time. Like the professional he was, he stood squared, calm, seeming not to remember the tiny girl-explosion who had approached him earlier. While he stood, we practiced walking up those steps, assuring her that she didn't have to ride today. The instructor and I stood there, supporting her weight as she reached a tentative hand forward to touch that familiar fur, put her hands on the instructor's hands, placed her fingers on a closely-clipped mane. "Thank you, horsey."

Good. This is better. She came off the block down the steps, to the cement waiting area outside the arena. Mother and I sat with her to watch the last of class. We waved at her horse as he walked by, riderless. "I would like to pet him again," she said. We exchanged surprised looks. "Going to the mall, I have a pool, do you want to come?" she said. Mother scowled a bit at that.

I called the volunteer leader over again. He brought the horse, who stood there like a patient kind of friend as she was coaxed out of her chair. Two hands, now, through the gate, into his fur. Fingers reached through the thick hair to get to the skin. Good. This is better.

When her horse was lead away, she reached for my hand and said, "You come to see my pool? My horsey come to see my pool?" Oh, friend, you come to visit me, and I'll help you learn to ride. Its so much better than a pool. Just you wait and see.

Post This, Post That - How Not To Forget.

In the style of my favorite guy, Dan Wilson (www.danwilsonblog.blogspot.com), I've decided to take note of what I've taken note of recently.

In college, I never put up any artwork in my room, because we weren't allowed to put holes in the walls. The wall above my computer was always dedicated to random notes, pictures, dissected greeting cards, and postcards that trailed me from year to year. My room in Robbinsdale now does have my artwork posted just about everywhere - but I still feel the constant reminders seeping through my daily life, needing recording. I have to save these pearls for later, and keep them near me for inspiration.

So, in no particular order, I give to you my 2009 Post-It pieces of sage advice.

1. Horoscope for 3/28/2009: "If someone confuses you, you should avoid them like the plague - nomatter how handsome or beautiful you may find them to be. People who send mixed messages, play head games, and just aren't clear about who they are in general have nothing of real value to add to your life. Like a bad cold, they will bring you nothing but restless nights and overwhelming fatigue." (for the record, it took me 4 months to heed this advice)
2. Be here now, no other place to be/All the doubts that linger, just set them free/And let the good things happen/And let the future come into each moment like rising sun (and thus began my love affair with the one and only Mason Jennings)
3. "Now" - Our true home is the present/moment. To live in the present/moment, to appreciate the/ peace and beauty that are/ available now./ Peace is all around us -/in the world and in nature -/ and within us -/in our bodies and spirits.
4. BE STRONG, ANDREA. WAIT FOR THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE, IN ALL THINGS.
5. Clean the laundry room. Seriously.

The Fifth of July

On the fourth of July, I went over to my parents' house. It was in the middle of the afternoon, I was going to complete a woodworking project.

If you know me, you know that me and power tools rarely tango gracefully. I'm scared of things that can cut off my hands and noises that necessitate ear protection. When I was taking art classes in college, I usually broke into a mild, nervous sweat when we did the woodworking unit in sculpture class. I pushed through, but reverted back to clay and plaster at my first opportunity.

We Can Ride, my employer, gives wooden plaques to each of it's new participants each year. My new acceptance of the client coordinator position thus dictated that I needed to figure out a way to make these appear out of relatively thin air.

And, at the end of the day, that meant I was going to be making them. I love my job, and I love We Can Ride clients, but I was not thrilled about this project - if willing to learn something new. My dad was happy to bust out his router and chop saw, hand over some old sunglasses as safety goggles, and teach me. Once I got past the noise, things were fine - I made him chop the wood, I just rounded the edges, more or less. My dad never had a son to teach to build a bird house or any of that, so I think it was a nice moment to teach me something he enjoyed. I really love moments like that with him.

So, on the fourth of July, I was going to finish what I started. I pulled into the drive and saw a car there I didn't recognize. It was my uncle with my 11 year old cousin - they were playing frisbee and shooting the shit with my dad. He was reclined in a plastic lawn chair, watching the two of them play.

I was soon absorbed into the talk, when suddenly my cousin decided he wanted to set off his "dud bottle rockets."

Now, if there's anything tougher on my ears than power tools, it's fireworks (I have similar reservations with fireworks that I do with saws - not wanting to lose limbs, etc.). When I was little, my uncle would drive up to our cabin with crazy pyrotechnical devices collected in Texas where he used to live. He, my father, and my grandfather would light them off, mostly in-hand, in various states of intoxication, on the fourth of July. We girls were petrified, and watched from the big picture window as what sounded like World War III was erupting on the lakefront. Grown men turned tiny boys, laughing on the lawn with souped-up sparklers shooting from their fingertips.

When my cousin wanted to play with the bottle rockets, I couldn't help but smile. I could see things starting to come full-circle. My uncle said, "Sure, son. Go get me a pocket knife, a bottle of water, and an empty planter." My dad was happy to point his godson in the proper direction, and I headed back to my car to retrieve my knife - which I knew would be easier than my dad's mammoth model.

My uncle slowly dissected the fuses from the tape, and showed his son how to set them to point away from the house. "Duds are dangerous, Sammy," he warned, as he lit, and lit again, a dud. I felt like a fly on the wall, wincing at the squealing rockets as they shot into the trees lining my backyard.

Sammy learned to do it himself, and loved the sound of them, celebrating the bang at the end. My hands were over my ears, but I couldn't help but enjoy it all through him. Then I watched as my father and his brother took out bottle rockets, and held their beers in the opposite hands. Uncle lit Dad's for him, and I watched as the fuses burnt down and the squeak - pop cut through the silence. They both laughed - and Sammy danced through the yard.

"Again, again!"

I was sad to see it end, actually - two hands holding my memories inside my brain, for safekeeping. Yeah, that's it.