I Can See Clearly Now...with my glasses on.

It’s time to face the music.  I’m getting glasses for my birthday.

About two years ago I started wearing contacts on occasion.  Those occasions included driving somewhere new with the truck and trailer and when jumping.  It was jumping that convinced me to have my eyes checked in the first place.  I just couldn’t find the correct distance to the jumps.  Turns out if you see better, you jump better.  Anyway, I found contacts to be terribly annoying and very convenient all in one.  Being able to see across the field was awesome, but after about four days, my contacts got fuzzy and I could generally see better without them.  Plus I have a rotten time getting them in my eyes and I can’t read my computer screen with them.  Bother, bother, bother.  Besides, I didn’t really need them…then.

Well, now apparently I do.  The optometrist said, “No more driving without correction.”  Humbug and bug-a-boo.  My face does not handle glasses well!  My eyes don’t like the contacts.  Whatever shall I do?

Well, after running the poor ladies around the store countless times we found a pair of sunglasses that are more like goggles and a pair of completely customizable glasses.  I’m exasperated, but I’ll have to learn to live with them.  We’re also trying the daily disposable contacts.  My horse must be rubbing off one me; I’m becoming high maintenance!

Any who…During my surprise shopping trip, I was bombarded with slogans. 

                “Clearly the Best.”      “Your world.  See the brilliance.”      

                “See Better.  Look Perfect.”      “Physics elevated to an art form.”

Well, that catch phrase from Oakley got me thinking about dressage.  It is physics elevated to an art form or it can be.  Lately our dressage has been all physics.  Mainly Newton’s Second Law of Motion: for an unbalanced force (Nutmeg) acting on a body (me), the acceleration produced is proportional to the force impressed….  You get the idea.  But it should be an art form.  I’ve seen it be an art form, but try as I might, I couldn’t visualize our dressage being any more than physics.  Time for glasses.

It happened by accident.  I just thought, “Hum, she feels good, let’s canter.”  And we did and it was great.  I didn’t prepare.  I didn’t half-halt.  I didn’t lean back or shift my weight.  I just asked.  In other words, I didn’t mess it all up!  I quit while I was ahead.  I fully expected it to be a fluke, but on my next ride I visualized doing nothing. That’s a very hard thing to visualize by the way.  My reward for doing nothing was one round of the softest, dreamiest canter I’ve ever experienced.  That was ART!

So now I know we can do it.  I don’t expect to replicate the victory every time I ride, but I sure am going to try.  I still anticipate a pretty poor score at the event in Kentucky this weekend, but now at least I can visualize a really nice test and sometimes seeing is believing and believing leads to doing.

Ellen J. Langer wrote, “In the perspective of every person lies a lens through which we may better understand ourselves.”  That is my favorite part of riding under other people.  They bring their perspective and help me tune my lens.  Lately I’ve been told I’m doing too much just because I can, not because I need to.  I think it’s finally soaked in and given me a Fresh Perspective.  Instead of getting bogged down in the how’s and why’s and whens, instead of getting engrossed in the physics, sometimes I just need to focus on the art.