Watching

“To watch.  To wait.  To wonder at the world in chaos,” the girl said.  “And hope one day you fools might learn.”  - David Hewson

Equestrians must be some of the worst endorphin junkies out there.  Our highs are found soaring on the wings of our horses and our lows as we are trampled by their frailty.  Yet we plow ahead, over and over and over again.

With the darker days of winter, it seems spirits have been darkening as well.  I watched a friend’s mother loose her barn and indoor arena to fire.  I watched another friend battle an unknown foe that eventually claimed her dear horse.  I have been watching the citizens of this state and country wage war against one another with emotion ruling over logic and all I can do is watch.

We took Nutmeg to the teaching hospital at the University of Missouri to see if we could find the source of her breathing trouble.  A physical exam stated, “She is the picture of health.”  An upper respiratory exam found the same, but the lower respiratory exam found the cause and all I could do was watch.

She basically has work induced asthma.  She is happy and healthy at rest, but the increased air flow during exercise allows tiny particles in the air to irritate her trachea.  We could throw thousands and thousands of dollars at those tiny particles and possibly keep working for a while, but not showing.  The drugs to manage the symptoms aren’t legal in eventing.  We would be sidelined at best, just watching.

Trachea.  White River shouldn't be there.

Nutmeg is an athlete.  She hates watching.  She wants to do, to run, to jump, to compete, to problem solve.  I’m the same way.  Sitting on the sidelines is not where we belong.  Understanding this, I have had several wonderful people offer me horses.  They know I don’t sit still well.  While I am incredibly honored, I am also torn.  A part of me feels as though I am betraying Nutmeg.  She is still so vibrant.  She moves the best she ever has in the pasture.  As I look at her grazing amidst the cross country jumps, I can’t fathom not riding her anymore.  Logically, I know I have made a sound decision, but my emotions aren’t handling it well.  Watching sucks.  

They say, “In the heat of battle, time stands still.”  I need to get back into the battle, because watching it, seeing time flying by, it really stinks.  When you are in there fighting, at least you can feel the ebb and flow.  You taste the temporary victories and push through the inevitable set-backs.  There is a feeling that you will prevail as long as you keep going.  But sometimes you just can’t.  And sometimes, you just don’t win no matter how hard or how long you stay in the battle.  

When is it okay to admit you have been beaten?  Is it ever okay to throw in the towel?  Why, as humans, are we so driven to overcome and to conquer all our adversities?  Why can’t I let go?

I looked at some very nice horses over Thanksgiving.  I know of several others that would be a great deal of fun.  I have a hugely talented pony at home already who is begging to be worked.  Admiral is being his usually charming self and keeps reminding me that has talent too; he just prefers not to use it if he can avoid it.  I am not lacking in other paths to take, but I’m afraid it’s going to take a road paved in gold to convince my feet to change direction.  Right now, I’m just watching.   My brain says, “Let’s get going.”  My heart says, “Wait.”  It’s a Fresh Perspective and it is painful.

“Be the player in your own dream life.  Don’t be a spectator watching your dreams every day; Let them get going!”  - Israelmore Ayivor

My Life as a Dilatant

Let me first offer my apologies for my absence this summer.  It has been a tough summer and every time I found time to sit down and write, everything sounded whiney and petulant.  Certainly not the attitude I hoped to convey, although in its own right, for me it has been a fresh perspective.

Things are finally starting to calm down again.  Although we never found the root cause for Nutmeg’s breathing difficulty, we have her on some Chinese herbs and they seem to be managing the symptoms, at least sometimes.  We will have a couple of good weeks where we manage several full flatwork sessions and then she has a set back and we are back to no lung capacity.  The good news is she is gaining some really nice muscle with all the walk work we have been doing.  Hopefully getting back into jumping shape is right around the corner.

So what is all this about being a dilatant?  What is a dilatant?  Don’t worry; I’m not taking up spray painting bridge supports in my spare time.  For those of you who aren’t chemists, a dilatant is a substance in which applied force causes it to adopt a more ordered structure.  What?  Think of playing with corn starch and water.  You can easily pour it from one bowl to the next, but if you hit it, you’ll just bounce back.  It is flowing until force is applied.  The force causes it to form up and repel the force.

My parents introduced the corn starch and water mixture to me as a kid as an example of a colloidal suspension and I loved it. If I moved my hands quickly I could make it into a ball, but the moment I let it sit in my hand, it would run through my fingers creating a mess all over the floor.  Corn starch in water does make a colloidal suspension, but it is also a dilatant.  The more effort you put into stirring it up or hitting it, the more resistant it becomes.  This is also the science behind, what I personally believe are the most brilliant horse boots ever.  Someday I’ll manage to buy a pair, but I digress.

I was mid dressage lesson when it hit me, I should treat my horse like the corn starch and water mixture.  If I’m constantly banging her with my legs or if my rein aids are sharp, the only reaction I’ll get is a bounce back.  A hard aid gets a hard response and rarely the response I was going for.  If, however, I ooze into her, I can manipulate her whole body.  Think of Jell-O.  If you tap it with a spoon, your spoon just bounces and the Jell-O giggles.  If you put down your spoon and use your fingers to slowly push into the Jell-O with little vibrations, the Jell-O will eventually split and let you in.

This may have been the most important revelation of my summer and I started thinking about how this attitude applied to so much in life.  Rarely does hitting something head on work well for me.  When I run into a barrier, I tend to get knocked on my butt, spring up, and try the barrier again from a slightly different direction just to get knocked down again.  It is only when I stop and spend some time feeling out the barrier that I find a way forward.  I have found that absorbing the obstacles makes them a learning experience, where just finding a way around them leaves me exhausted from running. 

Whether it is an argument, a problem that needs to be addressed at work, or a stubborn horse, keeping a calm head and soaking into what is really going on works so much better than loud words, quick actions, or whips, spurs, and more leg.  In researching the term dilatant, I ran across the term viscosity.  It means the measure of the fluid’s resistance to flow.  In dressage we are always talking about letting the energy flow from the hind legs forward.  In life we are reminded to “roll with the flow.”  So I’m taking a Fresh Perspective and reducing my viscosity and doing my best to be a dilatant.  I’m going to ooze through life’s troubles and always try the softer approach first.  However, if life tries to smack me with a pitch fork, I’m going to bounce right back, baby.

Spilt Milk

“I don’t like looking back.  I’m always constantly looking forward.  I’m not the one to sort of sit and cry over spilt milk.  I’m too busy looking for the next cow.”  - Gordon Ramsay

As soon as I retrieved my horse, I was already thinking about the next event.  I hadn’t even dusted off my breeches or turned off my watch.  I’m a forward thinker.  It gets me in trouble.  Sometimes, we need to slow down our brains and spend a little time in the here and now, maybe even revisit the past.

Last weekend was better than it could have been, but certainly wasn’t what I hoped it would be.  We had a tough week leading up to the Queeny Park Horse Trials.  Nutmeg has been having a horrible time with allergies this spring.  She’s been violently sneezing every few strides when we try to work.  Some days are better than others, but it has been a battle to get much done without torturing the poor girl.  Add to that her sudden desire to kick at my right leg every time I put it on and preparations just weren’t going well.  I couldn’t tell if the kicking was behavioral or a sign of some underlying issue, but when I asked for a little less, she quit doing it.  I assumed it was behavioral and we could tackle the issue after the show.  I began to wonder if the snorting was behavioral too.

When you’ve already paid your entry fee, it’s really hard to decide not to go for issues that might not be issues after a three hour trailer ride.  So we loaded up Friday and headed to Queeny.  Nutmeg really loves to go show and she seemed quite happy to be there after her four hour (wrong directions in the omnibus meant we got lost in St. Louis, again) drive.  I walked the cross country course and was excited.  It seemed to be a straight forward, friendly course with just enough questions to keep things interesting.  I was still really concerned about Nutmeg though.  I wasn’t sure if I’d even get to ride dressage.

Saturday dawned bright and early.  Nutmeg was braided.  I’d laid out everything but my riding clothes the night before.  As I started to get dressed I realized my entire garment bag with all my breeches, shirts, and other items was still hanging in the closet at home where I had loaded it up over a week ago.  Oh shoot!  There was a tack shop on grounds, but they weren’t going to be open in time for my early ride and who really wants to spend their entire show budget for the year on clothes they already have but forgot to bring?  I almost threw in the towel right then.  Clearly this was a sign or was it just a test?  I’ve always been one to forge forward, so it was time to beg, borrow and steal.

After rudely awaking a Pony Club friend of mine who was kind enough to leave her cell number on the braiding board, I discovered that my neighbor down the aisle had forgotten all her clothes at the last show and had started carrying a spare set.  The whole outfit fit!  Hoorah!  Off to dressage land we went.

Nutmeg snorted a bit during warm-up, but they were normal snorts.  She also threw her hind end at me a couple of times, but not badly and otherwise she felt great so we rode our test.  It had some poor moments, like going up centerline more on the quarter line and counter bent, but it also had some decent moments.  She still looks like she’s running around on her forehand, but she is so much softer now.  I did ride her a little long for fear of the snorting and kicking.  We can collect more later.  I rounded all my corners in hopes of staying upright in the slippy grass (yes I had my studs in, but there were still a few slick spots).  The judge was generous and we managed to maintain our below 40 streak, which made me quite happy.

I finally let myself get hopeful for cross country, even though I knew there was a possibility that as the sun came out, the allergies might flair back up.  We made the very long hack out the cross country, entertained by Muslims chanting in the background.  Apparently they were having some sort of gathering nearby.  Warm-up went well for 98% of the time.  The other 2% she spent rodeoing.  It was some serious bucking, but then she’d canter and jump just fine.  I asked a trainer if she could see anything wrong and with reassurance from the ground, headed to the start box.

Apparently I filled up the memory card for my helmet cam at the last event.  When I tested it at the barn it was fine, but when I turned it on at the start box it made unhappy beeps at me.  I shrugged it off, told Nutmeg she needed to make it very clear to me if we needed to pull up, hit start on my watch and off we went.

We took one a little long as usual.  Fence two rode okay.  Three was a little funky, but that’s normal for us.  It usually takes to fence four to really get in a groove.  We had a brief discussion about breaks between three and four and then we locked on to the trekhener.  Trekherners are disconcerting for me, but we’d had such a good school over one this spring, I was feeling confident.  I knew if I just kept my eye up and my leg on we’d be fine.  Well, not so much…

Yes, I threw my shoulders and as a product of that I also looked down, although I still hold that I was looking up until Nutmeg engaged the “E” break.  She’s pulled us out of many similar sticky situations, but this time I truly believe her back hurt enough that stopping was easier.  I’m glad she did.  If we had just had a bad jump, I probably would have kept pushing her forward around the course.  That would have been the wrong decision.  I asked her to tell me if we needed to pull up, and that was the most effective way she had to get the message across.  Sometimes it takes a two-by-four.

That’s all the looking back I’m willing to do.  Life isn’t about what happened yesterday.  It’s about how you react to it and how you live today.  I’m a planner and a dreamer.  I don’t think about the fence I’m jumping now, I’m already thinking about the next.  Sometimes it trips me up or gets me launched over my horse’s shoulder, but it keeps me optimistic and it gives me something to look forward too, when the present kind of sucks.  I could have spent the very long walk home crying over spilt milk.  I’ll admit I did a little crying, but it was disappointment in my decision making and facing the reality that I could have hurt such a lovely horse.  There are lessons to be learned from this, but if I get mired down in it, we’ll never jump another jump.  Fear of past mistakes is no way to live.

I’m struggling with future decisions.  Do I enter the next event at Training or do I drop back down to Novice for an easy go around and a confidence boost?  I don’t feel our confidence has been harmed.  If anything, I feel less apprehensive about trekheners now that the boogey man managed to get me once.  I’ve seen him and now I can beat him, but will my horse have the same opinion?  I’ve never come off her before.  Did that experience shake her confidence?  Time will tell.  For now, I’m focused forward.  

Life Really Is a Fairy Tale

“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.” – Marcel Proust

I’d like to tell you a story.  It’s a magical story, and like most magical stories, it begins a very long, long time ago…

 

There was a young Princess.  She had a wonderful family and a delightful Kingdom and wanted for nothing, but she dreamed of riding her very own Unicorn.

Her parents wanted to help her, but they knew that Unicorns couldn’t be found let alone ridden, so they got her a pony.  He was the perfect round little pony.  He had just enough ornery to teach her many life lessons, but he was also a dutiful servant who was very protective of his young master.  She loved her pony and they spent many years together, but he wasn’t a Unicorn and one day it was decided he should move to a new Kingdom and help a new Princess learn about life.

The Princess was sad, but her wise parents quickly found her a cart horse, a very pretty cart horse.  This cart horse had been around enough to know the ropes and take the young Princess on many adventures.  The King and Queen saw all the Princess was learning and decided she could use some guidance so they found a Wise Wizard.  The young Princess and her cart horse spent many hours under the tutelage of the Wise Wizard and they learned much.  The Princess and the cart horse surprised many people and achieved great things.  They grew very close and the young Princess began to dream of becoming a centaur instead of riding a unicorn.   Then the cart horse died and the young Princess was very, very sad.

The good Queen and King couldn’t bear to see the young Princess so sad, so with the help of the Wise Wizard they found Pegasus for the Princess.    She was so proud of Pegasus.  They flew all over, all the while the Wise Wizard was coaching them and helping them plan and learn.  The good King and Queen made sure the Princess and Pegasus had all the opportunities they needed and life was wonderful for the Princess, but she still wasn’t riding a Unicorn.

 The time came for the young Princess to take Pegasus out into the greater world, leaving the protection of the Kingdom and the wisdom of the Wise Wizard behind.  For a while, she and Pegasus continued forward, but then Pegasus got sick and the Princess discover that she had to start her journey toward riding a Unicorn from scratch.

It was very hard without the wisdom of the Wise Wizard and without the protection of the Kingdom, but she struggled on.  She found a great Knight to help her, but he secretly didn’t believe in Unicorns, he just wanted to make her happy and he did.  For a while he even managed to distract her from her dream, but then she found the Warhorse.

The Warhorse wasn’t a unicorn.  Everyone knows unicorns are white.  But the Warhorse did have a roman nose and bulgy forehead.  The Princess dreamed that someday the bumpy nose would morph into a magical horn.  The Warhorse didn’t have wings like Pegasus, but she was big and could step over most obstacles.  The Princess dreamed maybe one day she’d learn to fly even without wings.  So the Princess spent hours and hours and days and days with the Warhorse.  She often heard the Wise Wizard’s words in her head, quietly reminding her to, “do it this way,” but the way she’d always done it didn’t always work on the Warhorse.  Outside the Kingdom and away from the Wizard she had to start thinking of fixes on her own.  It was up to the Princess to recognize and solve the problems.  She couldn’t just ride, she had to think.  It was very hard and many times she wanted to give up, but she believed in the big knobby Warhorse, so she kept going.

Then her Knight found her a magical mirror.  It showed her the past whenever she wanted to see it.  She realized just how wonderful it had been when she lived in the Kingdom and how wise the Wizard had been.  But then she saw that she was just a shadow in the mirror.  She was translucent, as if she wasn’t quite whole.  As the years spun by her form in the mirror grew more color, but it was swirly and unstable.  The Wizard tried to put the color where it belonged, but as soon as the Wizard turned away, the color moved and oozed around.  The Princess looked down at her hands holding the mirror.  They looked normal, so what had changed?

 

Every little Princess needs to learn to color themselves.  Kings and Queens can protect them while the pigments are added.  Wise teachers can show them where the pieces fit and what colors go where, but ultimately, each young Prince and Princess has to build themselves.  It doesn’t happen on its own.  While the young Princess struggled to turn her Warhorse into a Unicorn she learned about herself.  She took each little piece she’d been given, digested it and turned it into a piece of her.  All the while she was figuring out which pieces went where and what color things should be, she was teaching her Warhorse, giving her Warhorse an idea of what it could be, just as her parents and the Wise Wizard had done for her.

One morning the not-so-young-anymore Princess went out to her Warhorse.  The Warhorse was standing in the grass gazing at a field of jumps.  Before her eyes, the Princess watched the Warhorse start to shimmer then slowly sprout wings and grow a beautiful horn.  The Warhorse turned to the Princess and for the first time, they were both complete.  Then the Princess hopped up onto the Warhorse and they galloped away into the land of dreams fulfilled.

We aren’t entitled to fulfill our dreams, but we can earn them.   Even with parents who want the world for us, even with the best education, the best role models, and the most privileged upbringing, we must do the work ourselves, otherwise it’s just empty.  

Life is easy.  It happens naturally.  We don’t even have to think about our heart beating, but living, pursing a dream, that takes effort.  Whether you choose to go around the mountain, go over it, dig through it, or train a Unicorn to fly you there, effort is a required input and you are the only one who can get you there.  Life really is a Fairy Tale, but even Fairy Tales require lifting a broom or completing a quest.