Getting ready

This afternoon, Jim and I went to Mast General Store in town and did some shopping for our big trip to Ireland/Scotland that's coming up in a couple of months. I love that store, so it's always a treat to go in there knowing I get to purchase something...but even more than that, it was what the purchases point towards. We're going to Ireland and Scotland!

We're both incredibly excited about it, and we talk about it almost daily. We've scoured maps, travel sites, our travel books - we've talked about the sites we'd like to visit and the connections they have to history or to authors we love (CS Lewis, James Joyce, Frank McCourt, etc.). We've created a loose plan for the trip (start in Dublin for several days...then drive around the town and then up north...a few days in Belfast...ferry over to Scotland, drive to Sterling...a couple of days in Sterling/Edinburgh....back to Ireland, down to Dublin, back home). Jim even found a map on U2's website that highlights all their haunts in Dublin (and, yes, we're going to get that map and visit those places!).

I really can't wait. Ireland is the one place that I've always wanted to go. In fact, I talked about it so much in high school that my friends Brian and Kenny bought me a beautiful picture book of Ireland as a going away present when I was headed to Honduras one summer. When I look at those amazing pictures that are familiar to nearly everyone - the green, green pastures, the walk walls, the small stone buildings, the castle ruins, the Celtic crosses - I'll sometimes physically ache in my heart. I feel drawn to Ireland in a way I can't explain.

Two more months...and I'll see it for myself.

Lent - Day 3

I'm not going to title every Lenten post like the above - but it's all I can think of right now.

I'm not quite ready to do the big post on Gideon that I've had in my head for MONTHS now (seriously, since last summer), so I'll do a horse post.

Over the past couple of years, I've tried to take away Obe's need to do a flying change if we change direction in canter. This is mostly because I was wanting to get my scores for my Bronze medal, and Second Level tests require counter-canter. Because Obe naturally has a great lead change, she was always wanting to throw in a flying change when she should just stay on the same lead all the time. So, in our flatwork and even in our jumping, I stopped asking for flying changes and I made sure to bring her back to trot to change leads while jumping.

But, we've gotten our Second Level scores, and, while I'll still show at Second early on this year, I want to start schooling Third. So, we're working on flying changes again. When I first started asking for them earlier this month, she wouldn't even TRY to change. It was almost like she was saying, "Nope, I'm not supposed to...you've told me for over a year that I should counter-canter, so I will." Yep - the same horse who would angrily switch leads when we first started trying to counter-canter now wants to counter-canter all the time. Mares....

But, on Wednesday night, I started out in the outdoor arena, but it's too open to really challenge her to change leads....and we've counter-cantered around it for hours over the last year. So, I moved to the indoor where there's a wall to act as a definite visual as I crossed the diagonal and set her up for a change. At first, she wouldn't change, and then she offered a change from right to left (accompanied by a bit of a pogo stick bounce through her hind end). Several times around a small-ish figure eight, and she would reliably give me right to left, but not left to right. I slowed my brain down, rode the collection in the canter like I do get a canter/walk transition, and BOOM! We got a HUGE change from left to right. Of course, her hind feet were three feet off the ground, but it was a clean change!

I laughed the whole time around the new circle, brought her down to a walk, and patted her like she was a queen.

Good girl, Obe. And watch out Third Level.

Two days in a row...that's good, right?

I know, I know...it's only the second day of Lent and I'm still keeping up with what I've committed to do. Big whup-dee-doo. Anyone can do something for two days.

But see, here's where that line of thinking ends up if I'm not careful: you're not really all that good; people think you're such a good person, but you know you're not; one day they'll all find out and think you're a fraud, and then why will they love you?

I've explored that idea in a previous blog post, so I won't hash it out again. But I would like to flip the conversation a bit and discuss what line of thinking I SHOULD be following when thoughts like the first paragraph jump into my brain. First, a bit of theoretical background...

In horse training (you KNEW it had to come up somewhere, right?), it is important to be constantly aware of whether or not the horse is trying to do what you've asked. Especially when training the horse to perform a new task, a good trainer will immediately stop any pressure and reward even the slightest movement or smallest try from the horse. So, at first, if I'm asking a horse to step forwards into a trailer, I may stop pressure and reward him if he even LEANS forward into the trailer. A movement that small still indicates willingness.

Let me repeat that last sentence: a movement that small still indicates willingness. Why can't I treat myself the same way? Why can't I mentally give myself a break every now and then and reward myself for small movements? Why can't I just take the pressure off?

So, yes...it's only been two days. But even that small movement indicates a willingness - a faith - a desire to move towards instead of against.

Release.

Lent

I didn't grow up in a church that observed Lent (or any part of the liturgical year), and I'm sorry about that fact. I won't go into it all, but I feel that the seasons observed in the liturgical year give depth and meaning to our journeys as Christians.

Anywho, for Lent this year, I'm not giving something up. I'm adding something. Now this isn't a novel idea that I dreamed up on my own - many folks do this for these 40 days.

I'm adding writing. This sounds strange, I know, since I teach writing at a community college and I direct the school's writing program. I'm surrounded by writing; I write every day as part of my job. And that's probably one of the reasons I want to add THIS writing.

For the next 40 days, I'm going to write on this blog every day. Now, this isn't some kind of personal challenge like the 30-Day Squat Challenge or a cleanse or whatever. If that was my only motivation, then it wouldn't make sense to do this for Lent. I could do it anytime of the calendar year. However, the fact that I'm doing this intentionally for the Lenten season means that I'm going to write about my own journey as a Christian.

Let me tell you that this scares me. I don't have all the answers, so don't expect to come here reading an inspiring, youth-group-on-steroids kind of Bible study. In fact, I have a heck of a lot of questions. That's probably where I'll start, the persistent questions I have, and some of the ideas that I'm mulling over now as they pertain to my faith.

I totally understand if some of you want to block this website for the next 40 days. Feel free to do so...I'm tempted to do so myself. ;)

For Flash

When I was in fourth grade, I was your typical horse-crazy girl. I think nearly every little girl goes through the phase, even if somewhat briefly. I would gallop around the playground during PE, shake my mane in the wind, and (only when playing alone in my backyard) I would whinny with joy. I loved horses so much that I thought I was one.

Each week, our class would walk the 30 feet down the school hallway to the library to check out books for the week's report. Every time we would make that walk, I would arrive at the doorway of the library breathless, not because the walk was so long, but out of desperation. I was so afraid that someone would get to the horse section before me and get the book I wanted. I knew I couldn't break line or run (those were against the rules, after all), so I would hyperventilate in place until we were released to find a book. While most students would gravitate to the thinnest books possible on the kiddie shelves, I'd make a bee line to the shelves in the center of the back of the library - the shelves that had the magical books that could sweep me away from galloping around in my tennis shoes or pretending my bike would jump with mane flying over the cracks in our driveway. In those books, I was always mounted on the most intelligent horses possible - I rode Marguerite Henry's Misty of Chincoteague and Sham from The King of the Wind. I understood and could ride Will James' Smoky the Cow Horse. But my favorite horse from my imaginary, paper-based stable was The Black Stallion. I loved the feel of the library-edition, hard-bound, pimply cover that had a black horse silhouetted on the front.

 I had read Walter Farley's The Black Stallion and the second book in the series, The Black Stallion Returns, several times by the time I started my own collection of the books. When I bought my own copy, it came in paperback, and this time, The Black stood tall and windswept in full color - his inky black coat dappled and his intelligent eyes glinting.

Later in the series, one of The Black's colts is a blood bay - a deep red coat with a shiny black mane and tail. I dreamed of these black and bay horses that seemed to loom larger than life to me.

It may be surprising, then, that when I was 13 years old and got my first horse, I fell in love with a scrawny little chestnut whose coat was dull and shaggy and whose breeding was a complete unknown. He was only a year old, but I wasn't intimidated by the prospect of training him. After all, I'd read all those books in the library! I could train a baby horse!

Thank goodness someone bigger than me was watching out for me. My parents and I got lucky with Flash, the ambitious name I'd given the little horse; he didn't have a mean bone in his body, and he put up with my pseudo-training despite the hours I spent crying because I thought he'd just NEVER get it! He'd never learn to jump. He'd never learn to canter on his left lead. He'd never be as smart as The Black.

Over the years, though, Flash grew into a large red horse with an exclamation mark on his face (Flash!) and one tall white sock on his right hind (that in later years, my future hubby and a friend would use to nickname Flash Tubesock). By the time I was in high school, everything revolved around him. The first time I ever drove alone the morning after getting my driver's license, I dropped my Mom off at work and headed to the barn. The freedom of driving was great, but I couldn't wait to get to Flash and drown myself in the intoxicating freedom of riding him. And...he learned.

I loved coming home smelling of horse hair and sweat. I loved stepping out of my car at the barn to hear horses moving around in their stalls, munching hay, or calling out in soft whinnies. Flash's stall was in the back of the barn where I boarded him (pictured in the background above), and I'd walk through the front barn (which was MUCH nicer) and all its purebred Thoroughbreds and riders with expensive custom chaps and the newest in riding clothes. Much like that fourth grader in the library, I'd make a beeline for the center back, knowing what awaited me in that stall. He was the red horse that now loomed large in my dreams.

Time did what it does best - it continued on. As I grew older, Flash couldn't follow me everywhere. I graduated from college and moved to Honduras - I moved to Wheaton, Illinois, for graduate school. Flash was always in my thoughts (and I'm sure my students in Honduras got tired of hearing about him...one student, though, painted a picture of him for me that I have in my office to this day), and my heart broke every time I'd have to leave him.

Then, I moved to my dream job in Montana, working in the horsemanship program at a therapeutic boarding school for girls. It was there that I had the chance to finally have Flash come follow me - and I had him shipped from Virginia to Montana. He had been diagnosed with ringbone in his left front, a progressive joint disease where calcification builds up around the joint just above his hoof - the pain of that extra bone scraping and moving made him almost always lame and limping. My farrier in Montana, though, could help him out. I couldn't believe my luck...my heart horse was coming out to be with me, and I was going to be able to make him healthy again.

He came out, got his ringbone stabilized, and I was able to use him to help the students learn how to be compassionate leaders. It was in Montana that I spent hours riding him in the woods, in the arenas, around the school property - blissfully unaware that those would be my last years riding my big red horse.

When we finally moved back to Virginia (now with a husband in our little family), Flash was put into a well deserved retirement after arthritis developed in his remaining good front leg (from standing on it extra heavily to compensate for when the ringbone hurt him). He lived the good life in a large pasture that was half trees and half open. The last part of his life he lived on the farm of a dear friend who had designed the whole property and the barn to cater to the old horses' needs. He had good buddies and a good place to live. I'd visit to groom or bathe him and feed him treats - his favorite apples or carrots.

The day Flash died (on Wednesday the 24th, it will be exactly six years ago), I wasn't there for his burial. However, that dear friend, Danielle, who owned the farm told me of the amazingly kind gentleman who used his fork lift to slowly and carefully lift Flash's body and take him to his grave by the pond. As he carried my boy high above the ground past the crepe myrtles in bloom, Danielle told me that Flash's red coat glinted in the sun from where I'd groomed him that morning to a high sheen as I said goodbye. It was a procession fit for a king - fit for Flash.

Flash still lives in my dreams from time to time - and he always looms larger than life. His sweet face and his big red shoulder where I could lay my head have taken the place of the imaginary horses I'd only read about. No, the dreams I have now are based in a reality, sparked by more than just words on a page. This dream is rooted what was real for over half of my life - in a tangled mane, hours of roaming together and singing songs to him, learning to fly over jumps together, and the deep scent of horse hair and dust.

Thank you, Flash, for being everything I ever wanted in a horse - I miss you all the time.

Accepting the good

This is a post that I've contemplated for a long time - actually, I know exactly how long. I first outlined this post in my head last November, when the Cy Young Awards for baseball were handed out. (That will make sense in a few minutes...keep reading). I guess it's fitting that I've put off this post for so long, because it's all about not putting off things - especially joy.

It all started last Spring when the school year was over and we were headed full-bore into summer. I decided that I wanted to start a tradition where I would read literature over the summer that shared a theme. Last summer, I chose baseball, a sport that I've loved since I was kid. In fact, some of my earliest memories are of baseball on the TV. It was always the Braves on TBS, so some of the players I grew up with were Dale Murphy and Bob Horner.

Last summer's reading included novels like The Art of Fielding and The Girl Who Threw Butterflies. But I also dove into some non-fiction as well. And that's when I found R.A. Dickey's book, Wherever I Wind Up. I had heard about Dickey and his skill as a knuckleball pitcher. The knuckleball has a bit of mystique around it in the baseball world. It's a bizarre pitch that only a few men have ever really mastered - even then, I'm not sure one can "master" it as much as "appease the gods" when throwing it. It's a pitch that has a mind of its own. It's a pitch that flutters and dips and side-passes. When it's good, it's impossible to hit. When it's bad, everybody and their brother can homer off you. The problem is, the pitcher doesn't really have much say as to whether it's good or bad.

RA Dickey throwing the knuckleball - notice how he has his fingernails dug into the ball

A pitcher throwing a knuckleball doesn't hold onto the ball tightly. Instead, he grips with his fingernails on top of the ball, and then he sort of "shoves" the ball at the plate. The resulting pitch has little or no rotation (unlike all other pitches in baseball), so the aerodynamics/physics of it are impossible to predict.

So, purely from a baseball point of view, I was interested in Dickey. And then I read his autobiography. Wow. I can't fathom the courage it must have taken for him to write about sexual abuse that he had hidden for years - and his honesty in looking at his baseball career was simultaneously heart-warming and frightening. Dickey came out of college (at the University of Tennessee where he was an English major...yay!) as a top pitching prospect. He had been offered a lot of money to pitch for the Rangers...until a routine physical showed that he didn't have the collateral ulnar ligament in his throwing arm. This is the ligament that literally holds the elbow together. Doctors couldn't believe he could turn a doorknob, let alone throw a fastball in the low 90mph range. Needless to say, the high-dollar deals vanished and Dickey ended up bouncing around the minor leagues for nearly a decade.

Last year, as I was reading all this and researching the knuckleball and watching YouTube videos of its strangeness (you can watch one by clicking here), Dickey just happened to be having the season of his life. He was in the big leagues, pitching for the Mets. And he officially became my favorite baseball player. I know I just committed some sort of sin, being a Cubs fan (we're supposed to hate all things Mets, especially since the disastrous 1969 season). But I couldn't help but root for him. And it seems like a lot of other folks liked what he did, too, because he ended up with the highest honor a pitcher can win, the Cy Young Award.

I was thrilled for him! I felt somehow connected to him, and I watched every interview with him that I could. I was struck by the way he reacted to winning the Cy Young, and it echoed the closing of his book. He said that he was learning how to enjoy the happiness, how to feel comfortable being successful. He had always felt like everything good was only a few moments away from being taken away from him (looking at his life story, it's not hard to see why he felt this way), so he was working hard on "staying present" and just enjoying this success.

Wow. That rings so true in my head and my heart. Even though I don't have the same horrible events in my past that Dickey does, I still entertain that kind of "catastrophic thinking." I still lay awake at night and get physically scared (increased heartrate and breathing, sweaty palms, the whole nine yards) at what MIGHT be - I'll lose my job; my horse will get hurt and die; Jim may die; everything I have and love will disappear.

In the past, I've translated that fear into drive. I am relentlessly driven to succeed at whatever I do. I don't just want to do something - I want to be the best at it. And yet, when success comes, it's so hard for me to accept and be happy with. Instead, I get scared that it'll disappear, or that I won't be "good enough" to maintain it. And then, everyone around me will know it was just by chance that I was successful in the first place - that I was just a flash in the pan - that I'm truly a fraud.

I know none of that last sentence is true. I know that those who love me would never think or believe such things. And so, like R.A. Dickey, I'm learning how to be present in success and in happiness. Life ISN'T something we can control (much like that fluttering knuckleball Dickey throws), but I can still rest in what I have right now.

And what I have right now is pretty darn special. I have an amazing husband who loves me and whom I love. I have great friends, some of whom I've known for decades and still feel comfortable and real around. I have a home and a job that I love. I have pets that I've wanted since I was a little girl - a dog and a horse. And....speaking of the horse....just look at her!

 

This was us about six years ago

And this is us last fall

She's so cool. What a good mare!  

Almost summer

The spring semester is winding down, and because Jim and I both teach in the second summer session, we'll have about six weeks of down time. I'm so excited to get things done around the house. And I know of two animals who simply can't wait for more time outside in the sunshine...

The spotted one above will DO ANYTHING for her tennis ball. On sunny days, she practically dances and sings by the back door to get us to go out and play.

The brown one loves to roll in the dirtiest spot she can find in her pasture. It sure makes grooming a bit of a task for me. I half wonder if she does it just to get me to groom her longer.

Here's to sunny summer days.