No, not me. Well I am sort of back, since I haven't posted anything in a couple weeks, because the sun started shining, the mud dried up, and people started calling me about riding my horses, resulting in me being outside instead of in the house typing -- and that's all good. Nope, I mean, Allie Brosh is back, sort of, mostly. There's a new post up on Hyperbole And A Half.
It's brilliant. I don't know if everybody out there will get it, but I do. I had my own protective exoskeleton, and I've been sick and tired of normal people with reasonable emotions being positive AT ME and I've had a dried up corn moment in my life. Just go read it, it'll make sense... although if it doesn't make sense, well, I guess you can breathe a sigh of relief that none of this depression crap makes any sense to you.
I'm waiting for her book to become a real thing, and I'll wait as long as she needs.
Hey, did I ever tell you that I made a decision to live? First it was because the active decision to die was too damn difficult and overwhelming. Then I actually DECIDED that I'm going through with this life thing. No matter how hard it is or seemingly impossible. I had to decide it every day, several times a day, for a few years.
Looking back, it was a very good series of decisions.
This is the second year in a row that it's spring and I don't feel horrible.
And guess what? I've got people in my life who love me. For real. That's pretty damn awesome.
Soon I'll show you how purty my horses looked when I let them out on pasture for the first time last week and also Johnny Depp apparently is actually for real in a cowboy type movie, which will obviously result in me being insane in a very interesting way. See ya soon, cowpunks.
I'm really digging this concept right now. Anything that saves my tiny shred of sanity is good, not? I feel pretty crazy most of the time but I'd like to be able to function in this world.
I'm breaking down situations into two categories, even though I realized life doesn't always fall so neatly, but I think this works.
1) Can I control this?
2) Am I going to let this control me?
And before you go thinking I'm some classic control freak, let me say that I often feel like everything in my world is not only of my control of but outtacontrol in general and also holy jumpin' man, aren't we all to some extreme or another?
Let's try this out.
THE WEATHER
Can I control this?
No.
Am I going to let it control me?
Not really. Maybe my riders won't ride today but we can learn other stuff inside the barn.
I'M IN A CRAP MOOD
Control?
Well yes technically. I can't always control what put me in a bad mood but I can decide how I'm going to react to it.
That's how I know whether or not it will control me.
I'm still working on this.
Any thoughts? How do you tell the difference between what you can control and what you don't want to let control you?
If we were smart, we would not be living in the country.
We'd have stayed closer to Jethro's work. We'd have kept the house we had. If we were smart, we'd be city people. At the very least, bedroom community subdivision people, like we were for 13 years. We would never dream of building a recording studio in a barn if we were smart.
If I was smart, I would have gotten an actual job. If I was smart, I'd have worked my way into earning a paycheque that could support our family.
If we were smart, we wouldn't have horses. They are big creatures that eat hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of hay, and need vet care and hoof trims. They need acres of land to graze on and large buildings to house them in bad weather. Owning horses is not a financially wise thing to do. It's kind of dumb, really, from a money standpoint.
If I was smart, I would realize that teaching riding lessons with those horses is not likely to support the kind of property needed to keep the horses on, and I would have not chosen that path. A smart way to handle that would have been to pay someone else for the privilege of riding their horse, and let that person pay for the vet and the land and the feed and tack.
If I was really smart I'd just content myself with a few pretty pictures of horses on my walls, and sigh with envy when other people tell me about their horses, and I'd convince myself that horses are for the lucky few who are very rich and very lucky, but not for me.
If I had any brains at all, I would understand that writing fiction is a terrible way to make a living, and that the odds of even getting to the place that I could think about earning anything from it is so far fetched that there's really no point even trying, and I'd just write a short story here and there and hide the printout under my bed or let it sit in silence in my computer. Or if I was really smart, I'd just realize that I should stop. Find another way to get the words and pictures and voices out of my head. Crush them down.
Stop wanting that feeling of squeezing a story out of my brain. Stop needing to search for the perfect word.
Stop craving the warmth of a horse's velvety smooth neck, stop thinking about the satisfaction of working in partnership with such a free spirited and sensitive and intelligent animal, stop needing to soak in their beauty with my eyes.
If I was smart, I could look out the window of the house I live in and calmly remark on the neighbour's flowerbeds. Be okay with how close the other houses are. Be okay with not being able to see a stretch of horizon with no houses on it.
But I'm not smart. We're not smart.
I mean, if he was smart, he might not stay in a business making a product (recorded music) that most people don't feel the need to pay for (and how does an industry stay functional if it can't profit from what it makes?) If he was smart he'd be a plumber or an electrician or a truck driver.
We're not smart because we've chosen to keep going, despite the ridiculous odds stacked against us. We've chosen to fight our way through and stick with it because he's one of the best and he loves it and it's what he does.
I'm doing what I'm good at. I'm good at teaching people how to ride horses. I love it. I'm getting better at it. But. We're not smart, because owning a horse in this century isn't smart, it's considered a luxury, even if it keeps a person sane and happy and peaceful.
Writing isn't just not smart, it's kinda silly and frivolous. Who needs it, right? Will anybody be willing to pay for words a year from now?
I'm not smart.
I keep writing. I keep booking riding lessons, and feeling like a million bucks when they hand over their $35.
He keeps pushing the record button, tuning flat notes, asking for one more take, glowing from the inside out when he coaxes a brilliant performance out of a musician, when he's satisfied with a mix.
Is it SMART to protect creativity? Is it SMART to be honest to yourself?
If SMART means being safe and secure, doing the thing with the least risk, then no, we're not smart.
We're flaky dreamers who try to magic everything into being okay.
But if SMART means doing what we're good at, doing what we love and what we feel we're meant to do, maybe we're smarter than we realize. Maybe we can choose to get other people who are good at bookkeeping to do that for us, so we can get paid to do our thing. If we're smart we'll realize that living in the city can be just as expensive as living in the country but in different ways. And know that smart people figure out how to manage what they earn and what they spend and what they keep.
If we're smart we'll work at getting smarter and getting help with the stuff we're not good at, and making the best of this.
This is the deal people: We're doing what we do. We've made some dumb choices, a few good ones, and a few that didn't feel like choices at all. We have managed to hold onto each other, our family, and a few shreds of sanity.
These are our choices, whether or not they're right for anybody else.... regardless of what's considered the smart thing to do. This is what we've chosen.
I'm in hermit mode. I don't really feel like talking to anybody, I sure as hell don't want to go out shopping, and I kind of don't want to think much at all, about anything. I just want sink into my own imaginary world and then write about it until my wrists and hands scream at me, begging to be freed from the keyboard.
I'm forgetful and scatterbrained at the best of times. Add some stress - and we all know there's plenty of that to go around - and maybe some emotional turmoil - heck that's just normal for me - and I won't remember where I put my feet let alone my glasses. I find myself yanking the twine off a hay bale, cussing that I forgot where I put the damn scissors, and then find the scissors ten minutes later while bending over to push the wheelbarrow through the gate, when those scissors jab me in the ribs because I put them in my coveralls pocket. I'm in the kitchen yelling frantically that I can't find my keys when somebody calmly informs me that they are in my hand. I walk into a room and stand there frozen in mid-step because I can't remember why in the hell I'm in this room, what I wanted to get or do, or even if I actually live in this house. I lose track of money and time. I feel like a constant mess.
I know everybody feels like that sometimes.
I feel like that pretty much all the time.
These last couple weeks I've been kind of anti-social. Yes, I have avoided running into people I know in town. I'm not proud of it. But at the time it seemed a lot better than having to make small talk and pretend I've got the whole thing under control.
And speaking of small talk, please do not ask me if I'm ready for Christmas. Assuming you mean, have I done all the shopping, the answer is NO. I haven't started. Haven't spent a dollar. If you mean, am I ready to relax and celebrate the birth of my spiritual king in a place of squalor and poverty, heck yes. Bring it on. But please don't ask about holiday plans because I'm not exactly sure if we even have a plan.
I have to focus very tightly right now. It's alright. It's just how it has to be right now. It means I won't be sending out that great end of the year Christmas letter I used to send out (somewhere around Valentine's day) for about a decade, up until last year when it just sort of didn't happen. Cards? Nope. Decorations? Sure, but first I have to dust and then I'll have to water the plants and of course I'll dribble some water on the floor and I probably should mop, but that means moving some furniture out of the way, and oh wow, here's that report card I couldn't find! That'll lead to a trip upstairs to the filing cabinet and once I'm up there, I might as well just get my boots on and head outside because that's where I'd rather be.
So you see what I'm dealing with here, right?
I do care. I care about my loved ones who are probably wondering how we're doing, or even where we live right now. I guess I've been a hermit longer than just this month. I dropped out of sight. Not really intentionally. I just forgot to tell everybody where we are.
I kind of feel like there's not enough brain space to allow me to remember.
I think I can still pull off my Christmas blog party. It's a lot less work and planning and buying than an actual party with invitations and people and stuff.
Meanwhile it's a nice mild winter day, and that corral isn't going to clean itself up, and going out to the barn means blissfully forgetting all the other things I should be thinking about.
As of Day 29 here, I'm almost, almost normal. Well considering this is me, "normal." I can stand having the curtain open during the day, I can speak without my head exploding, and I don't get the shocks every time I move. Just sometimes. And the shocks are only in my hands and face now. I can walk without feeling like I'm about to fall over. This morning I woke up at 6 am and haven't gone back to sleep. I'd like to. Boy would I ever like to have a sleep. But I'm awake. It's kind of good to be awake. Yesterday I went out to the barn TWICE and today I took the dog for a walk about a quarter of the way around the yard. (It's about an acre of yard.) Hey I even cleaned the toilet today. Progress.
I'd like to forget how horrible days 11 to 13 were. I'd like to never ever think about the physical agony and mental torture. I don't want to know how awful I was to live with for awhile there.
I just want to get my strength back, get my horses back in shape too, and man, I seriously have a whole novel to write, I'm not kidding.
I don't think I ever will forget how awful it was. I had my doctor's supervision, I prepared myself, I knew it would be bad. But, and this is the whole reason why I did it this way, I won't be weaning off for six months of mid-grade misery. I will have a summer.
So... while I was spending a week or a month or however the hell long it was up here in my dark quiet bedroom, I had to occupy my brain. I couldn't read or listen to music or even look at a TV or computer screen. It was just me and the pain and my brain. Wow. What a combination.
I have a few things I'd like to share.
1) SASQUATCH IS REAL!
It's true, I saw him in a dream I was having. I was walking down a dirt road through the bush, not anywhere familiar, just a regular dirt road with trees on each side. I looked down at the hoofprints on the side of the road and wished I was riding instead of walking. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a big brown furry thing heading into the trees, so I did what anybody would do. I followed! I had my iGadget out and I was ready to take a picture as proof because that's also what anybody would do. As I was fumbling with it I looked up and I was face-to-face with Bigfoot! And no, it wasn't my husband. He was doing the deer-in-the-headlights look and I said, "Dude, I need a picture of you," and he said, "I don't wanna have my picture taken!" and I was all "But nobody believes you're real" and he was all, "I don't wanna be real! You're not real either! Or something!" Frustrated, I told him he would just have to go on being imaginary, after which I drove somebody else's giant pickup truck into a snowbank, parked it at a house which my sister-in-law does not live in real life, then got lost, and stopped at a garage where they were doing free hoof trims while you wait. So yes, Sasquatch is real. You heard it here.
2) WRITING SONGS IN YOUR DREAMS IS REALLY UNPRODUCTIVE
Man, I had these words that just broke my heart and mended it back together. They fit together beautifully. I even had a melody to go with it and that's something I've never been able to do. That's why I am not a songwriter. I was going over those words, singing them to myself to try to remember them, and thinking, "I am not going to remember how this went when I wake up, and that's a damn shame cuz when I'm awake I'll be thinking about how I'll never know if these songs are actually really good."
3) IF YOU LIE ON YOUR SIDE FOR A LONG TIME YOUR EAR GOES NUMB
Unpleasant. Especially when the other side has already been numbed.
4) WHEN THE DRUG LEAVES YOUR BODY IT TAKES A WHOLE LOT OF EMOTIONAL CRAP WITH IT.
It's like the mood-stabilizer did the stabilizing it needed to, by suppressing a few things, and when the drug goes, it all comes flooding out. It's good for the rest of the family to go see a movie when this is happening.
5) BOB DYLAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY IS AWESOME.
I was reading it when I started off on this little vision quest. I finished up about Day 8 or 9 or thirty-seven or whatever. Just as it was getting too painful to read. Bob. Bob loves music. Bob thinks too much. Bob speaks in poetry. Bob's memory for detail is stunning, microscopic, and vivid.
6) BOB DYLAN IS THE REASON I DISCOVERED... wait for it...
FINNISH TROLL METAL!!!!
Flow chart of discovery:
Reading CHRONICLES: VOLUME ONE
V
V
Look up a few details on Wikipedia, on account of Bob having extraordinary details for some things but not so clear about other things, like chronology, which was fine but I was curious.
V
V
Follow link to learn about Woody Guthrie, Bob's hero. (Who, by the way, was stricken with Huntington's Disease, a horrible incurable evil horrible condition. His second wife started what is now the Huntington Society, to help families and victims.)
V
V
Woody Guthrie is like, the godfather of folk music.
V
V
What exactly is "folk music?"
V
V
Well there are all kinds of folk music. There's even, gasp! a sub-genre called folk metal!
V
V
You think I see a link for FOLK METAL and I'm not gonna follow it?
V
V
(and yeah, this took all day, accounting for eyeball rest breaks)
V
Wow! Wow wow wow! A link for TROLL METAL!
Well this is just too good to be true. Turns out there's this band called... ohmygosh this is brilliant... FINNTROLL, and it turns out this is a THING, and it's been going on without me knowing anything about it, which isn't shocking since I pretty much live under a rock, but still!
So they're Finnish, but the lyrics are in Swedish, because the vocalist was from the minority of Swedish people in Finland? In my slightly altered state this was just the best, funniest, heaviest, headbangin'est, craziest most rockin' and rollicking thing EVER.
Not only is this possibly my new favourite song, but it also proves that there are, in fact, a few less-than angelically gorgeous people in Scandinavia.
Now I've got to share this around, because just as I was going into the worst part of the Cold Quit, this cheered me up like you wouldn't believe. Sometimes I'd lie there with my jaw clenched and think, TROLLHAMMEREN! Actually the one night when I was trying to explain this to Jethro and the kids I started laughing so maniacally I was in tears, like sob-laughing, and it sent sharp shooting pains all through my upper body but I couldn't quit. They were borderline alarmed. But come on. Seriously. They're Finnish, but the words are in Swedish, so now any future vocalist has to learn to growl in Swedish, and I still can't understand a friggin word of it! It's BRILLIANT! It is seriously brilliant!
Warning:if you are offended or grossed out in any way by dirt, cellars, rowdy consuming of fermented beverages, dreadlocks, windmill-headbanging, scowling, growling, or large angry looking hairy dudes dressed like Friar Tuck, do not watch this video. But DO LISTEN because this is awesome.
And that's how Bob Dylan made the whole experience just slightly bearable. Thanks, Bob.
Last but not least...
8) BAD TIMES LIKE THIS CAN LEAVE A PERSON OPEN TO SOME TRULY WONDERFUL BRAIN EXPANSION.
...because what else was I going to do?
I'm going to go do some more recovering now. Catch ya.
I'll say this right now though: if 2011 screws with me like 2010 did, we are OVER. I'll skip straight to 2012, I don't care how much begging 2011 does. I ain't puttin' up with that kind of crap again.
I'm willing to look at the positives though.
2010 gave me a few brilliant exceptions amidst all the monumental stress.
My god-daughter became the mother of a gorgeous baby boy.
My kids had a great year in the school bands.
Our house sold quickly and above asking price.
I started off the year with no students and ended the year with five.
A cute little red Quarter Horse mare came to live with me.
Does that make up for a devastating fire, the physical and financial aftermath? Or the loss of a family member, with the legal and emotional aftermath? The worry about the health of loved ones? The constant stress of wrangling with debts?
Do the positives make it easier to live in a house with four adults, two teenagers and one bathroom?
Got no answer for that.
2011 is well aware that we intend to get some serious accomplishing done. We have projects to finish and yes, more moving to do. Those life altering changes will continue. We have goals to reach. By this time twelve months from now I want my husband and I living under the same roof and he won't be staying in the city five days a week. Those debts of ours aren't really so monumental, and they're shrinking.
Therefore I have advised 2011 to stay alert, cuz things are going to happen.
And the blogging will be happening as soon as I find my iGadget so I can hook it up to the computer and get internet.... so yeah. It's hard to find a cell phone when it's either dead or the ringer's off. Yeah yeah, I know, way to start off the new year all organized and stuff. I'm still ME okay?????
I've had to eliminate the very concept of stress from my life this year. I've had no other choice.
We're not big spenders in this family to start with. Maybe it's a Mennonite thing, maybe it's from decades of not really having enough cash to cover everything, but we just seem to be pretty content with what we get. It's a good feeling, actually.
This year more than ever I let it go, figuring it'd be more meaningful if everybody has a little surprise to unwrap while knowing there wasn't a whole pile of anxiety around it.
Besides, at 16 and 14, my younguns know they won't be getting what they truly want. Annyong wants a big honking digital single lens reflex camera. Bucky wants, well, apparently he wants night vision goggles and like, adamantium and unobtanium and other stuff he'd probably get arrested for having, but really he wants a car. So they're realistic. They won't be getting that stuff for Christmas. They're okay with that.
I spent a couple hours on the 17th picking up a few things. That was it. Then on Monday, I got sick. Yep, while hosting my fun little imaginary birthday party for my 40th, I was under six blankets, drinking honey and lemon tea, rubbing my burning forehead, trying desperately to get comfortable despite that full body ache.
Any plans I made in terms of shopping, cleaning, visiting, teaching lessons, anything, all evaporated. I have spent the last few days shivering and aching under my blankets, surrounded by kleenex and hand sanitizer, not giving a crap about too much of anything.
Except. My kids were also sick. So I cared very much about that.
Also, my horse was bleeding. He got cut up pretty bad (hind leg, just above the fetlock, luckily not on a tendon) and I'm quite upset about that. Well it just wouldn't be Christmas without an emergency vet visit, am I right? Geez. It's very hard to deal with an injured horse while suffering with prickly skin and a headache and a sore throat. But Phoenix is such a gentleman. He allowed all the needles and sedation and stitches. He stands still while I clumsily change his bandages. I cherish him.
We got medicine too and are on the mend. The germs didn't infect the whole household. I'm cautiously optimistic. Jethro spent the week in the city, so he's clear. Right now he and the kids are off on a shopping adventure. If I know him, our Christmas stockings will be stuffed with little 1L bottles of 10W30 motor oil and ice scrapers, and other things dudes pick up at the gas station on the 24th of December.
I'm cool with that. Can always use more windshield washer fluid.
So, honestly, yes I'm still stressed, it's just that I'm refusing to worry or fret over anything non-essential. I really don't have the energy to fret. Right now, the house smells like Mom's awesome cooking, the tree lights are lit, and the horses are having their mid-afternoon barn wall meditation time. And I'll drag my butt to church tonight for Christmas Eve service.
And tomorrow, I'll be another year older. And it's all okay because we all made it this far. We're together. We have good food to eat. We're allowed to worship as we choose. We may not be totally healthy but we're alive.
My butt is becoming shaped like a truck seat from all the driving I've been doing. You know, now that I read that over, I'm not crazy about the visual but I'm leaving it anyways because I'm REALLY BUSY right now and don't have time for um, literary accuracy or whatever. Let's just say I haven't been spending much time at home this week and it shows. Dirty horses, dirty dishes... at least teenagers can take care of themselves. Sort of.
Here are things I plan to blog about soon, very soon:
-Ozzy and his ability to make me clap along, something not even the most enthusiastic church song leader can do. I am not sure what this says about me, Ozzy, or church song leaders. And come to think of it, why is it I'm so blinkin' Mennonite I flinch at anything too outrageous in church, as in, I like those old hymns with the shaped notes and four part harmonies... I just can't get excited about all those new Jesus-love-ballads but at an Ozzy show I'm clapping and yelling and jumping up and down?
What does it mean???
Okay I think I just wrote about that.
NEXT!
-How much fun that Ozzy Osbourne show was on Saturday night!
AND!
-I'm gonna throw myself an imaginary birthday party. WANNA BE THERE? You should be!
ALSO!
-I'm still angry about the lack of legit workwear for small individuals. Let the women and children be warm in the barn!!!
AND DON'T FORGET!
-It's Friday tomorrow, therefore at some point before midnight I will find an excuse to post a picture of him. Trust me.
Okay I gotta do the thing at that place, with the people and stuff. See ya.
**Now edited to include results of the truck investigation trip!!!! Scroll down to the end!!!!
Today I'm heading into town to visit the car dealers. You know, Ford, Chevy, Dodge, not necessarily in that order, the Big Three. I like all the trucks. Chevy Dodge Ford. All of them.
I'm thinking two things right now. One, how did I go from looking in the $2500 range to um, well, add another zero after that and prepare for a visit to the bank. Two, I've never owned anything from the current decade.
And one more thing: new vehicles kinda terrify me. When we bought our Jetta, seven long years ago, it was such a BIG DEAL for me. Understand, in the 70s my dad drove a truck from the 50s. In the 90s, my dad drove... the same truck from the 50s. Guess what he drives now? Yup. In my 80s high school days, I drove either a 1973 Ambassador station wagon, or a 1974 Dodge Dart, or a 1971 Beetle. Or that truck. Sometimes. Anything newer than fifteen years old has been considered NEW. So imagine me with this perfect, shiny, clean little Volkswagen. I wanted to wash it every day and keep it that way.
Jethro's over it. The Jetta has become his mobile office and as such, is covered in what I call a thin layer of Drive-thru; his usual Cup of Sticky and Bag of Crumbs. The little silver car has some road rash from all those trips down the 401. It's got about 280,000 km on it. I don't know how many miles that is. I'm guessing, like, a million or something like that. Not real good with numbers.
All I know is, the first scratch on that car was like a personal injury.
And I think you know what happens to trucks, right?
Sometimes they get a little roughed up.
But look how shiny and magnificent these guys look, like they've just spent hours in Hair and Makeup, with a wind machine gently tickling their mirrors...
I am telling myself that I'm only going to the dealerships to LOOK and DISCUSS and TALK NUMBERS. Oh, that last one should be good eh? Hit me with the numbers, dude. I'll pretend I'm not blanking out.
The whole story of how we got from 2500 to possibly 25,000 is a whole other story, but the end result is that a three year old diesel pickup is roughly the same price as a brand spankin' new gas powered truck.
Both require some scrambling in the financing department. Jethro looked at me one evening and said, "You know, if we buy something new we get a better warranty. Look at this," as he shook a full page ad in the newspaper, "they're doing zero down. They're practically giving these things away. They're begging us to buy their trucks."
Um, okay...
Meanwhile a steady stream of scary things goes around in the background.
We can't afford this.
I don't deserve a truck this nice.
We need a truck.
I hate having a loan.
I hate monthly payments.
Ah'm skeert.
My mom really wants me to get another truck so's me an' her don't have to keep sharing her car. Also the Pug isn't allowed in Grandma's car because of the shedding problem...
I'd like to stop feeling so stranded and kind of lost! Unhorsed.
I just needs me a truck.
(look how shiny that sucker is eh?)
THE RESULTS OF THE CHECKING OUT OF TRUCKS:
So it turns out, good ol' Chrysler puts a full page ad in the paper - one I had a hard time believing - that really is too good to be true. Sure they'll sell you that truck, but good luck finding that exact configuration at this time of year. I asked the dude if the ad is just to get people into the dealership. "Sure it is," he replied. I like this guy. He even put the newspaper in his recycling box for me.
End result: the $10,000 cost of the diesel option isn't really worth it. Yeah.
Also? The most amazing news which I did not know? Ready?
THE BIG 8 CYLINDER HEMI IS MORE FUEL EFFICIENT THAN THE STANDARD 6 CYLINDER ENGINE.
I'm friggin serious!!!!! Turns out, the legendary Hemispherical head blah blah grunt grunt engine re-introduced in 2005 is quite the redesign. When cruising down the road at highway speeds, the engine shuts down four of the cylinders. Croooooze efficiently. Then when you put your foot on the pedal, vrooooom and it's all there.
So I'm like, duh! Yeah!!!
I gotta pinch myself because regardless, we cannot afford the payments on a new truck.
Anyways I sat in a 2008 and I liked it. A lot. I could see over the dash, reach the pedals, everything. Too bad it's already sold. But it got me thinking.
Took a cruise over to the GM dealer. Sigh. Darnit, Generous Motors, you have me. And then you lose me. You keep playing with my heart. I hated the 1999-2006 (or whatever) generation of trucks. Now I like the newest body style, but man that is a cheap interior. All brittle looking plastic. Cheeeep. Plus I had to lift my chin to see over the hood - what the heck with THAT?
Also, the GM salesman wore too much cologne and said my name too often. Yeeesh.
So there it is.
Dodge - better fuel mileage, better interior, good looking exterior, AND a few thousand dollars less.
Looks like Dodge might be stealing this GM girl's heart good and for real.
I'm not kidding when I say the town shuts down at five o'clock. Okay, a few shops stay open til six, or maybe eight on Fridays, but the general idea is that you get your butt home for dinner. Then you do stuff at home until it's time to go to bed. None of this shopping until ten at night. That's just crazy -- you're supposed to be tucking into bed at ten!
I can see that some people in this world would be appalled by the small town routine. But overall I do think it's healthier. Like it or not.
One afternoon just before suppertime the kids and I had to run into town for something. I can't remember what. We were at the big intersection where the main street crosses the big highway. I was about to turn right for home, and at the red light I looked left, way down the hill and over the bridge and back up the hill again. There was one car -- one car -- way off in the distance at the other set of lights. That's it.
"Wow," I breathed. "That never happened this time of day where we used to live."
The main drag in that town is like a four lane highway. Pretty much from 8am until 9pm it's oozing with traffic.
It gets busy in Smallburg too, much more than it was decades ago. There are two new subdivisions going in, and one of them I'm quite opposed to. I think it eats into a really good chunk of land, it's cut off from the rest of the town by the highway, and it's totally sprawly in that we-moved-here-from-the-city-because-the-prices-are-just-unbelievable kind of way. Honestly, what the hell is an "adult lifestyle community" and if it's all adults with no kids how come they need such damn big houses??? But that's not the point really; the town's just gotten too big for me. I still love it... I can shop there, because they've got my favourite thrift store in the world, the best bookstore in the world, a groovy used furniture shop, a hardware store, a really neat little cafe and a gas station that serves diesel for our little VW. It's a great town. I just feel like it's getting too big for me. Too fast.
Then I drive into town in the early evening. The main street from the highway is almost empty of parked cars. This time of year people are starting to leave their houses and work on their flowerbeds. In front of the shops, the street is wide open. Sigh of relief. Peace. Don't shop - go home. Relax, work, have a freakin' life.
Going back to the town I lived in for twelve years is like culture shock now. It hasn't sped up that much in nine months, but I've slowed down, in a really good way. Unfortunately, I've become even less tolerant of traffic and people and busy-ness. It grates on me, it rubs my easily frayed nerves. My chest tightens when I drive through town to run errands. I worked so hard to dull myself to the noise and constant buzzing energy.
I will miss the way my little section of street was like its own little world. In the summer, it would take me half an hour to walk past three houses because I had to stop to chat. It was nice. It sometimes kept me from getting stuff done, but I liked my neighbours and I liked to stop and chat with them. Leaving that block was getting harder and harder though. The stressed-out non-stop world outside was always lurking.
As I write this, I'm in my room in my parents' farmhouse. Not far from the house is a road with giant tractor-trailers roaring past. Why doesn't that bother me as much? I grew up like that? They go away? They zoom by one at a time, one lane in each direction? Is it the wide open field to the north that calms me, or the other field to the east? Horses across the lane behind the barn?
In a matter of days, we officially won't live in the Big Town anymore. I'll miss the friends, I'll always have a little room in my heart for the place I raised my babies, but I won't miss the town itself. It will grow without me.
I'll be listening to the crickets and tractors and trucks, horses munching, wind blowing. I'll have all my town stuff done in time for dinner.
Is it possible to have new life without destruction first?
The old people pass on, new people are born.
The forest is burned but the ashes soon sprout new plants and trees. Dormant seeds pop open and germinate in the cleansing rain.
I'm thinking a lot about flames and ashes, and rising out of the ashes, and the coincidence of a horse named Phoenix. I think about blackened, warped steel and empty tombs.
I have decided to avoid doing much thinking about the really heavy subjects during the month of April... it's my worst month. While most people rejoice in green grass and daffodils, I wonder why I'm miserable. I shouldn't think about the future, or make any crucial plans.
I will just work.
I will fling scrap metal around, cart trash to the dump, pick bits of litter out of the ditches and the hayfield.
I'll breathe in the smell of my horses.
I'll write about it.
I'll be there for my loved ones.
We'll pick ourselves up and move on, because that's what we do. That's what we've always done. We'll rise out of the ashes.
I'm sick of typing up posts and then erasing them.
I will tell you this: Jethro and the kids just watched a piece of brilliance on Youtube. It was this Metallica Smooth Jazz creation... Now they're watching a Lady Gaga Speed Metal Polka Face thing. Yes, Lady Gaga Speed Metal Polka Face.
I'm pretty sure this is real and I'm not hallucinating but holy heck man, it's been a hell of a week so far. I don't think anything would shock me anymore. But please let's not test that theory.
It's just good to be alive and have the loved ones with me. That is all I want to say for now.
Last lyric title of November, and I've been saving this one!
Hasn't this been fun? Let's do it again some time. Maybe in March when there's nothing but mud outside and we all need a cheer up?
This is going to be one of those Brain Clearing blog posts. Please pick one you like best and discuss.
1) I keep hearing about the suffering of the publishing business, and it scares the crap outta me. I want to write novels, if not for a living, for love, and hopefully make enough money at it that I will never have to run a cash register again. If I was rational I'd get a "real" job, but no, I decided to chase down my two lifelong dreams: write novels and ride horses. I'm quite thankful that horses can't be digitally downloaded, let me tell you. I do believe I'll have students because the horse fever is powerful. In the meantime, regardless of what the pessimists are moaning about, I can only keep on writing and get my horses ready for spring.
B) Of course, for the last few weeks I haven't been doing either of those things, because I've been getting our house ready to sell. The emotional fallout is nasty. I knew we would not grow old in this house, but I've gotten rather attached to it. I feel like we're putting a lot of work into a house we don't intend to live in anymore. It's confusing.
#) However, I have been able to use my stunning skills in Amateur Interior Desecrating. It's tricky, attempting to predict what Mr & Mrs Potential Next-owner will like. I'm too weird to know what Normal people like in a house, although I've accepted that I have to quit being so stubborn about it. Hey, know what really helps?
Admitting that I don't really give a crap what normal people like in a house.
I feel so much better now.
?) Speaking of horse fever; I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Those of us who are willing to work closely with a large hooved animal operating on a very strong flight instinct are a strange bunch, if I allow myself to analyze the situation. Do I think about the possible danger? Hell yes. Yet I've never had a panic attack while riding. I'll freak out in a traffic jam or grocery store line up, but if imminent doom creeps up while I'm on horseback it's just kind of the old "Aw CRAP" response. Like, dammit, here we go again, I gotta either fix it or get the Rapid Involuntary Dismount. I don't even get scared anymore when it happens. I just get super irritated.
All I know is, I am gettin' back on that horse again. And I'm going to continue cleaning up after them, brushing them, admiring them, taking pictures of them and writing about them. I can't be kept away from those horses.
In a lifetime of getting thrown off, falling off and getting stepped on I haven't broken a bone.
I can't decide if I'm
- made out of rubber
-absolutely frickin insane
-a hell of a lot tougher than I look.
-a hell of a lot luckier than I think.
I swear to David St Hubbins if this house does not sell in less than two weeks for a price well above that listed after a heated fierce bidding war I will spend the rest of the winter in the corner with my knees clenched to my chest rocking back and forth begging not to pick up another paint brush and moaning pitifully that once just once in my life I'd like to come up a winner in this fricking stupid game of life as a grown up.
When I let the horses out into the pasture this morning at 7:30, the Little Lady was limping.
Not good. This is what we've all been worried about for years. Maybe you don't know this, but that left hind leg has always been a source of concern, because when she was a yearling, it was broken. BROKEN. We forked out the money back then to that leg x-rayed , and sure enough, it was cracked. By then we'd ALL completely fallen for this tiny cute sweet big-eyed blinky baby. The crack was right down into the fetlock joint and was getting ready to be a future arthritis problem.
Nothing could be done but stall rest, and 10 minutes twice each day of hand-walking. Glenn the vet couldn't make any promises about her condition. He told us he could never tell us that she'd be sound, even if she appeared to be fine. We might end up with a really cute lawn ornament. A much loved little lawn ornament.
So, we did it. Or I should say, my parents did it, because I lived too far away. The entire family had a decision to make: if we put the time into this little horse, we make a commitment to keeping her for her lifetime. No strenuous riding, no barrel racing, no jumping, no breeding. Watch her weight, and be prepared to get into an arthritis management program at some point in her life. Never sell her, because we couldn't trust anyone else to get it, and give her the care she needs. Above all, know that when she is in pain, and we can't make her comfortable anymore, we put her out of her misery. Scary, eh?
She healed up. A year later, she was a new horse. She was muscular and fit. She didn't limp. Glenn the vet was impressed. You could say he was amazed.
Occasionally over the years, she'd look a little stiff if the weather took a cold turn. Heck, so do I. She always got over it. We marveled regularly at how great she's doing, how awesome she is, and how glad we are that we put the work into saving her.
Then this morning, she's all limpy.
They came into the corral after lunch and she was not putting any weight on it. At all. She was walking on three legs and dragging the fourth.
I dropped everything, left my mother to do the work we'd planned together, and wrapped up the Little Lady's hind legs. I put both horses in the barn to keep Phoenix from moving her around. The horses both looked at me like I was nuts, because it's the middle of the afternoon, and this isn't when they get their grain, and can they please go back out? The barn cats had those cool faces like, "So where's our kibble at?"
We got in the car and dashed off to get the kids from school. I was thinking about the stuff I wasn't getting done in the house, and thinking about a horse who will not be used for lessons now, and that maybe this is my wake up call. Maybe she'll be okay but I can't push her too hard. Maybe it's my fault for riding her almost every day for over two weeks. Then I got into the What Ifs and that was too awful to say out loud.
Back home again, I wrapped her legs with some cold lotion. Then they blasted out to the pasture like their tails were on fire, and guess what? SHE CAN RUN ON THREE LEGS. Forehead slap.
I called the vet and left a message.
After supper I talked to Cindy the vet. She said she'd come out in the morning, and told me to check the cold lotion jar, to see if it's allowed to stay on overnight. She told to pick out her hooves real good. If she's got a stone in there or something, it could affect the weight bearing and then irritate that old injury.
I was feeling a little frazzled by this time, and relieved that Mom happened to have the day off work, and she did the cooking today. If I'd been alone, we'd be eating crackers and cheese for dinner. Keeping horses in the barn overnight is a lot more labour intensive than keeping them in the corral for the night. I threw down a couple hay bales, topped up the water buckets, and brought the horses in. Fed the cats too, not that they needed it, judging by the pile of feathers in the aisle.
I undid the mare's legs and checked for swelling. All okay. I got out the nasty old polo bandages and wrapped her up again, making sure I got under the fetlock for support.
I was putting stuff away in the tack room when I remembered Cindy's point about the hoof pick. I wrestled Copper's leg up again - she was losing her good natured co-operation by this time - and dug the hoof pick into the cleft. It stopped. It stuck on something.
Uh oh.
I felt around with my fingers and found...
A NAIL HEAD.
I PULLED A HALF INCH LONG NAIL OUT OF HER HOOF.
Felt a little dizzy, folks. It was right up in there, vertically.
I'm so fanatical about picking up every nail and bit of junk that works its way to the surface of this old barnyard. And yet.
So, I got some iodine to squirt on the underside of her hoof, and a square or gauze with some duct tape to stick it on, and made a funny lookin' little booty around her hoof to keep the dirt out until morning when the vet gets here.
I'm thinking now, maybe she's not permanently arthritic. Yet. Maybe it's not the old leg injury acting up - I mean, you'd limp too if you had a NAIL IN YOUR HOOF, right?
Okay, so it's not so terribly horribly bad, other than the poor girl having a RUSTY PIECE OF METAL IN HER. Which I pulled out and disinfected and wrapped and holy crap how long does a tetanus shot last???
Poor sweet little mare... she always gets it. Cut her forehead in June, has to have baby-bum-cream on her little pink muzzle to avoid sunburn, got mudcrack this summer and had the have yellow goop on her pastern to get rid of the scabs, has super sensitive skin and hates being brushed when she's in heat, and also HAD A BROKEN LEG WHEN SHE WAS A BABY.
I am really, really tired, folks. I have to do all that laundry I didn't do this afternoon when I was wrapping legs. Have to go to bed. My hair is frizzy with humidity and sweat and that bath I had this morning has been totally negated.
How am I going to do this - take care of two horses, make a living with them, when I haven't even gotten my coaching insurance stitched up and therefore haven't gotten any solid gigs out here yet, and still be there for my kids, maintain a long-distance relationship with my husband (I don't recommend this by the way) and feed people, take my dog for a run outside along the hay field, clean the cat's litter box, sweep floors, write novels (which I am taking a break from this month, geez) and like, be me, and sleep? And have a bath at least once a week?
I mean, people do this, right? People who DON'T live with Mom?
At least I might have a bus stop for the kids, so I only have to drive 5 minutes instead of a half hour to get them to school.
I can do this, right?
I hope my little mare is feeling better in the morning. When I left her, she was munching hay like she always hangs in the barn with her legs wrapped up and one hoof encased in duct tape. It's cool, baby. Totally normal. Leave the barn door open, eh? The breeze is nice...
The kids and I are pretty much shacked up at the farm now, and they start school tomorrow.
Poor ol' Jethro is still at the house, going to work, until our house is sold.
Of course, we'll have to actually put a For Sale sign on it to sell it.
After that, we temporarily live here until we can find a farm of our own.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing, which I'm telling myself is perfectly normal. Hey, I'm being normal!!! Wow. I mean, I love being in the country. But I miss my little house and my friends. I really miss seeing my man regularly.
The good thing is, I like my folks, and that's handy when I'm living with them temporarily.
More good things:
Lucy the Feral Housecat in the Sky with Diamonds absolutely LOVES this big old farmhouse with all its hidden nooks and dark corners.
Dobby the Former Town Dog is really digging this whole country life thing. We don't go for walks on a leash anymore. We go for RUNS in the long grass.
Bucky hangs with my Ol' Man, driving around in the old truck, scrapping things, welding things, fixing things. I think they might go to McYuk's or Timmy Snortons every now and then too.
I opened Tribble's bedroom window our first night here, and across the yard, our Little Mare made a snorting noise over by the fence. This is what we get to listen to at night. Of course, there are also giant trucks swishing down the highway at all hours, but between jake-brakes we can hear snuffly horse noises.
Barn cats.
When Jethro is here, he's far enough away from the studio that he can forget about work for a few hours. (I hope.)
We ride every day. Our horses keep getting better and better.
The kids drive the 4 wheeler and the winter van.
It's not long distance to call my bestest friend.
Tribble can get violin lessons from her Grandpar.
Bucky can fix things in his Papa's shop.
I'm feeling like the weight is lifting off my chest every time I look out the window.
I'm still facing a heap of troubles, like usual. Will that ever change? Does anybody have a trouble-free life? I highly doubt it. I am determined to find a way to get my husband, kids, and horses on the same property and at this point I almost don't care what property that is.
Almost.
The kids are handling this better than expected. They're already comfortable here, since they've spent a lifetime of weekends and holidays here. Me? I'm handling.
Stay tuned. There will be more to this new adventurous phase of my life...
As you know if you've been reading this thing for any time, I sort of live a double life. My home is a cute bungalow in a subdivision, in a not-so-small town north of the big city of Toronto. I have a big yard with a brand new barn-shaped shed, some pretty flower gardens, and the best neighbours anybody could hope to have. A few years ago, when looking for a riding coach, I found the Little Valley, where I got my instructor training, as well as making a new and valued friend. But I have a strong attachment to the place I grew up. My parents still live on the old family homestead, as do my two horses. My husband's parents live in town, less than five minutes away. My sister lives in that same smallish town. And my sister-in-law and her family live in the next city, about fifteen minutes from there.
I have dear friends out there and I don't see enough of them. I go to church near there, but I'm not there often enough.
We are the only ones up here in the shadow of the Big City, thanks to the music biz. While I love my neighbourhood, I crave the country, I miss my mom and dad (Yes I know I'm 38 but they're really cool people and you'd want to see them too if they were yours) and I need to get out there regularly.
It's hard to explain to people who don't have that need for the wideness of the sky.
It's hard to explain to people who don't have that strong family connection.
It can be hard to explain that roots run deep.
Honestly, my little patch of suburbia is heavenly. I'm sitting on my deck right now, listening to birds singing away and bugs and my crazy pug barking at shadows. I always said if I had to live in town, it's gotta be here.
But I really love being in the country. I just love it. I feel right when I'm out there. I feel like I can breathe.
The barn at the family farm has names and dates written in the cement. Most of them are relatives of mine.
I have a goal. My husband and I share that goal. We want a farm of our own. We want room for the horses to graze, places to train and trail ride, and drive a 4 wheeler. We want a John Deere tractor to do work type stuff. I want a couple of chickens and a big vegetable garden. Room for friends to stay the weekend.
We want a recording studio in a barn, man!
We know what we want and that getting it won't be an instant step, but a continuation of the steps already taken. We also know that the next year will be really different from the last twelve. This is not going like we expected it would. I always pictured breaking the news of our departure to our friends in town by showing them pictures of our new farm and telling them we're getting what we've always wanted. That'll have to wait just a little longer.
We moved into this house almost exactly twelve years ago, and now more than ever, we've got a foot in each world.
Folks, I've just discovered something I'm good at. I think it's a very useful and potentially lucrative talent. I'm not considering giving up on the riding lessons career goals, or giving up on that goal of actually having a real book to sell, but I think I may be onto something here. I have a job title made up and everything.
I'm a FLOOR FINDER!
Last week, I was up in the straw mow digging through several years' worth of old car parts, junk, straw, lawn mowers, pigeon crap, scrap wood, feathers, crap, junk and stuff. I FOUND THE FLOOR. Turns out it was there all that time, under everything, and all I had to do was keep digging (literally) until I found it. There it was, the floor, incredibly wide planks sawn over a century ago out of what must have been huge honkin' trees. What a relief to find that floor. What a relief for my ol' man, who hadn't been paid any storage money in too long and just didn't have time to clean it all up.
This week, I've been up in the hallway at the front of the house, finding a different floor. The stratified remains weren't quite as clear in this job; as a result of adult children moving off the homestead and gradually removing and sometimes bringing stuff back, the layers of clutter were a little more varied. Darn grown-up kids. Yes, I am referring to Sweetie and me. When Mom has a big old farmhouse with a few unused bedrooms upstairs, it's so tempting to leave some junk there... or bring some back, for storage, just for a little while...
At least I didn't have to deal with any bird poop. However, if you live in an old house, you know about the dead flies gathered under the windows. I'm not gonna sugar-coat it, you know that. Don't believe the pictures in the pretty magazines... they sweep up the dead flies first. Trust me, it's an ongoing process.
I found that floor, people.
I had help, like with the barn. A kid or two, and a parent, are big help with carrying things and making decisions. I do think the decision making is the hardest part of the floor-finding process. Most of the time things are kept because they seemed to be important. That alone can trick you into thinking it really is important. Some of us have a real hard time with that.
I'm not ruthless or cruel about it. I'm a big believer that today's seemingly unimportant objects can become tomorrow's antiques. It's history, man.
HOWEVER. Sometimes it's truly useless.
Want to know how I find floors? I'll let you in on it. I might be ruining my future Floor Finding Business by giving away my secrets but I'm feeling generous tonight. And, blissfully free of, well, everything, really.
TOOLS NEEDED:
a broom and dustpan
dusting rags
garbage bags
recycling box
cardboard box for things being donated
*if you're finding a barn floor, skip all the fancy stuff. You need a wheelbarrow, a burn barrel, a pickup truck heading to the dump and a scrap metal trailer. And gloves. And a paper dust mask.
GETTING STARTED
Without a doubt, the hardest step, and the reason this job often doesn't get started.
Pick a corner. Don't wade into the middle.
Choose one corner, and pick up the closest object to you.
Look at it carefully.
Is it still useful?
No? Garbage or recycling. Yes? Okay. Do you love it? No? You can donate it to the thrift store. Or if you do love it, great. Where are you going to put it? And are you actually going to use it? No? Give it away? Seriously, look at this thing. Are you really, truly, honestly, ever going to want or need or appreciate it ever again? You wanna keep dusting this thing?
There's a good chance you don't want to keep it. Let it go and then stop thinking about it.
I allow some sentimentality. If you genuinely want this thing, set it in a safe place until you're done floor finding for the day, after which you'll take your thing and set it in the place it'll live while you continue to pour affection onto this thing and be glad you decided to keep it.
Good luck, hope you're happy together!!
GETTING THE JOB ROLLING
As you're sorting through the mounds of paper and magazines and shoe boxes full of 15 year old income tax papers, have your dust rag in one hand. There will be dust, trust me, and don't feel bad about it.
You might even find spider webs and a few dried up flies but you did not hear that from me, okay, because we're so very tidy around here we just never see anything like that, right? Right.
Sometimes it's hard to tell if a piece of junk is actual garbage or not. I'm not kidding, a brain can be seriously fried by this process. Mine's already a strange place so I'm not in much danger. Anyways. Is it garbage? ONLY YOU CAN DECIDE! Chances are if it might be, it just is. You want it? No for real, do you really want this thing? Is it beautiful? Is it broken?
Could you get one just like it, for a reasonable price, if you suddenly realized you needed one?
Yeah? Boom, out goes that piece of garbage.
On an ecological, environmentally friendly note, if you're concerned about throwing out garbage, my advice is... stop buying cheap crap. That's all I'll say now, because I think that's worthy of its own blog post.
None of this is new. All of those Perfeshnul Organizers have been preaching this for years. Imagine that! A whole career built around our hoarding habits. I'm not going to make anybody roll up their socks and put them in individual plastic holders in the top drawer. Yeeesh. Shudder. Deal with your own socks dude - I just wanna find your floor.
YOU CAN'T DO IT ALL AT ONCE.
Once you've got your corner sorted into Give-away, Garbage and Recycling, grab your broom and give that corner a sweep.
You can stop here. You don't need to knock yourself out and do it all in one day or one hour. If you need a break, take it. You must pace yourself because honestly, this is hard work.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO IT ALONE.
Find someone you trust and like to help you, even if all that person does is keep up the light witty banter while you agonize over a souvenir from a beautiful wedding you went to. A helper can dust things, hold things, move things or carry things. A helper might have a better perspective on how valuable your crap really isn't. If you're lucky a helper might take you out for ice cream after!!!!
This whole process can be emotionally harrowing. I for one have placed way too much importance on material things... not valuable things, just stuff. I'm not a materialistic person in the way that I must own or buy status items. It's just that anything I've acquired feels hard won, and I am often reluctant to give that up.
I'm getting better at it though, sooo much better.
I'm getting good at Floor Finding, and learning that an empty floor can be a beautiful sight.
(Mom- thanks for holding the garbage bag open. And thanks for giggling when I tossed those perfectly good paper clips. And please remind me to take the other 400 paper clips out of my pockets before I do laundry. Thanks!)
First of all, thank you so much for all your messages last week! It does feel good to be congratulated! I've been walking around all weekend telling myself that I'm a Level 4 rider now. It's been three years since I made the decision to go out and get all educated, and for years before that the whole rider level system intimidated me. Now I'm one of those guys.
BUT. I am not done yet.
In order to earn the Instructor of the Beginner certificate, I will still have to jump through a couple more hoops.
Here's what I've done so far:
-earn my Rider Levels
-complete First Aid course
-complete equine-specific "learn to teach" weekend
-become a member of Ontario Equestrian Federation
-mentoring hours; 10 observing lessons, 15 being observed teaching
-I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting one more thing...
Here's what I have left to do:
-pay for Equine Canada membership
-apply for candidacy for Instructor's exam (the OEF already have me signed up over the phone)
-submit mentoring hours paperwork
-take the Instructor's exam
I'll be writing up a lot of lesson plans for the next two weeks... luckily for me, I'll be assigned a lesson topic soon, giving me lots of time to practice teaching it. I'll need to get a first aid kit (one for humans, one for horses) and all the props I'll need (those orange pylons, ground poles etc) to bring to the exam with me.
I've got time to do this right.
If I choose, I can keep going after this. I can specialize and go on to become a Level 1 Western Coach. Most who go that far are focusing on training riders for the show ring, and I haven't decided yet if that's how I want to go. I might really find my niche with beginners and kids.
I found out something very interesting after my test last week.
The Level 4 requires two judges; my own coach, the awesome Susan, and another wonderful woman were watching me with eagle eyes. Before riding the pattern, I made ol' Bo stand still and quit fussing and fidgeting. At that moment, 17 years worth of owning a hot headed little fireball half-Arab came into sharp focus. (Thank you Champ, again!)
Joanne turned to Susan and whispered, "She's patient. She'll do good with nervous beginners."
When Susan told me that later I almost fell over.
I know what it's like to be nervous! I've never ridden as well in the show pen as I know I can at home. I fall apart easily and putting myself into nerve-wracking situations has forced me to learn to keep it together (a little bit). But patient? REally? I don't usually see myself that way.
But I can see it... I can totally see myself getting along with people who have the desire but haven't found the guts yet. I have had to dig very deep to find my guts, (pardon the gruesome mental images, haha.)
I also had a brain shift because I've been slowly working on a novel about... a riding teacher who is a rather strange chick who attracts all kinds of damaged, disturbed students. I did not set off to write an imaginary alternate universe kind of thing to my own life but here we go, life imitating art?
I'm thinking about horses and mental health and the art of teaching. I'm thinking about abilities and limits and quests, the need to improve, the sudden realization that most of us can do a lot more than we think we can.
And now I'm going to have a day. I'll be filling out paperwork and riding a brown and white pony. I'll bring my camera!
I've been spending the last month trying to get my Side-effexor dosage figured out. First DOCTA-CHAN suggested upping it, but after weeks of feelin' queasy, we decided to go back to where it was. Well, I wasn't feeling particularly wonderful on that either. The good news is at least now I only feel like constant vomit threat until about 1pm after which it's just sporadic. Yay.
And this is called an ANTI- depressant. Hmm. All I wanted was to banish the bizarre and extremely negative thoughts from my head... makes me wonder if life wasn't easier before, back when I somewhat successfully crammed it all down and managed to mostly ignore it all.
Meanwhile, I think about the brain-body connection. Other than my neck, haha. Seriously, how much can I blame my downer mood on my uneasy guts, and can I blame my gut rot on my downer mood?
We always want to separate mind and body, like it doesn't all work together. I used to bristle at the idea that my thoughts could make me sick. I'd been a rather sickly kid for most of my life, especially as the teen years approached. I didn't enjoy being the first one to drop from heat exhaustion, or the one with the tension headache. That wasn't how I wanted to be special. But as the belly aches and general feeling of being unwell persisted, answers were sought to why I was like this. There were suggestions that it was "all in my head."
I hated that. First of all, that I would purposely make myself sick was stupid; who would do that? And furthermore, even at a young age, I hated the idea of "blaming the victim."
You know what? We can make ourselves sick, and it's not our fault. We don't want to, but in my opinion, we don't know how not to. When you're constantly worried, something has to give. Our bodies aren't meant to be living in a total state of anxiety. We either run from the critter that wants to eat us, or we fight it, and when that shot of adrenalin is dissipated, we can relax. Or, we're dead cuz the critter got us. Either way. The worry is over for the time being.
The stupid thing is, I live a pretty easy life. I've spent the last few years making it that way just to survive it and find ways to enjoy it. Keeping my brain and body in decent shape has become my full time occupation. Avoiding a big ol' breakdown of any kind is the main goal of my life.
Wow, I wasn't planning on going this way at all today. I was going to write about how difficult it is to ride a horse! How I think, in my head, word for word, what I need to do with my hands, seat and legs, what direction my shoulders should be going, and where my feet should be pointing, yet struggling to get all those body parts where they should be.
Instead I got this. Brains work in mysterious ways. I feel like taking this whole post down but some of you say you appreciate my honesty, so here it is in all its messy glory. And now folks, my brain is telling me to take my man and my dog for a walk.
