One Small Step for Mag Kind

For all of you riveted by my progress with one small dapply buckskin mare, aged 4, Maggie is learning to trot. Julie is learning to not be afraid of her, which seems to help a great deal! Maybe it's learning to ask for what you want, in the kindest way, and then get tougher until she understands what it is you're cueing her for. Then she does it.

The first time I asked her trot under saddle she did and then slammed on the brakes and started biting  me and then moving backwards at high speed. That was way long ago. That caused me to only walk her for like a month as I built up confidence and worked with her outside the arena and on the lunge and tried to get her knowing that the cue to GO means forward, not slamming in reverse.

The second time I asked her to trot off the lunge, under saddle, was a few days ago, and she still tried to argue with me, but after about half an hour, she started trotting at my voice, leg and crop cue. After almost an hour, I got her to make one lap around the arena.

Today I had her usual resistance at first, but after about 20 mins, she was trotting at my leg cue much better. We did a few lopsided laps, but they were laps! Posting even! I could feel her kind of see that we can work together, nothing bad happens. We will work on rhythm, just getting her to go and accept the cue was my goal. We'll get her steady. I have to always quit before I want to, because I want to end on a good note. It's hard to know when that is all the time. When is enough.

It makes me happy, though, on days when I'm burned out from teaching and all the noise, to have the horses to work with. It fills me in tactile and problem solving ways. And I like to see the results come creeping in, and I like to see who I can be and what I can do. They're big furry kids, and they're peaceful, mostly. A tiny bit bratty, but willing.

I also walked them separately back home, and they were yelling like long lost lovers. But once they get used to it, that should help them to know nobody dies if they're not together. It's the one that's left behind who has the biggest sadness.

Mother Teacher Daughter Horse

My current obsessions are when will I get time to write my Carrie Fisher thing, and what is it exactly I am writing.

And subbing non-stop. And then mothering after subbing, when I get home and I'm fresh, oh yes, with ringing ears from kids high-pitched voices, and organizing and looking intelligent (stress LOOKING, not being).

And then riding, because I like the routine of training, and the quietness of the horses, even the asshole one that is new and likes to be a baby and chew on everything, and eat everything on the trail, and not trot when I want her to but then okay she does. I still like the work of it, because it is just me, and we can only go really one speed, and it isn't very fast.

And the roses I get to see blooming, and the little Buddha statue we pass with the purple flowers now around it, and I breathe when I see it because it is calming, and the sky was wide open cracked with grey clouds and sunshine with sharp edges, and nobody was crazy, just me out there quiet and knowing the world was still here, all in one place and silent.

Then it's okay if the dishes have to put away, and then I can handle going to the mall so my youngest can get her first pairs of earrings, because it's two days away from when she gets to change her earrings for the first time. And this is worth spending time on, because it's the first time, and this is life.

All of it, every second, being there.