Flying Solo

I like that your self will tell you when you're ready to do something.

It's been a year and a half with Maggie, and I knew it was time to take her out all by herself.

She's never in her life been out without other horses.

But lately I'd gotten tired of always having another horse on the end of a leadrope, it made it hard to work with the horse you're riding, if you're worrying about the horse you're taking along for the ride next to you. I had to get bored enough of one thing before I would try another thing.

I took Becky out with me. The trail dog is the key to success. She didn't know it, but I knew that if Maggie was just following Becky like she usually did, leading the trail, she might not realize that Dewey was back home in the barn. She'd have comfort.

So I just saddled up and we went out. I gave Dewey his favorite alfalfa hay, just a handful, like giving him a handful of Skittles. It's the candy hay he doesn't usually get. So he didn't cry for her when she left much. He had candy.

And then as we started down the path, following Becky, I just psyched myself out. I kept saying, it's just a regular ride. Dewey is right here with us. I pretended we had done this a thousand times, not the first time. I think because I was playing these relaxing things in my mind, my legs and body were relaxed, and then Maggie felt like it was regular ride because I was relaxed. So she was relaxed. Also, the day before I had been hanging out in the barn just looking at the baby chickens and deciding which ones were going to be roosters, and not paying attention to the horses, and then they both came over to me and begged for attention. In a way I hadn't had them do before, like I was gently one of their herd. They put their faces on me, and demanded their butts got scratched, they smelled my cheeks and put their heads on my shoulder. Because of this bond that I didn't realize we had, really - we'd been working every day for a year, the three of us, but you know when you're working, strictly working and you don't notice that you've sort of built something? I was surprised, feeling that.

Anyway, that gave me the security to trust her, and go out alone. Trust the whole situation. It turned out perfectly. Like we'd done it a hundred times. We did our little trail loop, following the dog. No big deal. Because we have done it a hundred times. Just not alone.

It's true what they say, every moment with your horse you are training it. We have learned some things, even things we didn't know we could do yet. Then when we were ready to try it, it was already there, done, waiting for us.

Centaur

I've channeled all my horse adventures into a weird western I'm writing. I would like one thing I've written to get out there and be important to other people. Or entertaining.

I still get on the horses everyday, even tho my body kind of hurts like my skeleton isn't too happy with my bones on horse bones. But I ignore that as much as I can, and with Maggie I've been able to forget I have legs and just use her legs as my legs. Centaur? I think? It's weird as a rider, how I've ridden now for like 40 years, and I'm just starting to figure out my body and the horse's body working meshed together. It takes so long to forget yourself, and trust you horse, and then you kind of flush yourself down into the horse and then the horse moves better because you're not resisting so much, you're with her. It's just I'm SO GOOD at resisting anything good for me. Maybe because resisting keeps you safe, keeps you scrutinizing, keeps you keeping everything else OVER THERE so you can function in your little way, just nicely, right here. In your tiny circle. But letting yourself NOT know what you're doing, that's also a freedom. Allowing things to be.

Anyway, things are blowing open, I guess I'm crossing through something. The horses are easy to trust, they are idiots but they are always interested in going a new way. As long as eventually they get to go home, and they didn't have to work too hard, and there are carrots or some kind of treat. They make me happy and they never, ever talk.

They just feel.