There Must Be a Pony

 I am learning so much from little Meriwether.

It turns out that it doesn't matter the size of the horse, they still want to know what you're doing and if it involves carrots.

I guess like all of us, he's just on the six month, 400 pound level, he is wary of new things, and wants to be sure what you're doing will make him feel better (brushing) or fill up his stomach. I would brush him while he was eating so he wouldn't care what I was doing and he'd get used to being handled withtout worry. That seems to be working. He likes to follow me around even when his belly is full, because at 6 mos and 400 pounds, you want to know where the girl is going with the bucket on wheels full of shit. Maybe it's a good place. It's movement anyway.

He is a big kid. He puts his face directly into tarps. He plays with beach balls. He sniffs the dogs. He loves running flat out and spazzing his little legs out into the sky. He lies directly flat out in the sun to soak in the earth. He is fluffiest on the top of his neck. He loves scratches all over, and he has spots.

I think maybe I am 14 again every time I get a horse. I like to learn them, and study them, and smell them and wrap my arms around them. I like setting boundaries and growing a good sensible horse. I like showing them as much as possible to give them a solid mind. I like the sun dappling on them at 4 in the afternoon when everything feels mostly accomplished and we can sit back and feel joy and wonder at life.

This little baby came on my son's birthday, at 2 in the morning. My parents said why do you need another horse.

I never thought about why

My mom is dying

My kids are going off to college

My husband is getting older

My house needs work

My littlest daughter is growing up

Meriwether came to distract me from that

With him I can shape something. I can grow something. I can laugh at antics. I can connect to a brain. I can feel softness with my hands. I can learn a new thing. I can do something I haven't done before.

Aren't those the main reasons for living?

I have a place for my love. I have a vast capacity, seems a shame not to channel it somewhere I can see tangible results in a pretty short time. Four legged results. 

Meriwether has to do with the sun, and the dirt, and the newness of things. He keeps me outdoors at a time when things are too close, closing in. He gives me a reason to go out. Scratch the pony. Build a bond.

Meriwether reminds me who I am, and what I'm best at.

Special Delivery

We got a new pony delivered at two in the morning after a late night Dodger Game hobbling on a broken toe. Also it was the wee hours of Aug 19th, the day my son was born 21 years ago. Also my son was there.

That's some pretty sweet shit. When the guy pulled up finally, 12 hours behind schedule, he didn't get out of the truck which I thought was weird. He said the halter's in the back, and it took me awhile to figure out if it was in the truck or where and then he told me to go ahead and get the baby out. 

It's weird to go into someone else's trailer, it's like you wouldn't just open anyone's trunk especially someone you've only met twice, when he delivered horses 5 and 2 years ago. I open up the back and there's the little white baby deer, Meriwether, looking at me like oh hey I was wondering where you were all my life. All his four month life.

He jumps right out of the trailer and we can't believe how tiny he is, this is the first horse I've been up close to so little as my actual horse with tiny baby feet and soft baby fur. 

Then the guy is coming around the trailer and he's pushing a WALKER, and can barely WALK. I feel so bad that I was mad how late he was, and the last time he delivered a horse it was on Christmas morning, at like 3 am, and I even gave him a tip like, thanks for being late AND ruining Christmas. But then how many times do you get a horse delivered on Christmas. 

I think maybe this is the last time he's delivering horses for me. First because next time he'd be in a wheelchair apparently, and b because I'm only going to pick up my own horses from now on, I can see the truck and trailer section of my life is about to begin. My horsemanship is growing, I've evolved. 

Also I don't need any more horses. But it is addictive.

So Meri has been with us two weeks almost. He is a thoughtful, loving, funny, fluffy little guy. I was worried the guy had to next go pick up a draft horse and drive it to New Jersey. A draft horse is like a truck and trailer all on its own, and this guy can't even walk well. I hoped he would be okay.

My little wispy Meriwether is poking around loftily, not knowing that he has landed in the softest spot in the universe. 

Just like Nathan did, 21 years ago. I still have him, too.

anew

 Man, haven't been on here in awhile.

The horses have been less write-worthy, because they are serving a purpose which is ride me away from dementia mom care. So there's no time to write when you're deep in the jungle by the creek or out in the barn brushing a little bit of dust off.

Life is all functiony out there, that's the miracle. Things need water, and things need attention. 

Lately I've been looking at getting a foal because maybe things need to start anew. I've never done anew. It might a nice.

Or maybe we should go to Europe.

Or both.

Dangle

 I stand in water. Well the horse stands in water and my feet dangle above. 

Water and creek with jungle plants all around. I ride to go stand in water and then I ride back and then everything seems better.

The horses have not ever told me one thing.

They just go where I go because usually the place we end up is a good place, and I always bring them back to a safe place to eat. Home.

They're happy with the journey.

They take my drowned heart and we go to the water and release it into the muck and it swims around regenerating til healed and then we walk back new and this lasts at least 24 hours. I am not healed all the way through. But I am comforted, and the sun feels good, and the horses smell good, and my feet dangle.

This is important for a tall person.

Listen

I'm riding with this insane person well he's just left of insane, he's definitely in the turn lane heading toward it. He's been riding with me 2 months straight with his horse, and riding with me and my horses since August, so like six mos.

There is something about this relationship, where I never look at him, we are never face to face, in fact that would be weird. We are a voice either in front or behind, sometimes next to. We are always running, lately, we are trying out running with thundering fast feet under our own dangly ones.

I didn't run this much on my horse as a kid, and I certainly never ran this much using my own body.

There is something about the feel of the air with this companion and these horses, that dares us to just go. It's a certain meshing of safety, chaos, logic, dare, exhilaration, fright, happiness. I never pressed this level on my horse, it is a new level. He is much more comfortable at this level than I am but he has never sat in a hospital with a broken pelvis and ribs.

I am liking who I am, and how the world is shaping up around me. I am aware that I must do more to further my path. I must indeed hack away at all the weeds, even the scratchy mean ones, which is just the part of me that I don't use the most. That's what it is, with this new riding level, it is untried, so it is silent and huge and scary. I should realize that I am slogging through this world and it is all here for me, to pick through, and remember and choose my path and doggedly and faithfully be myself.
And listen.

Gilligan is on His Way

Because I'm stupid, there's a new horse coming here next week. Not my horse, but because I will do anything to avoid writing, I decided this guy who comes to ride with me needed his own horse and even though we've only  known each other a few months, he is now going to have his own horse and keep it at my house.

I don't actually NEED another horse here at my house. I have plenty of children and chickens and dogs and horses. Except the children seem to be leaving, one by one. In the way that apparently children do, in normal homes, like it's no big deal. I'm not having the easiest time with this. Why do people need to go and do things?

I will try and not fill up the holes entirely with horses and horse related products. I could maybe learn to sell my writing, or be kinder to people or share myself a little more. I don't really know what I'm doing here if not for children, and horses have always sort of kept me buoyant, even in the worst of times. Even if I'm in the hospital from lack of buoyancy from falling from horses.

My body is getting older, it's telling me. I'm only 53. The numbers are silly, but they are telling me, your time is running thin, lady. There's still much to do.

We'll start with pairing this horse and this human. This horse has a Gilligan personality and so does the owner. I like the pairing, and the happily ever after which includes much work. But the trail's the thing. It might not cure the baby bye bye blues, or cure anything, but I don't go there to cure I just go to breathe.

Dude Ranch

Lately I've been taking out some guest riders. I get bored and put my craigslist ad for trail riding and I usually get some fat ladies who used to ride as kids but are missing horses. Not always fat, but I did have to put a weight limit in my ad after the last one. Dewey has ballerina ankles.

The latest two have been guys, Armenian Bakery Owner and Medi-Vac Helicopter pilot with a side of throat cancer.

I don't usually ride with guys because what if they murder me so I told them to meet me up at the school. The only other dude who came to ride was Travis the Fireman (an actual person) and he was everything you'd expect in a fireman. Tall, polite, sweet and I never saw him again. Although he did talk to Nathan about becoming a fireman.

So I didn't know for sure if the Armenian Bakery dude was a dude because his name was Cartin and isn't that a container? But he was for sure a guy and I took the dogs since I thought that might be a deterrent to murder if he had that on his mind. He paid me his 40 bucks and signed his life away on my waiver and then got on Dewey the most patient guest riding horse there is. Dewey sighed and got to work. Cartin looked short but then once on I had to adjust his stirrups for longer legs. The man is like all head, like his head is like the size of storage locker, and apparently the rest is legs. Fresh Bread makes this kind of person.

The trail is good for Cartin, who is actually a really nice guy once I realized he wasn't in it for the killing. He loves to be outside, he makes his kids camp and fish, and he wanted to ride to "shut down" as he put it. I don't usually shut down on horseback because that sounds like a safety hazard, but he's right that the anxious city me does shut down and the regular life outdoors me opens up and allows breeze and trees and birds and morning light. Cartin was someone I didn't quite know how much to talk - riding with a stranger is sort of like getting a massage, you cringe when your masseuse starts talking, the whole point is to NOT talk. But you're moving through the world on a beast, so you have to have SOME talk or it's weird, so on a date scale, not too much talking, not awkward with silence, maybe not the person you want to spend your whole life with, but as a ride, it was like a solid 5. Just sort of boringly just right.

Then that same week came Drew, who because of his name had no choice BUT to become a helicopter medi-vac pilot, who is a huge animal lover and whose texts were full of Awesomes! Because of the chopper I thought in person would he yell all his conversations? In person, he was like someone you'd meet at an AA meeting - all tatted up, skinny, looks like he lives on coffee, whose voice is scratchy like someone ran over Bette Davis because he had throat cancer - but I can't say one mean thing about Drew because when I meet Drew, I am in instant love. No, man, as riding buddies go, he's the perfect match. First of all, I don't know him, so there's plenty to talk about. He's someone who LOOKS like someone I might be scared of normally, but he's straightforward, smart, kind, whimsical, has a weird job, has a kid my kid's age, thinks rich people who rent his helicopter are wasteful, had an actual LUNG in an ice chest riding shotgun next to him.

Drew's dream is to have a few horses of his own and get a ranch in New Mexico and be in the quiet. Lots of riders come to me that are trying out horses to see if they can do it, and I feel lucky to be here in our busy city to help aim anyone in the direction of riding and wilderness. So Drew and I do a few rides, one in the little trail nearby and one out in the water where I know he will be dying of happiness. My friend Linette says that there's something funny about taking people on trail and only talking to someone about important things when you never have to look them in the eye. That's why I function best on trail, you can say whatever you want, what is said on the trail stays on the trail. You're sort of suspended in mid air with your legs dangling, this causes all sorts of freedom of speech.

Wild wanderings these days on trails I know pretty well. Although the huge winter rains here swelled up the river and when it came back down, it's all changed so now it flows a whole different way. The water trail through the woods I used to ride all the time is now all sand, like it never existed.

But the same river is only a few feet away, doing a different path. That's the one I'm on now.