personal stories

Ditch Diaries

/ Gin Getz / 9 Comments

Week two; Day one.

Back after a break.  Gunnar has healed well.  Still a bit groggy at times, and left with a good scar above his eye which we say gives him even more character.  But he’s good to go and back at his place working with the horses.

Peak season on the mountain, and we need to get away.   We have learned to endure July.  Moods fluctuate with the weather.  July has it all, from heat to hail.  Like ants on a birthday cake. Too many people driving by with blind, blank stares; passer bys who remain unnamed, unknown, unaccountable.  I long for a friendly wave of a vehicle I recognize.  A permanent place in the wind.  A summer neighbor drives up fast and furious behind our full load of horses in the trailer.  The only one rushed on the road.  You can feel the stress from the car back there, too tight on our tail to see the wide places to pass as we pull to the side again and again to let her by.  A rush to get off the mountain, back to work, back to one’s own reality.

My reality is here.  Yes.  It is very, very real.  Though at times, like July, it seems a surreal moving image surrounding me.

I look to the morning frost on pasture and long for winter already.

Be here now.  Riding up the trail. Beyond where most make it in a day.  Higher even than the Aspen grow, delicate silver bark, flesh scratched with initials, scarred by those who come and go and leave nothing better than this behind for a generation to endure.

And then we are there.

I hear the horses heave and sigh and let go with their heads down in the rich high mountain grasses.

Late at night writing by the light of my headlamp.

Crazy the contentment I find here in the tent together with my boys, our dog between us, our horses in the trees just outside.  The occasional stomp of their feet as they shift their weight easily, the snort of their relaxed breath.  They are satisfied, tired, full bellies; they worked hard and well and have earned their rest. I am proud of them.

Crazy the contentment in this 12×12 tent, complete with woodstove on which we cooked elk burgers for dinner.  A nice change from Hamburger Helper.  Life does not get much better than this.

Day two.

Slept until the mountain was light. Gunnar and I get the horses out.  They know the routine and handle with great manners.

Morning work proved other than perfection in paradise, between Norman balking at being out their working alone, and poor communications between the three of us.  It’s bound to happen.  It did.

Lunch in the tent while thunder rumbles across the steel grey sky.

We are damp and chilled and grateful for the woodstove.  I remember July days on the beach, sun and sand and sweat and sundresses in the evening.  I reach for my down jacket and felt hat and check the horses before returning to work.

Day three

Progress is slow.  Perhaps we are out of shape. We would like great transformations.  We would like the whole mile plus of ditch to be as well groomed, just the right slope, clear of vegetation, and solid high bank as the twenty feet we just worked on.  We are down and know it is only up to us to make things better.

We turn to ditch digger humor to lighten our load. How much more down can a ditch digger get?  It’s easy when you start at the top and work your way down.  We do manage to keep each other laughing and really, being out there working with my husband and son, dog and horses, it is easy to rise up again.  It never takes long.  Put down the shovel, slow down the slip, and smile.

A better afternoon.  Norman pulls a mean load, and the three of us get in the groove and get mean with our shovels and picks.  Truly a dirty job.

Day four.

I am up and out earlier than usual, with camera and tripod, to get a shot at a shot at the Rio Grande Pyramid at first light.  Gunnar and I sneak out before coffee and leave the boys to lead the horses out to pasture.

I am rewarded with clouds, color, and a remarkable view, unobstructed and uninterrupted, deep in the Weminuche Wilderness and realize that for now, no doubt, there is no place I would rather be.

Here and now.

Horse matters

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

(photos by Forrest)

 

Yesterday was spent working with the horses in a different sort of way.  Starting with grooming far better than is normally needed for a mountain mount.  Currying off the mud along the back and girth usually suffices. But we were gearing up for a photo shoot with Forrest of three of our best horses.  Later in the day, when the monsoons did there thing, I edited, deleted and organized the nearly five hundred photos he took.  The end result will be up later today on our ranch website (www.lost-trail.com) on the new page “Sale Barn.”

Why the fuss over our four leggeds?  It’s time to sell a few more.  Downsizing.  Life is full of changes.  This one is harder than most.  Deciding who stays, who goes.  How do you decide which of your children to sacrifice?  Oh come now, it’s not going to be that bad.  (I have to remind myself.)  I will find the best of homes, new partners, and these horses will receive the care and attention they deserve – which will hopefully be even better than that which I give them.

Downsizing. It’s a down side of change.  Some plans get hurt in the process of building your dreams.  You can’t have everything, can you?  Somethings gotta give.  So, sometimes you gotta decide what matters most.  How on earth do I do that with my horses?  Except to look for truly wonderful new homes and partners… and trust….

Why can’t I keep them all, and find time (and money) to give them all I want to give?

On the practical level, there is the reality of us passing on our outfitting business and simply needing fewer horses around to complete the work we are continuing, like the ditch job.  In addition, the horse market is changing.   There seem to be more horses than horsepeople around. The cost of keeping horses and available land to keep them on is out of balance. Add that to the aging market and the change in our society as a whole, which is becoming increasingly less rural, more centralized.  As a result, we see the horse market nationwide becoming more elite.  I’m not big on elite.

But really, there is more to it than all that.  Something deeper. Consider the change of going from a small time breeder where every colt born was a celebration of life, and had a future on our ranch… to wondering if and how long he or she would live.  With the death of the first foal, everything changed.  And continued to change as foals continued to die.  Suddenly, birth was not the blessing I once considered it to be.  Life, or even the prospect there of, became tainted with a dreaded fear.  Birth became a time of trepidation, not elation.

“Only those who have can lose,” our vet told us in sympathy after one more loss a couple of years ago.  I intend to have.  But along the way, I know I’ll lose a few.  In the case of those I’ve chosen to sell, I comfort myself with the hope that I can and will find a perfect partnership for each horse.  Something I am unable to provide here for a dozen horses.

Practicality does have its downside…

Monsoon season

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

The thermometer on the porch reads thirty five when I wake up.  Grass out on pasture is laced with frost.  Yellow leaves of cinquefoil stick to my damp boots like polka dots. All morning it looks as if my squash plants are going to give up and give in to that sickly, mushy green of a frozen plant, but they do not.  They survive.  Not to say they will ever produce.  Just staying alive here is asking a lot for a crook neck squash plant. My little Arabian shows the first sign of fuzz from his winter coat, though the ranch raised ones shrug off the rain that drips down their manes and muzzles.

The monsoon season has settled in.  The hot and dry of May and June are but a misty memory. And when this pattern passes, the first chill of fall will find us as always unprepared, wondering how it came so soon, and where did the summer go.

It’s an arduous land, make no doubt.  Even now, in the easy season of summer, when tourists come and go, smile and laugh and play and leave their world and worries behind as if this were some wild park at Disneyland.  They will all be gone by winter.  Ok by me, as I’ll remain, but I’ve never been much for the social scene.

So here we are in mid July and the weather site on the internet we check each day has rain clouds for as far as one can see in the forecast.  This is how it should be, I am reminded, but I still remember summers in other places, hot and dry, where we swam naked in the river or sea, sand between my toes (yes, bare feet!), sat out in shirt sleeves and shorts at night under the stars, and took a siesta mid day.  Our spring this year was as close as it gets, with the never ending blue bird blue sky that made one long for a bad ass cloud to break up that blue and whirling dervish dancing of rain and hail on the metal roof.  Now we have that.  Every day.  Now we’ve got the monsoons, and it’s hard to complain because it’s greening up the pasture (sorry, it can’t do much for the red hillsides killed by those nasty little black beetles).

And I try to enjoy every wet, damp chilly storm and rainbow spreading across pasture knowing the fast and furious spell of summer will slowly sink into the comforting cradle of winter…

Lost.  

Amidst the changing landscape of green hills turning red and brown.

Give up, give in, fall deep into the darkness.

I try to stay afloat.  So hard in the rushing currents.  Waiting for my island to capture me, hold me up, pin me down long enough for roots to grow, flowers to bloom, seeds to take shape for next year’s dreams.

Wanting the yellow brick road to appear before me.  Instead there is a discernible path of last year’s aspen leaves still untrodden and I need to find my own way.

But this morning there is hope, relief, as I watch the footprints of my polka dot boots trailing behind in the frosty grass.

Last night’s rain lingers in low heavy clouds not yet broken and gone, and promising to renew again by mid afternoon.

For now there is cold wet ground before the morning sun.

Silver droplets on the railing

Each with a little world within them

Enter and lose yourself inside and away

Beads of rain clinging to the bottom of the rusted steel railings like welding lag or a row of sparkling diamonds dripping from a rough cut mine.

And inside each one are upside down images of brown and green hills over layered grey skies

Deep stratum of clouds, draped like velvet and barely moving

A lacy veil slung low along her hips in her slow dance of summer

Languid in the early hours

Like thickening water waiting to freeze

And by afternoon rain on the roof will drown out the sound of the growing parade of ATVs

Where for now the wilds are swept away in the murky waters of the monsoons

But I remain here

Hungry for more of whatever she hides

Starving for the wilds

 

Down for the day

/ Gin Getz / 8 Comments

Image

Otherwise known as Discontentment in Paradise

How can I be anything other than peachy when so many say I’m lucky just to be here (but can’t see all I did to get here)?  As if a pretty face would be enough.  Or in this case, a pretty view.  For better or worse, I’m not that shallow.  And surely, my friend, you’re deeper than that too.  Aren’t you?

Give me a minute.  I’ll try to get my thoughts together, at least in some semblance of order. 

Or just let them spill out randomly.  That will do, too.

Hang in there with me on this one.  I think you might relate.

I’ll start with the “down for the day” part. 

Here it is, a new week, and I’m trying for a new perspective, but not achieving the positive outlook I was hoping for.

Was wondering why I was so down yesterday, and still not quite sure as nothing is wrong, per se, especially when you compare my current state of affairs with the hard times, heart aches and traumas so many others are going through, or troubled times I’ve gone through myself. So what right do I have to whine?

Probably none.  But I’m going to do it anyway.  We all need some time to vent, don’t we?

As my honey reassures me, “You can’t be up all the time.  Not if you’re really living, feeling, observing, soaking in and an active part of the world around you.  Some things will bum you out.  Some days will be worse than others.  Some days you just wanna kick the cat…”  OK, so that last part actually came from a book by Zig Ziglar.  And no, anyone who knows me knows I won’t really kick a cat.  My three kitties can attest to that!

Anyway, sometimes I just don’t think the thing to do is fake it, pretend it is all ok, sunshine and bunnies, hunky dory and picture perfect.  Sometimes we need to get real, get mad, allow ourselves a day of being down in the dirt. 

And this pile of dirt I’m talking about now?  Well, I just realized I am exactly where I was, only with less. And I don’t mean a positive downsizing.  I mean, less to do, less work, less money (though larger debt), less identity, less going on, less direction, less sense of point and purpose, less sense of self and sense of giving and belonging.  Not a good place to be.  I’m not outfitting, not running the guest ranch business full time, not “really” mothering as my kid is grown up, not writing well as the manuscript has not sold yet so it’s hard to keep convincing myself it is all worthwhile.  I’m not really homesteading or even feeling at home as the home I’m living in is for sale, and we’re waiting to build anew. 

Yes, I know.  Look around and you’ll see some wonderful stuff.  Starting with and topping the list of course are Bob and Forrest.  I could go on with a hefty list, no doubt, but that’s not the point. I worked mighty hard and took more risks than most to make what I have possible, and still… I want more. 

Look around me and you might see many things that so many shallowly search for but aren’t willing to walk away from safe and secure to make happen.  As if they were handed to me.  Easy to think it was so simple if you don’t know where I came from.  We all have a story.  Came from somewhere.  And hopefully are going somewhere, too.  Where are you headed?  As long as it’s not the same place you were yesterday, for that place and space no longer exist. 

A friend puts it all into words I wish were mine:   “…Restlessness or discontent is part of the syndrome of our beings. I look for people who have achieved their “perfect” life..and wonder if they have compromised.  If they even know they have. Have they settled for less ?”

The human state of longing.  Is anyone ever fully satisfied, or is it human nature to want more?

Image

Bragging rights

/ Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Before.

 

After.

I’ve been waiting a long time for this.  Years.  So long, in fact, I think I’ve earned the right to brag about it.

A new camera!

This is big news.  For me.  Might not be the exciting news you were hoping for (and I’m still working on…).

I am learning that a good camera does not make a good photographer.  But it sure won’t hurt.  And hopefully, you’ll see an improvement in my photos.  Please let me know…

So, in description (and defense) of the “taken in the bathroom mirror trick” photos above, please excuse the lack of originality in method, and concentrate if you will on the object of this discussion.  The cameras.

Here’s what I had:  A Canon PowerShot SD780.  And don’t get me wrong.  I love it.  It has served me well and managed to make all the pictures you’ve been seeing from me over the past several years.  Of course I’m keeping it.  It fits in my pocket and is easy to carry everywhere, including when I’m horseback.  But…

Here’s the new deal:  A Canon EOS Rebel T3i EOS 600D with a EF-ee-250mm f/4-5.6 IS lens.  Wow.  I call it the Big Guns.  And no, it neither fits in my pocket nor around my neck comfortably when I’m horseback.  It is much larger… but there is no mistaking… much better. Already I am so impressed and intrigued by the depth, contrast, life and detail…  So much to learn, and so much fun learning…

I’ll be curious if you see an improvement in my work over time.  Once I learn to use this thing, for as many of you know who already have good cameras, the simple days and ways of point and shoot are over.  There are all kinds of buttons and settings and controls and adjustments on this.  It’s going to take me a while to figure this out.

So, off to figure a few more mysteries of this complicated (for me) little piece of machinery.  And back to working on the next bit of good news.  Because like waiting around for luck to fall in my lap, I’m pretty sure it’s not going to happen so easily.  At least it’s never been that way for me.

Go ahead, call me lucky!  Maybe that will help.

Observations from up high

/ Gin Getz / 5 Comments

This is not a pretty picture.  It is not meant to be.  Only real.  Finding beauty is up to you.  How deep and long are your willing to look, knowing you can look further now through the thinning trees?

It started with a ride, perhaps the most frightening I have taken by choice.  A simple ride up the Ute Creek Trail, without another horse or human on the way that day, perhaps for days.  From my barn, perhaps a 16 or 18 mile ride, into the Weminuche Wilderness and back.  But here’s the real challenging part:  I rode Flying Crow.

Without wishing to make this all about horses as I’ve been tending to do as of late (it’s that time of year, you know), let me just say I was scared.  At one point (for those who know the trail, the section known as the Funnel Cliffs by the old timers), I dismounted and walked.  I hate to admit that.  That goes against… what I believe for horse training, for riding, for making it up this trail.  Yet, it goes along just fine with my sense of survival.  After my horse stumbled off the trail so many times already (“What are you thinking,” I actually yelled at him, though I think the problem was that he wasn’t thinking; he was too busy looking around for the bogy man that  never showed), and knowing this section would allow no room for error, I decided not to risk it.  I got out of the saddle, held his reins, and walked for fifty feet, and cussed him, Arabian horses, right brain behavior, and my choice of horses the whole way.  On the return trip, however, I remained mounted, and as you can see from my being here to write about it, I survived.

What I wanted to share were my observations of the mountain along the way.  I will try to keep emotion and comments to a minimum.

These are the facts.

Elevation was between 9,550’ where I crossed the Rio Grande and 10,950’ above the forks of the Utes.

I viewed a varying percentage of beetle kill along the trail, from less than 10% (down at the River crossing), to 75% or more of the spruce.

It is often the green trees being blown over (and having to be cut and cleared from the trail in order to ride on).  Even needles catch the wind.

Needle-less trees allow more light on the trail.

The trails and hills are more exposed due to fallen and/or needle-less trees, making a once cool and shady horse ride rather hot.

I had promised Gunnar it would be a cool, shady trail.  I lied.

Places where we have always ridden through bogs hidden in dark timber are hard and dry.  The sun was shining on them directly.

A horse’s footfall is silent when crossing needle lined paths.

These are interesting times.

Clear before me, from as close as my kitchen table, I see the changes.

At times it feels too close to home.

For this is my home.

Next year may be a cold and wet one. But these trees, the deep green mountain, won’t return as long as I live, as long as my child lives.

I leave you then with this.  Delicate balance of hope. A unusual white columbine, so fine and pure, found no higher than the bank of the Rio Grande as she cuts across our property.

Random thoughts from a hyperactive mind

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

Continuation, alteration of the poem I started Monday:

A new ending, though it’s still not right.  Interesting to find something so simple so challenging.  Endings.  I gotta work on mine.

 

Back to the place

Where we were birthed

Or are we born again

Each day

 

Nope.  Not there yet.

Oh, forget it.  Onto a new start:

 

I wept tears like raindrops

Pregnant with promise

(now is this too cliché?)

Pouring upon the land

Dousing sparks of unrest

In changing times

A land hot and swollen as my crying eyes

Sadness for the loss of life upon the now red hills

My sisters standing before me

Stripped and whipped

Waves of grace flow and settle like smoke from approaching fires

Covering up

Consumed

 

Tears like raindrops

Falling through the cracks

Of a parched land

Raped and left to die

Our land of plenty

 

And now my mother weeps

Left lying in a heap before us

Blood we are unable to wash free from our hands

As needles from the dying trees fall

Lining the yellow brick road to where I wonder

 

I am suffocated, suppressed

By my own sadness

 I cry

Tears

Dancing

A song upon the metal roof

 

Friend and fellow writer, Tricia’s M. Cook, has just published a new post on her blog over at Mountain Gazette entitled, “Hunting Bears,” an essay for those who know and love these furry beasts. Me, I can be as wild as any wild beast and willing to hold my own and fight for it if need be.  You stay on your side of the fence, I’ll stay on mine.  I choose to live in bear country, and I stake a little claim there.  And yes, I will defend it, though I’m happy to let the bear do as she pleases on her side of the fence.  I believe Ursa, like my friend Coyote, can be trained.  See this line?  Don’t cross it.  And don’t, definitely don’t mess with my watermelons, as the old story goes.  Tricia has a slightly different way of seeing things.  Please read for yourselves.

Which reminds me.  The free range cows have come for the season.  How out of place can an animal be, seeing domestic cattle up above tree line.

The semi’s arrived, and how many hundred pair are left to learn the perils of the High Country.  Never a popular moment.  Nor will it be after they are gathered for the season, and we are left to find the strays.  Or carcasses.

Our Forest Service calls it multiple use.  A lovely term. I call it putting up with cow shit and closed gates for the profit of the one rich man who owns them.  Go figure.

But this much I’ve learned: you might wanna still be a cowboy, but I’d rather keep working at being a horse(wo)man.  Hooting, hollering and riding the road in a dusty wake behind a bunch of loud and stinky cows destined for slaughter isn’t really my thing.  Why do we still use that term, “cowboy,” for those of us that work horses, not cows?  Cowboy.  Consider it.  Part cow?  Ever look deep into a cow’s eyes?  I use the term “deep” loosely here, if you know what I mean. So, as you can figure, I’d rather stick with being a horseperson and leave the “cow” part for the dinner table.

 

And I end today’s post (are you still here with me?) with these simple words:

 

I care not to live someone else’s dream

And try to wake early enough to remember my own.

Back in the groove

/ Gin Getz / 10 Comments

(continued from previous post:  Growing Back the Groove)

I wish there was a secret, and you might too, but we both know there is not.

It all comes down to this.

Do it.

Don’t be afraid to do it alone.

And even if you are afraid, do it anyway.

That, my friends, is how I grew back my groove.

And gained back my confidence.

And got back in the saddle again.

Though of course I wasn’t usually really out.  Just out of sorts.  Imagining myself flying out far too many times.  And now, finally, I feel grounded again.  A firm seat in the saddle. That’s where my butt belongs.

Because it’s not about not being afraid.  Because often I am.  It’s about doing it even when you are afraid.  Yes, just like John Wayne once said.

“Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.”

And remember this, too. Saddling is the easy part.  Riding is where it gets complicated.  So get on and ride, because if you don’t, you won’t, and you’ll end up right where you started.  Standing there on the ground wishing you could go somewhere.

Get on and go.

(Quote borrowed from fellow horsewoman, Jenn Edwards)

 

So what happened is this.  It started with a love/hate relationship.  And I ended up with the most challenging horse I ever rode. My little Arabian stallion, now gelding, Flying Crow.  For those that care about such things, his registered name is Fadjurz Ideal and I went all the way to the Jack Tone Ranch in California to find him.  What was I thinking?

Was it love at first sight?  Hardly.  He was as afraid of me as I was of him.  For years. Now I can say he’s learned to trust me.  And I’ve learned to trust myself.  For the most part.  I can stay on and get where I need to go.   Pretty well.  No guarantees there won’t be more bumps along the way.

It’s the journey that counts, they say.  I say, it’s the journey that wipes you out some days…

Seven years we’ve been together, Flying Crow and I.  Seven long hard years where if he were a man, we’d be divorced.  And if he were my son, well, I’d seriously consider boarding school.  I’ve wanted to sell him, but how could I?  He’d make a bad name for my training, and for Arabian horses.  He’s, he’s… how do I find ways to describe him, how difficult he’s been (and still is) yet show the crazy deep love I hold fast for him?

Tiring, exhausting, challenging, and the cause of innumerable crying bouts.  And then you look into his warm brown eyes, and all you can do is melt, get back on, and try again.  More patiently this time.  Ask, don’t demand.  Take a deep breath…  Settle in for the long ride.

What he misses in size he makes up in nerves. What takes me three times to show your average horse, took me thirty to teach this guy.  And then, chances are, he’ll still be scared and uncertain.  He’ll spin, spook, bolt and jolt… but eventually, he’ll trust me and go where I need him to go, with his lively little perky stride, which too, I might add, is exhausting after about fifteen minutes of working to keep your butt firmly planted in the bouncing seat. Try that for rides that last two, four, six hours or more.  It has been, he has been difficult.

He is my special child.  He has special needs.  A lot of them. Needs non-stop guidance.  Needs coaxing.  Needs firm direction presented in the softest way, or he’ll get upset and shut down.  And constant attention.  Every minute down the trail.

So he taught me to pay attention, always.  Be present.  Be riding all the time. Hold your seat.  Be ready.  Expect the unexpected.  And handle him lightly because if I over reacted, it wouldn’t be too hard to pull him over on top of me. He’s hyper sensitive.

That said, he’s also sensitive in the lightest of touch.  He misses nothing. (Even when you wish he would.)  And those skinny long legs know how to move.  With the proper guidance and direction, he moves through the trees, up and down slopes, runs across open fields with the grace of a lovely young buck. A beautiful thing to behold.

So for every ride that I make it home in one piece, I am grateful.  Relieved. Tired. And very proud.  I believe he is too.  I can tell by the way he stands there with me after he’s been unsaddled and I brush down his sweaty back, and he’s in no rush to leave me and go back to his herd, but finds a certain peace, finally, standing there in the shade of the tack barn with me.

And as for doing it alone… riding alone.  Well, I do it because I can (no more dudes to take care of), and I have to (horses are my thing, my boys have other interests).  Riding buddies?  Who the heck wants to ride with the crazy mountain mama and the even crazier little Arabian horse?

So, there you go.  No big revelations.  Just time in the saddle.  Sucking up and holding on.  Because that’s the only way I know how to really move on.

Yes, I know I will be hurt again.  I’ll fall off a few more horses, no doubt. That’s horses and that’s life.  There are ups and there are downs. But it’s worth it and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I guess because I can’t, can I?  Just ask my father-in-law, who at 81 fell off a horse just the other day.  And a cliff, I might add, while training that horse.  I can only hope I’m doing the same thirty six years from now.

Right on.

Ride on.

I think I will.

For Kim, who’s got a lot of scary rides ahead of her, but is still able to keep that butt firmly planted and enjoy the ride.

A side note

/ Gin Getz / 5 Comments

A side note.

The horse story will resume another day.

For now, there is this.

I am a writer, though you may question that fact almost as much as I do.  For I’m taken to believe that a writer without a publisher is not really a writer at all.  Then what am I?  Trying.  Too hard at times.  Willing to change my voice for the approval of others.  Sing a song to please you, so to say.  So tired of rejection and getting nowhere and being asked to be patient and trust when truth is it is my self I do not trust, my talents, my abilities.

However hurt and down this gets me, quiet, soft spoken and demure I will not be. I get mad.  I suppose anger has its proper place.  If not suppressed, it can be a call to action.  Then how shall I act now? What shall I do?

In response to yet another rejection from a publication I’m not even impressed with, an editor who pointed me in the direction of work he personally liked and suggested I try to sound more like someone else, I wrote the following.

 

Tell me who I am

What to wear

The words to whisper in your ear

Does this dress become me

I ask

As I coyly dance before you

On my knees

Where you want me

Where I’ll never be

And then it is over

Last I looked you smugly smiled

And then you smiled no more

Now I hear only the evening wind

A familiar soothing sound

Wind chimes drowning out your banter

Cutting through your shallowness

Calling me closer to where I was

Before I ever tried

Growing back the groove

/ Gin Getz / 8 Comments

It’s not about the garden.  24 degrees Monday; 26 yesterday; 28 today.  A warming trend?  I dunno. Still kinda rough on a marigold and crookneck squash plant.  I’m not saying I’m giving up, but…

It’s about horses.  And confidence.  Losing it, and gaining it back.

I’ll start with how I lost it.

I think there is this cycle in horsemanship.  Maybe with other things as well, you can decide for yourself.  You start out naive.  Life is sunshine and bunnies.  What you don’t know won’t hurt you. Ignorance is bliss. That sort of thing. You just see the beauty of the horse and the fun of the ride and figure every time you’re gonna get where you wanna go and back home safe and sound.  But then something happens, and it will, that slip and fall or big buck or slap in the face, and you learn that life and horses aren’t really that shallow and simple.  Sure, there are ups, but there are also plenty of downs. You don’t realize how bad you can get hurt, and that you will get hurt, and that horses die, and riders can fall off and break bones, and horses have personalities of their own and might need a rider to guide them, not just one to babysit on their back.  It gets challenging, complicated.  Some days you’ll have to saddle in the rain.  That sucks.

So there you are as a rider and horseman.  Questioning.  The pretty picture has been shattered.  Maybe you are, dare I even say this, scared. And if you’ve never been there, then you haven’t ridden enough, or you’re just some blind macho cowboy and good for you, but that’s not me.  That’s my husband.  Good for him.  But I’m done having him ride the scary horses.  I need to cowgirl up and sit in the saddle myself.  And finally, I do. My way.  And it’s working. And maybe at the end of the day, I’ll even ride better than him.  But it’s taken me a lot to get here.

What happened?  I think the pretty picture and my innocence was shattered with one bucking horse.  Ready to rock on a pack trip, dudes all sitting pretty on the dandy horses and I’m trying out the loaner (now I know why he was on loan).  He bucked good.  I can ride a little crow hop no problem, but I have zero interest in riding a bucking bronc who knows how to tuck down his head and send his heels far above his butt.  No thanks.  I’ll leave that for the young men who still need to prove their manliness.

And here’s what I did wrong.  I dusted off and got back on.  Back on a horse that had a rep for bucking.  And without doing anything different.  I’ve heard the definition for insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  So, what does this tell you about me?  Right.

So the second pitch I see myself as in a dream (well, maybe a nightmare) up in the sky and the words that are going through my head as I’m falling slow motion really are not fit for print.  I land hard and flat.  Whoomp. There goes the air from my lungs. There’s blood but nothing broke. And yes, I cowgirl up.  We have a trip to take, and dudes to take care of.  Take the damn horse away and get me another; we gotta go ride.  Pain?  What pain?  Don’t cry, just suck up and ride.

My husband takes the horse away, rides him when they’re away from the scene of the crime, I might add, which really pissed me off.  Was this any time to train the darned horse, or maybe check to see if your wife’s bleeding has stopped?

He got me a different horse, I swallowed my pride, the blood just dried up, and I didn’t wash up and check my wounds until we rode into camp that night.  As the dishes were out drying, the horses on the high line, and the guests still gathered around the last embers of the campfire, my husband lay next to me under our tarp and was still pretty clueless what he did to deserve the silent treatment.  Go figure.  Guys.

So I ended up with some scars from that day to join with a few others.  But the deepest scar was internal; vulnerability.  I woke up.  And the day was not dawning bright and clear, I might add, but heavy and dark and foreboding. My confidence was shattered.  I couldn’t ride that horse.  If I couldn’t ride that one, how many others could toss me off?  Come on.  I know, I’ve heard and said a hundred times that part of riding is learning to fall.  I can fall.  But I can’t ride a big buck and honestly, I don’t want to.  I want a good horse and a good ride.  I’m a 45 year old woman.  Add that to the fact that I never was a 25 year old boy with a little chip on my shoulder and a big fat ego to bolster.

That was a few years ago.  A few years during which time I rode 500 or 600 miles a year and sat precariously in the saddle every single mile.  I saw myself flying off hundreds of time, though no one else did, and it never happened except in my over active imagination and under active ego.  I won’t tell my guests this, as my “job” was to keep them safe and instill confidence in them.  A job I think I did pretty well.  So, does that mean I faked it well?

And what about today?  Ah ha.  Here’s the good news.  I’m getting it back.

But shoot, look at the time.  I gotta get back to work, and so do you.  So enough for today.  I’ll finish this story another time.