palace of winds

I need to sort out some pictures and more video, but in the mean time — here’s a little cross-country from Sunday. Everett was all kinds of awesome, and I am SO PROUD of him!

I’m just coming in from running some mail out to the box; there is a warm spring breeze, the leading edge of a thunderstorm. It sifts through my hair and carries on it the strongest scent of blooming trees, of lilacs. I close my eyes and breathe, deeply.

I owe you a post, I know, but I am so exhausted. I can’t write when I’m this tired. I can’t convey what it’s like to steer him over our first little cross-country course, the momentousness of jumping up a bank, over a tiny log, a row of barrels, boulders set beneath a pipe, a ditch. How it feels to turn in the back corner of the field with him leaning against my leg, just waiting for it, waiting — to slide my hands forward along his neck and crouch low, lower, and for him to gallop, to fly, so fast that my eyes tear up against the wind. To be able to laugh and say Come on, and Is that it?, and for there to be more. I wish I could give you that most of all, the feeling of galloping up that hill.

Work has been insane lately. I owe y’all an update, particularly about my first cross-country jumping lesson with Ev, and our first venture down the Luce Line.

For the moment, however, I just have time for a quick one to say that I’m walking in the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure this Sunday, as part of a team to honor my riding instructor, who spent a long winter undergoing chemo (while still teaching!). I know the economy’s tight right now, but if you have a couple bucks to spare, consider donating: http://www.active.com/donate/komentc09/rmatey.

Within a week: a real update! Promise!

The late afternoon sunshine is washing warm and plentiful over the back field. 20 acres and it’s all ours, just the soft roll of hills, a scattering of birdsong, the far-off barking of a dog, and last autumn’s grass ranged all around us in glowing palest gold.

We circle the hilltops, thread between them, cantering, trotting, ambling around all the jumps. Everett is curious about the bank complex for no reason I can tell, but we don’t investigate: it was just constructed last fall and it’s closed to protect the fragile footing. While cruising toward the tire jumps I can feel him look at them, think about it, wondering if maybe — but I’m saving all that for a lesson. It’s nice, though, to be riding this interested, independent Everett, this guy not worried about his friends. It’s nice also to trust him cruising down a slope, not worrying he’s going to go tumbling rump-over-whiskers.

Nice, this lazy spring day, being this girl and her horse.

I need to get back in the swing of writing.

This last month has been a bit of an odd one. Plenty of good stuff, and plenty of melancholy — particularly the arrest, the shooting. A lot of things I haven’t really felt like writing about.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Iron & Wine this week. Can’t imagine life without “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” and “Resurrection Fern.” And have I mentioned yet how much I like U2’s new album? “Get On Your Boots” is my cross-country song for this summer. I need to get out and rock at least enough jumps to put together an Everett video to that song: one of my two summer goals.

This month spring’s making an effort, putting in shy little appearances. A week of sun and 40’s, 50’s — then stretches of rain, and today snow. Nothing for it, though.

Last night I dreamt about being on Survivor. We weren’t in the wild, though — all us contestants were just leaving a county fair, meandering back to the minivan that would take us to the next part of the competition. I was the second to arrive, after a jolly heavyset middle-aged man, someone who might be a mall Santa come December. He had already climbed into the first row of bench seats. Jeff Probst was in the driver’s seat, turned toward a stack of papers and his laptop piled on the passenger’s side. The van doors were all open, a summer breeze moving through, and I leaned in the side doorway, chatting with Jeff. I woke contented, loving what a nice, friendly guy he is, that dimpled smile. Guess I have a thing for dimples lately.

A few days ago I dream myself crouched at the open door of an airplane, falling forward into the bright blue rush of air below. I sink down, and after several moments remember that I will need, at some point, to pull my parachute. I slide my hands up along the harness straps on my shoulders, musing that I really should have reviewed this before my first solo jump: where the handle is that I’ll need to pull, when to pull it. I am not, I realize, wearing any kind of altimeter — wouldn’t know how to read it even if I were. I’m not concerned about any of this, though. I am unaccountably happy.