palace of winds

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.

Cloudcover. We’re walking back to the barn; for a moment I think I see lightning, but it turns out the far-off play of light, the glow blinking on and off, is a plane passing overhead, just beyond the solid spread of clouds.

We’ve just finished Friday Night Jumping. It’s Nemo and Everett, the two babies (coming six-year-olds, really, but babies enough). They have both been rockstars. We put up two four-stride outside lines (that is: a jump, meant to be followed by four canter strides, and another jump; we have one set down each long side of the arena, on the quarterline), and the flowerboxes on the diagonal. By the end we’ve raised the second jump in each line to a 2’6″ oxer — Everett’s first.

For the most part, he sails over the fences. His first handful of jumps are enormous — he feels like he’s clearing them by feet (which he probably is). The first few times we jumped (ever, not tonight) he had a tendency to bury himself at the base of each fence; he would suck back, grind to a virtual hault, then haul himself over. He’s figuring out now that jumping is fun, and that it’s much easier if you don’t stop before going.

The last line we do is lovely. He is still being kind of a shit in the arena, not wanting to go properly on the rail, wanting to plunge into the middle or toward the door — so I let him go a bit sideways around, butt swung in, until we turn to take the jumps. He accelerates on the turn, entirely game, excited, taking me to the fences. He offers to canter a stride before the crossrail (we’d been trotting into everything), pops over the oxer cute as can be. He is marvelous. I want to hold onto the feeling forever.

I dream all in fires lately, in lost friends found, children to rescue.

Last night my cat was there, curled casually in an armchair under a pool of sunlight, and I didn’t remember until minutes after I woke that he’s dead, has been for a while, and the heartbreak is that I took no special note of him while I could, no extra time; I didn’t realize until it was too late.

Last week I dreamt of an old friend, someone I haven’t talked to in months, someone I probably lost years ago. We quarreled, and I woke weeping. I remember my dreams often, carry the texture of them whole into my waking life — sights, sounds, feelings, sometimes the most vivid sensations of touch — but there’s only one other time I can recall physically reacting to one: nearly two years ago, when I woke up laughing. Of the two I’d much prefer laughter, thanks.

Last week I got a new saddle! I’ve been half thinking about it for ages now — my old saddle really wasn’t suited to me or Everett: too wide for him, flap not long or forward enough for me (the flap’s the part under your thigh/knee — or it’s supposed to be under your knee, anyway, which wasn’t the case with my old saddle when I shortened the stirrups for jumping). So I tried a couple of my friends’ saddles for fit, to see what I liked, and just started chatting with people about it. Two of my barn buddies swear by Bevals, and lo and behold a woman out at the barn had one, with a long flap!, for sale.

Sunday I had a jumping lesson — Everett’s finally sound on that right hind that’s been sore the last few weeks. We did a baby course, and he was So. Good. Amazingly good. I loved him, loved the saddle, loved the lesson. I left feeling uplifted, hopeful, believing again that we might one day be eventers.

Yesterday it was gloriously warm — just above freezing when I left work, the sun out. I rushed to the barn, tacked up in record time (I’m notoriously slow getting ready), then hopped on and went up the road. I’ve only had Ev up the road once before on his own, and it’s been a looong time since we’ve ridden outside at all. He was pretty relaxed down the long driveway, but once we got to the turn onto Kuntz, he was on high alert. We tip-toed up to the Luce Line, stopping a few times to make sure no bushes or distant joggers or mailboxes were going to eat us. He was really tense but he did not spin and bolt at anything, so just beyond the trail crossing I turned and went back. It was a short ride out but it was a ride out! in February! I think lots of little successful solo jaunts will go a long way toward building his confidence. (He’s already very comfortable being out with other horses, but I really don’t want that to be a crutch for us.)

And now this afternoon we are getting lashings of snow, buckets of it, inches stacked on inches, so it will probably be quite a while before we venture out of the arena again. Spring, we wait ready!

I walk out of my building into no February I would’ve dreamed. It’s drizzling, wet, smelling of spring, all muck and smudges of old snow and muddled grass waiting to grow again. I pull in a chestful of warm air, thinking of last night, of grey clouds racing over a big moon, faint fog lying low in the fields, Halloween out of season. The sun comes earlier and earlier now; I noticed the change a few weeks ago on one of these clockwork mornings, one of these 7:43 departures. I’m happy, loving this month, this reprieve from an otherwise bitterly cold winter.

I’m first in the office, unlocking the door, flicking on lights. I go through my morning computer dance so the programs all open in the task bar in the right order; I wish again that I could rearrange them, drag them around like my Firefox tabs. I field some calls, read my favorite blogs, copy a few cds for my grandma. Mid-morning I sift my favorite butterscotch candy out of the big mixed bag in the back.

Last week I switched out one of the photos on my desk; the new one is Everett and me at our first show, mud past his knees, his ears up as he eyes the billboard just out of shot. I dream of summer. I think of his soft eye, his big nose, wonder if he’s sleeping in the hay pile.

The market slides ever downward. We’re in a bit of a quiet cycle here; everyone is a little grim. It’s been a long time since we’ve had celebratory beers at lunch. “There’s been nowhere to hide,” we keep saying to each other, over and over. “Everything’s gotten crushed.” Mostly I try not to think about it. It will go up or it won’t, every day.

We have lunch at the really good Indian place. They’ve redecorated since we were there last, and it’s nice: deep burgundy walls and tablecloths, big gold and wine canvases on the walls. We’re the first to arrive but when we leave there are a scattering of other people. I hope, not for the first time, that they can hang on.

We take the long way home, snaking west and finally around the lake. I check out every house we pass, loving best the little ones with stonework fronts, those nestled in trees, the well-kept cottages. I try to imagine the insides of the really big ones, those with port-cocheres, tennis courts, little walking bridges over meandering streams. What do people do with all that space? How do they keep from rattling around?

The minutes tick by. I file, I daydream, I read blogs, forums, facebooks. I think of the internet like plain popcorn; it keeps you busy and you can eat it almost indefinitely but after a while you realize it’s lost all luster. I watch the clock. Soon enough it will turn up 4:30, and I’ll be on my way to see my ponyface. I’ll groom and fuss and groom and ride, come home for dinner, tv, a book, my bed. Tomorrow to do it all over again.