palace of winds

Last week on the evening news there was a story about a dog who’d lost 32 pounds in 5 months. My first feeling was one of faint shame and inadequacy: if a dog can do it, why am I struggling with these 10 pounds? And then I thought further; if I had someone to apportion my food at specific times of day and to force me to exercise, I probably wouldn’t have any trouble either. It’s not like the dog woke up one day and said Okay, I’m going to get fit! and then started doing daily doggy calisthenics.

A confession: I’ve had this ‘Write Post’ tab open in Firefox for almost a week now, with just the lone prior paragraph. Which is to say that I am lazy, which circles exactly around to my original problem. Anyhow, this morning I got up early and exercised. It was hard, but less hard than I expected. Just one more advantage of not believing in the snooze button: you are exercising before you really wake up enough to catch onto what you’re doing to yourself, and by then it’s too late — you’re wearing the clothes so you might as well lift weights for the next 45 minutes.

Another thing I’ve been meaning to write about but keep not: I adore my new riding instructor. I read this article about Principals of Good Training a little while three weeks ago. The author is talking about how to evaluate instructors, and says:

I suggest to them that they observe a lesson AT ANY LEVEL and decide if, at the end, the horse is MORE:

1. willing
2. responsive
3. round
4. symmetrical
5. self-carrying
6. self-propelled (forward)
7. relaxed TO ANY DEGREE

I have, happily, been able to say YES to all of those questions after all of my lessons so far. I just really love riding with Jodi. I am so, so much better when I ride with her, and — on and on.

I’ve had a couple good rides lately, and a really great one yesterday. G and I trailered our ponies to Lake Maria State Park and spent two and a half or three hours (we forgot to check the time when we got there) wandering the trails. It’s a really gorgeous park, the trails winding through the woods with occasional glimpses of the few lakes scattered throughout. The colors are starting to turn, and the weather was just right — it was overcast all day, which was perfect for jackets, and which must’ve kept most people away from the park because we saw only one other horse and a handful of hikers the whole time we were out. Ev was awesome — he took turns leading, and while he’s slower and on alert out front he does it without much fuss. It was great to take turns, giving him opportunities to be brave and chances to relax. It’s a pretty hilly park, and Ev got his first experience with psuedo-stairs on a particularly steep downslope (we actually wondered if we’d somehow gotten off the horse trail, but we hadn’t); it didn’t phase him at all. He was a superstar all day, and I think (hope) it’s gone a long way in repairing some of my frayed nerves after our bucking incident in the back field, and our park bench incident this spring.

It was just a really great day, one that reminded me how lucky I am in this life. To have this Sunday in late September, these trees going all orange and red, these quiet winding trails; to be this girl with her horse in the woods in the fall. Watching the leaves drift down and thinking forward, imagining myself an old woman on a front porch watching leaves fall and thinking back.

I open my balcony door to let in the cool morning air; it brings with it an unexpected edge of autumn and I mentally check my calendar. Early August, still, in a year when our summer came monstrously late, not settling in until mid-June. And here, suddenly, a breeze that whirls in all falling leaves, pumpkins, heavy cable-knit turtlenecks.

On my morning blog-checking rounds I find that Carmon in New Mexico noticed this same season-shift yesterday, and looking at the pictures of her mountains folding off into the far clouded distance I fall unexpectedly back to Peru, to my valley a day’s ride into the mountains outside Cuzco. Have I talked about coming to the ruins there? The sun fading fast on us, shadows sliding up the sweeping mountainsides? I huddle shivering in the saddle, jacket zipped to my chin, knit cap pulled low over my ears and eyebrows. We have been mirroring the herd of llamas across the valley to our west, heading home for the night, and suddenly in all this distant deserted mountainland there before us is a little valley with a scattering of huts, paddocks sketched round with low adobe walls, the meandering of a stream and the ghost of an Incan outpost, centuries old.

I am taken suddenly, utterly, by a sense of homecoming. I have another life here. I cannot shake the sense of it, the call to stop here, or return here, to take deep rest in this little retreat. To step each morning into the high clear air, to lie down each night in a small earthen home beneath this bright sweep of stars. I am sure the reality would be different; it is an improbable dream. But what a promise of peace. What a thought to bring you through.

Yesterday my office played hooky; we snuck out mid-morning to head up to my boss’s cabin. We spent the day on the lake, playing on the jetski and cruising in the pontoon, drinking and fishing, having a nice leisurely dinner, setting off fireworks. The weather was entirely perfect, sunny and 80’s. I could easily envision the rest of life in a sleepy little cabin on a forest-hugged lake. Just mix in some family, some horse, and I’m there.

Sunday Ev and I had a great time at our clinic. We accomplished Goal #1 (stay on the horse). There were actually no other formalized goals, but really I was going for a safe, positive experience, and we definitely had one. He was excited when we got there, and it’s a little hilarious for me watching the video back because he felt so up to me, all animated, looking at everything — and in the video he looks totally calm. So I think partly it’s that I’ve gotten used to riding him in total surfer-dude/half-asleep mode, and partly that our few previous crashes have left me a bit rattled and every time he takes a look at something I’m half expecting him to leap and take off in some unexpected direction (which is kind of unfair to him because while he is a baby, overall he’s a pretty laid-back guy). So mostly I was the more nervous of the two of us at the clinic.

We rocked it, though — we did our first: pile of poles, crossrail, little log, bigger little log, baby ditch(es), up-bank, up-bank to up-bank, down-bank, bridge crossing, water time, etc etc. My group was split up at the beginning — which worked really well, since there were two of us out for the very first time and two with more experience — but one of my new barn buddies caught a little video in the beginning and mid-way through when we were back in the same field. We shall speak not of my position (a nine year break from jumping does not, I can report, improve your form over fences), but look instead upon the Boo’s calm willingness, and imagine the eventers we will one day be:

Y’all, this last week has been a trial. I don’t want to talk about the bad stuff, though, because the world is full of people who are kind and generous and good at heart, and the rest of ‘em are just not worth it.

So, you ask, the good stuff? On Wednesday I had a mini spa visit and afterwards stopped in this home decor store on a whim, lured by many, many large SALE signs. They actually had a lot of stuff I liked (the influences often seemed to be Asian and a touch Victorian and somewhat fairytale, which is a really inadequate description), and surprisingly good prices (especially given they’re in a pretty expensive shopping center). After a little hemming and hawing I picked up some framed art from the clearance section (four carved wood panels, each about a foot square), thinking it might fit a blank space in my bedroom. I’ve been meaning to buy some colorful fabric to stretch & staple over frames for that area, but for the price (and knowing how much longer my original plan could take) I couldn’t really go wrong. (So much for budgeting this month.) When I got them home I — well, okay, I went immediately to bed because it was almost 11 — but the next morning I propped them up along the back of my couch, eyeballed it, and decided they’d look perfect in that space. Which is fabulous because I’ve been kicking around ideas for that big blank spot forever and hadn’t yet hit on one I was totally thrilled with.

Other good stuff: tomorrow is Alex’s birthday party; he’s turning three. It’s amazing how time flies. I’m making his cake (and really need to get a frosting recipe chosen). And Sunday is my jumping clinic and the big move.

A week or two ago my cherry tomatoes finally started to ripen, and most days I find a moment to stand out on my balcony, eating one or two straight off the vine and watching the weather. Two days ago there was afternoon light so warm and unbelievable I felt I could fall right over the railing into a painting. This morning the most delicate of rain, a whispering mist of summer grey.

I had a really, really great Fourth of July weekend, and this picture pretty much sums it up. (There were a few other pictures that I thought said it a little better, but I didn’t want to post pics of other people pretending to lactate wine from a wine-in-a-box pouch without said other people’s permission.)

What you can see is that I’m on the Meramec River, and that my floatin’ hat is made of awesomeness and win. What you can’t see is that we had two rafts and a canoe lashed together with bungies, and at the moment pictured I was balancing with one foot on either raft. I found it much easier than trying to stand on my tube on the Apple River. (I also drank beer instead of vodka on this trip and actually remember the whole thing.)

The drive through Iowa was surprisingly less excruciating than I remember — though I wasn’t the one driving, so that probably helped, and M and I got along like gangbusters and spent most of the time talking talking talking and the rest listening to Avenue Q and Ricky Gervais and Harry Potter. The drive through Missouri was downright gorgeous. The weather was perfect, totally perfect. I did not get sunburned, and I resisted the temptation of s’mores (oh sweet gooey grahamy delicious emblem of summer, how I miss your forbidden marshmallowness). Everyone was really lovely — it was one of those instafriends weekends, and oh Iowa of far farmfields how I hate you for being between me and more of that.