palace of winds

It’s humid.

Let me say that again: IT’S HUMID. It’s April, and it’s humid! No snow. I spent the morning on the couch in my summer pjs (I love days the market’s closed!), sweating. In April! I think the weather’s mocking me for that time a couple weeks ago when it was really pretty nice, like a brisk fall day, and I told Joe I wished it was maybe 85 or 90, 95. (Dear Weather: I meant hot, not humid.) But I love it! It’s good. I’ll take it, and months more.

I think I’m also paying for having fallen off the exercising bandwagon. I’ve done a little step aerobicizing over the last year, in fits and starts, but mostly I’ve been larking around on my horse. (If you’ve never ridden a horse, let me clarify: they’re work! Just generally not as much work as step aerobics, at least not at my skill level.) So I’m trying to clamber back on the wagon, and just finished an hour puffing on and off the step, and bunny-hopping, mamba-chachaing, clean’n'pressing. I would like to once again be the person who can get up a half an hour earlier to do this before work.

Mr. Poe-face has been amazing. (Guess it might be time I consider banning that word from my horse vocabulary — I think I say that every time I talk about him.) He’s just so fun and generous and sweet, and I cannot. wait. to gallop the hell out of a Novice xc course with him. I mean, that’s years away: he’s not quite four yet. I imagine we’ll start jumping lightly later this summer/fall, and spend summer 2011 at Beginner Novice. I can’t make any other predictions until I’ve actually had him out cross-country, gotten some field trips under his belt and all that. (But who am I kidding: I have my secret hopes that we’ll be ready to move up to Novice in 2012. I also have secret hopes that I will grow a pair and be able to do Training in a few years, and maybe even run Prelim at some point? That is how much I like this horse: I have actually thought about Prelim.)

And now, before this rambles any further, I’m going to find some lunch.

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.

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.

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.

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.