I woke this morning to an unbidden memory of me, a young child, sitting on my mother’s lap. I loved her so much in that moment, I feared losing her and blurted, “I hope I die before you.”
She slapped me. I can’t remember if it was verbal or physical, not that it mattered, I was stunned at the rejection of my expression of love.
It’s been on my mind all morning, why she reacted the way she did. Then I remembered she saw her mother and her mother-in-law each lose a child.
Mom and me
When my mother was in grade school, her 19-year-old brother died of leukemia. She heard about his passing on the school bus. Gossip in a small town.
My mother rarely spoke about the grief of losing him, or the grief her mother endured, but I imagine it was searing.
As a kid, I spent summers with her mother, Ma. We all called her that. She lost two children, an eldest daughter before my mother was born, and her son.
Ma
I enjoyed spending time with Ma. She told me you eat a pound of dirt before you die. True words, although I have eaten more than a pound by now thanks to her saving me from drowning when I jumped off Pout Rock into deep water. Always no nonsense, she hiked up her dress and pulled a terrified me out of Lake Whitehall.
When I became a mother, I asked her what it was like to lose a child. She said, it was harder to lose a child you lived with for 19 years, than a baby, but both hurt.
My mother was there when my Nana lost her 17-year-old son in a car accident. After Thanksgiving dinner, my father and great uncle went to the store for cigarettes. They heard police sirens, followed, and discovered the mangled car my father once owned.
My mother, pregnant with me, found my father curled up in a ball in the back seat of his uncle’s car. She opened the door and sternly said, “Joe, get up. Your mother needs you. Go in and take care of her.” He did. And he continued to take care of others until his own illness stopped him.
I was born the following January. Nana took care of me when my mother went back to work. I never saw her grieve. She was in constant motion, spoke softly, if she spoke at all. I do not recall her reprimanding me, but then again, she had a look that stopped anyone from stepping sideways. From her, I learned to keep moving forward no matter what is in the way.
Nana
Over the years too many aunts, cousins, friends, have lost children, grandchildren. I never know what to say. I don’t think there is anything that can be said.
I understand my mother’s instinctive reaction to that small child that was me. She loved me as much as I loved her.
Jigs came to me when he was 6. He is 21 this year. I don’t know his date of birth- he came without papers. His vet has been the same since he was 3, so his age estimate is accurate. She’s watched him grow into the stubborn pony he can be.
What I know of his history has been pieced together from different stories. A local sale barn rider bought then resold him to the woman I got him from, though I never met her (transacted the purchase through her barn manager). She bought him to be a hunter pony for her young daughter but it sounded like she was intimidated by him. He would give her a hard time and refuse to leave the barn when they would all go for a trail ride. My friends had ridden him without issue. One of the reasons I took him on trial.
He does test riders that way. I personally watched him do that with two different trainers.
While Jigs is the horse of a lifetime, I’ve found over the years if he refuses to do something, you can get him do it through negotiation. He needs to know why. Forcing him does not work. Someone remarked recently that he is like a mare in that way. Maybe.
Jigs’ split ear is his standout trait in a field of chestnuts. A while after I got him, the sale barn rider recognized him in the pasture when he was delivering hay. He remarked Chace (aka Jigs) “is a nice horse.” He added “there were papers the prior owner did not want to pay for,” but I’m skeptical. Papers can be swapped. He mentioned Jigs was well broke when he bought him.
None of it matters. He was sold to me as a green, grade quarter pony, although he sticks at 14.3. Despite lack of work, he looked fabulous the day he arrived. He holds his muscling.
Jigs February 8 2009 – First Day
Even at 21 he looks great!
Jigs April 2024
Although he enjoys napping in the sun more than he used to- then again, so do I!
Last week, I purchased a 15-minute reading at a psychic fair. Closer to 70 than 60, I figure knowing the future is somewhat irrelevant, but it was for fun and to support a local business.
The reader, who was younger than my daughters, told me my wish would come true in June or possibly October. I laughed and told her I hadn’t wished for anything.
“Not even when you blew out your birthday candles?” she asked.
“Nope. No birthday cake for me.” After awkward silence, I added “wishes are dangerous. Maybe they come true, but not as you expect… like the monkey’s paw.”
She turned over another card to change the subject.
The concept of a granted wish has rattled around my head since. What would I wish for?
World peace? But at what cost? Realistically, that likely would require a world without humans.
Live forever? I think of Sybil who asked Apollo for immortality but forgot to include eternal youth.
Immortality is overrated, but maybe fewer age-related aches and pains?
Should I wish for a new house with land for the pony and a friend for him? This close to 70, that could be a challenge. Who would help with the upkeep? I’d at least need a tractor and then learn to drive it. I can barely handle towing my trailer. This wish rolled down the alley and disappeared into the gutter.
What about winning the lottery? That requires good luck and I think it is best to have no luck at all, avoiding the flipside of the luck coin.
And of course there is the Scottish proverb, “If wishes were horses beggars would ride.” I can relate to that, but I already have my dream horse.
I am grateful for what I have. Circumstances of birth gave me family, home, food, education. I have eyes to see, ears to hear, mouth to speak, hands to do, feet to walk. I have the luxury of horses in my life.
Both the pony and I are seniors. I no longer dream of mad gallops across fields but hope for a beach lope now and then. We traverse trails, weather permitting, practice in the ring for local shows. That is enough.
I am conscious that the years in front of us are few and, like senior discounts, I intend to take advantage of them!
60 degrees at the beginning of March! Blue sky after gray rain.
I took Jigs on my daily walk.
Three miles walking strengthens partnership. Yes, I could have ridden but our usual trails are muddy from the crazy rain, and it felt good to be beside him for a change.
So, we headed down the street in a different direction than our usual route. My plan was to cut through the old pine grove, where we used to ride, to avoid backtracking.
Good idea that lacked execution; I took a wrong turn. I would say we got lost, but I suspect the red pony knew exactly where we were as he dramatically sighed a few times. The old trail was broken, and we had to bushwack to the highway to find where it picked up again. I knew these trails before loggers destroyed them. The local land trust is working to restore them.
Downed trees, mud, a brook, big trucks- Jigs didn’t hesitate. Trusty trail pony he is.
On the way back we ran into a horse and buggy. Jigs got snorty. Did he think it was Spoc? I let them go ahead of us; he wanted to follow them when we turned toward our barn. Silly boy.
We were sweating by the time we got back. Okay, maybe me more than him. He is starting to let go of winter, but his coat is still thick; he was warm- honest…
What a difference a year makes. Just because that is cliché doesn’t mean it is not true.
Last February at this time, like many of my co-workers, I was stressed about the upcoming round of “reorgs” spinning in the rumor mill. Every February, this annual event disrupted my head, my stomach, my sleep, my focus. For years, I made it to the other side.
Then last year I didn’t.
At 65, for the first time since I was a teenager, I was without a job. Dreading starting over again in a world created for youth and short term thinking, I decided to take the hit and retire early, despite being months from full retirement age.
It turned out to be the right decision.
This February is just another month, albeit with less days. My blood pressure is normal. I sleep, I eat well. I walk nearly every day. Dark winter afternoons don’t prevent me from riding.
In two months, Jigs and I have traveled 103 trail miles. Last year at this time, we only had 21; the year before, 27.
Our lifetime tracked miles are 3,731, 269 from 4,000! Fingers crossed we both stay healthy. If we do, we will crush that!
Several years ago, I had a panic attack in the middle of a snow ride with a large group of friends. When their horses exuberantly took off at a gallop through the wonderful snow-covered footing, I panicked and stopped Jigs from going, afraid he would buck or fall or bolt. It wasn’t rational. I can ride out a buck and a gallop. But at that moment I couldn’t.
I feel the same panic when I think a car is going to pull out in front of me or when there is an unexpected noise. I slam on the brakes, pull back the reins, jump in place. My body is constantly on high alert and my nervous system triggers without conscious thought.
That day, I let my friends continue their ride and Jigs and I went home a different way. I stopped riding in large groups. I even considered giving up riding all together.
Horses in a group are a herd and their instinct is to stay with their buddies. My intellectual brain knows that. My nervous system does not.
I spent a few years working on my fears, not just related to riding, but life in general. I learned exercises through therapy that slow my reactions. I took riding lessons to improve my seat, especially at the canter. I read books, like Crissy McDonald’s Continuing the Ride (https://www.amazon.com/Continuing-Ride-Rebuilding-Confidence-Ground/dp/1732825831), that helped me understand the brain and fear. I am on a journey to fill in my gaps, become a better rider for Jigs.
At 66 I don’t bounce like I did when I was younger.
This week I went on another snow ride. I chose again not to gallop off with the herd and despite Jigs’ desire to go, he stayed with me, albeit protesting a bit. We eventually caught up with our friends.
When we did canter off in the soft footing, I sat through an exuberant buck and we cantered some more. He is a horse after all and entitled to fun in the snow!
But this time I see it differently. He stayed with me, took care of me, and let me release my moment of fear.
What a wonderful pony and good friends I have. I am blessed.
This last morning of 2023, I await the suns return. Already dark is graying; it is only minutes to sunrise.
December has been warm and watery. Trails are muddy. Jigs detests the footing. Riding has been limited, partly out of respect for Jigs’ age and for the trails themselves. Best to let both recover from the rain.
2023 has been a year of transition. My job of 32 plus years was eliminated. Rather than find a filler job to get me to full social security, I made the decision to retire.
Most of my adult life was consumed by work. I got caught in the web of the job is who I am. But when it was gone, I realized it was not.
Years of shuffling papers on a desk, typing into a computer, orchestrating others. This world gallops forward, there is no legacy in hoofprints. Nothing of significance is left behind except the people. I slipped away with little acknowledgement I was ever there.
Losing my job was in a way, a gift. I rode and played with the pony through Summer and Autumn. I walked miles, alone in the woods. I discovered my old poems and wrote new ones.
I found a path patiently waiting for me to return and stepped forward into daylight.
In my last post, I stated it’s not about collecting ribbons, but when you get them, it’s a rush and validation of all the practice hours and dollars spent in pursuit of improvement.
L2 Open Ride Champion – Photo Credit Mountain Lane Farm
As I clean out the house I live in, readying it for sale, it occurs to me that humans hold onto too much. Some of the things my father saved perplexes me. Boxes and boxes of screws, electrical plates, flux, wires, ancient tools I don’t know the purpose of. There are receipts from the 1960’s for wood, concrete, and other sundries. I recall my mother and me trying to get rid of this just before his health forced him to a nursing home. When we put something in the dumpster, he would rescue it. We gave up.
Those things were his unrealized intentions.
My dad worked hard his whole life. He owned several businesses of varying degrees of success and failure. He was kind, the first to offer help, taking control in times of grief. He saved a woman’s life by going back into a building filled with noxious gas and resuscitated her.
I think this selflessness was because he experienced so much loss at a young age. His father died in front of him when he was thirteen. Accepted by an ivy league school that he could not attend for lack of money, he married my mother. And then his younger, 17 year old brother, was killed in a car accident the month before I was born.
Like all humans, my father was imperfect. He drank too much. His health failed early. Cancer, blindness, and stroke left him in a wheelchair.
This stuff we accumulate, disappointment and grief, are hard to release.
The bags of stuff I carry out of the house are the letting go, for him, of him.
My plan, if it holds, is to sell this house and move somewhere less expensive, somewhere with land for the pony- maybe two. But as my father learned, intentions are just that. They don’t always workout the way you expect.
As I sort through remnants of his life, I confront my own desire for lightness of heft, illumination, and grace.
Saturday was the second trail challenge of the 2023 Mountain Lane series. Not our best day, but we managed to pin first in Level 2 Open Riding. I was happy even though our first two runs (in hand, and adult) were rough and scores too low to ribbon.
I intended to go to a Mountain Lane Play Day to practice the course before the show, but life and high humidity interfered. Last weekend we attended a local versatility clinic. I received help with cueing the 180-degree tetter totter turn and though we didn’t get a wow in the competition, we didn’t lose points. I was a bit too handsy at the end. Rider’s fault, not horse.
There was a small Texas Two Step at the clinic. I wish I had spent more time stepping on and off from the side. I didn’t notice that nuance on the challenge course until competition day. Human error.
Clinic
Hot and humid the day of the challenge, I was pleased when competitors were told the judges would keep an eye on the warmup ring to ensure riders respected the heat. Keeping horses safe (and riders) is first priority.
In hand was a throw away class for us. My lack of body awareness created confusion for Jigs and I had to touch him with my hands, which is a big NO for competition. It did get him familiar with the idea of competing, which helped with the riding classes. I was happy we got the 360-degree turn on the rolling bridge, something we had never attempted before.
The adult riding class was rough. We lost all our points on the downhill back up, even though we practiced it well on the trail, I could not keep him straight. We lost our points on the cake box side pass too. This requires the horse to put two feet on the first layer and side pass to the middle before stepping all the way on. Losing points on these two obstacles put us out of the ribbon race.
Photo Credit: Mountain Lane Farm
Level two open was much better. We got the downhill backup, though lost two points for lack of straightness. Jigs’ side pass on the cake box was perfect! I was pleased with the run but painfully aware of our gaps. I figured we would not ribbon. I was about to load Jigs on the trailer when I heard our names called for first place!
Photo Credit Mountain Lane Farm
I enjoy these trail challenges. I want to think Jigs does too but who knows what thoughts run through his equine brain? Maybe he’s just working toward the cookie he knows is at the end of the class.
Time to go…..
Navigating a trail course is a test of partnership between horse and rider. Asking a thousand-pound animal to climb on a moving obstacle and turn requires trust between two species, one a predator and the other a flight animal. The horse must trust the rider is not putting them in danger, and the rider must trust the horse does not flip to flight mode. I feel like our partnership has grown because of these competitions. At the end, isn’t that what it is about?
Heccateisis's Blog 