remembrance/creation

I want to thank an old friend who remembered and who reminded me.

She said:

One of my most vivid memories from school is from a breeding class - there was a young stud colt, chestnut who we were trying to get to mount the dummy and different people kept trying to get him to do it and he wanted to but kept backing off at the last minute and we were all standing around watching and trying to figure out why he wouldn't get up on it. You watched him a while and when they gave you the chance to see if you could do any better you took off the chain shank, hooked it to the ring so as not to hit him in the nose when he went to the dummy and he was able to finish what he wanted to start but was afraid to because of the chain. You have good instincts and have the ability to watch, access and come up with something that may just work where nothing else has. Trust that. I sense that you are unsure of how much to say - and I know you have an opinion ;) - about what you see. I find that with me, I don't blow my own horn enough and worry way too much about what others think - good thing about getting older is that the holes in the filter get looser and things start coming through that wouldn't have when we were younger. Remember that colt and how you were the only one who could see the reason for his hesitation and could fix it with something so simple as to take the chain off his nose.

I remember it this way. We had partied the whole and entire night before and I was in sad shape to be handling a horse. Our plan had really been to show up to this class and hide in the back. But I was standing there in the freezing cold watching this, and I could see that chain rattle and that that was the exact second that this stud would back off. So I raised my hand. I knew I could do it better. I knew.

Now, you have to understand that what I did was "against the rules". The rule there was, if he's a stud, he has a chain on him, period. It wasn't a big deal but it was like the rule, if in a barn, have a hard hat on. There wasn't any breaking of it. I ran to hide more times for not having a hard hat on in a barn. I got caught breaking curfew one time and I think the punishment was not to ride the next day or something. No appeal, just do it. The place was run like that. I learned a lot from it but won't willingly submit myself to that sort of thing anymore. I don't much like rules, and never did. I made a career in high school breaking them and mostly not getting caught. So there I was, some form of hungover, raising my hand, and walking up to this stud and taking his chain off.

He mounted. He did his business. He dismounted. I put the chain back on. The teachers then discussed with the class what I'd done. I was cocky, no doubt.

I wished I'd asked more questions then, and listened more, and had a clue. I wish I had now a bit more of that walking up there and doing what I know to be right opportunity, but then again, I'm not in a class. When I doubt myself it isn't that I doubt my ability but I doubt ever having the opportunity again to put my ability to use.

And I have just as little clue how to get that done now as I did then it seems to me.

But I do know a few things:

• life with horses is better than life without horses
• nothing, not even horses, is more important than my family
• there will be opportunities for me to step up

I love you ms. berry of the open range. I am very glad you are here to remember with me. May we grow old, on horseback, with our families, together.

glory days

If I were to tell a tale, well, there were lots of glory days. Lots and lots of glory days, some a moment long, some a bit longer, all glowing glowing, all still with some warmth.

We’d been at MM for nine months and it was the day of the Showmaster Championships, a horse show for the equivalent of “seniors”, those of us who’d be graduating with the Horsemaster diploma. The last four weeks or so the constant weekly changing of horses had stopped and everyone had chosen their “graduation horse” that they would ride for the Showmaster and for graduation which was a riding ceremony. We’d picked an underclassman to be our “groom” for the day. We’d picked our classes, I think we got our choice of any six.

Of all the English majors, Holly, Benson and I were the best. I was the third best, no doubt about that. Which of them was first would have been a toss up: Holly was an effective rider who always, always looked beautiful on a horse; Benson was the strongest damn rider I’ve ever seen still to this day. Me, I had a certain feel, I could sink down into a horse and ask them to do something and not get in their way and they usually would but I rarely looked that good doing it. I’d gotten a few blues through the year of weekly shows but not that many. I don’t know that anyone ever beat the three of us out for a blue ever -- it was always one of us.

So there we were on Showmaster day. We’d picked our classes, not all the same ones. Benson, I remember, picked a dressage class not because he particularly wanted to but because neither Holly nor I was entering it and it was an almost sure blue for him in that case. I don’t really have any idea what I picked except for that last class of the day: Choose Your Line.

Choose Your Line is jumping so prettiness doesn’t count, only cleanness. And fastness. I was on a cute little grade paint hunter type who would, it turned out, do anything at all I asked of him. Holly was on a bigger, rangier, more correct and astoundingly beautiful warmblood type. Benson had picked a little Quarter Horse that could. At this point in the day I had no blues but hadn’t finished out of the ribbons either. Holly had probably racked up a whole passel of blues, and Benson was second in point standings.

The course was posted and set. There were three obstacles arranged like \__/ except with a little less acute angulations, there was a combination down the fence line, and I think only one other obstacle. The combination could only be jumped in one direction, away from the in-gate. I don’t really remember about the others. I remember that I took that \__/ thing first, and went over first the left side of it, two bending strides to the right side of it, then a tight turn around to go over the middle, then the other obstacle, then the combination line, then tight turn back to the start/finish line. The line I picked was obviously the shortest. Holly’s horse was too big to have done it. Not a single person in the class picked the same line as any other person. When I watched the first two go, I knew if I could get around, I’d have it.

And we got around. I remember warming up, getting Lucky a little excited so he’d be wondering what was going on, moving faster than usual, away from my leg and forward. I remember going over that first jump, right over the start line, and holding my breath to see if I could make that second one. We did. If we can just do the rest clean I thought and then I don’t remember any more until after the final jump when I suddenly wondered where the finish line had gone and only then remember to turn. I still had the best time, by far. And we were clean.

I was hardly out of the arena when Benson shouted at me, “CG, that means you are Reserve Champion!” It hadn’t even occurred to me to calculate that. I wasn’t used to being in the running. But sure enough, I was Reserve Showmaster Champion.

So far this year (exactly 30 years since then!) has been exceedingly cold, too cold to ride, the arena frozen. But I have thought some about what glory I want from riding this year. And it is more a picture than I can put into words. There have been times when I wondered if perhaps I’d fooled myself, if I really never had been all that good to begin with. But then I remember the day with Noad, and the day of the Showmasters, and a few others; and then Holly wrote me not too long ago and said she’d found this horse that, when she rode him, she felt like she used to feel on a horse; like she was really good. She added that we really had been good back in the day, she and I.

What I want is not glory. It is not even anybody else noticing necessarily. What I want to do this year riding is to sink back into horses again, to that quietness. The riders I most admire, you never see them do anything. They’ll have perfect position, their horses will dance, but you won’t see much of anything. I want to achieve that stillness, that quietness. I want to sit inside the horse and for the horse to want to do what I want her to do, for nothing to exist for the horse or for me except for each the other and the dance.

I don't ask for much . . .

ring of fire

I have no idea how old I was. Ten maybe? Twelve? Young enough to be shy and to need permission to go outside of the yard.

Our back yard was big, with my pony’s field off to one side of it and Vandiver’s field off to the other side. Vandiver’s field was bigger and went back further than ours and had a little seep of a creek through it that in places just made it swampy for twenty feed across and in places flowed maybe three inches across. Enough that they didn’t have to have a water trough for their chickens.

I don’t remember anything living in that field but that was probably because I’d never paid attention to the cows. One day I came home and there were horses there. Horses. Big horses. Beautiful horses. And one summer evening I came home and there were people with those horses. They were hanging out on the tailgates of their trucks and saddling up and laughing and talking and riding around the field some. I took up a post beside the fencepost closest to them in the fence that separated our yard from their field. And I stood there.

I just watched. I couldn’t really hear anything. I had no idea who they were. I didn’t care. They had horses; they might let me ride their horses. The girl’s saddle even looked like the Lone Ranger’s saddle, black with silver spots all over it. And eventually I guess they noticed me. Or maybe they noticed that I’d stood there and not moved for an hour. So they hollered at me and invited me over. “I’ll have to ask my mom,” I hollered back. And I ran.

I ran downhill through our yard as fast as my legs would carry me and into the kitchen where my mom was and asked if I could go next door with the people who had the horses. Who are they? I don’t know, they have horses and they said I could come over. Did you invite yourself? No. Why did they invite you? They saw me standing by the fence. I think she smiled at that. I don’t know if she went to see who they were or she just relented to my joy at being around horse people or if she really knew who it was all along (or knew she could easily find out the next day). But next thing I remember I was over there hoping to be allowed on a horse.

I don’t remember who they let me ride that night but they did let me ride someone. I think maybe it was Teardrop. She was the one in the fancy saddle. All the horses were gaited, as was my pony I’d had since I was three. Teardrop was a chestnut with a star shaped like a teardrop, a mare with a presence. Rex was probably the nicest (personality wise) horse over there at that time. He belonged to Billy who was in love with Teardrop’s Sherry and they were probably both still teenagers. Rex was grey and a racking horse and could park out till his belly was near on the ground. There were others I don’t remember their names. There was Honey, a little dish faced palomino who gaited with a dish too.

And not too long after that, and for years thereafter, every now and then on a Sunday morning our doorbell would ring and, as my mother would later tell it, “A grown man would ask if you could go riding with them and they’d brought you a horse already saddled up so how could we say no?” It was Honey they brought for me. If they didn’t have a horse for me that day, they’d still come get me and let me ride in “big red”, the truck that Shirley, Coo Boy’s wife would be driving. It was Coo Boy I reckon who took a liking to me and watched out for me. He loved the horses and knew I did too. Sometimes if they weren’t going so far I’d ride my pony and I can still remember Billy saying, “Look at that pony, hot footing keeping up with these horses.”

We went everywhere, on mountain roads we’d stop by country stores and go in and buy a loaf of bread and some bologna and eat in the saddle. On the strip jobs we’d go seemingly forever. One time in a pond Honey surprised me by going down and suddenly I found myself standing on her saddle not knowing what to do and worried that I had ruined it. When she got up somebody poured the water out of one of the saddlebags and told me not to worry about it and on we went.

I do not understand how that idyllic time came to an end, how we wandered away, or to where.

Now in my life I feel that same grace. When LB calls me and says, “Do you want to go riding?”, when she brings me a horse and all the tack and gets the horse shod and hauls it to a trail near my home so I can come riding . . . what does a body say to that? Now when Lisa gives me run of her barn and riding privileges to her prized mare? What, indeed, does a body say to that except, “Thank you.”

Thank you to every person and every horse and every circumstance and every little thing that has helped me glimpse that shimmery magic

winter memories

The perfect rainy winter day. Saw almost no one. Cold and rainy but didn't bother me much. Work went well. No riding though. But it is just so glorious to be there by myself with the horses and the dogs and the cats and go through all the day's tasks and think my thoughts and do what I like to do.

What I have been thinking about lately is why Meredith Manor was such a good experience that I would love to have three months of again . . . or a month of.

One has to remember that I went there in 1979, when the Manor prided itself on its drop-out rate (50%) instead of its retention rate. That is, it was tough. Very tough. And it had very good riders as teachers. Like Kay Meredith was right then and there on Domino competing internationally. Denny Callan had Zenith as a young horse and was getting scary high scores on him at Training or First. And Struby wasn't so bad (can't find a link but really, she was pretty good) and was riding at Prelim then with that giant horse she had (can't remember his name). And many more (forever thanks to Jeanne Vaire Dake especially). They could and did ride. And we watched them. We watched them ride and get instructed. I actually got to see Col Lundquist teach. And Herr Schmidt ride (and the little horse, Nipper, look surprised he could do it so well). And Kay and Domino would unfailingly bring tears to my eyes with every demonstration Kerr (which they don't call Kerrs anymore).

It was great because it was riding every.day. Four days under instruction an hour and a half. Four days also with your training colt which was another hour and a half of riding. And one day of show. And you changed horses every week. And you had a pool of horses so you knew some of them and some were new to you. And you rode in a group which meant you could watch how other people handled the horse you had last week, and find out whether or not you could get your horse to do something this week that he wouldn't do last week. It was great, wonderful, timely, natural feedback on how you were doing; how good you were. It was far better feedback and meant more than the grades (which were always in line with what had really happened though) and the ribbons.

It was great because we had Mrs. M once a week and she was tough.as.nails. So were the others but she was tough in a different way. It was great because I had Holly and Benson and all three of us were good and pushed each other and also helped each other and somehow weren't threatened by the other perhaps because we each had different strengths and weaknesses and we knew what they were too.

It was great. I would love to have that level of feedback although I might not could take that level of intensity again.

Different teachers, different horses, different riders, and lots of all of them -- and no guarantee of success. But every opportunity for it.

Manifesto

I suppose you’d have to know my Uncle Noad. But then I suppose you’d have to know me too. And I suppose you’d also have to know my grandfather and my father since they were the ones who brought us together and nourished me and horses in so many ways.

Now, as a kid I wasn’t all that observant -- I didn’t make all that many connections or notice what all was going on. I mean, I noticed “the Sixties” and thought about the philosophical implications of various things but I didn’t notice that Lynn was Ruby’s daughter. As an adult I’ve heard tell that my Uncle Noad had, let us say, a volatile family life. I had no clue. What I knew about Noad was that he was my grandfather’s brother who everyone knew was especially good with horses and he loved me and I loved him.

I suppose you’d have to also know those mountains, know that you drive up Tom’s Creek from Coeburn, along the ridges and finally by Ervington High School to Nora. I once brought a flatland beau to Nora and he thought that was the top of the mountain. It is not. To go to Noad’s, you turned left at Nora and then right up the mountain and I always got the names of the various hollers mixed up, tomahawk or buffalo or something; I could always recognize it. You drove up that road until the pavement stopped. When one of his son’s had wanted to build a house, Noad had given him 1 acre of his land -- the furthest from his house, closest to the road acre. This always tickled me. (This might explain why I have 2000 feet of nearly impassible road to get to my house now.) Past his son’s house and the pavement was Noad’s land. You were at his house when you came to the end of the road.

Just before his house and above the road on the left side was a barn. On this day, this is where my father, his father, Noad and I met. It would have been sometime in 1980 or 1981 I think. I had grown up riding gated horses but by this time it had been years and years since I’d been on one. I’d taken to forward seat riding, hunters and jumpers and cross country, and also dressage, and had really never thought about saddle seat although heck, we never road in those flat saddles anyway but in western saddles. We never let the hooves overgrow for exaggerated action either. So on this day Noad brought his two saddle horses into this barn and he and I tacked them up in their western saddles. I was always up to ride anything, any style, anytime, and I that is still very much the way I am. We mounted and Noad led the way.

I don’t remember that I particularly knew that we were going to go riding, just that I’d been invited to go see Noad. I didn’t know where we’d go. I just went along. When we first picked up a slow rack I realized just how long it had been since I’d done this and it took me awhile to adjust -- to sit back, to let the motion flow through me. I’m sure we talked about stuff but at the same time I doubt we talked about anything; for Noad and for me, being together and being on the horses was enough, was everything we wanted and so we could easily just be. Eventually my body remembered how to sit into the horse and let it move on.

We reached the end of the trail and turned around. When we got back to the flattest, smoothest part of the trail, Noad started letting his horse out. Since he was nearing 80 years old at that time and I was about 20, he’d taken the horse with more training and I was on the slightly greener horse. I asked my horse to step out and he did. Noad and I were both grinning big time as we let them rack on, racing but not too seriously. When the trail narrowed again, we pulled them up and laughed out loud at how much fun that was to do and the horses blew and chomped and tossed their heads showing their high spirits too.

When we got back to the barn, there was my dad and my Dad-da (pronounced dadaw) waiting for us and matching our grins. We dismounted and led them back into the barns and Noad said to his brother, “You put that girl on your worst horse and she’ll still out ride you.” And my Dad-da’s blue eyes twinkled and my father’s hazel eyes did too and Noad and I untacked our horses in all our bow-legged glory.

It was perhaps my proudest moment ever.

It is what I want now.

Now, again. To relax into what I know and do best. To have opportunities appear from what appears to me to be out of the blue and to embrace them.

I will not be discouraged by the damning of faint praise (“you did well on the straight parts of the test”). I will not be discouraged by snipes (“no one is going to pay you to ride her”). I will not be discouraged by snide remarks (“I don’t know if she held her pinkie out right or not but she’s not committing suicide so she must have done ok”). I will simply not be discouraged.

I am so glad to be back at a barn, back with horses. I still cannot believe I did without them for twenty years. But yes, I want more. I want my life back, my whole life, without giving up the life I have now.

There. I’ve said it.