I’ve been out of it for nearly a month, but I’ve been to the barn again recently to ride, three times in two days, in fact. I’m trying to leg myself back up slowly so as not to wake up the next morning crippled, but already I have the general lower back pains, loose leg, and that little “off” feeling after a long canter. It’s not too bad, though. The horses have been radiant, despite my lack of luster in the saddle.
There has been, at various times in my riding career, a state of rapture indescribable. Most of these instances of illumination came during intense training sessions or in the middle of a competition, but not all of them. A few were very quiet moments of partnership, and even fewer were just moments of “being.”
Tonight I had a conversation with an old horse I used to ride in the summers before graduate school. I never rode this horse a lot; I just picked up rides on him here and there when his busy owner couldn’t make it to the barn. He quarreled a bit with me when we started out in the cold evening air under the harsh lights of the covered arena. Then, almost imperceptibly, he started to grow brilliant. By the end of my ride, he was stepping almost completely laterally, crossing right over left and left over right leg. While it’s certainly fun to be fancy, I didn’t think much of it until I had put my fleece quarter sheet over his rump and walked him around the ring to cool out. In the crisp winter, I sat on him and became part of the rolling rhythm of his lively walk. I thought then, at that instant in time, that if I had nothing at all in life but horses, I would love it recklessly, silently, and passionately.
Now as the year fades away, I’m reminded that I love many things. My Superstar, my creative, funny, and irreplaceable friends, and these horses, who make my world complete.
