Spirit Riding

I have to tell you that there is a place I sneak out to that has no stores, and no people really, and there is a path there that winds around and sometimes you have to duck under things. And this 1200 pound animal, I climb on him, and we meet a white polar bear she's our leader (she's really just a white horse, but she is like a trapped sigh, a very relaxed individual) and her owner, who is also a quiet and gentle leader-ish type, and we sneak away.

It's in broad daylight, in the morning, along a road at first, but then under a tunnel and up a sandy hill and down a sandy hill and into woods and there is the creek, and their front feet go in the creek, and they stop and it's all silent and this is the only way I am getting through raising my kids. Or going to the dentist. Or having a car break down, or living with this weird assortment of people - young, extremely ancient, guy in the garage, guy in the garage's teacher girlfriend, husband, dogs.

The chickens and the bunnies and the dogs of course help counteract the demands of humans in the house. The animals are silent and comic. There is everyday relief in seeing them.

But the white horse butt bobbing in front of me on the trail, her mosey, the sun dappling that comes through the trees and highlights a different spot each time, the scraggly, untameable mess of the woods with the branches that have crashed down and now weave through the other branches like witches fingers, making brambles. Walking past the impassable, jumble of wilderness just to the right and left and overhead, but the horses can fit through these little paths right here, and we walk through and duck and feel the trees and smell the outside and today we stopped where there was water flowing over rocks and this was worth about a million dollars.

Water flowing over rocks, in this tunnel of nature that isn't even that hard to get to, with old Dewey the giraffe horse, and the safety and humor of my trail buddy and her horse - this beauty is what keeps me getting up in the morning. Putting my boots on.

These trail days.

I fell off last year, had a really bad summer last summer of breaking and hurt to my body and my riding. I thought I should give up riding. I have too much to lose, my beautiful family, if anything ever happened to me just for some stupid horse or some stupid idea that I need to ride.

But I had to start at zero and walk my horse on the ground past loud trucks that scared me. Then months of walking out and getting on. Then I dared to get on and ride next to the road. Then I dared to go back on the trail. Fully vested in safety armor.

Now it has been months and weeks and days, and I have no more armor. I just sold my safety vest to buy a softer saddle. So I can ride more. Because of my trail buddy, who saved my riding life, really. Following her horse's white butt until all my anxiety trickled down my knees, calves, out my toes, into the creek and it washed away.

Enough so that today, out on the trail, I was fully there, happily there, I didn't have to do anything for anyone or drive anywhere or fail as a parent, I didn't have to be anyone.

It's all just spirit riding.

You should really ride with my friend, or a safe friend like her, and see these places I'm talking about. The quiet of the creek, the winding, the breeze, the gentle chatter, the little hills, the sloshing through the water, the horses resting next to each other. It washes you out, sets you out to dry.I am my own pioneer mother.