Yesterday I had the hardest day, had to take my two tatted up riders on a trail ride even though I knew my youngster horse my gangsta horse needed to run around and let off energy at the arena. Instead I took these girls up the bushy mountain trail on my tiny horse warrior carrying a backpack of New Trails anxiety but going anyway. It was cold and cloudy and I had to be responsible, so you can imagine that dark cloud added on, and if only I was riding my two old horses, I looked ruefully at them chattering away on the horses I've spent 14 years maturing and who are safe, while I'm on the Tiny Most Likely to Do Something Stupid award horse.
Anyway he is a good plower, he plowed right through the bushy overgrown trail, up the mountain like a goat, we get to the first little downhill and I'm like okay take it easy man, and he is doing so well that I forget to sort of guide him and if you don't have your hands on the wheel at all times with Meriwether he likes to try fun stuff like in this case, he wanders into the bushes which are so scratchy and satisfying he says hey lemme just sit down a minute right on this tumbleweed brush. So I KNEW he might do something dumb and his sitting down takes a really long time, but I am also almost 60 so my jumping off my horse ALSO takes a bit longer. I do manage to leap off to the side just as he sits, which makes it sort of like he was doing me a favor getting closer to the ground and then he stands back up like it was the greatest achievement of his life.
The girls I'm with behind me have eyes wide like platters and they're like ohmygodareyouokay and then we keep walking up the trail while I gather the nerve to dump that recent cortisol spike into the bushes and get back on my little demon french fry.
We are now riding the last part of the bushy trail which are two steep inclines like a Z, and the girls are in front of me and I'm charging up behind steadily on Meriwether. They go up and around the very steep Z corner part and for some reason Meriwether and I accidentally cut the corner too sharply and he gets two feet off the trail which is like a sheer cliff to the left and his feet are sinking in the loose sand like it's emptying out under his feet like a dirt avalanche. This is way worse than sitting down on the trail because at least with that there is GROUND under you. I make the split second decision to jump off on the avalanche side because throwing my leg over to the right is stiffer for my body, and luckily somehow Meriwether is smart and doesn't flail around and slide down the mountain. He waits, when there's trouble, and says hey you better do something bro. I land on secure steep mountainside and then grab onto him and rappel myself around to the actual trail side where it's flat, and then we're walking up the steep incline to catch up with the girls who have no idea why I'm again off my horse. I walk until my nerves settle again and then swing back on the little matchstick pony and the rest of the ride the dark cloud hovers over me because when rides don't go 100% boringly I get really irritated. The rest of my life is where things can go wrong, the horses are like the balm. So my internal need-o-meter for peace is all broken and spinning frazzled.
After I get the girls back to the barn, I get paid and then get them shoved off to their car, I am still grumpy so I decide to take Meri out again with Jane to the park to run around to get their energy out and erase the bad ride. We do that, I lunge them both to teach them voice commands, then for a reward I let them run crazily like loose salmon in Alaska, and on the ride back I still don't feel any better, in fact, I'm just tired from too much riding.
But then THIS MORNING, Emma is home and I slip off to the creek just to keep my routine, but also to see beauty, and I ride my big oaf Dewey, the president of our barn, posterboy for all things benevolent. He gently herds me and Meriwether to the wide open land by the creek, and then navigates us with deep contented sighs through the water, where there are green plants and no people to worry about, and no way to think anything, just listening to the water. Meriwether after two rides yesterday and time with his favorite president in the creek, he is just a perfect boy. We ride back out of there better, quiet, the sun cracks out for moments from the clouds to give us that special slant of sunlight that is meaningful on a cooler day.
I switch horses to go home over the big hill, and that means getting on the sassafras pony, and he doesn't sit on any bushes or try to avalanche down any cliffs, he is acting like yesterday never happened. I'm glad it happened because it helped me remember he won't always be a young horse, to keep doing a little each day, vigilant but with sighing, to see the improvements and know that like the clouds and the water we were just a part of, everything keeps moving. There's always something good up ahead.
As the neighbor said in her truck when the horses and I passed her, almost to our house, happy to be home, she looked at us passing and she said you just take your time.
