I absolutely love riding in the colder weather while the sun warms my face. It is nice to see the fall leaves on the ground and to be riding while the weather is still slightly warm.
What I don't love is when Angie and I our walking at a normal pace and all of a sudden I have nine hundred and eighty pounds of a spooked horse under me. Angie will jump straight up into the air and spin on her back haunches like she's practicing a pirouette. Then she will take off in the opposite direction bucking like she is trying out for the rodeo. All the while I am trying to keep my balance up in the saddle. I usually grab her mane so I don't rip on her mouth. Most of the time though it is such a surprise the reins get yanked back when I am thrown off balance.
Usually Angie stops and stands there shaking for a moment and turns to look at whatever has excited her. Normally it is the green tarp that she has walked, trotted, and cantered by one thousand times, but today the one thousand and first time it looks like a horse eating tarp. I've gotten used to this happening, she is still a young horse, so I can typically hang on. Sometimes though, you gotta take a spill. Falling onto the ground doesn't hurt as bad as you think it does. With the adrenaline pumping through your veins you're lucky if you can remember to stay down for a minute to asses your injuries. Never get up directly after a fall.
Yesterday, Saturday November 16th around 3:30 I almost fell. Angie decided it would be fun to practice her ballet and at the exact same corner tarp she leapt. This happens every cold ride, so I was partially prepared, so I stayed on, however, it didn't stop the flashbacks. One time I was unprepared for Angie to take off in a bucking fit and I did end up falling into a mud puddle. The mud soaked through my shirt and breeches.
Of course, once I got Angie settled I started to think about all the times that I did fall off of her. Two of them had been in the field. One of them didn't end well for another horse that was with us. I can't talk too much about it because it relates to my final project, but thinking about that always makes me sad.
Kim, the barn owner, blames the dump across the valley because she said that the machinery scared her. I don't know the real reason why they spooked, we can only speculate, but I know that the dump scares me, even if it doesn't scare the horses. I mean, it is the highest point in Allegheny County. The dump is higher than something that Mother Nature built herself. It's an accumulation of trash, of things people don't want. And we bury it. We forget about it as if it's never meant anything to us (Side note, I understand junk mail and fast food wrappers won't mean that much to us, but I mean the stuff that we once valued). When the dump gets too high all the workers do it cover it and start again. What is that saying about us?
So there are a couple themes weaving through your post I particularly enjoyed: the concept of ballet, the "horse eating tarp," and the rhythm with the line, "Never get up directly after a fall." In that last line, the switch in point of view grabbed my attention, riveting me back to itself. Also, I loved the words you chose for the last paragraph. The idea of "The dump is higher than something that Mother Nature built herself" intrigued me. I wondered, with this last paragraph, if there is a way to incorporate its thematic element into the rest of the piece, basically building up to the last line, "What is that saying about us?" Oh, and I enjoyed reading about Angie as always. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAnna raises an interesting possibility for more meditation - as you've been introducing this semester - on the contrasts between the natural and the built.
ReplyDeleteI saw Jeanette Walls (author of the memoir The Glass Castle) speak a few weeks ago and she relayed something her mother said that made me think of you: "Any dang fool can ride a horse, but knowing how to fall is a special talent." :-)