The Relaxing Presence of Horses

I’m so proud of my daughter. Holly knows how to ride a horse. This is amazing to me. I know nothing about horses. I’ve sat on a horse maybe twice in my whole life and both times I found myself thinking Boy, this baby is huge. Now might be a good time to get off.

In contrast, Holly can not only sit on a horse but groom and ride one. I know because earlier this week I drove out to the Bridlewood riding stables where she’s taking horseback riding lessons through Mt. Hood Community College.

As I got in my car, leaving Portland behind me, I felt myself physically and mentally slow down, as the grid-like streets gave way to country roads, twisting and turning their way to the stables, which sat in a small valley in the woods outside of town.

After parking my car under a row of trees, I got out and walked into the dimly lit barn, where the soft sounds of people talking were muffled by the hay covering the worn floorboards.

The barn was rich with the scent of horse and life. Three or four dogs wandered about. I breathed in the smell of leather, listened to the soft swish of someone sweeping out a horse stall, from the deep interior of which came the sound of shifting hoofs.

I relaxed, welcomed the break from the intellectual demands of work, as the low afternoon sun threw deep slants of light into the shadowy barn.

I looked around me, at the thick horse blankets and deeply tooled, leather saddles, at the animals’ coarsely veined stomachs, the ropes and leashes and long-haired dogs. I watched as the students coaxed their horses out of their stalls, brushed them and saddled them up.

In the riding arena, I stood to one side as Holly and the other students rode their horses (named Abby and Lucky and Dusty) in lazy circles around the inside of the barn while the instructor, a soft-spoken man with a slight limp, stood in the center and offered suggestions: “Heels down. Toes up.” The students, sitting relaxed in their saddles, gently urged their steeds forward, when they weren’t clicking to back them up.

Life seemed so organic, the pace so slow, as if life had no pace at all. I felt a welcome sense of relief, from writing and work and the city, as all around me, the horses gently snickered and shook their manes, their black eyelashes half covering their dark eyes.

Tearing Down Fences

My daughter is grown now, but during the days and months right after her birth, life was a bit of a jumble.

The small workroom in the back corner of my home where I’d used to write, read and occasionally nap now had to serve as a nursery as well, for a new baby had moved in our house.

I could no longer draw neat lines around who I was or what I did, for my infant daughter Holly, like a free-spirited gardener, had torn down the fences between the fields of my life. As a result, the rabbits were nibbling at the lettuce, and the cows were having a field day in the flower beds.

Tell-tale signs of the days-old gardener cropped up everywhere – baby blankets threatened to topple from the bookshelf, diapers sat next to a book on how to make a living as a writer, and a button-eyed Teddy bear peered down on the sleeping infant. On my desk, a night lamp in the shape of a hobby horse threatened to run circles around my computer, while behind me on the doorknob hung a frilly, doll-size dress.

The wonderful confusion began simply enough on the cold, clear January day Dave and I brought Holly home from the hospital where she was born. It was Dave who did the honors. Not knowing any better, he simply picked the bundled babe out of her car seat and carried her up the steps and into the house, transporting her through the kitchen and down the hall and not stopping until he reached the back room where he laid her down in the borrowed bassinet.

There was no hint, in the neatness and quickness of the act, of the wonderful chaos that would follow. Dave soon learned the importance of tiptoeing around the sleeping baby and her short-tempered mom, while I learned to write at odd moments on bits of scrap paper, used envelopes and note pads left by the furnace man.

Though Dave made a valiant effort to contain some of the confusion by building yet another set of shelves, I soon learned that making room in your life for a child means not just re-arranging the furniture but re-organizing one's priorities as well. I was left with a life in which the garden rows were not as neat, one in which the distinction between what was inside the garden and what was out was less clear, but one in which, when all was said and done, the crop would be more rich, more complete.