Unconditional Love

I actually got my migraine again Wednesday. I rode Tuesday and then came home, showered, changed into respectable clothes and ran over into the city to interview for a contract. The place I interviewed at not only had a security desk, they had an electronic sign-in/sign-out console, which wouldn't let me put my name in lower case. It had been so long since I'd been in a place that had ID badges that by the time the interviewer came down from the 6th floor (all the same company) to see me, I nearly said, "I don't want to work here." And actually, after an hour and half of talking to everyone, I felt the same. On the way out I asked one of the other tech writers, "Do you like working here?" He answered, "Yes. It's been a safe place to be for the last five years." Safe. That was not what I wanted to hear. I can't help it -- I want words like "challenging", "fun", or even "great". No wonder I got a migraine.

Riding has gotten more challenging emotionally this summer. For the past two years I've been riding Teddy on the trail. He's the sweetest, most loving, gentle little horse. He also is on-duty for the summer at summer camp, having a different crowd of elementary schoolers climb all over him each week.

So I've gotten Casino, a smart but lazy paint horse. I'd be nervous on any new horse, actually, and Casino definitely has his little horse quirks. He's so greedy for grass that Bianca, one of the employees at the stables, rigged up a kind of headgear with ropes and pulleys -- well, not pulleys -- that goes through his bridle and onto his saddle so he can't duck his head down far enough to eat grass.

Actually, it would take a while to tell you all the things I get nervous about when riding a horse, especially one I don't know. I worry that I am going too slow and the horses behind me are frustrated. I worry when I'm going faster and I might be too close to the horse in front. ("Too close" in horse terms is "close enough for the horse in front to decide it's time to kick".) I worry because I"m not used to sitting down in the canter and am I trying to learn to do so, because sometimes Casino goes too fast and I need to be able to hold him back. (If you're not used to jostling about in the canter, it's more stable to grab the mane and lift your seat out of the saddle. This is what jockeys do, except they're not such wusses as to hold onto the mane.) I worry on the downhills because Casino is a long-bodied horse and he tends to put more and more weight on his forelegs until suddenly he's out of balance and it's easier to trot. (Running downhill with a person on its back is about as good for a horse's knees as running downhill with a backpack on might be for yours.) So I fuss and fuss. I'm afraid I also do it outloud -- and then I worry about driving everyone else crazy with my complaining.

But. I've been thinking about "unconditional love", the kind where someone just gazes at you with a besotted look on their face and when you say, "What should I do?", they just say something like, "I have total faith that whatever you choose, you'll handle it." This is irrititating when I'm doing one of those silly New Age meditations that's supposed to bring me my Inner Guide and my Inner Guide seems to think I don't need guidance. But it is also an amazing thing to be able to picture -- your parents are supposed to look at you that way when you are born, I hear, but I really do not think either of mine ever did. So imagining it when I can is good for me.

This does connect to Casino, and to the gentle art of horseback riding. On the way back down, almost home, I thought -- what would it be like to ride with unconditional love? What if everything the horse did (and I did) would be fundamentally all right, forgiveable, and no big deal? Short of breaking my neck or his, of course, but Casino isn't really going to do that.

It would certainly make riding much easier -- and much more pleasant. Horses know, too. At the moment, it's a concept that's as far off as the moon, but I'm so addicted to riding, I'm willing to try anything that will make me better, inlcuding being nice to myself. Far far easier said than done...

There are only two emotions that belong on the saddle; One is a sense of humor, and the other is patience. -- John Lyons