The Word Inside an Exhale: EASE

It’s January first. The calendar has flipped over and I’m happy with the new numbers. New Year’s is an excellent holiday if you like fresh starts and I certainly do. Like most horse people, I’m a perfectionist, and besides, there is always something on a list I didn’t get done. I know a change on a calendar is only a line in the snow. It’s the same world it was twenty-four hours ago. It’s just our habit on this special day, to lift our eyes to the months to come.

All our horses are a year older today, for purposes of record-keeping and vet calls. The youngsters are closer to being started and they fill us with hope for the future if we can manage the rest. And the elders clock one more year to a total that comes with a bit of anticipatory grief. Horses don’t live as long as we do, something we will never make peace with. The midlife horses hold us up. Nothing less. We’re famous for getting their age wrong because we want time to stand still; our time with them right now to just stay in place. We aren’t any more fond of change than horses are.

In the years I boarded, I’d shower and rush out to the barn just as my geldings got their breakfast. Usually too cold to ride, it was just to check in, stick the end of my nose in their manes, and be warmed by confirming their existence. That the barn was still standing. For all the chaos in my life, if I could rest a hand on a horse, I’d get through it.

I’m decades on the farm now and not much has changed. I don’t shower first anymore. I tuck my pajama pants into my muck boots, grab the heavy barn coat and a few hats, so I can drag a cart through the snow and tie up fresh hay bags. It’s the chore none of us ever tire of doing. I keep an eye on my feet; the ground is frozen hard, and you can take a tumble on a pile of manure if you’re not careful. Horse people of a certain age admit that they don’t bounce as well as they used to, and that applies to getting bucked off our own feet, too. Seems our horses aren’t the only ones a year older. But a pause to look east, my breath coming out as steam, while the sky colors itself pink and yellow waiting for the sun. This precious life…

Every time I write about what horse people are like, as I did last week, I hear from you, dear readers, and there are high fives all around. Okay, not high fives because we’re introverts. Not your entry-level introvert, either. We are isolationist introverts who think no one else feels like we do. So, some readers comment in wonder that I can describe us so well. Maybe you haven’t read my memoir? It’s true our families and co-workers think we’re nuts. We may not watch much TV because our lives are reality shows already. And we may listen to the weather reports more than talk shows, but we are not so buried in a haystack that we don’t know we’re fringe-dwellers. We have no regrets. Horses make sure we’re used to embarrassment and laughing at ourselves, even as we’re proud of the impracticability of “owning” them.

A few weeks back, we were having a conversation at the Barn School about aging with horses. We shared hacks to make the work easier, a rare nod to our mortality. It’s stuck with me. I’m tough as a goat. Like you, I’m stubborn and I won’t quit as a matter of pride. My first sentence uttered as a child was, “I’ll do it myself” and it would be fine with me to be buried out behind the barn. But there is a new word in our vernacular about farming: Sustainability. We protect our pastures like treasure but what about ourselves?

So, there I was, breathing my way into my restorative yoga practice on Zoom. I may be a horse person but I’m not a neanderthal. Besides, Covid-19 made me an online horse trainer, having yoga this way made sense. We were breathing and my lists were beginning to fade. My yoga teacher suggested setting an internal intention for our session. I confess, sometimes I pick a thing I’m angry about, just make peace with my feelings, but this time I wasn’t quelling a rant. I was so exhausted; 2020 felt like being dragged behind a truck. I put a good spin on it, but the weight of the year landed in that exhale and a word rose in front of me: Ease.

It surprised me, of course. I’m a horse person. We don’t think that way; it wasn’t my word. It might have been a message from my long-departed Grandfather Horse. He’d pick a time like this; it wasn’t always easy to get a word in edgewise with me. I considered this odd word, remembering that the turning point in our years together was when I stopped pushing so hard. Ease. The Grandfather Horse had a way of looking at you when you figured out something obvious to him. It wasn’t entirely kind, but we were in it for the long run, he held the hope that he could bring me around, and he eventually succeeded. Maybe it was his word. Ease.

The week before, I’d bought an ATV. It’s the first motorized help I’ve had on the farm. I wanted one decades ago when I was hand-raking thirty-five tons of sand in the arena. As one does. No one knows how many tons of manure I’ve pulled in my muck cart, snow or drought. Instead, I spent the vast fortune I made training horses on necessities like fostering rescues. It was common sense to me because doing things the hardest way possible is the only way I know. The ATV salesperson talked about riding motorcycles his whole life, and for a moment I remembered mine, but then I said, “Tell me, what is the challenge of riding something with an ignition?” He laughed and right away, asked if I had horses. Yes, I’ll be using this pretty blue trike, staying in low gear, to haul manure. With ease, now that I think about it.

So that’s my word for 2021. A word that goes against my nature, but I’ll give it a try. Like most things horses have taught me, it will involve a change in me. Maybe it’s time to make peace with the world outside my own barn.

Thanks for reading along with me these last eleven years, but especially this challenging one, 2020. Writing is nothing without readers, and your comments back have lifted me up. I appreciate your valuable time. Along with my gratitude, you can guess my wish for you all in the New Year: Ease.

 

… Anna Blake for Relaxed & Forward 

The Relaxed & Forward Barn School* offers small group, online courses taught by Anna, and using your own horse.

Classes starting soon include:

Equine Calming Signals
Affirmative Training
Living the Question: “Independent Study with Friends.”
Back in the Saddle: A Comeback Conversation
Authentic Dressage: Fundamentals for every horse.
Human Calming Signals: What horses see in us.

Join us at The Barn School and stick around for “Happy Hour.

*Recommended by horses who like to work from home.

…Affirmative training is the fine art of saying yes.

 

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