dear lucky

dear lucky,

i can now say that i remember both the first and last times that i saw you.  on that first day you were still someone else’s horse and you were giving her a heck of time getting around a novice course at stoneleigh burnham.  knowing you as through and through and through as i think i do, i feel certain that you had good reason for that choice.  the choice not to jump over and over again.  and also i am so glad that you stopped on that beautiful sunny day because it was that stop that led your then owner to tell your then trainer, “that is it we are selling him.”

and also, in a stroke of luck, our good friend knew your then owner and told us you were coming up for sale so we called right away to come see you.  that second time i saw you was when we drove out to the barn to try you.  that day you stopped at every fence i pointed you at and really i was looking for a horse that could teach me how to event but it hardly mattered.  it felt right to sit on your back.  when my mom and i were in the car driving home that day i kept saying, “i think that was him.  i think that was my horse.”  i had one of those smiles you are trying not to smile but you can’t stop it.

growing up i was a little girl who adored horses and begged my parents to let me learn how to ride.  eventually they gave in and i went to a local barn and rode school horses as many days a week as i could.  i rode and rode and rode.  i also would happily spend time grooming and cleaning tack.  and dreaming, dreaming of having my own horse.

i must have been eight or ten then, eventually twelve and on and on.  my mom learned to ride and we did get a horse but it was really her horse.  this is a distinction that may be hard to understand if you have never had a horse but you will have to trust me.  but lucky, of course, you understand.  the years passed and my time spent riding waxed and waned but that seed of longing for my own horse never went away.  eventually, twenty one years old and about to graduate from college my time had come and my parents decided to buy me a horse.

a person who gets to have their very own horse is blessed.  and today, as i was saying good bye to you for the last time i kept telling you how you were the horse.  The Horse.  if a girl was to only have one horse ever in their life, which i believe is how my life will play out, you were absolutely the one to have.  you being you.  the ultimate teacher.  kind and safe.  brave enough to do what i wanted to do.  patient enough to allow me some mistakes and bossy enough to make sure i shaped up.  you taught me what a gallop is and also showed me self carriage, a frame, soft connection.  you lectured me on the perfection of using a circle to create circular energy.  you showed me the pure fun of exploring the woods at a canter.  you encouraged me to perfect the art of graciously accepting your interpretation of my requests represented to me as your own idea – a skill that has come in useful in so many relationships in my life.  you demanded focus, concentration, dedication.  you once (early on) kicked the stall wall when i answered my cell phone while grooming you.  when i was with you i was to be with you.  no multitasking allowed.  you did teach me how to ride and i doubt i will ever know how to ride another horse like i knew how to ride you.  i believe you also taught me about love, about companionship, and about the epic submission of horse to human.  the beautiful, amazing, and undeserved dedication your kind has had to my kind.  you allowed me on your back probably thousands of times in all the years we were together.  you kept me safe in all those thousands of situations and you worked with me.  you showed me.  you were a blessing.

a few weeks ago i rode you for the last time.  i had no idea it was the last time i would be riding you.  after the ride i felt so emotional and i took a moment to thank you for being in my life.  later i wrote about you and all that day i was wondering, what is going on?  why do i feel like i am reflecting back on lucky’s life?  why do i feel like lucky is going to die?  i insisted to myself that i stop the melodrama.  i insisted to myself that you were really not that old, you were healthy and doing well and we probably had a few years together yet.

now you have crossed over.

when i think about everything you gave to me i have no idea how to express it to you.  you somehow managed to make me feel loved.  you gave me self confidence.  you made me feel like i was right in every way – at least for you.  around you, riding you, working with you i never felt flawed or misunderstood or lesser than.  all those inner demons i have battled in my life – and still sometimes do battle – were somehow quieter in my relationship with you.  maybe that is the true gift.  the feeling of fitting so well.  that is what it means that you were my horse.  that i was your person.  it was the true fit.

we walked you up the back hill today for the last time.  it was a slow walk, with your leg so sore and our intention to let you enjoy grazing as we made our way up the small rise.  then the vet came up with the medicine needed to help you cross over to the spirit world.  i held onto your lead line while she injected you.  i watched your body fall to ground in the way that horses bodies do in these situations.  i was crying quietly and thinking good bye good bye thank you.  then something changed in the air around me and i just knew it was your spirit leaving your body.  but instead of simply dispersing like i have sensed when present with dying animals before i felt like you wrapped yourself around my heart.  your concentrated spirit just filling up my entire chest and blanketing my breaking heart for a bit.  in those minutes when i felt you there holding my heart i stopped crying.  i felt warm and peaceful.  i felt deeply perfectly loved.

then you were gone.  my heart took up its aching again.  i know, lucky, that you are at peace.  i know your spirit has crossed and you are free from your body.  you are now just white light and divine loving energy and all knowing source bits.  all this crying i am doing is not for you.  it is for me.  me sad.  me missing you.  me feeling overwhelmed by how wonderful you were here.  me feeling so blessed to have known you.  me feeling grateful to have had you as my once in a lifetime horse.  me feeling lucky.

dear lucky, you know i remember more than just the first and last day.  i remember all of our twelve years together.  i hold it in my heart and in the ways you have shaped me forever.  i love you.  i thank you.

dear lucky,

good bye.

rest in peace.

love,

robin

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week

in even an imperfect and worrisome week there are moments of sweetness worth savoring.

two kids and their favorite donkey.

morning hikes with our dog

a simple dinner

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“oh, are you from the waldorf group? or are you just a part of the homeschooling group?”
“we are…we are…i am not sure. i guess we are just finding our way.”

this morning we took castle james for a walk with my mom and her dogs. the kids wore their rain boots and enjoyed wading through the unusually high but still only ankle deep streams at the racecourse.

after that walk we dropped castle james off at our house and drove “on two highways!” to the outdoor playdate at the mass audobon site again. this is my attempt to connect with some local waldorf homeschoolers. it also ends up being a nice little chunk of time spent outside in nature where i have almost no agenda. i don’t know the other adults well enough to be yearning to catch up with them, no one seems to be bothered by how my children both hang on me or want to be in my lap or are too shy to play with the other kids just yet. i am just there to feel things out and with the added bonus that we are in a lovely setting and doing some nature exploring.

two nature walks in one morning is a lot though – for a not even three yet year old. after about an hour and a half it was time for us to head home. i thought somehow, when i first got the idea of attending these, that going would answer questions for me. that it would help me to know where we are in terms of educational style and planning or at least help me see what i am aiming for. in the end though it is just time outside with other nice folks. and when, sitting by the turtle pond, one of the other mother’s there asked me which group i was from the answer didn’t seem any clearer at all.

but i didn’t feel panicked about it.
actually, it felt kind of peaceful.
just finding our way.

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morning fog

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how do do you?

last night we read mr. topsy turvy as our bedtime book. after mr. topsy turvy leaves the place where we live to return to the place he leaves it turns out that we are still a bit topsy turvy. the newspaper men call out, “read it all about!” instead of, “read all about it!” and people ask each other “how do do you?” instead of “how do you do?”

the other night laying in the about to fall asleep darkness flash asked me, “how are you?” and i told him, “i am good. my mind is almost quiet.” as though that short sentence could explain it all. the hours of time i spend reeling around knee deep in the muck of my thinking self. when i was pregnant with the pea i had such trouble falling asleep and i used to lay in the darkness chanting, “i am not my thinking self. i am not my thinking self.” until the truth of it finally silenced my thinking self enough that sleep could come fill in that space left behind.

now, so far from that pregnancy, i still struggle to tame my flying thoughts some nights. and some days too. today is one of those days. i want to get out of my head but i can’t seem to find the time. last night i scribbled in my journal, “acoustic thursday?” thinking that i wanted to stay unplugged today. to not turn on my computer or let the kids watch any tv in the middle of day.

this morning we made pizza dough, they “cooked” with water, olive oil, chocolate syrup, dried elderflowers and cereal, we painted on card stock with blue and red paints, we played with magna tiles, we made pictures with spring themed foam stickers, and we read many books. we also cleaned up all of those activities and i cut some fabric and we moved around some laundry. then it was 12:30.

we ate lunch and while we were eating i knew i was going to turn on both my computer and the tv. i hated myself for it. then i was irritated with myself for hating myself for it. then i got to thinking about what all the real waldorf people whose lovely coops i want to be a part of would think if they knew my kids do have some limited screen time. then i thought of how shameful might it be if one of my kids actually said something about a tv character when we were with people from one of those coops. then i thought about why this exact mental path of self loathing is why i always turn away from waldorf. we made pizza dough, play cooked, painted, did stickers, read books and had some lovely imaginative free play time this morning and instead of being happy with all that i am stuck in a spot of dread and loathing because of a tv show.

then i just want to call someone who knows better and ask them, “how do DO you?” i mean really, how? it is just that i have no idea who that person is. i guess i shall have to ask myself.

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the path

right now lucky is in the trailer being driven home from his stay at the hospital. his mysterious fever cleared up and the swelling in his leg got less insane and they believe he has a soft tissue injury near his knee including his deep flexor tendon. he is in for a long road of rehab but right now he is on the road to my parents place in south carolina and this weekend he will be shipping back north with the rest of his mini herd.

i am so thankful, for the doctors at the hospital who helped get this injury under control, for all the people we know who sent their prayers and positive thoughts, for the bean who instructed me several times to “burn the thing by lucky again!” (smudge the alter we had made for him), and on and on. i am thankful that he is injured by ok and that he is coming home. thank you.

this morning the kids and i took castle james for a walk at one of the local reservations. (flash drove castle james home last weekend and at least two of us are thrilled to have him back!) we listened to the birds calling in the woods, we looked at places that were dry last summer and now have water running through them so deep we couldn’t cross, we wondered why some trees fall down. oh how i love this time in the woods with them. only made better by the company of a dog who manages race and leap with the grace of a deer through the spring forest.

after our walk we treated ourselves to lunch at our favorite bagel bakery. it is wednesday after all.

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everything is energy

yesterday we drove about a half hour away to meet some people organizing a waldorf homeschooling co-op.  we met them at a mass audubon site that i had never been to before.  while there some kids ran around a small garden area (mine were plastered my my side), we sat at a picnic table in the woods for a snack, and we spent some time observing a robin we found near  the public restroom available in the original home on the property that now seems to be offices and classrooms.

on the way home there was a conversation about what things are made of.  tap tap on the car window, “is this made of plastic or glass?” and so on.  perhaps inspired by our morning immersion in nature perhaps just weary of answer questions i stumbled up the answer, “everything is made of energy.”

and then the conversation shifted, “is a duck energy?”  yes.  “is a mailbox energy?” yes.  “is my carseat energy?” yes.  “is the road energy?” yes.  and so on and so on.  it sounds monotonous but it really was kind of soothing.  because everything is energy and somehow i find that truth mostly makes me feel light and free.

thoughts are also energy and i do believe that each thought we have has its own affect on the energy that is our universe.  every single thought.  based on this belief i find that i am drawn to the idea that sending white light and positive energy towards the area experiencing a natural disaster or a person who is struggling is much more helpful than feeling pity or overwhelming sorrow.  i believe that and i try to act on it.

but sometimes your horse is sick, and each time you think he might be getting better it seems to turn out that he is not.  sometimes you are trying to help your mom decide if it is worth the enormous expense to admit your horse to the large animal hospital where they might have a better chance of figuring out what is wrong with him.  then you will be deciding if it is worth treating.  what his quality of life will be like.  or also, is the trailer ride to the hospital too much?  and also he is going to hate the hospital and being away from his herd.  and also if he is going to be euthanized i want him to be on the property he knows in south carolina not at some animal hospital georgia.

then despite your belief in positive energy you find yourself feeling heartbroken, overwhelmed by grief, lost and confused and shocked that suddenly these are the decisions you are making.  wasn’t i just riding him the other day?  wasn’t i just down there and he was fine?

so you go into the playroom where there is a couch that your kids are not already sitting on and you have a good long cry.  what is there to do but cry.  and as you are crying you also knowing that the energy you want to send to this being that you love so much that is currently in pain, suffering, struggling is not the energy of grief and heartbreak.  you want to lift him up with the power of the healing light you are sending him.  you want to send him strength and love.

as you cry you also start to pray, “all loving universe please transform the energy i am creating into healing white light for lucky.  please transform the energy into clean strong healing energy.  all loving univerese please transform this intense heart ache into love and lightness that brings him some peace and comfort.  please please transform and heal.”

then you smudge his alter again, throw away the lunch you can’t eat, and make some tea.  everything is energy and all energy is transformable.  i do believe.

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an alter

on saturday my mom called to tell me that lucky had a fever.  it was the beginning of six days (so far) of mysterious illness and injury.  my mom takes really good care of her horses (that is even an understatement perhaps) so he is in the best possible hands.  i know if there is anything that can be done it will be done and he feels that way too.  the thing is, i am so so so far away.  with each phone call i begin to wonder again – will he survive this?  will he make it home?  will i see him again?  if they were here and he was sick there wasn’t much hands on that i would be doing but oh i would be able to go to the barn, see him, lay my hands on him, rub his face, see what this all looks like.  my mom and i would sit on the large red wooden trunk in the barn aisle and discuss – cold hose?  ice boot?  standing wrap?  antibiotics?  homeopathy?  flower essences? and him, just him, just two sets of eyes and two hearts full of care for him.

but he is not here and i am not there.  my mom is there alone feeling overwhelmed and i imagine scared.  i am here feeling overwhelmed and sad and helpless.  so i set up a healing alter space for him.

a smiling thai buddha to watch over him

an angel of peace to help bring him peace as he struggles

a collection of herbs i intuited his need for:  lavender, red clover, alfalfa, elecampane, yarrow, elderflower

water to hold the toxins the healing will shed

candle to bring in the healing energy

and so on.

i don’t know what is going to happen.  i think of course, this isn’t it.  he has to get better.  but truly horses are the most delicate animals i have known and a sick horse is already partway in the arms of the angels.  so i set my alter and i pray for him to have peace, to be comfortable, to get the healing he needs, to sense my love from afar and to have the strength to pull through this time – if it is meant to be let it be.

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early spring

it is the spring here in new england (yes we are home!)

the warming weather, the budding trees, the flowers pushing their way out of the earth, the longer days of light, the birds singing in the morning – it all seems to beg me to try harder to lighten myself.

some of the lightening comes through the foods i chose to eat.

some comes through the things i chose to do with my body, the yoga classes, pilates, running.

and some must come through my heart.  through lightening the layers that divide my from simple joys.  through trusting that the simple joys are the purpose of life.  through trusting also that love is enough – when i get off track with the kids i try to return to just loving them – bringing the spring energy into our moments together.

yesterday i took a few photo’s of things that were bringing me joy:

stack of clean towels

rags drying in the breeze of open windows

clean sheets too!

these amazing dryer sheets

my new apron (more to come on this!)

butterfly detail so nice

spring, she is a lovely friend.  the kind that arrives anticipated but unannounced and grabs you by the hand to drag you out of your shell and onto the dance floor.  we are happy to have her around.

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stroke of luck

today the wind was blowing hard.  as i walked with lucky to the front field i kept turning back towards the house because i was hearing my children’s voices riding the wind.  i thought.  i thought i was hearing them but no they were still inside playing with the sitter and i was still out in the front field with my horse about to ride.

before i had children it wasn’t such a shocking act – to ride my horse.  it was occasionally a chore and often a commitment and deeply a blessing but it was not a treat.  it was just something that happened almost every day.  i remember when i first got pregnant with the bean and the obgyn told me under no circumstances was i to ride at all i immediately went to the barn and took him out for a nice quiet walk.  then, or shortly thereafter, i decided to just listen to what the doctor said because if anything were to happen to the pregnancy i would always wonder if it was somehow the riding.  even though i felt somehow that taking a walk on my trustworthy steed was safer then buckling myself into an automobile and pulling out into the traffic.

once i chose not to ride i would go the barn and clean his stall and then just wrap my arms around his neck and smell him.  he would let me for a bit – for longer than he would have let anyone else – and then he’d move on.  some days i would try to go watch my mom ride him but i would just want to cry and that felt so insane that somehow distance seemed easier.  distance of body and heart.

then there was a baby and i was so full with trying to be a mother, figuring out how to run a home, seeking my self in my marriage, getting pregnant again and giving birth again and going through it all again and suddenly years had passed since riding my horse was something i did.

i wouldn’t even say he is my horse anymore.

except to say there is no other horse in the universe that is my horse and he is still in the family.

on days like today, when suddenly my baby is almost five and the next one is closing in on three i get an hour to go out to the front field and ride.  when i get up on his back and we try again to figure each other out and i seek out that space of connection, balance, asking, receiving, encouraging, insisting, accepting, flowing, faltering, feeling the subtle shifts in energy moving through him in his stride and the ways he can carry his body and mine.  on days when i get the chance to sit on his back then suddenly so clearly oh my word he is my horse.  and i catch myself thinking every person in the world deserves a horse like this.  how i have learned almost every thing i know about riding from this horse.  and things i know about more than just riding – about energy and circles and animals and humans.  about trust and faith.  about love.

then i feel so sad that i let all the distance blossom in the space between us where once there was nothing but being together.  i am ashamed at the ways i walked away and i am full of the deepest regret that i let so many many years slip by.  time was passing and he is much older now than he was then.  i can feel it in his body when we are working together and i can see it in his eye when i walk beside him.  older.

i am overwhelmed with regret and i want to cry about it but something else happens.  i hear this other truth calling out that thing to do isn’t to cry for what i might have missed in the years that i devoted to being a mother.  i hear this little whisper that there is another word i am looking for that is not “sorry.”

not sorry no.

thank you.  thank you thank you thank you thank you.  thank you for being my friend and my teacher and for everything you have shared with me. thank you for being an amazing horse and sharing your life with me – with us.  thank you.

and then instead of crying over i am sorry i am taking off his tack and giving him a bath and rubbing him dry with a towel and then cleaning his face with the dampest edges just how he likes.  and i am whispering, “don’t worry i won’t tell anyone that you actually do like getting your face cleaned.”  i am caring for him in the tiny ways that used to seem so mundane and now just seem special.  and i am saying thank you. thank you thank you.

the other day flash asked me if i feel at home down here around all the horse people and i said no i am not really a horse person anymore.  not really.  and he asked me do you miss it?  and i said, i miss it so much when i am right near it.  silence.  you miss the riding?  it is not the riding really though it is the riding.  it is the horses it is the just the way it feels to me to be around them.  they are to me what the ocean is to you.  so when i am around them more then i miss them more.  i think i caught a glimpse of him maybe understanding.  (it is hard to be married to a horse person.)

i am not a real horse person anymore – in my day to day life.  i am just not.  but they are there in my blood and thumping in my heart and winding along the pathways of my memory and insight and understanding of life and the world.  they sift in with my spirit.

one horse in particular of course.  mine.

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