Thunder and lightening, three in the morning. Eighty five pound dog climbing in bed. Nails clicking back and forth from the other two. I let them out. I let them in. Later, the morning is edgy and tainted, both hot and still. Beau and I ride in the arena. After the warm up walk Beau twitches his head and strikes out with his front hoof at everything all the time. I lurch forward. I butt into the front of the saddle.

There is a place, center of my being. I don't like to go there. It takes all the other parts of me over. It is fusion. It engages, I am strong, focused and I will not give up. My voice is low, stern, loud. I am shouting: Go out into my hand. And I push, plie, squeeze with my lower legs. As Beau's head tosses, I squeeze. Beau stutters, stamps, move a backwards step, take the inside rein and walk a tight circle. Take the other inside rein for the other direction. Then trot and push. Push him on. Ulla's voice is in my ear saying: It is always hard to do, push them forward when there's trouble. You want to hold them back. No, you have to push them forward. I do not feel the connection in the reins but I keep squeezing and playing for his mouth.

We are both wet. Beau's red chest and neck hair matts with sweat. Under my arms to my waist, down my back, my tee shirt is wet. Usually we are moving forward at a steady pace.

We walk out the arena and head for the county road gate. Careful, careful over the rocks Beau. I open the gate, do not close it, too tired for a new kind of frustration. We walk down the road. Loosen my shoulders, follow with my elbows, feel his mouth. The sun is hot, glares on the gravel. There is dust in the air. Feel his mouth. Notice if my shoulders move.

Padding feet. Beau's ears prick. I turn, catch black border collie falling in place at our side. Farther back, big black lab. We are all together. Don't worry Beau. And then the turn up the driveway. Crushed gravel. Let him nibble the reins out of my hands. Stretch his neck down.

Pile his saddle, the shims, soaking wet pad, adorondeck chair off the front porch. Peel his blue medicine boots off his front legs, the black off his back. As the bridle comes off, slip the purple halter on and lead him to the back corner of the house.

What's this? He pulls back as I wrap the the lead around the metal tee-post behind the new little lilacs. The hose unravels as I turn on mostly warm, a little cold. Water sprays out and Beau settles in as I spray him inch by inch.

Horse flies as big as my thumb come searching the horse, the water. We go down to Beau's stall where I buckle his light blue netting over his wettness. The fly mask with the red border. And he runs and prances. He rolls in the dirt, stands to gallop and buck.

For me, stripping the soggy clothes, I lower into the luke warm hot tub used last night. I have a full mason jar of water sparkling between my hands. My eyes close.

In this hot tub last night we talked about death Tony. You don't want to keep loosing ability, not to be able to do more and more. For me, at this age, death has more than one face. so far, not my own face. I don't see death in the mirror. I see it in the clouds and watch it cover the mountains, sinking lower and lower until we are both in the fog. I hear my own voice tumbling down, out of the fog. and I am calling, calling the horses. Tonight you and I sit up to our necks in hot water. There are no stars tonight. There is no wind. At least we made it I say. Tony at least we finally got to move here.

summer solstice

First hike with a trailhead, not stumbling across the rocks, in a year. The snow is still melting. The streams are high. We have to search out the logs, find forks, jump smaller branches. The dogs run back and forth through the water waiting for us to find our way. You use your walking stick for balance. I don't look, pray for no broken bones that would stall us in our tracks at home. We skirt circles of snow and golden patches of avalanche lilly and walk across the larger drifts until we are stymied by unrelenting snow. And then we sit by the meadow and eat cheese sandwiches. I take pictures of myself with the dogs. I am laughing so much, I don't know what I look like anymore

I lay back on the dirt, the pine needles, the sun.

A hike is always a metaphor I say. I never thought of it that way you answer. But it is. We have to search out our way, keep looking for the way across and we find one. Finally, we aren't finished yet. We're not at the end.

When we get home, we get grain for the goats, the horses. Cindy Lou, the goat, is by herself in the barn. She is holding her ears at right angles from her head. What's up Cindy Lou. I say, we need to put Cindy Lou by herself. Right now? Yes. And then she starts groaning. Can you get me a chair from the loft? I'll make some tea, get towels, hang out with her. I'll be right back.

You are still in the loft when I get back. I don't think it's going to be long you say. Then you say, there's a bubble.

Cindy Lou thrashes out. She flips on her back and kicks all her legs straight out. She is very powerful.

The baby is born. He is white with a tan head and dark brown on his hips. He is slick. And I am drying him off and putting him in front of Cindy Lou. Cindy is licking and I am rubbing and it is the first day of summer.

1st lesson, Kansas and Beau

Circles within circles. Sudi is asking me to reown the plie but she is calling it softly posting. When I ask her how to softly post, Sudi does a plie in the sand and rubber arena in her black riding tights and paddock boots. The wind is whistling, blowing away her words.
And I want to turn away, remembering my knees bending as I breath in, lowering while the top of my head appears to rise. And then growing into the pliant straightening, legs working together, torso lifting, and breathing out.
Beau is lovely Sudi says. Lovely she repeats. How did you get him? His rider grew up I say. Went to college. His owner wasn't ready to give him up. Beau drifted. Ulla stepped in. She told the owner to give him to me. Ulla told me to take him.

Now Sudi is connected to this wheel.

I'd like to ask where it is all going. Tomorrow when I get up and ride my bike to town before work: endurance. I'd like to ask why.

Listen to me: I've been on different parts of this circle all my life and slipping and sliding right off. This time I have to trust these horses. The horses will lead me.

But when you get to the end there is no discernable prize. How do you know when you are finished?

While I am climbing through this circle I will write in the tackroom, with the loft bed, saddles and bridles.

June 11, 2011, 3/4 moon

After the grandsons. After our first bath together in the hot tub, I come out by myself. It would be dark except the moon. It is a three quarter moon. The moon coats a film across the water. Themoon coats me in the water. There are three stars but the first one is the one I wish on: to be a good rider. I want to be a good rider.
Nineteen year old Beau is caught in his fly-head-tossing thing. Maybe Tootie is right: An evansion and a half. But the answer is not to push him through so fast that he strains a tendon. No, at work on the psych unit, we used to say, you can't take something away without giving something to replace it. Beau has been doing the fly-head-toss for years. What can I give him in return. Riding I watch his head, I watch his hears. His head comes up, I wiggle my fingers, his head goes down I gently lift it up. He strikes out with his leg, I try to catch the instant and push him on. Go out Beau. Go out into my hands. Go with me.
I very well may be completely wrong.

June 5, Trail-ride game

Work as charge nurse four evenings in a row. Bring Ms Rue, Warrior Cat down to the barn. We will both be working later tonight.
The hot tub only cools down from the night before to ninty degrees. Saturday and Sunday noon, I climb in, float for twenty minutes before the hour drive to the hospital. I believe I am bursting with health.
Sunday after report, I am bursting with diahrea. I beeline for the bathroom every half an hour. The other RN I'm working with says: so you got it too. Then she talks about wanting to go home early. I get home Sunday night, pull myself up into the tack-room, loft bed. Ms Rue, Warrior Cat greets me. Every night I hear mice squeak before she bites their heads off. She leaves the bodies for me.

Between my stomach and my mistakes, ill-at-work-Sunday, I do not go in Monday. I call in sick. I sit on haybales and talk to Robyn, the farrier. She says they are giving horses B complex for anxiety. I used to get weekly B12 injections forty five years ago from my psychiatrist. I do not mean to tell her this. In this new place, I want to fit in.

Tueday there is enough of me stored up to get on my horse. I tell her we will just go easy. The wind tries to yank the helmet off my head. The wind blows hair in my eyes. Half an hour I see Tony and both border collies going down the driveway in the ATV. If I yell: close the gate, he will not hear me. I start riding after him. Kansas ears pick forward. She gives a few jog steps. We keep a distance but then the distance is growing. We trot a minute over the gravel, catching up. Slow down to a walk not to get too close to the machine. The machine is getting away from us. We trot. Kansas starts to look interested. We are stalking the ATV. It is our first trail-ride-game of our entire lives.

Overnight Beau looses a shoe. I am on Kansas traveling in circles waiting for the first lesson with Sudi at home. The wild mustard is blooming. With every bloom it is spreading. No rail around the arena. No letters on the rail. Who said I could do this thing? It always is too much for me.

Kansas and I see Sudi come up the drive way. She is out of the car. She walking. It is beautiful here she yells up. It is so beautiful. I say thank you because maybe it is. I say what I see is so much....The other way, she says, is just to enjoy it.

And then we ride. This time we try cantering in two point, those central core muscles, find them, hold me up above Kansas withers. Sit back. Right hand raises to her gray mane. Sit up in two point. Let go of her mane. Sit down. Show her the way.

Somewhere in here my arms unlock for a few gaits. My arms move with her. Give her more rein for now. Make it looser.

A circle at this end. Canter up the long side. A circle at the other end. Moments when I relax. Moments when Kansas can relax.