My Soapbox for Equestrian Writings
I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions, but 2018 involved so much angst — my accident, my mother breaking her hip, my father recovering from a fall, my stepfather’s illness — that I’m going to make an exception this year. I’m planning a better 2019 and I’m hoping that the universe will comply. My resolutions […]
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Zelda was tuckered out after our ride yesterday. So was I. Although I’ve been riding regularly, I haven’t been out for a two hour ride for way too long. A few friends came over to join us on the trails and we had a great time gallivanting. The only downside is that it was too […]
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I wrote earlier about My New Relationship with Fear, I described my strategy of slowly, but surely expanding our circle of distance and experience. Last week, I took Freedom on his first off-site trip since before the accident. This poor horse has been relegated to riding mostly in the ring because he’s just not as […]
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Since my accident my relationship with fear has changed. It’s become tactile and dimensional, I can taste it and feel the coils of uncertainty sometimes tighter, sometimes looser. At its worst, my breathing gets shallow and my body tenses. Fear has boundaries. It lets me go just so far, and not a step further. I […]
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Zelda and I went on our first post-recovery hunter pace last weekend. I am not ashamed to admit that doubts plagued me the day before. Should I go? Was I ready? Would Zelda behave? One of the fallouts from my accident last winter is the residual fear, and I have to remind myself that 1) […]
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Lots of people have asked how my recovery is going. It’s been six months since the accident (kind of hard to believe) and three months since I first got back on a horse. These days I’m walking without a cane — in fact, not even limping. I can walk up the slight ramp in the […]
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Equestrians are really bad at evaluating the extent of their injuries. For years, I’ve figured that if I could walk and there weren’t visible bruises, I was fine. Now that I’m back riding again — only in the most basic sense, as I’m only walking and trotting — I have a new respect for the […]
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Three months after my accident I finally felt like it was time to get back in the saddle. It’s not fear that’s kept me from riding, rather it’s a distrust of my body. I look at many things differently now — having struggled to get out of chairs or walk up and down stairs, I […]
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