Understanding

Every day that I have been sick, I have beat myself up for not being able to ride.  Not just any riding--but riding on a good day, on my old (now retired) schoolmaster. 

On his dangerously mutable whims, collected gaits were effervescently light--it felt as if we barely touched the ground.  Our lateral work floated along on a soft rein, as he demanded the majority of his aids be through seat, leg, and weight.  On his bad, irritable days, he broke my bones.  He would not tolerate an incorrectly applied aid, nor one that he thought was too harsh--and anything above a whisper was often met with violent eruptions that ended with me on the ground.

Granted, he had dealt with a variety of strange techniques, such as his previous owner tying his head to his shoulder and chasing him around a round pen to teach him that "he can go forward with his head in any position."  With the same woman, he was labelled unrideable from October to March as he became "too dangerous" in the cooler weather.  The exhaustive lunging warmup she put him through in the warmer weather to "take the edge off", in my opinion, taught him to bide his time until he had a chance to deliver his aggression to his rider. (note: another story, another day: remember Lyme brain!)

He was not a gentle horse.  But despite his mercurial, unpredictable behavior, I loved him.

The first time I ever rode piaffe was on him. We hacked away from the barn, and meandered up a hillside to an old cut hayfield--enough time for him to stretch his legs and relax, and allow me some pilot error room in requests.  It was one of those fall days where the light stretches down in beams thick enough to cut.  We made a game of softly half passing along the edge of the field, playing with the idea of collecting and moving forward and out and up from just the feeling we created together.  As we reached the edge of a fold of woodland, the meadow opened out in front of us, and I sighed--the land was beautiful, my horse was listening to me, and everything was just perfect. 

With no more aid than that, he coiled back on himself and piaffed.  Piaffed as if it was as easy to do that as to breathe, as if he was born piaffing, as if this moment was what we born to do, and all we were meant to be.  I found myself holding my breath, and he remained as smooth and as powerful and as rhythmic as before, giving me 110% of himself that moment.  I felt as if I could have asked him to do anything--fly, perhaps, even--and he would have given it to me, without question or regret.  Instead I managed to breathe out (softly, softly) and he danced forward into a round, giving collected trot. 

I don't remember much else of that ride.  That was enough to blow my mind, and occupy my thoughts for pretty much ever after.

I was a misfit at that very warmblood-y barn, and it makes me laugh a little to think of it now, with my crass old monster and the warmblood girls I have now.  I wanted to show the trainer what we were doing one day, and asked him for a bit of trot work in the arena...an area he adamantly refused to work in well, understandably (to me) because it brought up memories of unpleasant times.  He was tense and erratic, and offered to throw me rather dramatically several times.  Her thoughts were that I needed to ride him firmly into the bit, and put my legs on him until he accepted them.  I sniffled in his stall over that impossibility, and resigned myself to working with the old monster wherever he felt like working.  It was obvious to me that he had no problem doing the work--he just preferred to be doing it somewhere he was not reminded of that previous training (torture) he had to deal with. 

Thoughts of him came to mind today, because when I got home from class I was as usual beating myself up for not being able to ride.  Specifically, not being able to ride well--he forced me into becoming a silent rider, as any crookedness or maltimed aid was literally and liberally punished. Despite the beautiful sun, I was worn out from two required labs, so I curled myself into the couch and tried to rest while my girls ate their late lunch.  Class information fluttered around in my mind as I set my phone for a few minutes' nap.

And then--suddenly--I sat up and swore out loud.  Almost a year and change ago I had my seizure.  All of my riding since the seizure has been marked by core instability, balance issues, pain, and vertigo.  All stuff typical of damage from neurological illnesses, sometimes seizures, always Lyme. 

I found myself putting together pieces.  Not only have I been diagnosed with chronic Lyme, with neurological manifestations, but I had a beeping seizure, for goodness' sake!  No wonder I have been dealing with such an inability to ride the way my mind remembers my body being able to. 

I sat back down on the couch, and the connections kept coming.  I spent Saturday - Tuesday in a fetal position, as my Lyme had woken up enough to ensure that simply walking from my bedroom to the bathroom was a nigh impossible task.  Today was the first day I actually felt mobile after that ordeal, and here I was as usual, beating myself up about not being able to ride. 

I suddenly felt sympathy for my poor, ravaged body.  Here it is beaten to a pulp by this mysterious disease and all my mind can do is hurl criticisms about lacking the ability/will power to ride.  And I remained so focused on what I had lost that I couldn't understand the why of losing it--all I could focus on is how exhausting it is for me to ride a walk and a small trot.  Snippets of last summer popped up, when I haranged my schoolmistress into toting me about in walk/trot classes, as I had for literally the first time ever in my life the opportunity to show, and no matter what physical price I had to pay I wanted to go!  We did, and she tolerated my clumsiness and incoordination and stressful arguments and whatever else indignities that I heaped upon her broad back.  I realize--and now understand--that I was not physically capable of riding like I did in the past.  My upper level schoolmistress did not look like the imposing 17 hand statue of carefully bred Holsteiner muscle and fire she is--she was quiet and soft and ridiculously tolerant of every glaring error.  And when we finished last in our class--repeatedly--she could care less about the fact that I was reduced to a shaking, trembling heap by the effort of riding about the ring, and stepped under me when I felt vertigo overweight my body to one side, and carried me safely (and oh so primly) out of the ring. 

While for months what I felt was embarrassment that I had let my horse down by not giving her a ride comparable to her quality, I finally understood what those odd, darkly colored low ribbons mean to me: victory.  We went out despite my illness, despite the seizure that left me a shaking, unbalanced wreck.  To the casual observer, we outwardly appeared like the other competitors.  Only she knew the amount of effort that riding in a show cost me, and the amount of grace necessary on her part that allowed me to do so. 

I am glad for those memories I have made with the old monster--those graceful, educated, and freely given movements that define dressage to me, and his terrible, all consuming demand for silence on my part.  The courage he gave me on those rides allowed me to be able to ignore the less educated indvidiuals' noisy opinions that he was sound when he actually was subtly and slightly off, despite loud contentions to the contrary which blamed my ignorance and inability and unwillingness to "just ride him". His moments of trust despite the torture he endured gave me confidence to trust my intuition around my horses, and to trust that silent mesh of feeling between myself and my equine partner before listening to any so-called advice.  It allowed me to shrug off an abusive marriage and ignore the million naysayers whining that I would never make it into medical school.  What he drilled into me is still there, and it comes out on a daily basis as I claw my way out of the depths of this debilitating, frightening disease. 

Today I was able to do the most mundane of tasks--get out, dress and pack for school, and attend two required labs.  I was unable to do any of that a few days ago.  This month, I will start walking horseback again.  The dauting and exhausting task of preparing my horse and crawling into the saddle is frightening for the amount of effort I know it will cost me. Merely being able to walk around the perimeter of my fenced arena will be as much a victory as my first piaffe, and like that dazzling, immortal moment, one that I will get to share with my closest and best supporter--my horse.