Respite On Horseback

Monday, September 28, 2020

My friend Anna and I went riding, and this photo shows us pausing while my dogs briefly swim. In the center and waiting with us is Miles, usually the first to leap into and out of a water body. The ears Anna’s camera is sighting through belong to Rosie (they’re very pretty!). We’re following a trail that ambles alongside the canal before looping gradually back to the trailhead.

Before this summer’s wildfires and persistent smoke, Anna and I often rode together. Almost every day I wanted to be on horseback, and riding alone I’d be on one and ponying another. Pimmy always followed the horses. Anna’s camera yesterday captured her tagging us.

Anna’s photos combine the beauties of horses, dogs, water, and desert. I didn’t carry a camera, for my main purpose in riding was to get into a recovery mode, to escape the worrying pressures of work, politics, and viruses. The horse’s each step seemed slightly to relax my shoulders. In horseback riding anything might occur, and safety requires an intent focus on animal welfare, trail types, terrain safety, and general surroundings. These immediate worries overcome larger-world concerns.

After riding I felt refreshed. But back home another world weighed-in. I couldn’t find my wallet! That didn’t make sense for I recalled stashing it, knew exactly where. Not finding the wallet was like “losing keys”, and I kept looking, drove to the trailhead to search the ground but no luck. Coming home, I decided to clean the horse trailer, which anyway needed it. After cleaning and cleaning…nothing. On the verge of quitting, I poked fingers into a dark corner, and voila!, my wallet!

A mind trick because of too many worries. Well, I’ll just keep on riding.

From an earlier ride here’s my friend Anna, on Rosie. A fine rider, Anna loves Rosie. She’s helped me understand better this sensitive, sometimes bossy mare.

Thanks for kindnesses from my neighbors: To Bill for providing political yard signs and tomatoes from his garden; and to Frank for sackfuls of apples from his tree for the horses, and they gobbled!

Dear Friends: I hesitate to carry on about politics, but how about those tax returns! Diana