Pete, me, and our friend Sarah were sitting in lawn chairs at the edge of the driveway. Actually, I was sitting on my bucket lid. Sarah’s horse Spiffy was eating hay out of a muck bucket. Trya and Hrimmi were tied to the hitching post, eating their share of hay.

Sarah had fastened Spiffy’s front boots with duct tape, so that they might stay put. She was wearing a reflective jacket. The scene, I said, was very Alaskan.

We’d just gotten back from a ride, Sarah riding Spiffy, Pete riding Hrimmi, and me riding Tyra. I tried out Sarah’s next to new orthro-flex saddle.

Sarah, Pete, and Spiffy

Sarah mentioned that a friend of hers suggested putting a notebook or journal somewhere in the house and encouraging those in the house to write a sentence or two or three a day. Pete said that he’d write something like “It was 60 degrees today and sunny.” I said I’d write down what I’d been thinking about.

My possible dispatches usually begin with a phrase or idea, one that I later elaborate upon.

I thought, upon hearing this idea that having a house journal would never fly around here. Pete would not be into it. Me, I’d start filling pages.

My sentence was, I said, “trust what you know.” This is actually a line from Ken Kesey’s book, Sometimes a Great Notion. It had to do with a squirrel taking up residence in a couch – he was forced to leave. The reason he was there in the first place was because he knew it was a good place to be.

My take was a bit different. Tyra, starting out today, was not very cooperative. I kept going back to my Centered Riding training – my initial thought was that the Orthoflex saddle was pinching her back, and so she was acting like she was in pain.

I then, almost as a matter of habit, began bringing Centered Riding images to mind. I didn’t think that this would do any good, but amazingly, it did. We rode on the road, a few miles. It was at about the turn around point that Tyra began to relax and listen to me. Or should I say that it was at about the turn around point that I began to relax and listen to Tyra. I definitely did not trust what I knew, but I went ahead and did my imaging anyways.

Tyra trotted nicely and became super responsive. There was a moment in which I had to make a decision – this was on the home stretch. Ask her to trot and catch up with Sarah and Pete or continue to have her walk in a collected fashion. I chose the latter because I knew that if I did the former, I might undo all I’d done with her in the past few months.

Most definitely, the ride ended in a more positive fashion than it began.

So what I learned what that yes, I need to trust what I know.

Next: 118. 4/28/20: The Writing Life: Filling in the Blanks