It’s Monday. It has been Monday all day long. It feels like a Sunday. Maybe what day it actually is, is a moot point because I don’t have a more traditional out of the home job. If I did, and had to report to work at 8 a.m. today, I might not have made it there. That’s how much it felt like a Sunday, all day. It may have felt this way because it was such a busy weekend. When you do as much as I did, you compress time.

Actually, it feels like Sunday because Pete and I didn’t have much interaction with anyone today. We did a lot of socializing this past weekend – on Friday got together with his work colleagues, on

Saturday evening got together with our good friends Brit and Gregory, and yesterday afternoon spent time with the Carneys. I needed what I got, a day to get caught up on dispatches and commune with my neglected animals.

Doors. Back to the subject of doors. I have been pushing on doors for others, such as Dick and Jokla. I don’t know what the future holds for either. I just know that the better trained Jokla is, the better the life she will ultimately lead. When I’m around her, I get this sense of inner calm – my thinking is that she’s a water horse.

And I am now pushing on doors for Millie. I would like for Millie to go to Icelandic Horse Youth Camp because this, for her, could be life changing. She might meet people there who will push on other horse-related doors for her. And in time she will be a good horse educator.

As for me, I am continuing to push on my own doors. Actually, Pete is always taking the time to push on doors for me. Writing wise, I have hit a bit of an impasse. I need to resume marketing, and I need to get going again on Lessons Twice Learned. I can’t do both on the same day. I might be able to do one thing on one day, and another on another day. Both are extremely difficult and require that at the time, I focus exclusively on one or the other.

Horse-wise – I can’t help but think of some of our accomplishments. Tinni has twice won blue ribbons in the local competitive trail ride, and is still going strong. And Raudi is doing well at agility. We are now long reining Hrimmi as she follows behind Tinni. So we show by example how things should be done.

It’s not exclusively about the publications or the blue ribbons – rather, it’s about making the world a more positive place, for us, for friends, and for animals. Writing – I figure things out in the process of getting words on the page. Then I invite others to make sense of what I’ve written. Rejection no longer bothers me. Horses – I have been going to clinics and shows for a few years now – auditing them, mostly. And I have learned a lot watching how other people treat their animals.

I can set writing-related goals for myself. I fail to meet them this is my doing. I can set horse education goals for me, but not for my horse. Horses don’t have goals. They just do what they are asked to do. If we successfully communicate our wishes to them, they comply.

I have been working hard in this dispatch, in an attempt to make a comparison between writing and riding. I can’t do this. The only comparison that can be made is that I am writing a lot about horses. This is the essential connection. It is making me a better horse educator because I’m taking the time to think about what I’m doing. This is a form of self-reflection.

I seldom write dispatches in which I hit a wall. I have on this one. It really is Monday. Still feels like a Sunday.

Next: 48. 2/17/15: The Nature of Competition