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 |