In the mornings, cleaning the horse pen is meditative. I feel calm, relaxed, and of course I enjoy spending the little time I have with the horses. The hard part comes an hour later, when I have to leave in order to go to the former banquet room of the historic Eagle Hotel.

This morning I got to thinking about how I have lost any semblance of balance in regard to my book and my horsey life. The book project continues to get all of my attention. I had an ideas day of sort, as I was accompanying the goats back up to cabin. That is, write about this loss of balance. My audience would be the readers of Horse Network, an online publication that primarily focuses on show jumping but every so often features writing by particular horse owners.

This piece of mine, I would go into detail about how the book project started small and got large and how on the way my horsey life fell by the wayside. It would not be a whine, but it would have what most like to read, considerable hardship.

And so, although I had a lot to do when I got to the hotel, I wrote three quarters of a draft. It seemed to me to hold together well. But I could not finish it because I had to get to work. This was frustrating in itself. I was actually in general feeling frustrated because I found the glasses that I lost last night by the mailbox. They’d been run over. I picked them up and put the crumpled frames in a bin filled with books. I do not know what I did with the lenses. I also lost my cell phone, which according to Pete’s Bluetooth speaker, is someplace in the house. Crumb bum to it all.

And I am way, way behind at work because Leslie is doing jury duty.

All this, and I had had a hard time scheduling a haircut – haircutter really busy these days. But amazingly, she fit me in, this after saying that she could only give me a trim. I had told her about Thursday, and that I had an important meeting. So after working on sorting incoming books, I drove over to Benders of Hair and had an actual haircut.

Betty is an amazing woman and one of my best friends ever. And best friends, they help one another out. She talked and I listened and I talked and she listened. I did of course feel bad that she went out of her way to fit me in, and felt as I should have, that I had been selfish in begging for a cut. And I still feel this way. However, what she said resonated with me and enabled me to go to the BLBP meeting with my head screwed on straight.

She talked about finding her spiritual center, and how she’s gone about doing this. I won’t go into detail here, but I think that following her lead might better enable me to find the balance that I am lacking. There, I just made a major connection.

Next: 273. 10/14/26: Chew it up and Spit it Out