A Back with a View

In an amazing feat of contradiction, the world looks simultaneously smaller and larger from the back of a horse.  Larger:  Like standing on  top of a mountain, sitting on the back of a horse gives the rider a whole new perspective:  the mountains, the blue sky, the clouds,  --  the branches of that olive tree that just swiped my face -- are all so much closer than when I was on  my feet.  Day to day worries, pedestrians, the ground, and safety are all so much farther away .  . . oh my.

Smaller:  My only thoughts are staying on the horse.  I feel every pull on my back muscles, and I tense at every rock on which Meggie's shoes slide.   If I don't forcefully pull it away to gaze at the scenery, my vision fixates on the horse's neck and ears as if by gazing intently in that cerebral area I can understand what this monster wants and where she is trying to go and how I can get her headed in the right direction.
 
Okay. I have never really gotten the "horseback riding as relaxation"concept.

But just when I thought I had the whole "I'm cool, I got it" horse riding thing going, my horse and AJ's settled a territorial dispute with some poorly timed bites and kicks -- resulting in Meggie  removing herself from the general vicinity.  Sadly, she left me right where I had been -- well, minus her broad back, of course.

Squinting up through swirling stars and between the olive tree under which I had been unceremoniously dumped, I saw Heike (the trainer) looking quite cooly down at me.  Her dark eyes revealing no emotion, she quietly suggested that since I had wisely let go of the reins, I get off the ground and go get my horse. 

Shaking my head -- thank goodness for that goofy helmet, but ooooh, head shaking was not a good plan -- I rattled loose the seconds-old memory: Hitting the ground and hearing Heike order me to "Let go of the reins," just as I was examining the very close and rapidly moving side view my horse's dirt and dung covered shoe.  Hmm  . . . let go of the reins, indeed!  Doing so had freed my horse, and probably saved several body parts from pulverization, but Heike seemed none too impressed that the horse was now happily grazing on the olives  several meters away.  She had asked, earlier that I not let Meggie eat the olives as they were green and tended to give her a tummy ache.  Besides, the famer might be angry if she hurt the tree in the process.

Okay.  Fine.  Save the tree, damn the body. Up I got,  grabbed the reins, hauled the horse from the olive trees.

Stop there. Now, boys and girls, you need to understand that Meggie was taller than me.  Not just taller head to hoof.  I could not see over her back without standing on a step stool.  And, like many of us in our mature years, Meggie's hips were well-rounded -- We made a good pair.  But she seriously outweighed me.  So "hauling her from the olive trees,"  required finesse, stubborness, and a certain brute strength.  It's not for nothing I convince traditionally unsuccessful students that they can and want to understand English grammar.  No big-assed horse in an olive tree beats me in the stubborn department.

Back on the trail, the tail of AJ's mount swishing safely two lengths ahead of us, I shortened the reins, gazed at the amazing mountains on the horizon, and guided Meggie away from the olive brances with my knees.  Although my blood pounded a beat just above my ears and the Picasso-esque sense of proportion through my bifocals suggested eye glass adjustment in the near future, I took a deep breath and enjoyed a moment of self-congratulation.  Maybe horseback riding would never be a relaxing past time for me, but I sat the damned horse, I rode the damned horse, and the view of the boy riding just ahead of me revealed the important things, great and small.