Writing is stressful.
The past week or so has been insanely so due to an overwhelming-ness of way too many things to do and not enough time to do them in and way too many decisions to make.
28 January 2007
21 January 2007
In which I ramble...
I'm exhausted and yet I've been up since 3:30. Today was my day to sleep in.
I just think the stress is starting to get to me. I love what I'm doing. I do. But trying to be in two places at once with the extra 'at home' work, coupled with very little sleep and an attempt to re-edit and re-write an entire script because I hate it... I honestly do... but I need mail it off to whoever it is that I'm supposed to be sending it to. Argh. ha. You know it's bad when knitting doesn't even calm me down. I've started and ripped up so many projects I nearly snapped a set of needles in half.
I did have a wonderful dinner with Lindsay at IHOP (all you can eat pancakes!), which more than made up for my afternoon.
I just think the stress is starting to get to me. I love what I'm doing. I do. But trying to be in two places at once with the extra 'at home' work, coupled with very little sleep and an attempt to re-edit and re-write an entire script because I hate it... I honestly do... but I need mail it off to whoever it is that I'm supposed to be sending it to. Argh. ha. You know it's bad when knitting doesn't even calm me down. I've started and ripped up so many projects I nearly snapped a set of needles in half.
I did have a wonderful dinner with Lindsay at IHOP (all you can eat pancakes!), which more than made up for my afternoon.
11 January 2007
Horses
Today, I went to the first rehearsal for a staged reading at Venus, but this post isn't really about the play. The show itself dances around the idea of the rodeo... which brought me full force back into the time I spent in Arizona and, thus, the time I spent on horseback.
I was the typical horse loving girl. So much so that my parents finally gave in to sending me to "pony camp" in our town in the summers where I spent time each day riding in a circle and competing in weird gymkana like events. During the camp, I met one of the instructors who then offered to give me riding lessons... so... my mother started taxiing me once a week the 45 minutes each way to her barn.
Drina and I had an interesting relationship. As stubborn as she was, I was willing to be more so. We came to a rather tenuous understanding -- if I would be willing to trust her, she was willing to trust me... as long as I provided carrots or apples or peppermints following the lesson. I trusted her to take me unflinching up a steep hill in the forest of Chickasaw. I trusted that she wouldn't let anything happen to me as I wouldn't lead her into danger. But I maintained my complete horror at the unbridled joy my lesson partner took as she galloped down the corn fields.
Until the summer I spent in Arizona. There was no room for fear in Arizona. My first week there we went out into the desert where we slept under threat of rampant wild cattle stampeding the campsite (once) or trees falling upon tents (five times). We mounted up and rode partially out into the desert and played "bean tag" near the pen of a wild bull. Until our instructor led us INTO the bull pen, at which point we play "get the hell out". We ambled slowly to the top of a mesa in the middle of the desert to watch the sun set in shades of pink and purple and blues that simply weren't possible in the bluffs of Memphis. We raced wholeheartedly along a dried out creek bed to make it back to the barns before dark. I learned for the first time how to fall without fear (a lesson I could have used beforehand when Drina stopped dead after a jump and sent me flying to the ground... or the horse before me lashed out and sent Drina into a series of spins that left me blacked out half on the concrete of the road half off with her hooves dancing around my head... or the time we were cutting back across roads to get help for my instructor's daughter and Drina slide on newly poured tar and sent us skidding across the road -- my leg still firmly in the stirrup under her side).
I also learned that speed could be joyful. I found joy in settling into the saddle and letting the horse carry me across the sands of the desert. I learned that flying across a straight path could in no way be fearsome when cutting tight circles around barrels so close that your foot brushes the unyielding metal or gripping your legs tightly to the saddle and leaning slightly as the horse beneath you dances between tall white poles praying that she will not choose to zig when the proper response is to zag... is such a rush.
When I returned from Arizona, I took new pleasure in pushing my heels down and giving in to Drina's steady gallop and soothing canter. I loved swinging onto her back with only a bridle in place and feeling her muscles beneath me as we trotted and cantered and galloped through the fields. I loved at the end of a hard ride walking slowly in a cool down before swinging off and resting my head against hers and she contentedly munched her daily treat. I found confidence in those slow easy moments.
I was the typical horse loving girl. So much so that my parents finally gave in to sending me to "pony camp" in our town in the summers where I spent time each day riding in a circle and competing in weird gymkana like events. During the camp, I met one of the instructors who then offered to give me riding lessons... so... my mother started taxiing me once a week the 45 minutes each way to her barn.
Drina and I had an interesting relationship. As stubborn as she was, I was willing to be more so. We came to a rather tenuous understanding -- if I would be willing to trust her, she was willing to trust me... as long as I provided carrots or apples or peppermints following the lesson. I trusted her to take me unflinching up a steep hill in the forest of Chickasaw. I trusted that she wouldn't let anything happen to me as I wouldn't lead her into danger. But I maintained my complete horror at the unbridled joy my lesson partner took as she galloped down the corn fields.
Until the summer I spent in Arizona. There was no room for fear in Arizona. My first week there we went out into the desert where we slept under threat of rampant wild cattle stampeding the campsite (once) or trees falling upon tents (five times). We mounted up and rode partially out into the desert and played "bean tag" near the pen of a wild bull. Until our instructor led us INTO the bull pen, at which point we play "get the hell out". We ambled slowly to the top of a mesa in the middle of the desert to watch the sun set in shades of pink and purple and blues that simply weren't possible in the bluffs of Memphis. We raced wholeheartedly along a dried out creek bed to make it back to the barns before dark. I learned for the first time how to fall without fear (a lesson I could have used beforehand when Drina stopped dead after a jump and sent me flying to the ground... or the horse before me lashed out and sent Drina into a series of spins that left me blacked out half on the concrete of the road half off with her hooves dancing around my head... or the time we were cutting back across roads to get help for my instructor's daughter and Drina slide on newly poured tar and sent us skidding across the road -- my leg still firmly in the stirrup under her side).
I also learned that speed could be joyful. I found joy in settling into the saddle and letting the horse carry me across the sands of the desert. I learned that flying across a straight path could in no way be fearsome when cutting tight circles around barrels so close that your foot brushes the unyielding metal or gripping your legs tightly to the saddle and leaning slightly as the horse beneath you dances between tall white poles praying that she will not choose to zig when the proper response is to zag... is such a rush.
When I returned from Arizona, I took new pleasure in pushing my heels down and giving in to Drina's steady gallop and soothing canter. I loved swinging onto her back with only a bridle in place and feeling her muscles beneath me as we trotted and cantered and galloped through the fields. I loved at the end of a hard ride walking slowly in a cool down before swinging off and resting my head against hers and she contentedly munched her daily treat. I found confidence in those slow easy moments.
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