Bareback Rider

My mom sent me this today, amidst the mini email animations she has embedded in every one of her messages, thus allowing her to give the impression of "cute" and "fun" and "needing a cute and fun-loving life partner" that she wants to give.

Oh, I should mention that I rode horses with my mom every Saturday from ages 5-17, the very same age we generally have full acceptance of the yoke of drinking, smoking, and the possibilities of sex on the weekends. Coincidence?

"Check out this amazing video of this girls amazing horsemanship, bareback with no reins. This is what riding is all about? This animal does flying changes, turns on the haunches and all the dressage movements with seemless ease and no movements on the part of the rider. Incredible. Tell me what you think. MOM"

Here's the video of the Bareback Rider. No, not the kind of bareback rider I became when I stopped riding horses. The non-metaphoric, non-"uh, doc, i have a problem" kind.



Sure, the music sucked, but get beyond that. That was beautiful, no? A "wow" should've crept in. Probably more so if you've ridden a horse, but either way. Seeing the power that horse can conjure underneath from a job to a gallop is frighteningly beautiful. And that's one well-trained motherfucking gorgeous horse. Yes, sure, the rider must be good, but that needs to be a well-trained horse...if she got on any other horse she couldn't do the same thing. Right? Right.

And that's where I disagree with my dearest mother. As beautiful as the horse was, it was more about the horse/rider combo, the training (she's making movements, speaking, touching the mane, snapping)...not about the riding in purity as my mother suggested. Pure horsemanship is getting on a horse you've never seen before and having that sort of rapport/control.

At least the me that stopped riding over a decade ago in favor of Saturday-Sunday-guilty-hangovers thinks that. That's right, I'm an authority.

Perhaps I'd be a little less combative with my mom's suggestions if those cutesy animations, the little dumbo waving its shnoz at me and smiling, the little wide-eyed multicolored gnomes, the non-descript yellow emoticon sweetheart, all these little digital wastes didn't clog my email or the space on my precious retina.

Perhaps.

6am ritual

Three weeks in a row and I've managed to wake my tired ass up at 6am to spend an hour writing with a hot cup of green tea. As someone who, until about four years ago, slept until 2pm on my weekends, and who outright refused to take any classes in college before noon, this was a sharp departure.

I thought I'd make it one day, even amidst the distraction-free timespace.

Three weeks! I love it.

This morning I made it halfway through the third part of a story entitled A Pendulum Between, the second part of which will be workshop-ed tonight in the monthly Creative Salon I run with Eric Myers.

Here's the beginning of part 3:

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Stillness, first.

Total.

Non-stillness, next. Bits usually ignored:

- Carpet. Dark red. Outlining my hand. Left hand. Fingers. Suspended. Fibers, individual. Hundreds.
- Thirst. Tongue, dry. Aftertaste. Tomato sauce. Bad tomato sauce.
- Flit, flit, flit. Attack and decay. Bristles, also individual. Together, a brush. A brush on porcelain. Already polished porcelain.
- A notion. A notion of a higher order. Still versus non-still.
- A voice. Human. Me & not me. The voice spiraling, repeating. A round. shortsightednessplushopeequalsdangerousness- shortsightednessplushopeequalsdangerousness-heartbreakandtriumphsweetheartheartbreakandtriumph. Emily. Bathtub.
- Annie. She was right. I had trouble listening. Attending. To the little things – the ones she cared about. A new notion, of a higher order.
- Owwwwwwwwwwww my head!

Oh, my head, on the floor, oh nonononono. Something hard hit my head, the huge shadow, and oh nononono, Emily, her skin atop. Did I? Did we? No, not quite. Right? Not enough. Enough? Not enough. But yes, it’ll still be a lie. Oh, Annie, what was I doing here? Out, yes, out. Now. Home. What’s that sound? Oh, Annie, I’ve told one lie, what’s one more for you. For togetherness. Just a small lie, she’d never understand. And that’s fine. She doesn’t have to. I understand, and I understand I’m stupid, meek, and will never push her away again. To her. Get to her. What’s that sound? Up. Oh my fucking head, don’t touch it, no.

Shooshshooshshooshshoosh.
Shortsightednessplushopeequalsdangerousness-shortsightednessplushopeequalsdangerousness. Shooshshooshshooshshoosh heartbreakandtriumphsweetheartheartbreakandtriumph. shooshshooshshooshshoosh

I clawed my way towards the flitting bristles. A few wet drips moved past my eyebrow. Don’t check for bleeding. Don’t give it a reason to gush. My left arm throbbed from shoulder to fingertips. I lurched like a graceless sidewinder.

Halfway. Flip. Roll. Onto my back. The ceiling, pretty. Emily, atop, before. A long brown scarf, a featherweight frown. Nothing else. Fuck, Sparker, I’m so sorry. Am I sorry? Who had even hit me, a jealous Sparker, or the one playing demon to my dreams? Over. Back over, on the belly. Shoulder, ugh, stretch it a bit.

Shooshshooshshooshshoosh.

Whoomb, whoomb, whoomb, head pulsing with Emily’s flitting scrub brush.

“Emily?” Throat dry, try again.

“Emily?” Louder, proven by a deeper throb in the head.

“Heartbreak and triumph, heartbreak and triumph. Shortsightedness plus hope equals dangerousness, you know that,” intermingled with the bathroom’s shooshshooshshooshshoosh.

Sit up, just a little. Head off the carpet. I can’t believe he hit me. Okay, that worked.

Stand. Slow. Sloooow. Steady.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note to self: take a pic of the green tea bag, cuz goddamn that stuff is great.