by Roxanne Bok
Wait a minute: what happened to the fun?
At least the kids were progressing smoothly with no serious riding angst. Like animals, Elliot and Jane blissfully live in the moment and don’t project. And so far, Cleo had been a perfect lady, just the right side of lazy. “It’s easier to Go than Whoa” Bobbi always says. And Jane was going slow, policing herself by refusing to trot. “There’s no rush,” I repeated to Bobbi and Meghan. It was easy to forget Jane’s tender youth in the midst of this grown-up adventure. She mostly managed to keep up, but her stubby, albeit strong legs offered limited leverage at even a pony’s comparatively broad sides. We found her a proper saddle, one that didn’t require several looped riggings of the stirrup leathers, but her feet still barely reached pony belly. Every once in a while she would remind us she was only five.
“I know all the parts,” she boasted at dinner. “The brain is the boss of the body and helps you think.”
“That’s right, Jane.”
“And the kidneys are down by the hips on the side—they help you bend.” Hmmm, we thought, that’s half right.
“And the big and mini contestants, they help make your food into poop.”
Ah yes, only an amateur in this game show called life. But despite tears, rebukes and minor injuries, Jane still stoked fun at the farm. Meghan rescued another kitten, a steel grey with white paws. Janie love-mugged “Boots” on a regular basis in an effort to prove that, like herpes, a cat scratch scar on a cheek is forever, despite Mederma and youth’s miraculous healing powers. The bunnies remained a delight, and the kids fashioned old boxes into “Bunny Inns,” “condos” and “resorts” to keep these highly intelligent (or so I’m told) creatures entertained. Ever more elaborate, Elliot and Jane designed runs, windows, tunnels, lofts, doors, interior and exterior perches, pop-up holes and hideouts, and decorated all with drawings of bunnies and flowers, twine hung as beaded curtains, wallpaper patterns and directional signposts: they are sophisticated, tasteful bunnies, after all. Indeed, when Hera and Diana so trashed the first bunny inn that we removed it, the sisters went berserk. When the kids installed a replacement, we were instantly gratified witnessing the frenzied explorations. I could speak for the bunnies, but I won’t.
Then there was the mystery and intrigue of the hay loft, accessible only by way of a hazardous twelve-foot vertical wooden ladder that beckoned like Combat to a cockroach (or like flies to... well, you know, the brown stuff we’ve got plenty of). The cats scale it, both up and down, and so do my kids, except when Angel is in the barn: Bobbi’s skittish horse snorts, circles, kicks and emits an unearthly scream at the sound of Elliot and Jane thundering overhead. A thick rubber mat pads the concrete floor beneath the ladder providing me some peace of mind: my kids may mimic little monkeys already, but many of their friends need agility training. Like cats in trees, they would get stranded at the top. As I coaxed quaking visitors backwards and down into the eager hands of confident Elliot and Jane or watched my barn rats help their skeptical friends overcome their fears of bunnies, cats and horses and demonstrate how to handle them, I was reminded of how far we had come and why we bothered. The Weatogue enterprise was a language all its own, and Jane and Elliot were learning it, right down to its most obscure rules of grammar.
Hawk rose to barn mascot and supplied steady entertainment. Kindly patient with the kids, he also learned to live and let live with Bandi. Though separated in adjoining paddocks, squat Hawk still squeezed between the fence and the shared automatic waterer to visit Bandi. They’d squeal and romp and occasionally succumb to violence. Hawk’s strategy was to fit himself right underneath Bandi’s belly between his four legs—a veritable mini-Bandi. Once inserted, he’d kick out in all directions, clipping Bandi’s shins with his cutting hooves. After a few perplexed seconds Bandi uncovered the little monster who for payback, got kicked and knocked over in his rolling retreat to safety through the fence. He is a little stallion, with a Napoleon complex to boot, and fast, too; much to Meghan’s dismay, Hawk beat her racehorse Q at a run. Though Bobbi assured me that Bandi’s and Hawk’s “play” was harmless, we’d decided to geld Hawk to lower that testosterone for his own protection.
Elliot was riding well. He developed a relaxed grace in the saddle, and though he did not aspire to show, he was keen to canter and jump. When Cleo stumbled forward in a canter and Elliot barely held on, he continued unfazed. How I envy that body confidence that kids possess, that invincibility I still faintly remember having had myself. How galloping at great speed was the whole point on my few trail rides as a teenager in New Jersey, faster and faster the only thought in my fool head. Now a slow canter induces the heebie jeebies and I rein in, envisioning the woman at our local equestrian shop, an accomplished rider who fell, hit her head, and lay in an induced coma for weeks. Yes, she was wearing a helmet.
“How is she doing?” I enquired about three months later, figuring I would hear all was well.
“Well, she is starting to recognize people, so that’s a good sign.”
Yikes! my internal alarm systems shouted.
Amazingly, she returned to riding after a year. How do I interpret and apply that data, I wondered?
Deep within my child-body memory I dredged up the security I once owned climbing those old iron monkey bars atop the concrete playground—how ludicrous the idea that I’d lose my grip or misstep my footing. How annoying my parents’ warnings to take care. But now I watch Jane brazenly scale, flip and hang upside down, and the words “be careful” escape my pursed, old lady lips with each daring feat. I try to hold my tongue—the books specify that repeated warnings render children anxious and fearful—but shouldn’t they be cautious? How easy to lose concentration or simply slip. Those precious heads, those delicate spines.
So I aggressively maneuvered myself psychologically to a tolerable place with the riding and the playground and the loft ladder and the high swing in our yard’s willow. And then, just as I relaxed a little, a friend’s daughter broke her arm in three places falling from a playground contraption. What is a mother to do but be anxious and spout warnings? That line between necessary and unnecessary danger is a moving target. I’ve known parents who forbade their kids public sandboxes (germs) and playgrounds (falling). That certainly seemed the wrong side of cautious until one kid nearly lost an eye to an infection from sand that feral cats used nightly as a litter tray, not to mention the fractures that added up. Recently, I dined with a man who spent the last fifteen years in a wheelchair due to a skiing accident. I lifted his wineglass to his shaking lips and un-strapped the spoon from his less paralyzed hand. Spasms racked his body several times an hour. Should we not ski? I thought of those crowded slopes of reckless, hormone-dazed teen snowboarders grinding the flakes to dust, thundering locomotives on my quivering tail: is riding really any more potentially injurious? Should limber kids push the envelope and oldsters quit when bones dry out and spinal tissue ossifies? Insurance actuaries and hedge fund managers are weaklings when it comes to risk assessment: it is parents who do the heavy lifting—24/7.
Though it was gratifying to watch Elliot progress in the saddle, his swan dive into barn life was a less anxiety-producing benefit of the farm. He anticipated working there all summer, in lieu of all camp activities if I would allow it. We negotiated an employment contract of mornings, evenings and non-camp days for $2.00 an hour. Once he started pulling his weight, we’d raise him to $5.00. Pay for honest work thrilled him as I don’t believe in remuneration for household chores (the kids receive a small allowance as “sharers in the family resources,” in line with some parenting hokum I once read). He even devised a form to organize Bobbi’s daily riding schedule. I was pleased he embraced the physicality of mucking out stalls, lugging hay bales, scrubbing water buckets and cleaning tack, as well as extraneous tasks like making hot chocolate for everyone. The whole expensive, emotionally and psychologically stretching horse business “ride” paid off in spades when, out of the blue he announced, “Mom, this farm is the best thing that ev
er happened to our family.”
In addition to the ever-present risk analyses of danger and non-profitability, time was another problem. There was never enough. Now I understood that those people in the dirty riding pants I see racing through the grocery aisles are not pretentious, but simply late getting home from the barn. I undertook each ride with the time-devouring proper grooming, tacking and cleaning up and expected the same thoroughness from my kids, even though Bobbi always insisted: “The important thing is to ride. I know you want to do it all, but we can clean up, just get in the ride.” Because the forty-eight hours of a weekend flew by, and my husband awaited my often-late return, and the kids had other activities requiring parental accompaniment—“Mom! Where have you been?”—on occasion, I’d leave the dusty tack near the sink for the girls to clean and slink off. But I did master these tasks, and when time afforded, I enjoyed saddle-soaping the bridle, girth and saddle, scrubbing the horse saliva and chewed-treat encrusted bit, storing the clean bridle in a tidy figure-eight, hoisting my saddle to the rack, turning the saddle pad up to dry off and air out, all excuses to bask in the afterglow of the ride. This and the grooming—bathing, brushing, combing—rounded out the experience: giving back for the privilege, just being with my horse, meeting his needs, taking good care.
The barn activity induced a peace that I wanted to extend to my riding. I received B. K. S. Iyengar’s Light on Life, an autobiographical account the aged yogi who refined yoga for the working masses (those who can’t spend ten hours a day perfecting triangle pose), and brought his practice to the western world. I read it over several days, mounted safely on a steady, four-legged chair in the Butternut Mountain lodge while my kids careened down weekend-crowded, snowy slopes. Train the mind to live in the moment through the discipline of the body, Mr. Iyengar teaches, don’t anticipate the future or dwell in the past and time will slow and happiness will follow you all your days. Nice advice and a good gig if you can get it, but the practice is excruciatingly difficult, even for those few minutes of Shavasana, or corpse pose, that top off each yoga session. The mind churns busy, busy, perpetual motion. The egotistical brain refuses to shush and allow the body to sensate without its interference. I sipped my hot chocolate, closed my eyes, and vowed to be in the moment, live in the now when I ride because I realized that the thought of riding, the anticipation of all that could go wrong (that too-busy brain), wracks the nerves more than the actual riding, or watching my kids ride. It is in the black of night, away from the riding ring that the “what ifs,” those grisliest possible if not probable scenarios, sabotage the body’s best intentions of release and rest, and brush away any stale childhood crumbs of can-do attitude and ability.
Light on Life worked. My next ride included a walk, trot and canter in the ring on my own. When Bobbi joined me for a trail ride afterwards I felt lighter, buoyant. Out in the field and woods I endured two “spooks”: one when my Bandi picked a half-hearted fight with Toby, just because (who knows? perhaps Toby farted in Bandi’s general direction like the French Taunters in Monty Python and the Holy Grail), and another when Toby shied at a puddle and both horses jumped. But I handled them with calm if not quite grace and shut the door on panic. Briefly reverting to type I wondered why me: why does something always happen on my watch? but refocused on the pleasures of the day, satisfied to have kept my bum in contact with leather.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Spring
EVERYBODY WAS SHEDDING. The stiff and soft brushes overflowed with hair after a single swipe down a neck or across a haunch. We discovered which horses tolerated the sucking whine of the industrial sized vacuum, the only tool up to the job of grooming these giant hair balls.
“It’s still so cold, why are they already shedding so much?” I asked Bobbi as I sucked Bandi a hickey with the nozzle. It “popped” as I pulled it off, and he jumped.
“It’s the light. As soon as the days get longer, the horses’ hair gets shorter.”
“No kidding,” I replied, resting my aching arms.
In vain I sloughed off Willie’s hair, which turned my dirt-hiding navy turtleneck into a white mink. The clogged brush was useless after only two strokes.
“You’ll have to vacuum me off before I head home.”
All those flying protein strands offended my own rather meticulous grooming, but the plague blew through within a couple of weeks. By May the horses molted sleek and thinner, some of them seal-skin smooth and shiny. Bandi was looking good—fit and toned, but still out of sorts. Bobbi called his previous trainer.
“He’s probably bored,” Stacey reminded. “Have you taken him hunter pacing or to some jumper shows? He really needs that.”
So Bobbi, Meghan and I rolled him over to an event in Millbrook for his own entertainment, and he and Meghan performed well across the jumps. This, and the approaching summer set him right again, more like his old self. It became clear that he is an outdoor, over the fences kind of guy, not fancy or refined. He grew more affectionate, so we concluded he had decided to trust us and truly settle in.
The thawing ground sported islands of newly planted grass, and a relieved Scott fast-forwarded to wider swathes of green overtaking the recalcitrant mud and ice. We awaited the elusive three consecutive dry days to enable our AWOL fencer to paint our still raw posts and rails. Elliot jumped and cantered Cleo but my son remained content to snub the show circuit, much to Bobbi’s dismay.
“He looks so good up there,” she sighed, shaking her head. “He’d be great in competition, and Cleo is such a good, safe ride.”
Maybe we were wasting a perfectly good pony, but secretly I rejoiced. Riding was his leisure pursuit, his non-competitive respite from NYC academic and sport life: he was in it for the sheer enjoyment of camaraderie between boy and beast. Jane broke through to trotting, enjoyed it, and even got the hang of posting. While she trotted still tethered to a longe line, she freely wandered the indoor ring at a walk and took pride in her earned independence.
Spring fever gripped us all, and in unison with the beasts we shed our layers of silk long johns, polar fleece and down. Finally the outdoor arena was complete, and the weather beckoned us hibernating, squinting New Englanders out into the light. One seemingly perfect day, I snapped the ritual photo of Jane’s plein-aire debut on Cleo and, content that all was well in hand, ducked back inside to tack up Bandi for my own lesson afterwards. Soon enough, Bobbi and Jane walked into the barn, Jane atop Cleo, in tears.
“We have something very exciting to tell you, Mommy,” Bobbi said in a chipper voice.
“Oh, and that is?”
“Janie is now a real rider.” Bobbi snuck me an “it’s OK” wink.
“I want to tell Mommy,” Jane said through slowing tears.
“What happened, Boo-boo?”
“Cleo jumped and I fell off, all the way to the ground.” She pointed down, indignant.
“Wow. That must have been something. Are you okay?” To deescalate her tension, I managed measured tones.
“It hurt my back,” she emphasized, out to get some sympathy from spine-addled me. But I miserly mask any hysteria so my kids don’t turn into hypochondriacal worriers like me (all parents devise cockamamie strategies to prevent their own phobias infecting the next generation). And I know plenty of cry-baby, body-nervous kids so I am hyper-vigilant against it. According to the gotcha rules of reverse-reverse psychology I will surely now produce one. So, I downplayed Jane’s fall like an Oscar winner, but my internal sirens were rapid firing—bad parent, bad parent, bad, bad parent—spotlighting my billboard-sized headline “AM I PUTTING MY KIDS UNNECESSARILY AT RISK?”
My thoughts rushed on. Boy, Bobbi certainly takes everything casually. Is this a virtue or a fault? Come to think of it I’ve never seen her upset or angry—is she on drugs? She talks awfully fast sometimes. Does she really know what she’s doing? We’re all landing in the dirt. Does she value her life as much as we do ours? Have I not seen her clearly because she fuels my dream? An equine addict, hav
e I miscast the horse dealer my friend? Sometimes she is slow to get things done around the farm. She has even ignored Scott’s direction and hired another part-time worker. . . .
Bobbi sensed my wild-eyed inner turmoil and haltered my bolting brain.
“I’m not completely sure what scared Cleo, but she went, ‘oh-oh—monsters!’ and hustled forward a few paces, and Janie lost her balance. It would have been hard for her to stay on.” We both looked at Jane who was beginning to enjoy the drama. Bobbi continued: “She fell pretty flat, and she wanted to come tell you right away. I asked her if she wanted to walk in, or ride Cleo. She chose to ride.”
“Oh, Janie, you are very brave. Remember when it happened to Mommy on Bandi?”
She nodded slowly, perking up.
“Now we’re both members of the riding club. It happens to all of us, even Bobbi, but we get better at riding, and falling, all the time.” I prayed it was true and swallowed my rising distrust of horses, Bobbi, myself.
Soon she was happy again, and by the next week back on Cleo without any thought of her fall. I noted well the beauty of children: natural little yogis, they don’t dwell on the past. I wish I could bottle their carefree psyches; no wonder we rail at old age. Jane rarely mentioned her mishap, except to brag a bigger injury against her brother’s hockey bruises, but it reminded Bobbi and me that Jane was only five. I reiterated our safety first policy and our vow to proceed slowly against Jane’s capability of learning quickly. My motto for us all was: “There’s no rush.”
Unscathed by what could have, and indeed had happened in a flash, Jane re-trusted her safety to Cleo and Bobbi. Cleo’s startle surprised us, but it can happen to the rock steadiest of horses, and goes with the territory. Plus it was spring, and several of the horses had gotten exuberant. We later figured out that Cleo reliably hops a few steps when prompted to trot with a whip on a longe line, but not off-longe. It’s a subtle quirk, but enough to have unseated a tiny novice. I rethought Bobbi’s nonchalant reaction to Jane’s first tumble and realized there was no sense in all of us panicking nervous hen-style. Maybe the words “you have to break a few eggs in order to make an omelet” are a poor choice, but either I’d have to reconcile myself to the unsettling music or get off this carousel. Unlike us, Bobbi’s seen it all, possessing perspective fore and aft of our maiden voyage. Her calm expertise counter-balanced our newbie theatrics. I aimed to take her experienced lead, but nevertheless anticipated some renewed soul-searching that night in bed.