This evening, I took George out to graze.
After a time, I felt that I should put him back and let Bridget have a turn. But I was tired. Today was the first day getting up for the school bus, and I had run out of energy. For the first time I was struck by my complete, utter, and debilitating lack of conviction. Am I like this all the time, or only when I'm tired?
How could I accomplish the task of putting a reluctant George back in the pasture and extricating Bridget when I lacked all conviction? If he were "trained," I could just push a button, and it would happen. But that's not how we roll these days.
I wondered how I could ever summon up the energy and conviction to perform such a task. Or ever get the horses to do anything at all. It gradually dawned on me that I could in fact just let it slide, that in this moment, maybe it was ok to just traipse along lackadaisically beside George.
And then I started thinking about how while we applaud horses for "being in the moment," it is so very difficult for us to be like them. If I were truly in the moment, I would have unclipped George's lead rope and gone for a nap in the hammock. But I couldn't do that, because George (unlike Chloe) might go out onto the road. And besides, it was getting to be 5:30 and I really had to start dinner, because we have to go to bed by a certain time, because the school bus is arriving at a certain time tomorrow. A string of abstractions was going to have substitute for real motivation.
Finally it really was time to go back in the house. I couldn't conjure up the will to do anything energetic or clever to make George follow me, so I resorted to the simple expedient of walking toward the gate without looking back. He followed me with almost no resistance (apart from a couple of tugs on the lead rope as he snagged some last bites of grass en route).
Dinner is in the oven. Tomorrow is another day.
I know that feeling of tiredness. And I do believe that our horses do too - Ben certainly always knows when I am faking energy. School starts a week earlier with you. We have this week, thankfully, to get organised.
ReplyDeleteYes, don't you think that using a stick is "faking energy"? If I'm lacking oomph, but my "ought-to" mind says the horse should do something, and I use the stick to achieve it, I've kind of turned myself into a machine, haven't I? I
ReplyDeleteDo you think the horse sees the disconnect between the energy we really have in our body, and the fake energy of the stick/spur/whip? When we ask for movement with those artificial tools, it's coming from a very different place, probably a place where the horse is not very at home.