Anna Blake It’s time to change the tone of the conversation.
Labor Day Message
Exist together inside every stride; feel freedom and cooperation as equals.
I can’t remember a summer when I’ve hugged more strangers who know me intimately.
Life is art. Art is life.
I’ve had a hard time acting my age. That’s not it, exactly. It’s more like I’m straddling the Grand Canyon between my usual teen angst and dealing with the fact I’m supposed to be wearing support hose. It all started with my birthday. Two years ago.
Then recently a donkey came to the rescue that I work with. She was nothing special, really. Her “selling point” was her age, I guess. We joked about needing to carbon date her. We’re guessing upper thirties. At least.
Rare Optimism
Dressage isn’t perfect, but what part is baby and what part is bath water?
Watching the Dressage competition at the Olympics was inspirational. And horrific. There were impeccable riders with fluid bodies and invisible cues. And riders who were brutal, with hard hands and cruel methods. There were horses who were light and brilliant; who moved with such freedom and elegance that it took my breath away. There were horses whose bodies were so filled with tension and resistance, that I choked just watching.
Wrong to rhyme?
A horsewoman told me that, at sixty-three, she was the proud owner of her very first horse trailer. I let out a congratulatory yell and I’ve been smiling all day. Trailers add a layer of independence to the freedom we feel with horses.
Do you remember your first horse trailer? Mine was a navy blue two-horse straight load. It was the late ’80s and no one I knew wanted to show their horse but me. I’d been preparing for years, buying spare buckets and hay nets and trailer gadgets. Finally, I talked a friend into buying one together. It weighed a bit more than my truck–without horses in it. The inside had rust that you couldn’t really see because it had been spray painted silver. There was a tiny dressing room up front with saddle racks at an impossible angle and I could not believe my wild luck.