A decade ago in the California desert, I had the opportunity to go horseback riding with my uncle. He gave me a choice between a very passive older horse who didn’t much like to run and Sneaky Snip, an ornery former race horse who’d been abused in his racing days and, as a result, was now “a bit unstable.” With all the confidence of a 21-year-old convinced of his infallibility, I chose the latter, not bothering to ask what exactly “a bit unstable” meant.
Having ridden horses fairly extensively during my tenth grade year, I considered myself quite a horseman. I knew, for example, to always keep the ball of my foot in the stirrup (rather than the back of the foot, because if you get your foot hooked in the stirrup and then get thrown, you’ll end up with at least one broken bone if not several). I knew that riding is all about your legs and the reins; hanging onto the saddle with your hands when a horse takes off not only surrenders control but can also potentially loosen or shift the saddle (not a good thing). Finally, I knew to be extra careful when heading back toward the stables, since horses like to get home quickly when they know they’re on their way.
The ride started off fine. We made our way through some brush-covered hills and then galloped for a while down a long sandy wash. On the way back, cocky about how well I’d done with the infamous Mr. Snip, I took the lead on a particularly narrow and treacherous stretch, one that skirted a ridge with a steep drop on the right. On the left there was a rocky, cactus-, scorpion- and rattlesnake-filled deathyard. The sun blazed overhead. The wind stilled. Just as we were passing the vultures perched on a pile of human skulls…(okay, okay, I’m exaggerating a bit–there was actually a slight breeze)…Sneaky Snip took off. Bucking wildly, he darted through the deathyard, trying his damnedest to get me off so he could enjoy the rest of his trip home. I dropped the reins and grabbed the pommel of the saddle like a fundamentalist grabbing her Bible at a nudist, gay Wicca convention. My left foot lost its stirrup while my right foot got tangled in the other. I took a moment to wonder whether it would hurt more to have my leg broken or my head crushed and whether there was such a thing as being drawn and halved. I also noted, with a wee bit of concern, that I was no longer in the seat of my saddle, but rather sitting on the horse’s rear end. This made the bucking action even more…well…fun. Indeed, for the flicker of a second between flashes of my coming doom, I realized I was having fun. That’s about the time Sneaky Snip stopped bucking, slowed to a bumpy trot and then, just like that, stopped.
For the last two months, between caring for the brand new baby, struggling with a massive escalation in work load at my job, taking the GRE, GMAT, and LSAT back-to-back, getting sicker than a plague monkey with irritable bowel syndrome and a head cold, and volunteering as a precinct captain for Obama–I’ve felt a bit like I was back on that horse’s ass being bounced toward oblivion. And yet–with 99th percentile scores on the tests, a blowout for Obama (he got 8 of 8 delegates in my precinct), and watching my newest daughter learn to smile–I have to admit the last month’s been perhaps even more fun than that ride from hell. Of course, I’ve mentioned nothing about my writing.
How’s that going, you ask? The short answer: about as well as Hillary did in precinct 747 last night inasmuch as I’ve produced bupkus. The long answer: tomorrow, I’ll be sufficiently caught up on work to take a couple of hours in the morning to write. Perhaps Friday will give me a couple of hours as well. And heck, my tests are done, grad school applications are the better part of a year away, and my new assignment as a delegate for Obama and Congressman Udall doesn’t require anything from me until March 8th.
Eventually, miraculously, if you hang on long enough…the horse stops.
Thanks for the encouragement, Aaron. I have been on a bit of a Sneaky Snip ride myself of late, and your words really help. Congrat’s on your recent victories and rewards, and thanks again for lighting up my life with your Diascribe, particularly the Angmar series. Be well, rock on, and write, write, write.