January 2013

The temperature outside is minus twelve, and it is dark. One other car sits frozen in the ice-glazed parking lot at the Sage Creek barn. I am willing the last bit of warmth into my fingers and toes before I step into the cold to halter, saddle, and bridle Woody for my lesson with Dallas. Snow crystals dance playfully in the beams of my headlights. Beyond the half-dozen horse trailers, the roof of the barn and stables, and across the flat fields of the Heber Valley, the black outline of the Wasatch Mountain Range rises against a night-grey Utah sky. I turn off the engine, sit and listen to the silence.

My one-year-old twins are at home with Dan in our mountain cabin we affectionately call Treehouse, where every morning begins with Kalvin and Grace screeching with delight from their side-by-side cribs when we open their door. It’s like Christmas morning every morning when they see us; and after three years, five rounds of invitro fertilization, five doctors in five states, and two gestational surrogates, Dan and I feel exactly the same, living in a state of intense gratitude for Kalvin and Grace and the joy that fills our home.

I step out of the car, my exhalations condensing into little clouds ahead of me. My nose freezes up and the frigid air make its way down into my lungs. The skin on my bare hand protests when I touch the frosted handle of the stable door. Why I don’t wear gloves is an absolute mystery. Inside, I pass horses shifting under their blankets and neck hoods. They point their ears in my direction and glance up at the sound of my boots-steps clicking against the cold cement.

Woody’s stall is empty. He must be outside. The heavy aluminum door separating his stall and turnout is frozen to the ground. I wrap my fingers around the edge of the door, put one foot on the wall and push back until the door finally budges.

“Hi good boy,” I coo as Woody turns towards me. He has icicles hanging from his chin whiskers, mane, tail, and the bottom of his blanket. I rub his nose as I halter and lead him inside.

It was never my intention to fall in love with a horse. I’m in love with too much already, overwhelmed I’d say by the abundance in my life: my husband, my new children, family and friends; cello, photography, hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, and travel. I want to learn to paint and play guitar. I want to sit for days in a bookstore, absorbing humanity through pages. The fact that I cannot do it all, cannot devote my entire self to all of it produces a low-grade anxiety, a whisper of discontent I can never quite lose.

And now there’s Woody. Seven hours a week, at least, between travel and riding. But I need him, I need his companionship and ability to permeate the snow-globe of guilt and anger in which I have been living.

I halter Woody, rub his nose, and lead him inside. By the time I have Woody tied to the stall bars, I’m hopping up and down and swinging my arms, trying to stop the slow creep of frigid pain that has started working its way up my thumbs and fingertips. I used to saddle Woody in the cross ties, but he’s such a gentle boy, I’ve taken to saddling him in his stall. It’s faster. I struggle to undo the metal clips of Woody’s turnout blanket. I’m getting antsy now. I know there is warm water in the barn kitchen. Once I get Woody saddled and into the arena, I can run my hands under the kitchen faucet. But I’ve got to get him there first.

I throw Woody’s turnout blanket in the locker, grab his saddle pad and saddle blanket, and place them on his back. My movements are erratic, too quick, and Woody startles.

“I’m sorry buddy, my hands are just cold,” I say. I’ve known since the day we met three months ago that Woody is my mirror. If I come with agitation, he physically inhabits that agitation. If I come with calm and patience, Woody lowers his head and melts into my hands; his mind is soft while attentive, his body flexible and responsive. But this morning, he shows me my own discomfort by pulling his head away and lifting it suddenly. His eyes are alert and his ears are straight up. He takes small side steps trying to move away from or dissipate my anxious energy. He does not like my influx of urgency.

I try to slow down. I’m standing too close to Woody’s feet, ducking under his chin, all the things I know not to do around a horse. I take a deep breath and blow on my fingers. Slow down. But my fingers really hurt now. Saddle. I don’t bother with the cinch. Helmet. I don’t even try to buckle the helmet, I just rest it on my head. Next are my boots. My fingers are too cold to grip the tops. My leather cowboy boots themselves are cold and stiff, like putting my feet in a meat locker. I struggle to get them on. I struggle badly to get them on. But then Woody’s body is warm; I rub my hands on his neck and shoulders, willing his heat into my fingertips.

“Good boy,” I whisper. But he’s annoyed. Horses, like humans, don’t do well with emotional whiplash. “I’m sorry, it’s okay, we’re going now,” I say as much to Woody as to myself.

I untie and lead him out of the stall. In my haste, I haven’t opened the stall enough. A stirrup catches on the stall door and startles Woody again. His feet slip on the concrete, but he recovers quickly. “It’s okaaay, handsome, it’s okay, good boy. I’m sorry.”

This is my fault, his rushed start to the day, like enduring a marching band in your bedroom when you haven’t had morning coffee. And still, I can’t help rushing him down the corridor toward the indoor arena. It will be warmer there, by a bit. I press the button and watch the giant garage door rise until there’s enough room for Woody to fit under. I lead him through, and close the door behind him, careful not to let him too near the plant he snacked on the last time. It was a novice mistake that I imagine never ceases to entertain the trainers. But this morning, there’s nobody here except Woody and me.

At the posts I tie the second knot Dallas taught me. “This one is easier,” she’d said after watching me struggle for weeks. “This is the one I taught my kids when they were first starting.” Dallas’ youngest son is seven. Right. But I learned early on that packing pride for this journey with Woody was pointless. So I tie the beginner’s knot, grab Woody’s snaffle, and head for the kitchen faucet. I’ve been in such a rush, I’ve forgotten to turn on the lights. In the dark, I run warm water on my hands.

Blood is surging again in tiny capillaries; my fingers feel as if they’re being scalded from the inside out. I run Woody’s snaffle under the warm water. Nobody wants a mouthful of cold metal in the morning. With the greeting I just gave him, it’s the least I can do.

Woody is waiting patiently when I return to the arena. I rub his head and his neck, and I tell him I’m sorry. He snorts and grinds his teeth, which Dallas told me is an equine sign of relaxation. Then Woody leans into my hands, ever so slightly. I am forgiven.

“You are such a good boy.” I hug him around his neck. I’ve been warned not to humanize a horse, but I’m not entirely sure what that means, so I just do what feels good, and it feels good to hug my horse. Then I tighten his cinch, careful not to stick my entire head under his belly.

“A person can get kicked in the face that way,” Dallas had said the week before. I listened and said thank you, aware that what she was teaching me was as basic as brushing my teeth.

As I said, my pride doesn’t get to come riding. It’s probably back at home, keeping warm.

I take the halter off Woody’s nose, but keep it looped around his neck. I ease the snaffle to his mouth and reach my thumb toward the inch of gums between his front teeth and back molars. It’s still a miracle to me I don’t lose my fingers doing this; all of them. But Woody opens his mouth, takes in the snaffle with his tongue, and I retain my digits to freeze another day.

“Good boy,” I smile. Bridling Woody is an accomplishment for me. I think about Kalvin and Grace, just learning to walk, taking two steps and looking up at me with huge expectant grins. And I think about my ninety-six-year-old grandma, equally proud to use her walker instead of her wheelchair when we go to meals down the hall at her assisted living residence.

I run the headpiece over Woody’s ears and gently bend each ear through the brow band. Then I pull his forelock free so none of his mane gets tugged on or tangled. Finally, I untie his halter and throw it aside. The empty arena is still dark as I lead Woody to the center of the ring and stand talking, whispering, and singing to him while we wait for Dallas.

Dallas had been introduced to us as a possible trainer adept at working with a beginner such as myself. Dallas was my age, thirty-six, but with four kids ages eleven to sixteen. A petite five four, she nevertheless had the energetic bearing of a taller woman, a woman confident in her body. Her shoulder-length black hair set off her blue eyes, behind which I sensed her fierce determination. She had married at eighteen to escape an overbearing strict Mormon patriarch of a father, only to find found herself embedded in another LDS family, that of her husband’s, where she was expected to have babies, cook, obey, and walk the line. Dallas complied for a while, staying at home when her two eldest girls were young. But when the boys arrived, she migrated toward horses, learning how to break colts, train dressage horses, and eventually train their humans as well. Her husband’s family, and the church she continued to attend, frowned upon her independence, the same independence that would later keep her family afloat as her husband drifted in an out of sobriety and rehab facilities. In the short time I’d known Dallas, I couldn’t imagine her as anything but a working mom.

When the lights in the ring flick on, I know Dallas has arrived.

“Will you check the saddle?” I ask.

Dallas shakes the saddle horn and runs her hand under the latigo. “The cinch could be tighter,” she says.

I reach for the latigo. “Good boy,” I murmur. Woody would never bite me but some horses will, so I keep one eye forward as I snug the saddle to Woody’s body. “You do love to bloat, silly boy.”

I take the reins over his neck, hold the saddle horn, place my left foot in the stirrup and step up onto his back. I rock back and forth, shifting my weight between the stirrups until I find the sweet spot of a balanced center. My abs are firm, my chest is open, my legs and hips are loose. As the weight of my body settles into the grounding of the present moment, I feel something else within me settle as well. Woody responds with his own gentle snorting exhale. He is relaxed and happy, ready to work. I lean forward and rub his neck, “my Woody boy, such good boy.”