I was super thrilled today to be invited on my second annual Mother’s Day ride by Laurèn.
We warmed up in the indoor arena. Laurèn is an amazing and patient teacher. We mounted our horses—her with grace, me with a jump-jump-jump heave, fall, repeat.
You know how horseback riders often look like an extension of their horse; they move with fluidity; they are at times one motion, one intention? I did not embody that. Turning the horse is a combination of synchronous movements (and thoughts I’m convinced). One leg on, one leg off, shorten reigns on one side, reign to hip, look where you want to go, “And for God’s sake, DON’T LEAN—IT’S NOT A BIKE!” I’m pretty sure that when I executed a turn I looked like a person having a seizure, and my horse maintained his position until I was done.
Breathe.
Eventually—when Laurèn felt confident I could leave the fenced-in area—we went for a ride up the hill and through the trees. That was cool, except for the fact that the girth of Laurèn on Muffet was not equal to the girth of me and Little Joe and I lost a few chunks of my knee caps on the edges of trees.
We came out of the trees and Laurèn said, “How do you feel about trotting down hill?”
I said, “I feel great.”
She turned Muffet with just the use of her legs — show off — and I struggled to tuck in behind. She started off down the hill. Little Joe began to follow.
“Oh no!” I screamed (still at a walk); Laurèn wheeled around just in time to see me riding “side saddle” — the saddle had pitched over the right side of the horse and I remained firmly seated in the saddle . . . right up until the moment gravity took over, and then I hit the ground, landing on my forearm. I’m pretty sure I heard a snap, it could have been one of the tendons or ligaments in my arm, or possibly just a dead branch catching the bulk of me.
Laurèn trotted over. Both horses looked really big from down there. Little Joe looked at me with a slight smile—Nice one—and Laurèn burst out laughing.
“What are you doing Mom?” she said.
What does it look like I am doing? Weeding?
“Why didn’t you just put your leg down?” she asked.
I conjured that image: Saddle on the side of the horse, my left leg in the stirrup—on the horse’s back—and my right leg on the ground. Imagine how many muscles and tender bits I may have torn if I had done that!
Laurèn dismounted. Between fits of laugher and yelling out to nobody—“You FELL off Little Joe!”—she managed to straighten out my saddle.
“Technically I didn’t fall off,” I murmured, “My saddle fell off, and then I merely fell off the saddle.”
Ba-ha-ha “You FELL off Little Joe!”
The rest of the ride was almost uneventful. Due to my propensity to lean when I am executing a turn, my saddle started to pitch over again; but I stood up, while still moving, and put all of my weight on the other side, and straightened things out.
At one point I told Laurèn, “I can’t feel my feet, my knees feel as though they are splitting, and I think all the bones in my pelvis have come unhinged.”
She looked me over carefully and said, “Okay, let’s head down into that pasture, then we can race back up the track, cool down in the corral, and then we’ll tack down.”
I stared at her wondering if I had actually spoken out loud. And then like a drugged fool I said, “Okay.”
I’m not gonna lie, I loved the ride. It felt pretty good on Little Joe’s back. But the best part was being alongside of Laurèn as she does this thing she loves and excels at. The role of teacher and student is reversing more times than I care to admit as my kids hit their teen years.
In the end, I felt every bit my age. The outer edges of my baby toe joints throbbed and pushed against my boots; the shins on my left leg felt as if I’d played a whole game of soccer with no padding; my knees felt dislocated, and the muscles in between my shoulder blades pulled so tight that I think I went up a full cup size in front!
Thank goodness Mother’s Day only comes once a year.
