Month: December 2003 (Page 1 of 2)

Okay, this is the job (however I do not want that kind of hair!) I want: some administrativia, some teaching, personnel management, and probably time to ride my own horse(s). Why didn’t I think of this before? I think I’ve been spending too much time trying to be SOMEBODY. Apparently I thought I wasn’t ANYBODY. All my life I’ve felt like I’ve been trying to rise above something. What? The poverty? Growing up a farm girl when it wasn’t cool? Okay, I’m not poor anymore and no one makes fun of me for being a farm girl (even if I still have an appetite like one!). And I have news for myself: a facility manager is SOMEBODY.

I can’t start the Pierce College Equine Science program until 1) they accept me and 2) February 9, when the term starts. I feel like an excited little girl just before Christmas. I can’t concentrate on any one thing nor do I want to. I’m on vacation so I don’t have to. Come Monday, it’s back to cell counts but NOT business as usual.

Dave is being incredibly supportive. He doesn’t tease me about changing my mind AGAIN. He recognizes that I’m on a journey and that journey has had a few dead-ends but generally he thinks I’m on the right path. I’m encouraged by his observations. I’ve been tempted to think that my journey has been an aimless wander. He also trusts that I’m not going to do anything stupid as to waste the resources we’ve built together. I’m a cautious but determined traveler.

I wasn’t exactly a child when I got married, not like Ellie was. I was 23, while she was 16 but I believe I was just about as worldly. Had more gumption and spunk than knowledge at the time. I had been on my own for five years at the time, which I thought gave me all the life knowledge I needed. There. I’ve lived my life, so now it’s time to get married and get on with the business of being an adult. Perhaps I thought getting married would make me a legitimate adult, which is funny because fourteen years later I still occasionally wonder whether I’m a legitimate adult.

Back then, in 1989, I had a good job as a bookkeeper, I lived on 1.5 acres in a double-wide with new carpet. I had a dog and two horses. Looking back, that should have been enough but I wanted more. I felt stretched so I thought adding a husband would provide balance, not knowing that a husband, that husband, would make me lopsided, on the wrong side, the side that was away from me.

College was still in front of me then. In some ways college took me backward. Oh wait, I was supposed to be here when I was 18. Now I’m 23 and don’t fit in very well because I’m older and married. Backward then forward, forward then backward. A married adult when I should’ve been a kid, a college kid when I was a married adult. I couldn’t find my peers nor my own bearings. Marriage didn’t help. It was confining because I had married a man with no imagination. He made fun of my imagination as if I was childish. Perhaps I was but so what, I say now.

I’m more comfortable being childish now. People who are close to me laugh at me when I describe my dreams. That hurts but I still go forward, wide-eyed and wondering what it might be like to… then I tell someone and she laughs. What’s so funny I wonder. Why is she laughting when I’m serious? It doesn’t hurt now because I’m filled with wonder and she’s not. Too bad for her.

I remember when I was getting married in 1989. An adult relative thought I wasn’t ready. She was probably right then. I felt very stubborn about it. I was going to do it and could not see any reason not to. I felt the burden of proof. Too in love with the idea of graduating into an adult and not seeing the myriad of choices, like enjoying my youth.

Several months before I met my husband, Dave, I had ended yet another frustrating relationship. My next relationship, I decided, was going to be the final long-term relationship. If in the beginning I recognized the old pattern of feeling that “oh well, everyone has faults”, I would take a step back and examine the relationship. But before I even got in that deep I wanted to set some standards up front, like: has basic manners and uses them frequently, does not have a tobacco habit, is gainfully employed, etc. Using this process worked for me. I didn’t even have to work that hard at sorting through the frogs before I found my prince. If any of the most important criteria was not met, I didn’t get attached so the lesser relationships easily went by the wayside until I met Dave.

Now, as part of my Manifest Destiny or Intentions for 2004, I’m going to set the same kind of criteria for my working life. If I get involved in something, graduate school or otherwise, and the criteria is not met, then it will go in the junk pile and I’ll start over, just like with my relationships in 1999.

Manifest Destiny or Intentions 2004 for My Working Life:
a) I want to be happy to go to work everyday.
b) I require a certain minimum salary that is not huge but must be met.
c) I must feel appreciated for the work I do.
d) The commute must be no longer than one hour, 30 minutes is preferable.
e) I want to feel as though I don’t need to look for another job for a while (a year or two at first) because I feel satisfied with what I’m doing; contentment.
f) I must be challenged but not overwhelmed.
g) I must feel ownership but also feel like I can go home, literally and figuratively.
h) I must have time and energy for my outside interests.

There. Now go out to the Universe and Make It So.

I borrowed the title of today’s entry from Pomegranatesandpaper. It is time to manifest my own destiny. Had a kick in the butt Christmas Eve morning. Why must some of us learn the hard way? Wish I had an answer to that question but at the very least I recognize this tendency in myself and am determined to do something about it.

My graduate program is not going well at UCLA. There. I’ve said it. It’s not that I’m not capable. I am. I’m capable of most things I’m interested in. The key word is interest. So. I’m going to finish my Master’s, which requires 10 more class units and a paper. The research is almost done for a paper. All I have to do is write the darn thing.

If you’ve been following along, you know that I’m intensely interested in horses. I don’t have any faith at all that I’ll ever be able to make a good living working with horses but I sure like to spend my free-time with them. So. I’ve taken another leap. This one has a soft landing though. I decided to apply to Pierce College here in LA. The campus is close to home, the units are cheap, AND they have an agriculture program that includes Equine Science. And I can do this while I finish the requirements at UCLA.

Why didn’t I think of this before? I was too busy thinking I was a scientist, yet not entirely enjoying the process. The program at Pierce is good cheap, educational fun. I don’t have to DO anything but enjoy it. And open myself up to the possiblities of working with horses. If it doesn’t work out, I don’t have a huge financial and emotional investment in it (unlike my program at UCLA, from which I have to divorce my emotions).

Manifest Destiny for 2004:
1) Follow my heart and do what I love.
2) Reject the shoulda/woulda/coulda’s.
3) Reject the inner critic who tells me what is practical and sensible
4) Accept only the things that light my fire — my fire has been cold for too long
5) Deeply examine myself and accept and LOVE what I find
6) Pursue the spiritual side of myself that has also been cold for too long

That’s enough for one year, no? Follow my bliss.

I thought I was handling the stress of the season well but last night I tossed and turned, slept deeply for a while then woke up too early with a knot in my stomach. I’ve never handled social events very well and there are a number of them this time of year. Dave and I haven’t had a moment to ourselves in what seems like quite a while although it’s probably only been half a week.

I’ve been trying to do way too much: coming to campus everyday to try to get some research done, the holiday shopping (I refused to set foot in a mall because the malls were a mess BEFORE Thanksgiving so I did everything online), and now visiting with relatives who have come in from out of town. We see them so infrequently that we want to spend every spare minute with them.

Tonight we’re having family over to listen to Christmas cds and eat pie, if I get it made. We have to stop at the grocery store on our way home this afternoon. Tomorrow we are obligated to go to two Christmas dinners. It doesn’t sound like a lot but the knot in my belly tells me it’s too much. There’s nothing I can do now but wait until Friday. That seems like a long way away right now. My attitude is rapidly degrading to Bah Humbug!

And, oh my, how busy the days suddenly became! Dave’s sister, brother-in-law, and 2-year old nephew arrived in town from southern Oregon on Thursday. They rested up from the drive on Friday then the fun began on Saturday. First I had a riding lesson Saturday morning on my favorite lesson horse, Washington. I just love this horse and would love to buy him but there’s the little problem of my not having a job at the moment. The horse is likely for sale because he’s not a good lesson horse. Only a few people can ride him, not because he’s mean or anything but because somewhere in his career he lost his confidence and won’t do many things he used to do. Despite all that and despite that other capable riders won’t ride him, he has become the object of my affection. Sigh… I hope to ride him next Saturday too.

After my lesson we stopped at Shakey’s Pizza to pick up a bunch of pizzas for lunch at Dave’s parents’ house. Dave played with the nephew for several hours, while I got to catch up with adults for a while. I was exhausted already when we went home in the late afternoon. Still we had one more event to attend: the Gay Men’s Chorus of LA holiday show. The chorus was fabulous, as usual, with their combination of antics (you should’ve seen they’re version of “Santa Baby”!) and very serious songs. The Vox Femina (the LA women’s chorus) also performed in the first half of the show. They have voices of angels. Afterward, we waited for my friend who is in the chorus. It was his second performance of the day and it showed in his face. Sunday he would have two more.

We got home after 11:00 p.m., which is very late for us. I woke up too early on Sunday, didn’t feel rested but couldn’t go back to sleep. I lazed around in my bathrobe all morning and into the afternoon. At 3:00 we were to be back at his parents’ house so we could follow the sister, BIL, and nephew to Pasadena for Evensong at All Saint’s Episcopal Church. Our mutual friend, Jim, is the bass soloist in the Canterbury Choir. Evensong featured a multi-part Bach piece in which Jim sang two duets with the soprano and a solo. Jim sings barbershop quartet at Disneyland for his real job (if you saw the movie “Haunted Mansion”, his voice is one of the graveyard statues singing barbershop quartet). It was wonderful to hear him sing opera during Evensong.

The service was beautiful and I’m convinced that I want to go back to more services. Church service is one of the few times I’m in the present. I’m searching for more times when I’m in the present. So far, I’m in the present when I’m riding horses, doing yoga, church, and a few of the tasks I do for my research. I’m defininitely on the right track. Also, what was interesting about the service yesterday is that I have not attended church since I was a teenager (we were Lutheran). Back then I didn’t think about the recitations and now I am. What is the “communion of saints”? Church definitely has different meaning for me as a mature (finally!) adult than it did as a kid, where I just accepted the words without thinking about them.

The good news is that Mike came through 5 1/2 hours worth of brain surgery. The first critical step in recovery is surving the surgery. Apparently the surgeons had planned to wait until after Christmas to perform the surgery but we heard that he may have taken a turn for the worse, despite previous positive responses to a cocktail of medication.

Next is months worth of recovery and therapy. Please keep your thoughts and prayers coming.

After my riding lesson yesterday,t I counted how many riding lessons I’ve had since I started in earnest last April. Thirty-two on about twelve different horses. On my Thursday lessons I’ve been riding Rainy more often. A couple months ago I had a bit of a scare on him where he dove to the right over a jump. I nearly fell off as he careened around the arena with me unbalanced and without stirrups. That instructor wanted me to stick with good old reliable but arthritic Louie. I enjoy riding Louie but feel bad about how many lessons he’s in. Often two a day, more on Saturdays and Sundays. Everyone gets a day off on Monday.

Anyway, even though I’m riding Rainy much better these days I still don’t trust him as much as Louie. Rainy tends to freak out over small things and yesterday there was a man on a ladder working on a light near the arena. I expected him to spook every time we went by and to make sure he (Rainy) was paying attention to me, I wiggled his reins a little bit at that end of the arena. All went fine.

Devilyn had me and another rider do a rather complicated course. There was one technical, sharp turn. It went like this: jump, turn sharply, jump. The thing with Rainy is that I have to “recover” after each jump so there’s not a lot of time to organize myself and him to get to another jump quickly. After he jumps he tends to pull his head down as if he’s going to buck. If I’m not balanced, which I’m frequently not at this stage, he pulls me forward. I missed the turn most times I tried. Once I got it, Devilyn let me rest. All the other jumps went fine; I did them in the right order, cleanly, and without scaring myself. By the end of the lesson Rainy started listening to my cues more. Figures. Guess we’re both paying better attention by then.

It’s really amazing to think how far I’ve come in my riding since July. In July I was just trotting over poles and occasionally trotting over a cross-rail. Now I’m cantering full courses that include oxers. The jumps still aren’t very high (less than 3 feet) but memorizing the pattern and setting up for them (not to mention staying aboard) is not easy. I get to ride again tomorrow.

Last night we found out that a friend of ours, who is about 30, will undergo surgery for a brain tumor in a couple days. Over the last couple months he didn’t feel “quite right”, started getting headaches, then lost his abiility to write his own name. By the time his parents took him to the hospital he had lost his ability to speak.

The doctors have identified a brain tumor and our friend is speaking again. We expect that he may be in the hospital over Christmas. Please send your thoughts and prayers over to Arizona over the next few days.

When we got up this morning it didn’t seem like it was going to rain. Thankfully it only started after my riding lesson and after we watched the team cow penning competition at the LA Equestrian Center. It was plenty cold though, except while I was riding.

Rode a horse called Wisconsin today. He’s a very reliable horse over jumps. His only fault is that he tends to be lazy at first but after he warms up he’s like a puffing steam engine and trots around the arena a little faster than necessary. We did the usual warm up trot and canter in circles and in different directions. Then did an exercise intended to make us sharper: we trotted over a cross-rail then halted for 5 seconds. Then picked up a working trot, went over another cross-rail , then halted before the oxer. It was a great exercise and caused both Wisconsin and I to think every step of the way. The next exercise was similar but involved cantering over an oxer then immediately downward transition into a trot to go over a cross-rail, halt. Pick up a canter then go over a cross-rail. The hardest part for me was the downward transition to the trot. It’s much easier to keep cantering. It’s also difficult to get a working trot or canter on short notice but that was easier than the downward transition. I didn’t expect that.

After my lesson we walked over to the arena where the Cattle Bowl team penning competitions were taking place. To my pleasant surprise, Dave really enjoyed watching the competition. He’s only interested in horses vicariously. I always expect him to be bored at competitions. He does get bored at jumping competitions. We only left the cattle penning event because we were both freezing. These harsh southern California winters….

The way team penning works is that three riders are assigned three cows to cut out of a herd of about 30 then drive them into a pen at the other end of the arena. The fastest time wins. The action is fast and furious. The horses have to be very agile, stopping quickly and turning an animal smaller than itself. The riders mostly have to just stay on if there horse has lots of “cow”. I don’t like seeing riders jerking their horses faces around and spurring them. Most horses zero on the designated cow once they understand which one to go for, then they do all the work. When I played cow games on my horse Prince, I pointed him at a cow then let go of the reins and hung on the saddle horn, hoping I could stay with him. He knew a lot more about cows than I did. Someday when we have our own place, I’ll have my jumping horse and my cow horse. First I must graduate and get a job. Always first things first. Darn it!