Panacea

12:39, 21 June 2003

It was all so familiar and yet wondrously new. The feel of the thick dun-coloured britches and the tall boots on my legs, the smells of leather and hay, the snorting exhalations from the stalls, the clanking of bits and stirrups and spurs, the smells of liniment and flyspray, the buckles and straps and attachments, the rythyms of the gaits, the smell of sweat rising from a tired horse's neck.

For the first time in over a year, I went riding this weekend. I used to ride horses competitively for twelve years, rising to the highest level of show jumping: Grand Prix.

I went to horse shows almost every week, competing in Florida in the winters and the NY/CT area in the summers. I rode every day after school, all day during the summers. Riding was literally my life, but not only because of the time committment and dedication I gave to it. I needed to ride. I suppose it is similar to how some people need to run; something is off-kilter otherwise. Riding was a balancing force in my life.

Where high school was a tempest of unwritten rules I didn't seem to know and cliques I didn't seem to belong to, the barn was a world where I fit in. Not only fit in, but led, as I was one of the older and more accomplished riders amongst the group of young girls that trained at my barn. The riding world was my world.

No matter what my mood, going to the barn would set me straight. The silent communication between horse and rider; the slow progress of improving your horse and your riding; the satisfaction of successes, however small: it was all addicting. I would gladly spend all day every day at the barn. All week, all weekend. No wonder I never even noticed that I didn't go to a single party in high school. Riding was my anti-drug.

I had to quit riding sophomore year of college. I had tried to keep it up but the impracticality of going to school outside Chicago while trying to train and compete on the East coast made it impossible. My horses were sold, my tack was stored in the basement, my britches were relegated to the back of the closet. I rode when I came home to visit sometimes, but even that tapered off. I had been an excellent rider, and the idea that I might have lost my touch increasingly frightened me away from visiting the barn on vacations. One day I realised that I had not sat on a horse in a year.

Granted, there are many other controlling factors involved in the crumbling of my life, but I can't help feeling that when I quit riding is when it all started to fall apart. I look back on high school as such an age of innocence, of uncomplication, of satisfaction. To be sure, I had my problems with boys and parents and friends and schoolwork, but for the most part my life was happy and I was content. I suppose leaving home for college and the attendant immersion in the party/student culture was most to blame for initiating the unravelling of my life, but losing the stabilising force that riding was for me... that cannot have helped.

So before I even left LA I called the barn and set up a time for me to ride. I was jonesing so bad that I literally got home, hugged my Mom hello, threw on my riding clothes and sped up to the barn. I surprised myself with what I still had in me, deep down, packed away and forgotten until this weekend's reawakening. My muscles had lost their strength but not their memories. My body moved, reacting to and communicating with my horse, and I was impressed. Consistently surprised as I watched as if from the sidelines, noticing all the things I did right, instinctively. Sensing the horse drifting left, my right leg tightened behind the girth. When my horse was stiff to the right, I moved into a haunches-in to soften him and bring him back on the bridle. When one mare got frustrated and threatened to rear up, I adjusted my body and spurred her forward.

Hours. I rode for hours; two horses per day. When I used to ride regularly, that would have been a quick day for me. I often rode five or six horses per day in the summers back then. Once I rode nine, which is pretty much nine hours in the saddle. No wonder I could eat anything I wanted. This weekend, though, after riding Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I was pretty much out of commission. I knew I was pushing myself too hard but I really didn't care. Every muscle in my body was screaming as early as Wednesday afternoon. By Friday I couldn't risk sitting still for more than ten minutes because I might stiffen up into complete paralysis. It was heavenly.

I didn't even wait to get back to LA before I got on the phone to one of my old trainers, Tasha, who works out in the LA-area now. I have got to get myself to a barn out there. Seriously, there is absolutely nothing more all-inclusively perfect for me than riding. It is psychiatric medication, exercise, relaxation, self-improvement and a point of pride all rolled in to one. Plus, fuck Piyush and his bottled bouquets--nothing smells better than a well-kept barn.