Wrangler Dani

My friend Ami told me a story I’d forgotten. By her telling, she was loping through a field, riding a mare which used to be mine, and the mare was moving out nicely, loping along, when she suddenly saw a pivot track in the dirt. She’d loped over at least a dozen of these already with no problems, she’d been warmed up, Ami is a terrifically balanced and confident rider. But the horse saw this pivot track and reacted instantly – fear, aggression, sheer terror – the horse sprung to the side and Ami came off (no easy feat, let me tell you – I have looked up to Ami as a heck of a horsewoman for more than a decade of friendship).

We laughed about it when she reminded me of the incident – swapped a couple more “remember that ding-dong” stories and agreed that we’re too old for crazy horses these days.

This morning I rode another mare who shied to the side over a similarly pedestrian incident. I laughed, shaking my head. We weren’t moving fast and she’s not as wild as the mare from Ami’s story, so it was less dramatic, but it was still head-scratching – why are you afraid of the wall you’ve seen every day for months? Why is a pivot track, the 13th in a row, suddenly terrifying and dangerous?

At which point I feel the gentle wind on the my shoulder, not unlike the hot breath from a horse’s soft nostril, asking me the same question. Why are you scared of rejection? Why does the act of hitting publish make your palms sweaty and your face flush, why do you stutter and laugh and explain away the art you love, which you’ve worked steadily at for years?

I made myself do an Instagram challenge the last couple of weeks, writing short pieces based on one-word prompts. It was really hard. I worry that people will get bored of my words, that I’ll become tedious or irritating if I speak up to often. Conversely, I worry that if I don’t write, I will shrivel inside myself, that I will no longer know what the world is or who I am within it. I can see the same challenges I have seen for more than a decade of pursuing a life of writing – publishing contracts, audience-building, writing for others, writing for myself – and, usually, buck up and plow through. Occasionally, however, though I have seen these obstacles every day, I am terrified. Like an untrustworthy horse, I want to leap to the side to save my own skin, destination be damned.

I know that the only way to make a trustworthy horse from an untrustworthy one is to work – “wet saddle blankets” as the old cowboys say. I know, with a sigh, that the only way through my fears of rejection, dismissal, tedium and difficulty is to work as well.

Dani Shapiro wrote, “Writing saved my life. Writing has been my window — flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence — my way of interpreting everything within my grasp. Writing has extended that grasp by pushing me beyond comfort, beyond safety, past my self-perceived limits.”

For our horses, pivot tracks and gates are their self-perceived limits; walls, arena props and screaming toddlers are beyond safety. It’s our job to remind them that they have a rider who is not scared, a leader who will be with them no matter what comes next. It’s our job as their people to push them past comfort, to help them become the powerful healers, helpers and doers we know they can be.

Perhaps I need to trust, as I want my horses to, that others will be that confident leader for me, and I can be that for them. My job is keep the window flung wide open, as much as I am tempted to shut it against the outside – I might keep storms out that way, but I’ll keep out sunshine and birdsong too.