Patience with the Writing Process

I'd much rather be floating down the river looking for eagles...

My To Do list for the last three days of this week included writing five different kinds of essays -- but a sick headache yesterday put me out of commission and now I'm trying to write three essays on three totally different topics today. The second essay is already bogged down but likely, a walk through the field will shake the disparate parts into sequence and it will make sense by the time you read it in the newspaper.

The Hope of the Sunflower Patch

I was delighted to see this little glimpse of yellow peeking out of the sunflower patch yesterday morning as Abby and I returned from our morning walk. Dwayne planted his sunflowers late this year, around the first of July, because this land was cold and wet through June. So his sunflowers are coming up and opening up later than usual.
This either will be a good thing -- we'll have sunflowers into October -- or we won't have many sunflowers at all.

The sunflowers always remind me of the flooding in and around Calgary in June of 2013, and how afterwards, people planted sunflowers because they clean the soil. I didn't know that; now sunflowers are the other heroes, the aftermath heroes, of flooding.

I sat down to watch the news after supper tonight and I started to cry as I looked at houses with water above window ledges, and cars submerged, and people carrying their dogs in their arms, and old women in a nursing home sitting in recliners and wheelchairs with water at chest level.
Whenever these catastrophes happen, whether it's forest fire or flooding, Dwayne and I talk about if it could happen here and what we would do if it did. Even if the chance is remote, and it is, we're more likely to have a tree blow down on our house than lose it in a forest fire, I like to talk about possibilities and reactions.
I can't imagine going to bed one night believing you're on high enough ground that the rain won't fill your home only to wake up to find your entire neighbourhood is afloat, and your neighbours in danger. It reminds me of the fire in Fort McMurray last year, when most people didn't have time to pack, or plan, or even think about what they would do; they just had time to grab their kids, their pets, a purse, and get out.

I don't pray anymore; I don't believe God is an interventionist, I don't believe God saves only certain people. I do believe in the good people: the strangers rescuing strangers, the neighbours helping neighbours, the men and women who leave their homes in their filled boats then return with their empty boats to help others, the reporters who are standing knee deep in the water covering a roadway in order to let us know what's going on, how long this is going to last, what we can do, how we can help.
Where we can send money. 
When we can plant sunflower seeds.

Sherpa Granny

My friend Jane has traded in her goat fondling credentials to become a sherpa for her 14-month-old granddaughter, J.
I took a morning off -- I'm easily persuaded to do that -- in order for us to walk Oxford's portion of the TransCanada Trail and check out the new tunnel put under the main road into town. Tomorrow is the official opening of the tunnel so I wanted to see if there was an easy way to reach the tunnel in order to snap a photo for my community correspondent report on CTV Morning Live on Monday.

We haven't walked this trail together in a very long time, Jane and I, and halfway across the bridge, I realized why my dog was so agitated: We've lost our access to the river's edge where our dogs could take a break mid-walk, get into the water, cool off, chase sticks, and get a drink. Until the bridge was installed, this was our turnaround point, and I knew the bridge would affect that.
This river pause was such a part of our walks for the last couple of years, and such an enjoyment for the dogs, that I may have to carve a secret trail down to our spot on the riverbank. Abby's disappointment at not being able to reach the water was heart-breaking. It's a shame, yet typical, that progress for many leaves a few short-changed of peace and pleasure.

Summer of the Horse: Yoga Pays Off

This is how life is funny, and awesome, and surprising. If only we could get our 18-year-old and 26-year-old and 35-year-old selves to understand that where you are RIGHT NOW is likely not going to be where you will be in ten years.
And if you are lucky, where you end up will be where you are meant to be.

Who knew, back in the fall of 2001, when I lived in Vancouver and the dog and I walked by that yoga studio on the side street and I picked up a pamphlet and went to my first class a week or so later, that yoga would be the key to my learning to ride a horse?
Because it's all about strong core and back muscles, and good balance.
Amazing that something I do once a day, and with more of an emphasis on stretch than on strength, is making this learning experience easier for me, who is not the least bit athletic or even particularly physically adept.
Just ask that wall I keep walking into.

It's not easy to see in this photo but I'm practicing a move that's used in jumping. With my legs, I'm holding myself just out of the saddle, barely using my fists and my knees for stability, remaining tall  in the saddle without bending forward.

I'm not going to be jumping anytime soon but Dawn now is opening my lesson with this exercise because it warms me up and teaches me this micro-movement while Dakota gets his warm-up walk.  Right now, I can hold the posture only for a few seconds but with practice, that time will lengthen.

For a few weeks, I've been thinking about the yoga postures I can do that will strengthen the muscles I'm using in riding. The muscles used on horseback include the inner thigh, which are stretched, the hips and outer thigh, which are shortened, and both the abdominal and lower back muscles, which stabilize the upper body for good posture. 
I've been able to correlate a yoga posture to every move I make on the horse. For instance, the posture pictured in this photo reminds me of Chair Pose. Eagle Pose is even better because it is a balancing pose in that squatting position. When my inner thigh muscles were aching after my first lesson, Warrior 1 and 2 eased the discomfort. Bound Angle Pose keeps those muscles stretched out now. I do Plank Pose like crazy to keep my core muscles strong.
I wonder if doing all these poses has kept my muscles from hurting again. Even my weak ankles don't hurt during a lesson!
There is a Horse Pose but it has nothing do with riding muscles; it's called that simply because the pose resembles the face of a horse.

It wasn't until my latest lesson on Friday, however, that I realized the overall impact yoga has on my riding. The lesson happened at four in the afternoon, and I admit late in the day is not my best learning time. As soon as I got into the saddle, it felt weird, almost unfamiliar, as if I hadn't been in the saddle in weeks.
I kept complaining that my body felt like it was a bunch of disjointed parts I didn't know how to get to work together until Dawn finally told me to stop overthinking and just ride, that the only part I needed to worry about was my butt staying in the saddle. That's what I appreciate about Dawn: she gets me and isn't afraid to snap me out of my self-absorption.
We ended the lesson with three attempts at cantering. On my third attempt, I was able to let go of the saddle and hold only the reigns, and self-correct when I started to tip sideways (because Dakota was on the lunge line so we were going in a circle). This self-correction happened because I have a strong core and good balance -- big win for yoga!

We joked my poor performance was the result of Dwayne being there, taking photos, but later I realized it was because I hadn't done any yoga that day. I'd gone for a walk first thing in the morning then worked at my computer all day, stopping only when it was time to change and head to the barn. Sometimes I do yoga while watching "The Bold and Beautiful", a nice thirty-minute yoga break in the afternoon, but last Friday, I didn't take time to do that. 
And paid for it.
Because when my lessons are at nine in the morning, I don't go for a walk; I do yoga. Which means when I show up at the barn, my mind and body are prepped for riding; my muscles are warmed up, my brain is clear and focused, and my entire system inside and out is energized, the blood flowing, my mood elevated.

For someone who doesn't consider herself athletic, and loves yoga because it doesn't make her sweat or involve other people or risk injury to brain or bone (as long as I don't fall off!), I'm absolutely tickled that the exercises I do every morning in my living room (and in my pajamas!) have turned out to be an advantage when it comes to riding a horse. 

You Wear It Well

I may have hit the summer sale at a certain equestrian supply store. I may be wearing a traditional horse rider's outfit at my lesson this afternoon. I may be a little too excited about this.
It's not so much that I hope I wear it well, it's that I hope I wear it right! 
***
Update: When I showed my instructor that I was wearing breeches and half-chaps, she laughed. Then she said, "You got the half-chaps right. So many people put the zipper on the inside."

Midsummer Dreams

As published in the Citizen-Record newspaper on Wednesday, August 16, 2017, by Sara Jewell.

My favourite morning hour is six to seven before the world is awake and bright and loud. This is when I walk the dog, when it is cool and quiet. 

My favourite evening hour is eight to nine after the sun has sunk below the treeline but there is still light in the sky. This is when I tend my gardens, when it is cool and quiet. 

Even in the golden days of August, there are still reasons to putter.

"What are you doing?" calls a voice through the dusk.

"Collecting rocks," I reply. 

We have a pile of slate rock at the edge of our property and after the sun goes down, when I know I won't come across a snake snoozing on a warm stone, I gather flat stones to place in the gaps in my flower gardens. Gaps are good; gaps provide a space to kneel and breathe.  

The chickens are tucked up on their roosts so my husband shuts them up for the night.

"Want me to help?" he calls to me as I fill my wheelbarrow with rocks.

"No, thank you," I reply, preferring to work alone and in silence.

This is not truly work, however, this hauling and placing of rock, the digging in the dirt, the pulling of weeds. It may feel like work during the day when it’s hot and sunny, when the lawn mower drones and trucks rattle by on the road, but in the evening, this is a meditation. A time of peace and quiet, a time when the shadows slip in and twilight narrows the world to the patch of garden right in front where our hands are touching the ground.

This is vespers, when the toil of gardening becomes an act of prayer, when we are down on our knees in the dirt, breathing in the smell of earth and plants, hearing the rustle of leaves in the light breeze, brushing the soil with our fingers. We are filled with peace and hope and the promise of joy.

A prayer ends with “Amen”, which means “So be it”. It was Oliver Wendell Holmes who said, “The amen of nature is always a flower,” and that’s where gardening meets our faith in something other than ourselves. Be it soil and plants or spirit and persons, we plant, we feed, we watch; we take care of each other, we nurture. We do it year after year after year no matter what challenges we face.

There comes a point when we must get up off our knees, wipe the dirt from our hands, and hope for the best from our labour and the weather, saying, “So be it...”

The sun has set. I join my husband on the back deck. It’s darker than it was a few days ago, the days shorter, the nights cooler, the mosquitoes waning along with August’s full moon. 

We sit there until ten o'clock then we say good night to the chickens in their coop, good night to the stars quivering on the tips of leaves, good night to the flowers folded into themselves like they are praying.

Morning Refraction

This is the kind of distraction I have to deal with while doing yoga in the morning!
The original shot, while I was in Tree Pose and without camera (who knew I had to have the camera with the telephoto lens handy to me while on the yoga mat in my living room at 6:30 in the morning?) was of the hummingbird only through the sugar water, on the other side.
By the time I got the camera, and had it handy, the hummingbird wasn't willing to recreate the original, breathtaking image.

The flare on the right side isn't from taking it through the living room window but what the camera does with a glint of sunlight shining through the corner of the glass feeder.