It really does suck when you discover you're not invincible.
I'm currently lying in the bath while DM brings in kettlefuls of boiling water, and pours it in. I scrunch up my knees so I don't get burned to allow the heat to permeate. He sits on the loo seat next to me in his Philadelphia Eagles hat and asks me if I want another cup of tea. My back is really quite sore. Am I really someone who is going to discuss my ailments? Apparently so. Yesterday, on the first truly springy spring day we've had, a full on sunny day, my girly mare decided that the perfect confluence of events -- sunshine, spring grass, wind in the trees, coming into season, a jumping lesson -- would be the ideal opportunity to spook like mad at a ghost the other side of the fence, scoot her bottom underneath her while snorting with flared pink nostrils and do the most enormous buck which took her from one side of the ring to the other. I pride myself on my ability to sit to bucks, but it was a big one. "Yup. That was a big one" said my trainer, Chris, stalwart and sage-like. And I flew right over her ears as if I were mid Fosbury Flop, and landed with a resounding thwack flat on my sacrum and my head. Yes, I was wearing a helmet. "Don't move for a bit" said Chris. "No shit, Sherlock" I thought. There is that momentary assessment: Am I alive? Is anything broken? Who am I? and then I look up at Bella's beatific face: she is standing next to me looking confused, quizzical. Dude! You put me here!
"Look at this!" says Chris, like a boy scout. "This is where she took off;" he points to a hoof print in the sand, "and this," he says, triumphant "is where you landed." There is a good twenty feet of expanse. I don't know whether or not I deserve a medal.
Last night, DM ministered to me in bed. Red wine. Queer Eye. Chicken Tikka Masala. Heaven.
So I shall hobble today.
And I shall ponder my mortality.
Have a perfectly lovely weekend, dear friends.
And never stop taking risks. It's what keeps us alive.
What's that quote "the most creative things happen outside of your comfort zone."
2 comments:
Just one thing. Risks that involve flying through the air and landing on your bones are risks in a class of their own.
I say this because I had an aunt I loved dearly. At 75 she broke her back from a fall off a horse she was jumping in a ring. Decided to unplug the ventilator. She was certainly doing what she loved at an age when many simply sit by a fire, but a little caution isn't such a terrible idea.
Good lord. Glad you are okay. For a few weeks, check to be certain all is well with your head and your body. Agree about risks. We do have to keep taking them. There’s a reason the saying “Get back on the horse that threw you” exists. Also? The Fosbury Flop won its popularizer a high-jump gold medal. When you wrote about you in the bath, with your man adding hot water and then sitting on the loo seat to converse, it reminded me of Cassandra Mortmain in I Capture the Castle. (I love companionable conversations in the bath, though hers was with a stranger, explaining that they'd all been dyeing.:) Sending you love and support. xoxoxo.
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