#real blog posts

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Week 15: A List of Things I Love About Horses

To no one’s surprise, I’m still behind. But here’s week 15. I’m going to try and get week 16 done before next Friday. Apartment hunting and teaching at camp at the same time is EXHAUSTING.

They have weirdly soft noses, really truly like velvet - until they eat something wet and sloppy, like bran mash, and then they’re GROSS.

I started riding at the age of eight. I’m now 28. I’ve been riding for more than 2/3 of my life at this point. When I think about that span of time, the years of sore muscles and dirt and itchy hay and kisses and toes stepped on and sweat and joy, it feels like at some point it crossed from hobby or job or thing I love into an irrevocable part of my being.

They have awkwardly prehensile upper lips.

When they lay their ears back for no other reason except to be cranky in the general direction of another horse. Like, come on asshole.

Last week, I got on a horse bareback and just stood in the ring petting her and talking to another instructor. It is the most deeply, instantly relaxing thing to get on a horse.

A fair number of horses have an itchy spot right at the base of their neck, just above their withers. They do the FUNNIEST things when you scratch it - twisting their whole neck to the side, bobbing their head, flapping their upper lip - and they always look so affronted when you stop.

My favorite horse at camp was a cranky spotted Appaloosa named Thomas. He was the first horse I ever fell off of (age 11, individual canter) and I have always been a contrary motherfucker, so there we are. He had this terrible scruffy excuse for a forelock and an awkwardly rectangular face and I loved him with a ferocity I don’t quite have words for.

During a riding lesson at the age of 17, my instructor put up three jumps in a line (2’ crossrail, one stride, 2’ vertical, bounce, 2’ oxer) and sent me over them without reins or stirrups. It’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to flying.

A few days ago, one of the horses at the camp I’m teaching at turned her head and blew snot directly onto the back of my hand.

When I was 20 and spending a semester in Rome, I went out to a barn each week to take a horse named Giga on walks while she was recovering from a leg injury. Her owner told me that Giga was a cranky bitch (her actual words) and that I shouldn’t be offended if she didn’t like me. The second time I came to the barn to work with her, she came cantering across her paddock and stuck her head over the fence to greet me. (Trust me when I say the feeling was mutual.) I’ve still never experienced an automatic love affair quite like this one, but it broke my heart in two to leave her.

On the other end of the spectrum, there was a horse at camp named Winston who I absolutely hated. He was cranky and often downright mean, a nightmare to ride, and had a reputation for biting everyone he could reach. No one could stand him. The camp director made a rule in the middle of the summer that one person had to hold him while the other helped a kid up to avoid anyone getting bitten.

But here’s the deal: I watched our barn director cultivate a relationship with a similar horse by showering him with love until he started responding. So I thought hell, why not try it with Winston. I spent time with him whenever I had the chance - bridling, tacking and grooming, getting a kid on, even when I saw him in the pasture. It took some time, but honestly? Not that much. Maybe two weeks into my unadulturated love fest, he relaxed just a little. Three weeks in, I didn’t need another staff member to hold him while I got a kid up. Four weeks in, he pricked his ears and whuffled at me everytime I walked by his stall. I came by my love for Winston the hard way, but we got there all the same.

You have to bring your best self to the barn. If you don’t, more often than not you’ll end up on your ass in the dirt.

I've been teaching in this huge wide-brimmed hat this summer. None of the horses have given any indication that it's weird or flappy and scary. One day, I forgot my hat on my way into the ring and someone had to bring it to me. The horse my kid was riding leaned away from me hard when that hat wasn't on my head. Suddenly, when it wasn't part of my head, it was disembodied and terrifying.

When you blow gently into a horse’s nostrils, they’ll generally blow gently right back at you.

Every barn everywhere smells more or less the same, which means walking into every barn everywhere feels like coming home.

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Faith

I'm taking two months away from my theater life this summer to teach horseback riding at a day camp. I just finished week one, and while I had forgotten why I hate day camps (frequent parent interaction, ugh), I had also forgotten how much I love teaching riding. This seems more than a little silly, because of course I love teaching riding – why else would I apply for a job where I spend two months standing in the sweltering heat? But the thing is, while I know I love teaching riding, the experience is much more visceral than the memory.

My two favorite riders this week were very different from one another. The first was an eight-year-old named Emily, in her second year of riding at camp. She has the same horse this year, a really wonderful horse named Patches who is as reliable as they come. Emily is cheerful and bubbly and one would imagine this is a girl who can’t wait to get back on her horse this summer.

One would be right. Sort of.

Emily is scared of her horse. Of horses in general, really. Her number one fear seems to be interacting with the front of her horse: she doesn’t want Patches to lick her, sniff her, breathe on her, or even look at her. Once she was on her horse, she screamed a little as soon as Patches took a step but also immediately told me, “This is fun!” It was, honest to god, the strangest and funniest combination I’ve come across in a kid. She was distracted for most of the lesson, vacillating wildly between freaking out when Patches turned her head (…while Emily was the one turning her head) and telling me all the things she wanted to do. But we persisted. We didn’t get off the lead rope, but I got her to steer on her own and sit up straight in the saddle, both of which were big accomplishments. When the other riders in the ring asked us if we wanted to play a game, I took the out immediately. This is a kid who will progress at a different pace and at different things, so let’s play a water game and stop pushing for a few minutes.

Just before the end of her lesson, Emily said to me, “I want to stay on this horse forever, but I’m afraid she’ll look at me!”

The other rider, Ally, is on the other end of the spectrum. She’s maybe twelve or thirteen and has been coming to camp and riding the same horse (Dippy) for five years, one of those campers who only gets to ride at camp and looks forward to it for the other ten months of the year. She’s tall, awkward, and gangly – this is a girl who has definitely not gotten control over her own limbs yet – and she has the Frida Kahlo eyebrows with which I am deeply familiar.

I saw Ally twice this week. On day two, I made her stand up in her stirrups and pulled her lower leg around until she understood how it affects your balance. Then I just took her stirrups away entirely. This, somewhat unsurprisingly, had a huge effect – one I didn’t consciously think about before I did it. See, she has these aforementioned legs that are too long for her body. Even with the stirrup leathers on the longest hole, her stirrups were a tad too short. But when you have a girl who is all leg and you take her stirrups away, suddenly the whole balance of her body changes. It was like having a different rider.

When she got off, she said to me, “I’ve ridden Dippy for five years and I love her, but you’re the only instructor I’ve had who teaches me anything.”

You have to teach the rider in front of you.

Different days have different success stories. Some days the victory is getting on your horse. Some days it’s trotting without stirrups or learning how to canter. The range of victories and the paces at which riders achieve them are the addicting part of teaching riding, the part I forgot about. It’s a thrill to be back here, even if only for a few short weeks.

My favorite days, favorite lessons as an instructor are the ones where my riders think I’m crazy. I give them an exercise or a new adjustment to their form and they try it once half-heartedly, fail, and look at me like, can we do something else now? This is too hard. Those are the days I tell my riders, “You can do it. I have faith.”

*All kid and horse names have been changed.

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Week seven, belated. On love and living the dream.

I work in theater. I graduated six years ago and my primary occupation and source of income since five days after graduation has been theater. Specifically, stage management. (And occasionally production management.) Often those outside theater (commonly referred to as civilians) have literally no idea what on earth that means. Many people have never even heard the job title and upon asking me what I do, end up looking slightly panicked around the eyes and responding somewhere in the realm of "Ah. Yes." like they understand completely.

Spoiler alert: They do not understand.

Many moons ago, when I was but a wee stage manager, I attempted to explain my job using a metaphor. It really didn’t work as an explanation for civilians, but every theater person who’s ever heard it has absolutely loved it.

Here it is: Let us imagine a production as a solar system. The director is the sun – they’re the center of it all, they bring people into orbit and set their course. Actors, designers, technicians – really everyone else – are the planets and asteroids. They’re what makes the solar system a solar system instead of a lone isolated star.

The stage management team is gravity. We’re the connective force that keeps everyone together and orbiting around the sun. If we’re doing our job well, you never notice us. If we’re doing our job wrong, it can have pretty catastrophic effects.

Occasionally people say something to me like, "Stage managers should get awards!" Every time, I cringe. I don’t want an award. I want people in the industry to know I can be counted on. I want to be someone whose name comes up when people are talking about competent stage managers. That’s all. Please don’t give me an intentional spotlight.

Stage management requires long hours. Everyone knows this. We’re the first ones in and the last ones out. We’re frequently sending emails and fielding phone calls outside of work hours. I signed a contract recently that specified that overtime pay begins after 52.5 hours in a week. In some ways, it can be a thankless job.

Writing about love can be difficult.

I was walking out of the theater the other night past patrons on the sidewalk and was struck with a very specific feeling I get from time to time. It’s somewhere between a feeling of belonging, the joy of living your dream, and (let’s be real) smugness. I thought to myself, not for the first time, that the day I stop having that feeling will be the day I need to get out of theater.

Sometimes I’m sitting in a group of technical theater humans and the conversation turns to aging in the industry and what job everyone eventually wants to end up in. Very often, younger stage managers talk about moving into production management or some kind of management-based full-time job with salary and benefits. They talk about wanting to get out of the freelance grind and the exhaustion of always hustling. Eventually, someone turns to me and says, "What about you?"

What about me.

"This is it for me," I tell them. "This is all I’ll ever want."

It’s probably easier to say that since I spent almost two years production managing and missed being in a rehearsal room desperately. I missed actors and their weird vocal warmups. I missed the adrenaline rush of calling a show. I missed watching a director help an actor find their way into a scene and a performance worth remembering. I missed all the late nights and the tech bruises and the weird jobs you end up with when you’re running a backstage track. (Dump a bucket of water on an actor and strategically place seaweed on their head and shoulders. Move an actor’s lower half two feet to the left during a quick change so they don’t get run over by a roulette table on wheels. Crawl out onstage and hide behind a 5’ tall rose to hand off a prop an actor forgot.) I missed the joy of opening night and the bittersweetness of closing. Writing about love can be difficult, but feeling it for theater has never been hard.

But I know this with a certainty I have about very few things. This is it for me. This is all I’ll ever want. This is Living The Dream™ and I’m thankful for it every day.

Anyway, I signed my contract for my first Broadway show this week. It should perhaps feel like a pinnacle of achievement, but instead it feels like a major milestone in a trip that’s only just beginning. 

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I rode a horse today for the first time in months.

A lot of things feel way easier now.

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it is fall in Seattle and I am checking OneBusAway and I am running to catch the bus with my Timbuktu bag over my shoulder and the nerd strap clipped around my chest and I am leaving rehearsal and I am so, so happy

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So I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t be able to be with my friends this weekend and I think by telling myself that often in order to prepare myself I actually just made today sadder bc I am now sitting here thinking “I regret not being able to be with my friends like I had planned though those plans fell through.” rather than “My friends are all out-of-town and I knew this would happen and I’m okay with it.” I want to have a car so that I can just go to the art museum and look at everything I miss whenever I’m there with other people or go to a farmers market in Soulard this morning (retrospect thinking) and start a conversation with someone who looks interesting or go to a nice restaurant and eat by myself and order a glass of wine to make it memorable or find an event going on my busy city that sounds fun and explore it or go on a hike alone and just be in nature and let it strengthen my faith or go shopping for new sandals and a gold dress (I’ve been wanting a gold dress for quite some time) or go to the post office to send off two books that I bought for a friend or go watch a movie at the theater alone (done it before and loved it). I just am lonely and can’t leave the house and that’s just the worst combination. If I were lonely but able to maximize my alone time I would be very happy today expressing my introverted nature. 

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happiness.

I'm lying in bed on a Saturday morning listening to the straight girlfriend breathe.

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So I'm starting this job in six weeks–full time, benefits, I negotiated for a salary raise, dream job, dream theater, the works. Here's the problem: I gave up my December/January show to take it, which means the six weeks between now and then are going to be very difficult, financially. I've been stressed about it, but I guess I didn't realize quite how much until today.

My parents are loaning me the money to help me move, so I called my dad today to buy my plane ticket. (December 30th! This is happening!) He and I were talking about how far that help would extend and if they could help me with the deposit and first month's rent on an apartment. That's when he tells me that he "doesn't want to let the cat out of the bag," but that my parents are giving me some money to help me out during this weirdly timed and rough transition period because they're so proud of me for getting this job. He said, "So don't worry, you'll have all the money you need."

I got off the phone with him, got on Skype with my girlfriend, and five minutes later was lying on my bed sobbing, completely unable to stop. I felt like a thousand pounds I didn't know was there had been lifted off of my chest.

I don't know what the point of this is. I love my parents and money problems are the actual worst? I think that's the point. Family. Family is great. There you go, that's the point.