Equine Madness II — Mind vs Body

Remember the days when your brain could tell your body to do something, and your body would snap to it, saying, “Right! Got it. No worries!” I do. Back when I was in my late thirties, riding usually four to five days a week, and working with a riding coach once a week, my body was constantly in a low-level state of soreness — in a good way. It told me I had worked, used muscles, and my body had done, or tried valiantly to do, anything my little brain had asked. That state of being, my body totally in tune with my brain, made it possible to be in tune with the mind and body of the animal under me. Well, okay, maybe not all the time. But those times when my gelding, Tristan, seemed to know what I wanted before I asked, and we seemed to be sharing one body, are the most sublime moments I’ve ever had on a horse. You can’t describe the feeling to anyone. Seriously, you could use a thousand words, and it wouldn’t come close to describing that measure of connectedness to another creature. It rocks your world.

Jump two decades, add a ten year hiatus from riding, a new horse, and you have a totally different story. And, lest you get the wrong impression, I’m still in pretty good shape for my age. I’m not overweight, have no health issues, and work outdoors in a large garden. But that’s not riding. Riding is balance, sensitivity, and the constant search for that illusive connectedness. When you haven’t done it for a long time, and you start again, things get frustrating. Your brain, reaching back to previous experiences, starts yelling at your body, “Do this...no, no, you idiot, this, this!” Your body, asked to use muscles it hasn’t twitched in years, whines back, “Huh?...Whah? Oh, move these legs where? Are you sure?” Body procrastination.

In the meantime, my poor horse, Delight, is wondering what the heck is going on up there. And I must admit, our first ride did not start off auspiciously. After a few turns around the round pen, me flopping like a beached flounder, my saddle went sideways and I ended up on the ground. Delight stood there looking at me like I was a total imbecile, falling (pun intended) for the old “bloating like the Goodyear blimp when she tightens the girth” trick. Okay, lesson learned.

We’ve had many rides since then, and I have started working with two different coaches when I can, but I’m still waiting for my body to catch up to my brain. May take a while. My brain remembers how things should feel, where legs, seat, hands should be. Body...not so much. It’s coming back, slowly, and when we’re out of the winter weather, which makes riding hard because the ground is so slippery, things will improve quicker as I put in more saddle time.

But even with the riding I have done so far, the change in my body is already clear. My upper body strength is improving (all that stall cleaning, wheelbarrow pushing, horse grooming), my leg strength is better, and answering “the call” a bit quicker (currently that may be wishful thinking on my brain's part), and I’m starting to feel the first inklings of that constant, low-level state of soreness, which tells me this old body is still willing to work.

Actually, this old body is pretty damned happy. I still have a LONG way to go. My balance is still precarious. I still get frustrated when I know where a leg, hand, or my balance should be, and I can’t quite get there. Or worse, get it there for a nanosecond, but can’t hold it. Delight is still waiting for me to catch up, and gets understandably annoyed when she tries to give me what she thinks I’m asking for, when I’m actually asking for something else but giving mixed signals. I admire that she tries.

Come summer things will improve faster. Better weather means more riding time at home, going to events, and getting out on the trail. Soon my brain will snap to my body, “Do this, this, and this, and then this!” And my body will answer, ‘Right! Brilliant. Great idea!”

Delight will be thinking, “Gawd, it’s about time. I was beginning to worry you’d never catch up.”

(Note on the picture. It's a sketch I did in a journal, and the red text is bleeding through from the back side of the page. But I thought the drawing fit the subject, so posted it anyway, faults and all. The handwritten title slightly cut off reads, "Self-Portrait With Manure Fork")

Studio Dreams

Like all artists, I dream of the perfect studio. You know, one of those romantic, airy, high-ceilinged lofts, with plenty of space for all your artistic endeavors. Tall windows would face north, naturally, for that special North Light so important to getting colors just right. The floors would be wood, stained with decades of use (maybe the building had been an old factory in its previous life). There would be tables of different sizes and heights, one for wet painting, one for dry work. A separate station for working jewelry, with all supplies handy. An easel for larger works, oh, and a sewing station for doing costumes and refashioning pre-bought clothing. Well, you get the idea. A space for everything, and everything in its space. Oh, and just downstairs would be a coffee house, where I could nip down for a nice cup of hot Chai Tea (Sorry, I don’t do coffee).

Dream on, girl.

What I have is a far cry from anything remotely like that dream. I have a room. A small room. It is the darkest, coldest room in the house, hence the mango wall color—my attempt to warm up the place and think tropical. This room is also the computer room, writing room, accounting room, costume room, floral supply/storage room, and the pirate den. The walls are lined with various storage units, and the closet—doors removed—is full of storage units and costumes.

My “studio” is a table in this room. When I do jewelry, it is cluttered with tools, wire, beads, findings, etc. When I work in my art journals, it is littered with stamps, pencils, paper, watercolor Crayons, clip art, glue sticks and rolls of double-sided tape. If I could do any sewing (currently my sewing machine is out of commission), then said table would hold my portable machine, patterns, pins, material and possibly sketches of what the finished garment might look like. And many, many times, it is littered with bits and pieces of all of the above, which is its current state—well, except for the sewing stuff.

However, I am grateful that I have my little multipurpose room. At least I can leave stuff out on the table, walk away, and come back to it later. If I had to work on the dining room table, or anywhere else in the house, I’d have to put everything away, come back later, and dig it all out again. Big pain in the butt. Also, having the computer, scanner and printer in the same room is very handy, as I use all of them in my artwork.

So, I turn on the Probe-Droid (my portable CD/radio/tape player, which looks like something out of Star Wars, hence the name), pop in some music or a book on tape, and I play away at whatever I’m working on at the time, very grateful for this small, but “all mine” space.

Do I continue to dream of that romantic loft with unlimited space and perfect light? Sure. What artist doesn’t? It’s why I still have the big, tilt-top drafting table my husband bought for me at an auction. There is no way it would fit anywhere in our house. But it stands for the dream, so I hang on to it. Hmmm, maybe I’ll set it up in the garage, which since its remodel last summer is now insulated, and has tons of bright lighting, and two large windows—even if they do face south instead of north. Yeah, then I could at least move my bigger projects out there, not worry about spilling paint on the floor, and pretend there is a coffeehouse just around the block, instead of eleven miles away in town.

Now, if I could just get my husband to park his truck out in the driveway.... Ah well, there is still the dream.

Wardrobe Analysis=Morticia Picks Out My Clothes

Have you ever stood back and really looked at the wardrobe hanging in your closet? I had occasion to do so the other day, and an obvious fact became apparent. If a total stranger looked in my closet, they would think the only reason I get dressed is to attend funerals.

Most of the items hanging there are black, brown, gray, dark blue, or dark purple. A few bright spots of turquoise or green might sneak in, or maybe a hint of red, but they are overshadowed by the overpowering “noir” theme of everything else. In summer this dark palette lightens up a little with T-shirts and tank tops, but summer doesn’t last very long in the Pacific Northwest. The lights stay hibernating most of the year.

I live in sweatpants and sweatshirts. Or jeans and sweatshirts. Or cargo pants and sweatshirts. You see the trend. Occasionally I do “clean up” and wear jeans and a nice sweater. Until recently, other than the two fancy dresses I bought five years ago to wear on formal evenings while on a cruise, I owned only one dress—a loose, sleeveless summer floral my husband bought for me at the Orange Co., Calif. swap meet, the weekend of Princess Diana’s funeral. To remedy that, a few months ago I bought a nice simple day dress, in muted shades of blues and browns, with a charcoal python pattern overlaid. This sounds hideous, but is actually quite lovely. But again, colors that are subdued...funereal.

I also rarely wear prints. There are a few lurking within the darker ranks, but they are mainly black designs on white, or the reverse, or black on gray. This is probably because I am a jewelry nut, and prefer my jewelry to stand out against a plain background. But in all honesty, I have never been a big fan of prints, unless it’s a discrete one. Giant red poppies would never make it into my closet, let alone onto my body.

As a rule, I never wear white. I do own two white blouses, bought for the aforementioned cruise, which I have hardly worn since. I NEVER wear white pants. It’s a disaster. Always. Dirt will fly from all directions to land on my white pants. Also, I’m so used to wearing jeans that I have a habit of wiping my hands on the rear-pockets. Do that in white pants, and it either looks like you brushed up against something really nasty, or looks like someone has grabbed your butt and left their hand print behind...literally.

So, since I have declared this to be a year of challenges, maybe I should challenge myself to get out of the Morticia Adams mode, and pick some clothes with a bit more color. That will not include yellow, peach, or orange, which make my skin tone go pasty, and has me looking like I’m dressed for my own funeral. But I’ve developed a penchant for lime green lately, so maybe a new sweatshirt in that? And I’ve always liked red, so there is another option. More turquoise, perhaps? Maybe I’ll get really rash and buy a new dress...in pale blue? Then again, I saw this really lovely one the other day in black, with panels in the skirt of white dots on black...  Hmmm, I wonder how much it costs?

Drat, maybe there is more of Morticia in me than I care to admit.

Oh, and yes, the walls of my bedroom really are red, although they are not so bright as this flash photo makes them appear. And I don’t have closet doors, I have lovely velvet curtains, that match the curtains over the window on the opposite wall. It’s all very romantic.

One More Page + Thoughts

I wanted to post one more picture of the journal page that unfolds, showing how it opens up. I'm not showing the whole thing, because what is written within is private to me, but just a way to show how I'm playing with this challenge.

My thoughts for this journal, besides taking part in the challenge, were to try experimenting with formats in such a way that it would give the pages some cohesiveness. Other journals of mine look pretty haphazard. I made cardboard templates for the main rectangle, and for the L-shaped border. That way I can quickly trace around them on the pages, or on other, decorative papers I want to use, and then glue or tape those in. I use a lot of double-sided tape! I should buy it by the case.

I'm having to do a lot of the artwork on other, heavier paper, as the paper in the spiral-bound sketchbook I bought is too thin. It doesn't hold up well, especially if I add wet medium, like watercolor Crayon or watercolor pencil. Also, since I do my personal journal writing with Sharpie pens, the ink bleeds through to the other side of the page. So, the collage work and writing are done on a base paper, then glued or taped to the journal page.

Next time I'll be more careful as to the strength of the paper before I dive into creating a new journal. But using this one is another challenge, and that's what this year is all about.

2011—A Year of Challenges

After deciding to participate in the Sketchbook Challenge, I got to thinking about the word Challenge, and how I had already set for myself a few challenges in the coming year. I never make New Years Resolutions because I always break them. Challenges, however, are a different story.

So, for the first page of my journal for 2011, I used that as a theme, to give a “heads up” as to how my year will hopefully go. I’m not going to post all the pages in this journal, only the ones directly related to the Sketchbook Challenge, mainly because this isn’t going to be a special book meant only for that on-line participation. It will be my regular journal, where I record all the exciting and not so exciting goings-on in my life. Not a thrill a minute read, I assure you.

What are the other challenges I have set for myself? Well, the first is getting back into riding shape, and working with my horse so that we can become a team. Considering how out of shape we both are, this will probably take us all summer. Winter weather in Oregon doesn’t help things. By January our place has standing water everywhere, and the areas where we work the horses are mostly mud the consistency of cooked oatmeal. Many, many rainy days are a real pain in the butt. So, I get in what work I can, and pray for Spring.

Next on the list is to get more professional with my Etsy jewelry site. I make the jewelry for fun, and to give to friends as gifts. If I happen to sell a few pieces, that’s just gravy and helps pay for supplies. For the last year I’ve mainly toyed around with beads and wire and found elements. And that’s okay, but I’d like to take things up a notch, weed out the pieces that have been on the site for too long, and add new things that will be different. Not sure in which different direction I’ll go, but that’s also part of the challenge.

Writing more. I definitely need to do more writing. I have a novel waiting for the last three or four chapters, and another story idea I want to start on. My writing got put on hold for a variety of reasons, but it’s time to get back to it. The story keeps calling me, and making me feel guilty for ignoring it. I don’t do well with guilt.

To finishing landscaping the bare areas left by the construction that took place over last summer is a big challenge. There is still a path of cardboard laid down from the driveway to the front steps, which doesn’t look too attractive, but keeps mud from being tracked into the house. Hardscaping—brick retaining walls, gravel paths—need to go in before the plants, so some heavy manual labor is in my future.

Also included on the list is a major re-landscaping of my enclosed garden. I’m talking about ripping out overgrown shrubs, digging out roses that have never done well, and wrestling into submission the giant hop vine that ate part of the garden fence. Lots more manual labor.

That’s the short list. I have many more things I want to accomplish in this “Year of Challenges.” So, when I post pictures of the journal pages each month, I’ll also update you with how I’m doing with my other challenges. That is, if the hop vine doesn’t eat me, and if I can still type after all that manual labor.

The Sketchbook Challenge theme for January is “Highly Prized.”

Reflected Light

I don't usually go in for posting pictures of my house, but I loved these two, which I just took today. It's the living room, awash in sunlight reflected from the snow on the ground outside. It is probably the brightest this room ever gets. I like the picture because it makes the room look all cozy and warm, which it is. Also, in the second one, you can see two of our four cats. Domino is on the back of the couch, soaking up sun, and Phantom is curled up on the other end of the couch, next to the dark, wine-colored cushion.

Oh, and the little squares taped to the wall on the left in the first picture are paint sample cards. The room needs to be repainted because of a bit of remodeling work we had done in the dining room and kitchen, which left large areas of white plaster. These rooms are all connected, so are usually painted the same color...traditionally blue, since I love the way artwork stands out so beautifully against blue walls.

Merry Christmas and a Joyous New Year

...This time of the year is spent in good cheer,
And neighbors together do meet.
To sit by the fire, with friendly desire,
Each other in love to greet.
Old grudges forgot are put in the pot,
All sorrows aside they lay:
The old and the young doth carol this song,
To drive the cold winter away....

(Verse from a traditional English song, eighteenth century)