Bing Crosby Bang Boom!

5/13/10

"Alright guys, guys? Hey guys!"

"Yeah, Ma?"

"Alright, I want you all to stop what you're doing and just take a minute. Ready?" (she says this in a slightly joking, but she really means it, kind of voice)

"Okay, Mama, Ready."

"Okay. Now really look around at where you are. Take a deep breath and just enjoy this for a minute."

Silence. Silence. Silence.
(We all giggle a little)

"Okay, good! I want you guys to really appreciate this and be aware of how magnificent it is to be here!"

This is my mom any time we are outside in a beautiful place. All of a sudden she becomes aware of it's greatness and wants to make sure her children see it and feel it too.

As Sojourner and I rode the 38 miles yesterday from Magdalena, New Mexico, to Lemitar, NM, I could hear my mom saying this to me.
"Enjoy this, Linny. Look at where you are."
"Okay, Mama", I said in my head, "I see it, Ma. I feel it."


The land was so breathtakingly beautiful and I was so happy to be there. Sojourner was especially energetic (which surprised me after two solid days of draining, ridiculous wind). He had an extremely forward walk the entire day and was ready to gallop the last five miles (I let him canter and break into little gallops here and there).


We rode from red rocks and open cliff faces into green pastures and full, green Cottonwoods. I think this is why Sojourner was ready to gallop. By the time we got into the green it was around 5pm and the air was perfectly cool (still t-shirt weather, but cool like a New Hampshire summer evening). We were next to an aqueduct so there was life everywhere...birds, ducks, cows, green grass, wildflowers, other horses curious and perky in green fields. It was stop and hold your breath beautiful and he was feeling it as much as I was.


We have taken today off to run a million errands and we took a little time at some thrift stores as well and (man!) did we ever score! (High five! I like very much!)

Walter was able to trade a fleece vest of his for nearly everything we had in our hands! I was psyched. We found a bunch of cool shirts and I got a book called "Hooking Up" by Tom Wolfe.

I started the book already while Walter was in the Verizon store (he lost his phone the other day) and I am loving it. It's pretty much about exactly what I'm so interested in and studying on this ride...humans, humans and horses, love, sex, divorce, and all that rock 'n' roll (minus the humans and horses part...I don't think that's in this book).

Walter and I were recently talking about innocence and the loss of innocence. My parents always told us as we were kids that we have our whole lives to be older and to stay young as long as we can.

I really took it to heart and stayed pretty darn innocent as a child and as a young adult and I am so grateful they were so adamant I do so.

I think "hold on to your youth" was one of the best things they ever urged me to do. I was never even tempted to do anything other than climb trees and ride my horse to my best friends house to bring her back to my house or down to the river.

We always flirted and played and ran around looking for "cute boys", but it never went much further than that and I am so glad.

This book starts off by remembering the days when first base was holding hands and second was "necking" and third was...I can't actually remember, but it wasn't sex...I don't even know if home base was! Oh wait, it was, but the joke was that today home base is learning your partners name.

There is something to that innocence that is so important and rapidly becoming obsolete.
Instead of running around outside and looking at bugs for hours (as my little sister, Caiti, did for many of her childhood days), little ones put on their tightest jeans and run to the mall.

I don't know if any of this is reversible, but I do know that there is nothing that compares to the innocence and freedom of childhood. It's something I feel should never be let go of. We are little people that turn into bigger people, but we are always the same person and there is no reason to suppress the desire to laugh out loud, climb a tree, dance like a fool, be innocent.

We went through Socorro yesterday and like every city we go through, people were just overjoyed to see Sojourner. Women especially. They smile so big that they laugh and ask if they can please get close to him.

A man said, "Well, that's not something you see everyday anymore!"

I think that's part of the magic that makes people stop in their tracks. He's a return to something beautiful in the past, something old and gone. He's a little girls dream and the strength and speed of many men and the image of cowboys running wild through fields and Bing Crosby through the old time radio. He's strong and gentle, fast and relaxed, mystical and oh so simple. He's innocence. He's dreams and wishes-the white horse with a long flowing mane-walking through a fast world, waiting at a stop light.

Everything is so bing, bang, BOOM! Done. It's almost like watching a movie or reading a book that is so amazing but you were kind of distracted during it and missed all the best parts, but will you really go back and read it again? Probably not. You've got the gist, and it's lost it's thrill.

Sojourner is like my mom.
"Look at this, Linny. Look!"
He misses nothing and it is interesting to see what he sees and what others don't.
For example, there are times when we're walking through cities up on the sidewalk and we will ride right by people who don't see us. We are even sometimes within their peripheral vision and they still never notice...too distracted. There is no way anything could pass by Soj without him noticing.

He constantly reminds me to look around, use my senses. He never complains "oh man, 25 miles today? 38 miles today!!??" He just goes-ears forward, seeing everything, his mind clear, ready.

What a lesson to learn, and from a horse!

"See, watch, stay here with me". He keeps me there, watching all the little things that catch his attention, noticing the people who don't notice us that I may have otherwise let ideas of the future, memories of the past, or emotions blind me from as well.

It's not anyone's fault. We don't come into this world looking for a tight pair of expensive jeans and the mascara that will make our lashes the longest. We come out curious, sitting up straight, and ready to do nothing more than examine a bug.

It's the push and pressure that comes out of all of us to be "successful" and most importantly stay young and look sexy. Like a horse, we need our pack, our posse, our ladies group, our golf club. We like our packs and the best looking one is usually the cream on the top of the people drink in the big people latte.

But I don't think it has to be this way. I don't know. I'm just a girl on a horse, but I just feel like there is so much outside, so much to be seen and so much to learn out there...so much that has nothing to do with what we deem so important.

Sojourner is pretty much solid muscle, all the animals we see that aren't human or domesticated are, and I love it! And here we are with these magnificent bodies that are capable of so much and because of the way we've set up our world we would huff at lifting a 20 pound bag (and believe me, I have done my share of "Walter, can you get this?" when I am totally capable of lifting it myself).

It's too easy. Maybe we make things too easy. Maybe we make things that are easy seem too hard. Have we become too disposable with our love, our marriages, our feelings, or are we rebelling against something that maybe isn't natural? Were they right in the 70's? Free love, no inhibitions? Should it be that way but maybe with a little more balance?

I can't follow Soj's lead here because he's all for free love. They all excite him: Mares, Geldings, Stallions (and he's a Gelding...the little man is regretfully only half the man he used to be).

I still have a romantic heart and like to think about growing old in my loves arms, true to the end, but I go back and forth to be honest...or I used to anyway. I suppose it's just different for every person, but whatever the case may be, I think more weight should be put on things. More respect should be offered.

All stuff to talk about with people I meet on this trek, I guess...

But anyway, we are riding 18 miles tomorrow to Bernardo. Soj had a nice rest today and 18 miles is nothing for that little fire cracker so we will have a nice, easy ride tomorrow.

Walter and I are 3 days now without a shower, but I think we will get one tomorrow night at the RV park we're staying at (fingers crossed tightly).

Walter is working on cracking my phone so we can get wi-fi wherever we have cell service so if it works I'll see you here tomorrow!

Oh cool. Walter's mouth is full of pizza so he just gave me the "ax across the neck" sign, swallowed, and said "cracked." See you soon then....