Inspiration

There are times in life when you look at somebody else for some inspiration. I've jumped on various bandwagons in my time, and each one had a different person that I pinned up as the driving inspiration. As life changes around me, and my ambitions become less glamorous, I am starting to see my bandwagons consolidating into one magnificent convoy.

I've always loved horses, and ridden since I was very little. My first pony was Sue, a tiny little grey Welsh pony who was the ripe old age of 18 when I inherited her from the rest of the family. She was quiet and solid and knew it all, and ferried me about while I learned how to sit quietly and still, how to balance, how to keep my heels down. Sue has gone to the great big pasture in the sky, I think she was 34 when she finally called it a day.

I borrowed a pony called Robin one summer, who was another well-aged old hand, and taught me to handle life with a bit more speed. Then the next year, I traded up to my sister's horse, Domino. He was slightly younger (still 16), with a fiesty Arab spirit with which he stomped his Welsh Cob feet. He still knew everything, taught me everything, there wasn't a single thing I could have done to shock him.

I've ridden hundreds of horses in my life, but one thing I've never done, or believed myself capable of doing, is training a young horse myself. I've always considered myself too inexperienced, or that a young horse would be too dangerous. That's amusing, given how many riding schools here in England happily put me on their greenest horses week after week, and instructors would flippantly comment about how hardly any clients ride a particularly troublesome horse that I had enjoyed riding.

So, to the inspiration. Obviously, a big inspiration to me is Cowboy, who reassures me that I'd be a good horse trainer, if I only stopped believing I am a useless horsewoman. There are many other trainers and clinicians that I've watched and studied over the last two years, who have made me want to learn more and try it for myself.

Then I sat down and watched the video diary that Stacy Westfall has been releasing over the last few months. It shows the week by week progress of a young stud horse that she is training. She talks through everything calmly. She demonstrates what she's doing, explains why. Some of it I don't agree with, but a lot of it makes sense. What's inspiring is seeing it look completely possible.

I hope to take on my own young horse in the near future, and build up the kind of bond that would open up a new world for me. It'll be a world full of mistakes and struggles, no doubt, but the prospect excites me. I'm grateful for this kind of inspiration - the kind that makes ambitions look closer than they seemed before.

Fear and hate

I had flu the last few days. It was pretty miserable. I'm starting to come back from it now, and I'm enjoying the "massive and sore lymph nodes in the neck" phase. Immunity is an amazing thing.

I am often overly concerned with other people's feelings, to a fault. It's a weakness of mine, a powerful urge to please everybody, all the time, even if it means sacrificing my own needs, wants and desires. I take grudges held by others very personally, even when they're not held against me.

I'm reminded of Master Yoda's wise words.



Fear is our protective emotion. It drives our desire to survive. But to live in fear of other people being fearful, angry or hateful is not really surviving...

So, I'm taking a lesson from this guy:

Keep your footing, as best you can, and trot on...

Wise Words

In January, I posted about a deeply personal situation. In hindsight, perhaps I should not have done so - although I took efforts to protect the identities of people I spoke about, and to do my best not to be openly offensive. I was, however, feeling defensive. Out of defence, I made a judgement, a wrong one. Despite many hundreds of thousands of people voicing their opinions and judgements on the internet, many of them offensive and insensitive, I am reluctant to make my feelings public.

However, I did make my thoughts public. This is a public blog. I am sorry if my voicing my feelings has caused hurt (but my right to voice them is unchanged). I have removed the posts, and removed an insensitive comment that was left with the sole intention of hurting me, but exposed another person in a way which I did not feel was acceptable. I was not comfortable with such personal details about somebody who has been hurt being freely available to strangers.

It is human instinct to seek out the sources of our pain, and to do whatever we can to stop them. If we cannot resolve the pain, we strike out at other things. We seek out other reasons for our anger and our hurt, and hope that this time we will feel better.

I came to terms with what happened some time ago. His Holiness the Dalai Lama can express what I am trying to do far better than I can. Please watch, listen and absorb.

Signs of getting older

I'm becoming increasingly aware that I am not 21 any longer. The thought of wearing a minidress and stilettos and going out dancing until 3am is not appealing these days. Neither is the fried chicken from the dubious fried chicken shop that we used to frequent after a night's dancing.

No, these days I fancy things like kale and chia seeds (whatever they are). I live in my sheepskin slippers and good sensible flats, work boots, and on the few occasions when I do cram my feet into a pair of heels, I just notice that my feet have spread and my bunion has got a bit worse.

I used to stop and stare at the window displays of Footlocker and Size?, in love with the brightly coloured Nikes and Adidas that would look totally sick at dance class.

OK, sometimes I still do that.

I tend to stop and stare at different window displays, though. The ones with good saucepans and juicers and solid wood furniture. I dream about the day when I can construct my perfect living room.

But the most recent, most potent sign that I am not 21 any longer is these...



I used to be able to read for hours, in terrible light, and suffer no ill effects. Lately I noticed headaches, a sense of tiredness in my eyes, and I was squinting unattractively as I moved the page closer and further in a bid to find the perfect focus zone.

The optometrist told me cheerfully that my vision probably won't go downhill in any significant way until I'm in my forties, so that's something to look forward to.

Efforts in creativity

Things have been a bit mad recently. I'll explain later. The long and short of it is I've needed to find ways to silence my brain, and to focus on one small task at a time. Otherwise the deluge of information and ideas is rather overwhelming.

I spent quite a bit of time over the Christmas period crafting jewellery, and I've picked it up again in the last few days. There's something rather zen about picking apart a piece of unloved jewellery and piecing something new together.



I was given a whole bunch of beaded jewellery by an old housemate before she moved out, which has bulked out my collection of materials considerably, but I've also made a few purchases here and there.



These interesting coloured chip beads came from Fishtail, Montana. The shop had strings and strings of locally sourced mineral beads. I had to limit myself to just the two colours.





I love them, and I want to make use of them, but the holes drilled in them are a little small for the metal findings I use. I'll either have to attempt to learn about using thread or wire, or find myself a drill.



Some of my creations are simpler than others. I have a few different colours to work with, and gold is not something I would usually wear. I'm quite tempted to try now that I've been playing with it a bit.

But these are probably my favourites...



I'm in the process of opening up a shop on Etsy, but being the sort of person who agonises over these things, it'll take me a while before I can summon the courage to get it up and running properly.

Scuppered

Hmm. The proverbial spanner is firmly wedged in the works. I have had the most definitive news yet from the school in Seattle, and it's spanner-shaped.

I had intended to go and study under a student visa, but for the school to give me the relevant forms to get a student visa, they need to be part of a big government system. Being small and perfectly formed, and not regulated by the government (which is part of why they are so awesome), they are not part of this scheme. So the student visa is not an option. They've previously only taken students who already had visas or green cards.

Well, bother, as Pooh Bear might have said.

Spring cleaning

There are cobwebs everywhere. What's more embarrassing is that a spider has taken up residence under my bedside table and insists on spinning a web between the table and my mattress. I've tried to convince her not to, but she's persistent.

I think a new spider has taken up residence in my wing mirror, spinning a very different kind of web from the ones CJ used to make. I'm a little sad about that.

In the spirit of spring cleaning, I took it upon myself to completely rebuild, rewrite, rewire and otherwise overhaul Cowboy's website. I made the first version (which is no longer available to view - possibly a blessing) in one stressful day, sitting in a trailer while Cowboy wandered in and out, hoping I was done.

The new and improved version took me all week, in sessions of about three hours at a time. It is finally finished, and is up and running. I'm pretty pleased with it, if I do say so myself.

Phew.