Stick of Wonder: Also Amazingly Awkward

I had kind of suspected as much.

The Amazing and Magical Stick of Wonder [AMSW] is almost as long as my leg. I tried to carry it in my bag, sticking out by about a foot, and every time I turned around, I could hear it scraping against something: a wall, a door, the side of a bus.

I didn’t want it to break. And, oh yeah, and didn’t want to put somebody’s eye out.

I knew it wasn’t going to work very well. I pretty much carry all my kit on my back, very well organised in a medium-sized sports bag, and I knew that a long stick was going to complicate my life.

Given the alternative— an uncooperative Rebel, which is the exact opposite of an oxymoron— I was prepared to work it out.

On the way home from Thursday’s private lesson, I decided to just carry it. People carry long, stick-like objects all the time! They carry umbrellas, they carry canes, they carry… yeah, well, a whip’s a whip, and seeing as the rest of me looks like I’ve been going horseriding, I got my fair share of lairy looks.

Not a bother on me, though. I held it close to my body, perpendicular to the ground, the top as high as my shoulder, the rest tucked in next to my leg. No one got hurt. Received nary an indecent proposal [darn it.] Managed to avoid poking my own eye out. All good.

Its awkwardness is not the end of the world, and in fact, may very well be the beginning of more forward movement on my part. Literally and figuratively. I’d felt a bit stuck in recent weeks, but the AMSW has given me a new lease of life. The least I can do is carry it proudly.

The Amazing and Magical Stick of Wonder

MINDS OUT THE GUTTER, PEOPLE We were walking the horses round and round prior to starting Tuesday’s hour. Reb had been chowing down before the lesson, the first of his day, and I reckoned it could go either way: grumpy from having been taken away from his hay, or fizzy from the infusion of energy.

Fizzy seemed to be the order of the day: we were in the front of the ride, which he only rarely agrees to, and he was moving.

Nikki had grabbed up a bunch of sticks, and from across the arena, I could see that one of them was long.

‘I’ll swap somebody mine, if I can take that long one,’ I piped up.

‘It’s manky,’ Nikki replied, holding it out.

It was. It was dead manky. It was just about falling apart, fraying at the end— in the middle, too— and if it had once been black, those days were long past, as it was ingrained with dirt from top to bottom.

It was manky, but so was the simple chalice Indiana Jones grabbed in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He knew that an object of power wouldn’t advertise itself as such. He knew that the trick would be in seeing past the exterior. Would this stick be my holy grail?

But— But— But—

23 FEBRUARY, 2008 It was our turn to canter, and I put my whip in my outside hand, as I have been doing in my private lessons, and Fiona said to put it in my inside hand, which I know, but Rebel seems to get the message best when it’s delivered to his off hind, but I put it in my inside hand, and I was giving the aid and giving the aid, and he wouldn’t canter, and he was doing his fast trot thing, and Fiona said to get back to the front of the ride and try again, and Mercury, who will canter at the merest suggestion of the thought of cantering, tried to take his turn, and Lorraine got him back in the queue, and we went again, and I tapped Reb on the near hind, and he picked it up, and then we had to change the lead, but I mostly sat back and we made it around the arena, God, and I’m told that I know Rebel well enough by now to know that that’s what it takes to get him to go, and I know that, and we trot and then we walk and I want to say, ‘But in my other lesson—’ but I don’t, because I already know that it makes no odds.

I am a Big Dork

BUT I’M OKAY WITH THAT I joined the British Horse Society, Gold Membership, as Gold membership holders get free insurance. ‘Free’ being £58 a year, but that sounded like good value to me. Personal injury and liability, woo hoo. No, I’m pleased with myself for doing the sensible thing, and when I received a packet full of brochures and catalogues, my pleasure increased, and then went absolutely off the charts when I saw the pin.

Every Little Helps

THURSDAY, 21 FEBRUARY I was running a little late for my private lesson— ran into some lads I used to work with, in the road by the taxi rank, and got talking.

And then the taximan took completely the wrong way, after having asked me which way I’d like to go, and then utterly disregarding it.

Got there in good time, regardless, time to organise all my clobber for a reverse Houdini at the end of the lesson, get everything on as quickly as possible and start the long walk to the bus. Plaited my hair, got out my money and stuck in my glove, shoved my stick into the half-chap on my right leg. Passed the dudes unloading feed from an enormous truck, and walked up the aisle to Rebel’s stable.

His head did not appear over the door. My thoughts immediately rushed to Kildare.

Gone to Kildare

It’s a Saturday, a few weeks ago, and I’ve been collected from the bus stop in Cabinteely. As we do, of a Saturday, on the way to the yard, we discuss the horses and ponies, and Lainie wonders who she’ll get today. Jenny is a current favourite, and all the kids are always talking about Lollipop [who is a boy; I think this is a terribly wrong name for a male pony]. She passes comment about Black Jack, who is a tough auld boot, but lots of fun.

‘I haven’t seen him around, I don’t think,’ I say, never sure which pony is which: there’s another little black pony called Bandit, and he and Black Jack are so alike they could be twins. I find it hard to keep all the ponies straight, especially the grays. Can’t tell grays apart to save my life.

‘He’s resting,’ Lainie replies. ‘He’s gone for a rest in Kildare.’

Working the Transition

The frequency of my lessons has also affected my blogging.

They seem less like discrete hours, and more of a gestalt. I have less time— oh, okay, I take less time— to think about them in the interim. But given what I’ve written below, I think I’ll get back into the swing in cyberspace.

Three Times a Rider

IT’S OFFICIAL The Thursday private lesson has become embedded into my routine.

I know I won’t be able to make every week; there’s a big job I’ve got on that’s going to interfere, maybe in two weeks time. But it’s in there, the third lesson, just as I wished.

Something’s changed, though, and it’s interesting for me to realise it. The atmosphere, my emotional atmosphere, has changed.

Learning Curve

WITH RESPECT TO CHIEF BRODY, RIP I’m going to need a longer whip.

Rebel and I are an item. There’s no getting around it. He’s got things to teach me, but they’re not, what with retrospect and all, the gentle lessons of Delilah and Argo.

Speaking of the Big Picture

It’s so easy to get thrown off, particularly after having been thrown off.