Me and the Weirdo(s)

This week, I want to give a shout-out to my favorite woman in the world: my mother.


Back in 1997, she wrote and published a somewhat esoteric book titled "Dressage in the Fourth Dimension" (http://www.dressageinthefourth.com/). To say she was ahead of her time would be like describing the Great Wall of China as a sort-of-long fence.


I read the book with a Thesaurus close at hand, a dictionary, an encyclopedia, and a large glass of wine. It was heavy stuff. In a nutshell, the book takes a metaphysical look at the animal-human relationship. Admittedly, metaphysics does not come up often in the context of half-halts and shoulder-ins, but as I'm trying to get across, my mother is not your ordinary horse gal. She paints, plays music, climbs mountains, kayaks rivers, teaches philosophy, and rides horses like she is still 30 years old. Before I digress, let me celebrate (with her) that "Dressage in the Fourth Dimension" is being re-published this fall by New World Library and the horse world is finally ready for it!


Being raised by two horse trainers was undoubtedly the best childhood any kid could be blessed with. Even though my parents always lectured, "You don't know how lucky you are," I did know how blessed I was. I never took a day for granted on that darling little farm of ours. Alongside my parents, I broke horses, reassured horses, conditioned horses, and loved horses. And never once did I ever wish to be anywhere but out there in the country with them running their little training business. Anyway, one of the many reasons I admire my mom so much is that she put me on a horse at three-and-a-half years old. I have been astride ever since. And I can't imagine life any other way.


Mom and I used to ride together every day and somehow it forged an unshakable bond to each other. You see, my mother was incapable of simply riding a horse. What she could do was showboat. This is best described as turning any mediocre horse that she happened to be riding into a show-stopper the second a crowd formed. People stopped by our farm all the time. And when they did, my mother pulled a horse from the barn, hopped aboard and gave them a show they'd never forget.

Something happened in those moments when spectators clustered outside the arena door. Under my mom, a perfectly ordinary horse became charged with the desire to perform like an Olympic contender. Nags suddenly danced and pranced. Ill-tempered youngsters forgot their antics and went boldly through their movements, with Bach or Vivaldi blaring through the loudspeakers.


I remember this vividly because it was during a particular Bach fugue that my mother performed a rather brilliant extended trot across the diagonal upon a normally weedy Arabian to the sheer delight of six women gathered and gasping near the arena... and rammed straight into me at the end of the diagonal. She smashed into me so hard that we both undoubtedly suffered whiplash, my pony crashed into the wall, I flew over the front of my saddle, and my mother kept on riding by.

It was in that moment that I realized my mother was a little off kilter, but even though my leg throbbed, I couldn't help but idolize her. She imbibed passion, a rare spirit of leadership, and a remarkable knack for not caring when she slammed her horse into another rider during the extended trot.


Since then, we have ridden horses together all over Europe. We've gone in search of dressage in Vienna, Amsterdam, London, Lisbon, Seville. Instead, we've found pig farms, drunkards, bad food, snow, and a few good horses along the way. We have laughed so hard that we forgot what was funny in the first place. We have disagreed, argued, tried to out-ride each other, leaned on each other, and been perplexed together. Horses have been the glue that holds us together through life's journeys. My mom used horses to teach me about patience, kindness, and what she calls the "spiritual economy" in the universe. Basically, live life with an open heart and life will give you back the same. This is the stuff in her book.

All of us have had someone special in our lives who has helped or nurtured our obsessive love of horses, whether through encouragement, financial help, mentoring, a supportive spouse, etc. For me, it has been my mom. She has humbled me, humored me, and poured me a beer at the end of the day, reminding me not to take life too seriously. One day in Amsterdam, she put her feet up at the pub after our lesson, tipped back her chair and asked "Hey, did you see that hell-of-a-good extended trot of mine during our lesson?" I savor how her face is beaming, how delighted she is in her performance and whether or not a crowd of people noticed, too.

"No, Mom, I didn't, because for once you didn't smash into me."

This week, I raise my glass to you, Mom and say congratulations on the success of your book and for being the off-kilter woman that you are.