A Script and a Saddle

By Alli Rogers • Aug 1st, 2008 • Category: Artists in Residence

I’m tired today and thinking of numbness. Sometimes I think it’s good to shut off. It might be why I enjoy watching romantic comedies so much, or even why I like playing cards. Not because games or movies require no thought or emotion, but because I don’t have to steer the boat too much. Someone or something is telling me what to think and feel and I just have to let it all happen. There are days when I need that. But if every day were like that I would become a robot, calculating the odds and connecting the corresponding emotion to the corresponding circumstance.

I rode a horse yesterday for the first time in over 10 years. Thanks to allergy shots and a newfound love for animals, I enjoyed it immensely. It didn’t hurt that we were in Rocky Mountain National Park with a magnificent view. My horse’s name was Danny and although he responded to my tugs on the reins I had this overwhelming feeling that he could take control at any moment, revealing the powerful animal he is. I was riding a horse that was tame, sure, but wild underneath the saddle and harness.

I would have loved to see Danny gallop through a field or up a hillside, I would have even loved to see him kick his front feet in the air and break out from the single file line we’d made on the mountain path. He didn’t and we returned to the stables unscathed and smiling. But there is always that yearning for adventure in me and I was reminded of it yesterday.

I’m torn between the desire to read my seemingly scripted lines, and the desire to kick up my legs and run. Maybe there is a balance.

Do we get more tame as we get older? I’m afraid to get so tame that I trot along the path in a single file line, stepping in the same steps as the guy in front of me. Even if his were good, safe steps, I would like to make a few marks of my own.

I know there is a time and season for everything under heaven. A time to relax on the couch and a time to gallop across a hillside. But something about the latter feels so much more true…doesn’t it?

Does it Resonate with you?

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