back out of the saddle

Here is a "Napoleon Hat" clock I put on eBay last night. It's just a plastic one but I think it makes a great Halloween mantle clock! Anyway, it was fun to do.
The writing has not been flowing just recently so I tried taking a break, but I know it's one of those things you just have to do even when you don't feel inspired. Sometimes you have to inspire your own self. Like any art, even something like this clock, sometimes the creativity does not flow on it's own and when that happens you just have to do it anyway. I'm learning that is a rather large part of being any sort of artist. Show up everyday willing to try, as with everything else in life. What more can you expect from yourself?
Lord knows I can't tolerate any kind of giving up. I'll indulge in giving up for a short period when necessary but I always do it knowing I have a timer inside me that will go off and get me back on the horse.


I want to be back on this horse, Whiskey! Every time I greet him I pet his head and say "Hey Beautiful"; it's one of those things you catch yourself while doing and then realise how often you do it.`But he is gorgeous, look at him. Every time I drive out to the farm lately I have a fantasy about riding him which I haven't done in a long time. I look at the fields closer to the farm, all of them bigger now, and imagine riding a horse there.
Bareback, the only way to go. My big sister "taught" me how to ride when I was little, maybe around age 7. She put me on her horse Misty's bare back, slapped her on the ass and yelled instructions to me "Hang on with your legs! Now yell! Yell like you're having fun!" And I did! I remember letting go of the reins and leaning over close to her neck and then rising up with a great yell. We had so much fun and so much more than fun. Wearing just Tshirts and cut offs barefooted and bareback on a sweaty horse, swattin' at horse flies and sweat bees riding through the woods and galloping in the fields. In the worst heat of the summer we'd go out after dark and ride for hours, untethered from everything but us, no cell phones, no parents, no grownups, just sisters on horses. I'd follow her, sometimes I could see her Keds practically glowing in the woods from the faint moonlight, didn't have to do anything, just keep in sync with the horse. The walking on and on to different trails in the woods opening into different pastures, walking and running! Running down and uphill fast! Galloping always causes you to breathe like you are running; you breathe with the horse, and when you come to a stop everybody is out of breath and exhilarated. It is pure bliss.
I got to grow up with hours and hours spent just like that. I am blessed in this and many other ways.



I was raised to have, at best, disdain for saddles and all other superfluous tack.
However I did finally learn how to ride a western saddle when I was 21 in New Mexico, and I can see their value as a tool for a job, being a real cowboy, but all that to ride around for fun out in the country? Bullshit.
Another of my favorite things in life is critters of all sorts! I was standing by the back porch when I heard the squeak of some small creature. It was oddly persistent and I began walking towards it when I saw the cat stalking the same thing. He jumped straight into a big bush of pampas grass and had this little fellow in his mouth. I let the cat do all the work and then stole it from him just to get a picture. So cute! This one is a tiny baby field rat. They look like those cute little rats you see on nature shows that live in the desert and are completely nocturnal. These have the same Kangaroo back legs and long feet, and the hop around the same way. I chased after a great many of them behind Dad's bush hog as a kid. You followed that thing around and you are guaranteed to catch something.
Bran and I found a nest of the "pinkies" when I was about 9 and we "milked" the dog, Buffy, and tried to feed it to them! It seems like there were years that Buffy just had puppies over and over, so she was a good source of milk as far as we were concerned. God bless all our pets, they put up with alot!



On a different note, I am always admiring things I see in the sidewalk or in the road. I was walking in my neighborhood earlier this week (while I was giving myself some time off writing) and the leaves looked like scattered confetti in the street. I always try to take pictures but they don't "capture" what I see; they're never a good enough representation. I had a picture saved in the camera in my phone for a year that I took in the parking lot at a gas station on my way to a Radiohead concert. It was a spit out piece of Big Red next to an abandoned blue comb! It just looked so interesting! That piece of gum came from somewhere far away from where it ended up, and so did the lonely comb...who knows how many miles each had traveled to end up eight inches away from each other at a Sam's Mart parking lot? That's the kind of thought that washes up on the shores of my mind when I'm in a crowd; to imagine how different each of us is, and every single moment in everyone's life has brought all of us together here, purposefully, to be milling about together at this very grocery store, gas station, sidewalk, where ever... Finally I thought "If you didn't know me and saw this picture, you'd think it was very weird", but then I remembered "I don't care!" So much freedom in that thought "I don't care", and yet it so often said to defend yourself when you do care. Think about it. I think everyone has these kinds of weird thoughts, at least anyone very interesting does. Perhaps most people just don't ever consider bringing them up. Yep, you're in my world now, "start likin' it"!
I know an artist here in Charlotte who I just adore and he does these incredible still lifes of things like little dried up dead fish. They are incredible! Oh painting...someday. Someday soon. It frustrates me unlike all my other media. I guess I'm spoiled and I want it to be easy, because so many things I'm good at are easy to me. Well that makes for a lazy artist, I suppose I have to "Just Do It" like the ad says.
Just get back out of the saddle and ride.