Update

I think the last thing I wrote was that things were going okay, despite what happened on the 2nd, with the little girl named Megan. I don’t know what happened to her further. I don’t know if maybe they saved those parts of her that let her walk and jump and feel. I don’t know if they didn’t save any part of her. I don’t know.

My Grandma, my mother’s Mother. She is very sick. Right now I am in Denver. It has been a strange combination of listening to the spattering of siblings who are there– there were nine of them, her children– and they banter, they joke, they love in a way I have never seen or understood before.

(Let me mention that right now “Vindicated” by Dashboard Confessional just came on my ipod. Yeah, yeah, enough with your personal musical superiority, if you are turning up your nose. I haven’t listened to this song since high school. I don’t remember it sounding this way– but it is really fitting right now, somehow. The lyrics.)

It has been a combination of that joy, seeing family, and that pain, seeing her so sick, hooked up to the machines that escort her to, well, to the end. The end? That is what they say. She is unconscious now, has been for a few days. My grandfather is very, very small. He used to be such a towering man. But he cries now, and I have never seen that before either. He cries and he holds my mother, their tattered and rocky relationship temporarily, or finally, bridged a bit.

Meanwhile, I take the children. The small, strong cousins of mine, who were born when I was ten. The son and daughter of my mother’s sisters, respectively. Some of my favorite people. Stoicly, no, strongly taking the news of their ailing elder, holding it but not holding it in. Not bottling; just dealing.

I take them to baseball games and waterworld. This is the strangeness. Play against pain. The only way. Disney world against the pit.

To mention that, what this blog is supposed to be about. Turro asked me to leave. He says I haven’t been myself lately. He wanted me to leave and see my grandmother, when I professed that reason for my supposed distraction.

He says, and Josh says, I have been distracted. I don’t know what, exactly, they mean, but this is what they tell me. I say Grandma, but after I think about it for a while, I think it is something else. I think it is twofold. I am anxious to the point of, yes, distraction, by the fact that Turro will yell at me. No matter what, he will yell. He always yells, at everyone. That should make it better, right?

And I am sick every ride I take out, knowing how easily it can all go to pieces. I am not scared for myself. I trust Champ, I trust myself, I trust my calmness and my ability to see clearly in the moment of all things gone awry.

But I am terrified for the people in the line, people two horses down who I cannot save or access or reach. Who don’t know what they are doing, and who haven’t been given enough training with these animals, because this place is a factory line: get the horses out, get the ride out, get the next one in, keep making money. People do get hurt. The place covers itself very well. There are disclaimers everywhere. There are liability forms. And people get killed. Little kids. Anyone.

Horses are herd animals, and they are prey. When they perceive attack, they will do anything in their power to run away. The small creatures on their backs are irrelevant.

Maybe Josh and Turro would say, that is why you have to be better.

But the fact is, people get hurt at all of their ranches, all of the time. There are some things you can’t control– especially not when it is done in this factory way.

So yes. I am distracted. I am sick with worry for them. My ears perked for the sound of a hoof striking wrong, or a whiny, or, worse, a scream. Ready for it. Ready to do what I can. But I don’t know all that I can do. I don’t know if there is much I can do.

I am not sure if this is the way I need to be going. It is hard to say this, because I feel like I am giving up.

I don’t know if I can participate in the all-too-possible injury or death of an unknowing child. Again.
This overall experience, which I got involved with largely for the experience, is not healthy. The environment, as someone told me, does not allow me to even consider or try to believe in, for a second, my self-worth.
My family is hurting. My grandfather is small, and my mother is tough and compact and radiating hurt. I want to be with them.

Someone said life is too short. To just put myself through an endurance test that results in– what? Worn in jeans, better abs. Some experience. Experience, though, of shoving horses through a gate, a line, not knowing any of them really well, not being allowed to work with them when not saddling or guiding.

I am not sure what I am going to do. Last night I had a dream I was back in the Cities, for a visit. We were buying groceries. I ran into many people. It was good to see them.

I don’t know. That is my fairly constant truth. I don’t know.

Maybe, though, I do know. It is just hard to make that choice.

“Vindicated”

Hope dangles on a string
Like slow spinning redemption
Winding in and winding out
The shine of it has caught my eye

And roped me in
So, mesmerizing,and so hypnotizing,
I am captivated,I am

Vindicated
I am selfish
I am wrong
I am right
I swear I’m right
Swear I knew it all along
And I am flawed, but I am cleaning up so well
I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself

So clear
Like the diamond in your ring
Cut to mirror your intention
Oversized and overwhelmed
The shine of which has caught my eye
And rendered me
So isolated,and so motivated
I am certain now that I am

Vindicated

I am selfish

I am wrong

I am right

I swear I’m right

Swear I knew it all along

And I am flawed, but I am cleaning up so well

I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself

So turn
up the corners of your lips
Part them and feel my finger tips
Trace the moment fall forever

Defense is paper thin
Just one touch and I’ll be in
Too deep now to ever swim against the current
So let me slip away
So let me slip away
So let me slip away
So let me slip against the current
So let me slip away
So let me slip away
So let me slip away
So let me slip away

Vindicated

I am selfish

I am wrong

I am right

I swear I’m right

Swear I knew it all along

And I am flawed, but I am cleaning up so well

I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself

Slight hope
dangles on a string
Like slow spinning redemption…