Last night at Ava’s lesson, while sharing a step stool with one of the barn cats, I casually watched another lesson at the other end of the arena.  The rider was a young girl, quite lithe and graceful, riding bareback on a lovely bay with all the skill in the world.  Her instructor (also my instructor) was seated in the corner, doling out commands and praises, and sometimes reprimands.  As I watched this young rider I was completely entranced by the way she looked on top of that horse, and found myself wanting to be like her; a silly notion given the span of years that separate us (possibly twenty, or more).

In the grand scheme of horsemanship I am but a mere beginner with so little knowledge that I couldn’t possibly judge the skill level of another rider just by watching. All I have ever known about horses is just to get on and ride. There was no skill involved, no communication with the horse, and my horses were most often tacked and ready for me from the get go. I had no relationship with the horses, no insight into their minds or impulses. If a horse wanted to do something it did it because I had no solid understanding of how to handle a horse properly and be the leader a well trained horse needs. They took advantage of me, probably because I was taking advantage of them by just coming along for the ride without learning much about them first.

After my first few lessons, my instructor found a command that my body responded to without any help at all from my brain. She calls to me, ‘find your dancer’, the second I begin to get sloppy and somehow it works to correct every postural shift, every lazy stride, everything. She asked me, once, what I did when she called that command because as soon as she does, my entire body shifts and transitions into that ‘dancer’.  I gave a brief ‘I don’t know’ with some vague explanation, but the truth is that I don’t know. I don’t know. It just happens. It’s just natural.

Once I was a dancer. My body was trained to be graceful and fluid. I was once light footed and sure of myself, coordinated and posturally perfect. I was never thin, never gifted with the body of a dancer, but I was built, and toned.

At my first lesson my instructor mentioned my natural poise on a horse and I had explained to her that I had ridden before and that I had been a dancer for many years when I was younger and that my posture had been meticulously honed as a result.

My last lesson was the most moving for me. I found my dancer and posted my trot as though it was natural, for more than just a beat or two, for the first time in my life, and it was so cathartic that I don’t even think I can put into words how I felt in that moment. Like Wally and I were one and we were moving together in harmony. We were happy together and it was exhilarating. Like no other feeling I’ve ever felt before. No pleasure ride, no crazy gallop around the ring, nothing compared to this feeling. Having felt that, and hearing my instructor’s praise, gives me hope that one day I can be like the girl on the bay I saw last night, moving in graceful bareback harmony with my horse the way she was with hers.

It’s been a year since we moved from Las Vegas to Colorado and we’re nearing the end of our first winter here.  Hard to believe it’s been that long.  I love Colorado so much, I can’t imagine living anywhere else, now, and I am ever thankful for being given the opportunity to get here.  I am finally living.  I’m finally happy.  I’m doing things I’ve put off for years, I’m exploring new things, taking chances, it’s a whole new world and I will never, ever leave.

That said, I’m surprised to find myself missing some aspects of Vegas living.  One thing I miss is convenience.  Whoa, do I miss convenience.  Country girl to city girl back to country girl.  It’s been a huge adjustment.  Fourteen years of all hours city life really screwed me up.  Just last night Joe called me saying, “Man, things close early here.”  By early be meant 5PM.  I miss Japanois at 2AM, and I miss late evening business hours.  I miss liquor being sold in grocery stores and, I swear to God I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss that smell of hot asphalt.

But the biggest thing I miss?  Wearing flip flops in March.  I’ve worn socks and shoes for three months now and I’m fucking over it, man…ugh.  My feet are super soft and callous free; perfect for summer, but no one can see them because they’re beneath layers of socks since no matter how hot I keep the house my toes won’t get warm!

I know it sounds like I’m complaining.  I can hear all of you saying, ‘You wanted cold and snow, quit yer bitchin”, but I’m really not bitchin’.  I’m just expressing how this huge change has affected me.  I was a desert rat for fourteen years, okay?  I’m not used to this cold shit and it’s exhausting cleaning up the copious amounts of mud and snow from my floors when the dogs go bananas in the yard, because it doesn’t snow and stay around, no, it melts almost immediately and there is nothing left but sludge for the dogs to track in.

And the kids are so over the snow.  Oh, they love it when it’s happening but even Ava is getting tired of it.  They haven’t been to the park in awhile and for two kids who could park it up year round, this has been a big change for them.

It’s weird to see pictures of my girlfriend’s in Vegas with their tops down, cruising the streets in a sweatshirt and flip flops while I’m bundled up here in the mountains in at least three layers because it’s still chilly to me (meanwhile locals are wearing shorts because they think 50° is warm -wtf?!).  Everyone says that next year I’ll be more acclimated.  Well, I certainly hope so, cause 60° is still pretty damn chilly to me.  It sure is a nice change when it’s been nothing but snow and ‘feels like -7′ when I wake up in the morning, but it ain’t no short and t-shirt weather, that’s for sure (yesterday it was 58° and I saw a woman walking her dog in a tank top -mind.blown.).  Whoa, that’s damn cold, folks.

Still, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  Not even flip flops in March.  I can’t tell you how nice it is to, for once, look forward to spring.  I haven’t looked forward to a change in seasons in…I don’t even know how long, because there was no change in seasons!  It was warm, and it was cold.  That was it.  The transition from winter to spring in Vegas was something I usually dreaded.  The coming spring meant long days of 80 degree weather that led way to 100 degree weather from which their was no escape.  Want to sit on the deck in the evening?  Better have misters cause otherwise you’ll DIE from the sweltering heat, and even then it’s still pretty damn uncomfortable.  Still 90° at midnight?  Of course.  And that’s where the problem lies.  Not that it was 100° that day, but that it was still 90° at midnight.  There’s no real cool down for several months straight.

I’m sooooo done with that.  So, so done.  If cleaning up mud for days, wearing socks and boots for three months, if enduring frigid morning temps means never, ever having to experience 90° at midnight again, if it means being able to open my windows most of the summer, I’ll take it and this will be the last entry, ever, about the weather in beautiful Colorado.