Fix it and forget it
I woke up this morning with all three cats staring at me. At my jugular, to be precise. Tweedledee was perched very vulture-like on the night stand. The other two were practically tying bibs around their necks. I woke up because Tweedledumb raked his claws against the wall and the sound was not unlike that made when sharpening a knife.
They ran out of food yesterday, you see, and missed dinner. That’s completely my fault, but let’s be honest: they’re all a bit fat and missing one meal wasn’t going to kill them. I never thought that missing one meal might kill me, but perhaps I should have: these are the Mob Cats who Disappeared Nessie, after all.
I am reconsidering my plan to be the Crazy Lady who lives alone on the hill with her cats. I think I’ll be the Crazy Lady who lives alone on the hill with her goldfish, instead. It’d take some really determined goldfish to murder me in my bed.
This anecdote was supposed to transition smoothly into the topic I really want to talk about, but it doesn’t seem to be working out that way. Don’t you hate it when you can’t articulate the train of thought that led you to a certain subject? I’m just a bit unsettled by the cats.
They were drooling. Aren’t you supposed to die of natural causes before you get eaten by your pets?
Anyway.
I have a habit of agonizing over things I can’t do anything about, especially if they are things in the future that will probably never come to pass. But I don’t pass up a good chance to agonize over something that already happened if it presents itself.
Chocolate helps with the first problem, but it was riding that helped me sort out the second.
One of my biggest challenges at shows was understanding that if something goes wrong in the middle of a course or test, it was not the end of the world. You fix whatever the problem was and then forget it—and ride the rest of the course like everything was perfect. I didn’t really believe in the “fix it and forget it” mentality until I started riding Dressage.
I think it was the time I blew a movement and scored… oh… a two… and then regrouped and scored an eight in the next movement that finally convinced me one mistake was not the end of the world. My trainer had been telling me that for ages, but it was seeing the 2 and 8 next to each other on the score sheet that convinced me.
After that, I was better in the hunter ring, too. We just didn’t realize how much better I’d gotten at moving on—until one Eq on the Flat class.
Generally, the eq classes were dominated by two riders and the rest of us scrapped for third and fourth. But I went into the ring that day and I knew I was on—everything was perfect. (If this were a TV show, things would go all cloudy and wavy and then you’d get a gold-tinted view of Perfect Me with even the buckles on my spur straps sparkling and orchestral music in the background. Aren’t you glad this isn’t TV?) As we lined up, I allowed myself to hope I’d actually won the class.
As they called ribbons (starting with eighth), I became more and more confident. Finally, three of us were left and the first place ribbon was going to be called. I knew there was no way I could have been out of the ribbons with that ride, and I almost started walking out of the lineup when the announcer called “In first place…”
I was that confident.
Good thing I didn’t actually walk out of line. I didn’t place.
I exited the ring, expecting my trainer to explain what had happened. She asked me what had happened. Two other trainers came over to ask what happened, because they had me pegged as the winner. The girl who won wanted to know what happened because, from what she had seen, she thought I had the class too.
Later in the day, my trainer came over to me and said, “So, why didn’t you tell me you lost a stirrup in the eq class?”
“I what?” I said, now even more confused than before.
“You dropped your stirrup. That’s why you lost.”
I had, in fact, dropped my stirrup. My outside stirrup. As we went into the corner by the judge’s stand. For half a stride. I don’t think I even consciously registered it—I picked it back up and just kept riding.
I looked at my trainer, slightly horrified. “I forgot,” I said, trying to explain why I hadn’t been able to explain what went wrong. After all, I knew losing a stirrup in an eq class is auto elimination, so I should have come out of the ring knowing exactly what went wrong. “I really did. I fixed it, and then I forgot all about it.”
In the end, the placing in that class is irrelevant. I have other blue ribbons on my wall and, frankly, I couldn’t give you any details about the ride that won them, beyond what class it was in. And only that because it’s written on the back. But I do remember that eq ride—not just the hubbub afterward, but the feeling of the ride itself. That’s memory is better than a blue ribbon.
Plus, I learned valuable lessons that day. Like: When you are winning a class, the judge has nothing better to do than watch you and wait for you to screw up. Also: “Forget it” does not actually mean “forget it.” It means “Move on, but take note so we can discuss what happened later.”
Ah. Nuances. Someone should have said.
Rising Rainbow says 30 January 2007
This is a great story about your eq ride. I never have nerves when I show because to me it’s just another ride. Once I swing my leg over the horse, it’s all about the relationship between the two of us no matter where it is, the show ring, the practice arena or on a trail . It something goes wrong, it’s only important because it’s a tool I can use to learn.