Latest / Relatively Stable / Horse with a Pearl Earring

Transcript

Horse with a Pearl Earring · Relatively Stable

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: had to come to terms with the fact
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: that Penny might have swallowed my pearl earring and there was nothing
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: that I could do about it.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Penny is a flea-bitten gray mare in her mid-20s.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: She was some Amish family's primary means of transportation before she was traded in
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: for a newer model at the age of 13 and swiftly sold at the New Holland Auction
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: in Pennsylvania with the hope of becoming a fox hunter in Tryon, North Carolina.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Penny hated that job.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: As with many dissatisfied creatures in the world, she made her way to me.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: The earring was entirely my fault.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Closing shift at the farm happens at ever-changing times.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like the rest of the world beyond the polar regions,
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: we're swimming through the thick Vaseline air of a heat wave.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Penny the horse has metabolic disease, and the heat has been rough on her this year.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'd adjusted my last hay of the day accordingly to take advantage of
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: the cooler breezes late at night.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like to eat when I'm hot, and I've projected that onto the horses.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: After a long day of sessions in the barn,
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I shivered in the air conditioning inside the house for a while.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was getting ahead of my nighttime rituals like taking off my earrings
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: and pearl necklace so I could jump straight in the shower after being sweat drenched
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: during last call for the horses.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I became distracted and placed the earrings in my pocket.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: My left pocket.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: The pocket I placed Penny's gooey horse treat wrapped in a ball around her meds every evening.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm usually very careful about what I put in my left pocket.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: One of my greatest joys is scouring the sand beneath my feet in the riding arena
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: for artifacts mixed in the dredged river sand.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: More often than not, these are shards of glass and glazed pottery.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I go to great lengths to remove those pieces before setting out for the last feeding of the day.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: On the night in question, I checked my pockets for amateur archaeology.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I did not check them for earrings.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: The medicine cabinet in the wash rack of the barn is our apothecary.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: In it, you'll find everything from arnica cream,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: sea salt, and shampoo to stethoscopes and syringes.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Penny is on a daily anti-inflammatory pill that I divide and mix into
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: the most moist, juicy horse treat on the market.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Try to hide that pill in anything else, and you'll see what a smart mouth she has.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I popped the pill into my pocket, and I stacked the hay cart.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Going down the line,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I marveled at how much easier it was to throw hay over the fence when Julian was out
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: with his girls on the grass field,
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: leaving only moose and pepper to nose me as I tossed.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I learned to bring the boy and his harem back over once the hay was on the ground,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: But they all crowd into the corner of the temporary fence,
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: judging me with their eyes,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: waiting for the person with thumbs to give them access to their dinner.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I rolled the cart to Penny on the other side of the fence line,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: abutting the field she shares with Faith,
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: the golden pony, the baby of the barn at 10 years old.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I reached into my pocket and felt something against my finger
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: as I pulled out Penny's pill ball She's an aggressive treat grabber,
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: so I tapped her nose, a signal to wait, and extended the flat of my palm.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: She gobbled it up gently.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: In the haste to keep her happy, I'd pulled my pocket up.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I reached down to press the fabric back into my pant leg.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was then that I felt a sharp point, a tiny earring post.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: There was only one earring in my pocket.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: By this point, Penny was working through her flakes of sweet-smelling alfalfa hay.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: I climbed through the broad vinyl fence boards,
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: one of my goals since moving here to easily fit through the fence.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've reached it and the move is now second nature.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Staring at Penny, my options were slim.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Horses can't puke, but their esophaguses are huge and wide.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Their bellies can expertly calcify foreign objects, which presents its own future problems.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I imagined myself digging through every fresh poo pile in the field in
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: the coming days, trying to settle my mind that the jewelry had passed through her.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Faced with absolutely nothing I could do to solve this problem,
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I decided to take a rare option for me.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I decided not to worry about it.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Putting this tool into motion felt foreign and out of place.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I continued to feel awkward and out of practice at this letting go thing for
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: the rest of the evening.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was relatively successful.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Later, I found the mate for the lone earring in the spot where I put them every night.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently,
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: I had placed it there before heading down to the barn for the closing shift,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: forgetting about the other one.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: My presumed problem was not a problem.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings me to the lesson I've been driving home to barn staff lately.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Take the fewest steps.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: A barn manager I worked under told me this long ago.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Remove the footsteps from each task.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you can walk back and forth once instead of 12 times to accomplish the same task,
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: take the path of fewer footsteps.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Horses do this too.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're efficient in how they spend time and energy.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: We intrigue them with our oddities.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: I had a choice with the penny situation.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I could have worried myself sick over it,
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: which I'm prone to do,
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: or I could let it go and continue with my business until a problem truly emerged.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: To gain the efficiency in this endeavor,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: it was essential that I truly let go instead of pretending to be okay on the outside
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: while I privately obsessed over the details.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Private relinquishment is the hardest thing to do.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I did it and then I found the solution in a crystal bowl in the bathroom.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: The other earring.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was not inside Penny's stomach.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was exactly where my over busy and over tired mind placed it and then forgot about it.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Farms have a way of refusing to let one story stay the only story.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: What could have been a night centered on a lost earring became a lesson
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: in being aware of how many steps I was taking.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: While I was working hard to practice mental and emotional efficiency,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: the farm was teaching a new generation how to spend a summer night.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: A new tradition.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: When three teenagers came to me with their plan to start a new annual tradition
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: of celebrating senior graduation by camping in the graveyard field,
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: my knee-jerk reaction was, absolutely not.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: My general response to any question is no.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: It buys me time to think about the details.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oddly, this time, I unequivocally said yes.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad that I did.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Agreeing was an improvised version of me learning how to take fewer internal steps.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Barn friendships are very different than the social packs that form at schools
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: and out in the wilds of normal life.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Barn buddies don't conform to societal norms.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: The weirdos and the nerds hang out with the jocks.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the breakfast club, but with less angst and academic punishment.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: I take back angst.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: There is always angst,
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: and horses are perfectly poised to bring out all our hidden emotions,
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: making us study them intensely in their eyes.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: One forms a silent and understood pact with their barn comrades.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Who we are out there in the real world doesn't matter.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Who we are at the farm is sacrosanct, and bonds are lifelong.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: My barn BFF is Rosemary.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Notice that's in the present tense.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: I can go an entire decade without seeing her or speaking,
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: but the moment we're in each other's company,
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: we are as familiar with each other as we were fighting over who was going to fill
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: a wheelbarrow with shavings when we stripped stalls as preteens.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: I hated stripping stalls down to the dirt.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Rosemary remembers this.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: If Rosemary was in Bulgaria today and lost her passport,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I would drop everything I was doing to fly over,
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: meet her at the embassy, and plead her case.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Luckily, she lives on the other side of the county and rarely travels abroad.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: These three present-day girls,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Emery, Valeshka, and Lauren, have been with me at the farm for a very long time.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: I will laugh with them for hours,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: but I've also instilled a healthy fear of crossing my boundaries.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: The barn is no place for hijinks.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: They understand that if they do something foolish and break my trust,
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: they must work a very long time to get that trust back, if at all.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not every child that enters the gates of this place will become as immersed
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: in my life as these three and the ones that came before them.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to tell which new student will weather the preteen era,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: stick with horses, and become an extended part of my family forever.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: But these three have passed the test,
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm thrilled to welcome whoever is next marching their way toward me.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: For this reason,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: community horse farms must survive city expansion
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: and growing populations everywhere.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's why I'm so passionate about having saved this farm by securing a forever home
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: at Lavender Hill.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to be a part of stewarding that next generation,
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: gifts of any amount are deeply appreciated and needed.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can give at the link that you'll find in the show notes and in this original essay.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: If I do it well,
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: eventually one of those kids will grow up here and will become a leader in
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: the horse world and beyond.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what, they will be leaders in their own lives.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose of this sleepover was to celebrate Valeshka graduating from high school.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Next year, Emery is on deck, and Lauren follows in two years.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've already had some middle schoolers enamored with the tradition after watching
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: the videos from this year's event, so hopefully it will become an annual shindig.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: I can't speak for the barn crew.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: They do that perfectly fine on their own, but I can speak for myself.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: One year ago,
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: we were still in our old location,
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: and if I had been approached for permission to schedule this event,
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: I would have said absolutely not.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: A lot can change in a year.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: The entire landscape of my life has altered.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: At the old barn, events beyond working hours seemed impractical.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: We leased the land so every decision beyond normal horse duty seemed out of bounds.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: The fields were built for function, not for lingering.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: There were roads just beyond the fence and neighbors nearby.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: The streetlights in the city beyond the tree line didn't allow for a night to feel like night.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the kind of land where you could easily settle beneath the stars.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: We did our chores, checked every gate twice, and went home.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the land wasn't made for a sleepover, but the biggest difference wasn't logistics.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was a state of survival I was living in.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Between watching development press in around us and wondering
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: if every day would be our last,
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: my brain became exceptionally talented at manufacturing reasons to say no.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: If one of the girls had asked to sleep in the pasture,
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: I could have given them an impressive list of why that was a bad idea.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: What if a horse got loose?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: What if someone was kicked?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: What if a snake wondered through?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: What if lightning rolled in at two in the morning?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: What if someone's parents blamed me for some mishap?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: What if I didn't sleep because I spent the entire night listening for every unusual sound?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: None of those thoughts would have been irrational.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: They simply would have been all that I could see.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between being responsible and believing it's your job
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: to anticipate every possible catastrophe before it happens.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: I lived caught between those extremes for a long time.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's an exhausting place to make decisions from because eventually every idea begins
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: to feel dangerous if you stare at it long enough.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: At the new farm, the horses belong to this place.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: They know what the fields sound like after midnight when the owls take over.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: They know how to snooze standing beneath the sky of stars.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: They live the shift from sundown to sunrise.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: This farm invites us to live that shift alongside nature.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what better way to do that than spending the night with the horses?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I should note here that whenever the girls walked out of their tent to visit
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: the horses in the middle of the night, they terrified the creatures.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: No one gave the horses the memo that humans would be invading their newfound peace.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: However, this makes me glad for any strangers who might be passing through.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: The horses know these girls inside and out,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: and yet they were mystified by their unusual schedule.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And at the old barn, I don't think the girls would have ever asked to christen this event.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: It wouldn't have felt right or welcoming.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Before retiring to their spacious glamping in the field,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: the girls and I ran into each other late in the evening as I threw the last hay of
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: the day and tidied up the barn.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: They asked if they could help.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I told them that I was good and they could go about their business.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: I straightened Penny's reflective collar that had popped over her ear.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: I cleaned the barn hallway and double-checked the gates.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: As the sun rose on Sunday morning and Emery handed me a cup of Starbucks,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that I was going to be very sad to see them go.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: A year ago, I would have spent the night awake, listening for everything that could go wrong.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: This year,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: three girls slept in the pasture beneath the stars,
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: and the horses stood watch, timidly, from a respectful distance.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone woke up contented and at peace.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until a week later,
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: standing beside Penny and convincing myself she'd swallowed my pearl earring,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: that I understood what had changed.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: My first instinct is still to imagine every possible ending But somewhere between
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: the old farm and this new one,
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've become a little bit more willing to let the plot unfold before deciding how
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: the ending should go.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Penny never swallowed the pearl.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: The girls didn't need rescuing.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: The horses ate hay and grass and snoozed beneath the stars.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: In the almost year since we moved to the new farm,
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: The land keeps showing me how many fewer steps I have to take between uncertainty
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: and trust.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: But like I tell the girls,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: if you break my trust,
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: you're going to spend a lot more days cleaning the barn than nights spent sleeping
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: in the pasture.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Love, Kim.