Latest / Relatively Stable / Hope Always Goes Clean

Transcript

Hope Always Goes Clean · Relatively Stable

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hope always goes clean.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want my old life back, but I do want the pictures.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've been dusting off my former life, literally.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: When we moved into the new farm one whole entire year ago,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: we inherited a tiny house that must have once been an office for the people
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: who leased the barn.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: The little building is wired for internet and it even has
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: an air conditioning unit carved into the wall.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Someone took great care with this installation.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: They framed the ancient unit in wide wood molding.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: The tiny house sits on the very edge of the parking area.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first building you encounter when you visit the farm.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was just so handily available and because we've been
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: so incredibly freaking busy,
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: This little building became a catch-all place,
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: a holding area, for all the things that we had no idea what to do with.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: When a glorious human brought us boxes of donated horse supplies and books,
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: the items went there, waiting to be gathered and sorted.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: A long,
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: rough board held the stall nameplates of all the horses we moved to the new farm on
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: that September day.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: A single inherited hook on the baby blue interior walls of
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: the building held Sheba's halter and a plastic grocery bag of her tail that
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: the veterinarian on scene was so kind to preserve for us in the horror of
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: the relocation that Sheba never completed.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: In the middle of all this mess were boxes and boxes of picture frames With dust
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: so thick that the thought of cleaning them made me want
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: to break out archaeology trowels and paint thinner.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Over the years,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: the photographs documenting the history of Bramblewood Stables hung on the walls
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: of our old barn.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: When a photo was retired or the frame broke,
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: we stashed it in the deep recesses of my desk or in a storage cabinet hinged shut
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: with age.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: The old barn was beautiful, but it wasn't made for hanging pictures on the wall.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Between the old wood,
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: the doors and windows,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: and the shadows that moved around during the day,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: there wasn't much uninterrupted space to hang art.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: All the photographs competed with the architecture,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: so people walked past them all the time and never gave the images much thought.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It never felt right for me to bring the old frames into the house and give them
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: a proper place on the walls.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, most of our visitors spend time in the barn itself.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have very selective vision.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I let things collect in places until one day I notice the mess and have to tackle
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: the project immediately.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is also my entire philosophy for life.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: There are worse ways to frame an existence.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: With hand surgery looming next week,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I decided a couple of weekends ago that the tiny house was going to get
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: a complete makeover, inside and out.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Christopher, bless him, was game for the task.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I agonized over paint colors and we spent two hours in Lowe's trying to find someone
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: who knew how to cut glass and who understood what I meant when I asked
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: for glazing putty to replace a cracked pane in the window.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: As for the glass cutting,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Christopher finally pulled out a tape measure and helped the guy measure
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: and cut it himself.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Before I gave up my real jobs to spend my days negotiating with horses, I worked with art.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: I framed images and hung art in galleries and museums.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a horse person by trade and an art historian by study and nature.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it means to get a collection properly hanging on a wall.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know how to hang an image to encourage someone to stop what they're doing and look.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I thought all of this was in my distant history until my numb hands began sorting
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: through the dusty frames crammed into the boxes on the floor of the tiny house.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: The muscle memory of glass in my hands,
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: hardware, nails, and vision began to flood through my fingertips.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like writing and writing, The instructions live in our bones.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: All these images,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: all this history,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: all this documentation of my life, it all needed somewhere to live.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: When the walls of the tiny house were freshly painted, I went to work.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: The biological imperative to buy another lamp.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about the human compulsion to cozy up our living spaces as the days grow shorter.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Our brains are incredibly sensitive to changes in daylight.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lesser known fact that horses grow and shed their coats based
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: on daylight measured by specialized cells in their eyes.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Some show horses are kept under lights in their stalls to keep their winter coats
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: from growing in.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Even though the temperatures are well into the 80s during the day at the farm,
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: the horses began sporting the thicker fluff of their seasonal outfits this week.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's wonderful to watch their coats grow back.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: In humans,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: a tiny region of our brain uses signals from our eyes
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: to calculate our circadian rhythms.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: As daylight hours decrease,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: our melatonin production shifts, changing our sleep, alertness, and moods.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Some people cope with the shift just fine.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Others experience real struggle with their appetite, sleep, and well-being.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Our habit of nesting when the first light begins to slant into autumn is
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: a primitive signal pushing us to make plans for the winter months.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Our ancient brain remembers a time when the first signs of fall meant more
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: than buying a decorative pumpkin.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: It urges us to check our food stores,
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: see to our shelter, and make sure we have fuel to get through the lean months.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying my urge to survive February prompted me
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: to start arranging photographs around an ornate hexagonal mirror on
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: a neutral inviting wall.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: But there are interesting correlations between our response to seasonal changes and
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: the modern phenomenon of making our living spaces more comfortable.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: However, I don't think our ancient ancestors spent much time coordinating picture frames.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: What we're hunting and gathering today is a need to feel more secure.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: In the 1970s, geographer Jay Appleton developed a theory he named Prospect Refuge.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: He noted that humans are drawn to environments that offer a view of
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: the surrounding world and a protected place from which to observe it.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Think about what it's like to sit beside a window during a thunderstorm.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so intrigued by the psychology of nesting.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: We can't control the weather or the passing of time, but we can rearrange the furniture.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Our living spaces are repositories of memory and identity.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: The things we choose to surround ourselves with tell the story of who we are,
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: where we've been, and what we value.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: The tiny house allows me to think about all these things as I stand on
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: a mounting block with a hammer in my hand.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: A large life in a very small room.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the photographs I'm hanging in the tiny house document a very different way
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: of working with horses than the methods we use today at the farm.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Horses are jumping and competing.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Multiple farms and people in the images are long gone.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: The images document the growth of my farm by showing very different places
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: with humans engaged in very different methods of horsemanship.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: As I go about my business hanging and sorting,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I realize that I'm placing so many photos of myself on the wall,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: but I don't have one lick of desire to go back to who I was then.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to think that efforts to preserve the past are expressions of nostalgia.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: History is too often correlated with longing to go back to how things once were.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: A stranger might look at these photos of my face and think I longed for a time
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: when I was doing all these things.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I do not.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate the horses,
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: the people, and the athleticism, but I have no wish to return to that way of life.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: But just because I don't want to go back and live there doesn't mean I disown
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: the events and experiences that made me who I am.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: These years made Bramblewood Stables.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: They made me.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: The horses in these photographs taught me things I would have learned no other way.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: The people who came through the farm shaped this place into what it is now.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right now is where I want to live.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: As I excavate the photos from the hardened dust around their frames and wipe
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: the dirt from the panes of glass so I can see the images again in crystal clear,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: stark detail,
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love that these photos are now hanging on the wall of a place
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: that no longer jumps horses over fences.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: We've developed a different way of gauging what success means when we partner with a horse.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: At night, I sit in the tiny house and absorb the newly curated pieces of the farm's life.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I realize that the process of selecting which images remain and which go back
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: into the dustbin has reminded me of something I've long forgotten.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I am hanging myself back into my story.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: The Woman Behind the Camera
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: For most of this farm's history,
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've been the person behind the camera, literally and metaphorically.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I have thousands of photographs of other people's children,
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: other people's horses, and other people's accomplishments.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've photographed the lessons and the horse shows and the ordinary afternoons
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: that became many people's treasured memories.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was there for all of it,
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: but much like my entire childhood on top of a horse,
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: there isn't much photographic evidence that I was present.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: When I was a kid,
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: my dad always mistook me for another child who wore rust-colored breeches and had
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: a bay horse.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I have so many 80s-era photos of Trisha Clamp jumping in the hedge ring
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: at Harmon Field in Tryon, North Carolina.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to disappear from the record
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: when your life is ordered around creating memories for other people.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm busy making sure everyone and the horses are behaving and that visitors to
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: the farm leave with a mostly positive experience with the photos to prove it.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that I was photographing myself back into the frame
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: when I first started hanging images on the wall of the tiny house.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: But one night during the remodeling,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: I looked around and realized that subconsciously it had been imperative that many
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: of those images included me.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: It felt strange to put myself back in the spotlight.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'd built the farm for 30 years and had removed myself from its history.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Why did I do this?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Why was it necessary to correct the imbalance now?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: In these photos,
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm riding and jumping and participating in the horse world
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: that once consumed every moment of my life.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't miss that woman, but I'm awfully glad that someone took her picture.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Without her, there wouldn't be a Bramblewood Stables or a Lavender Hill Farm.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: There wouldn't be a tiny house with a green sofa.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Tammy Hammer, for the sofa.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And a faux Persian rug that's easy to clean.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And a woman standing on a mounting block trying to decide if the pitcher needs
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: to hang one inch to the left.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I've spent a lot of time trying my best to make sure
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: that other people saw themselves in the story of this farm.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's time to make sure that they can see me too.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: The Art of Being Seen
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: When a photograph is taken out of our phones or from where it's filed away in a box,
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: matted, framed,
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: and hung where someone can look at it,
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: the display transforms the image's meaning and purpose.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: In our old barn, the photographs competed for attention with the building.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: There were too many shadows and disruptions,
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: and things were always happening around where the images hung.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: The walls were utilitarian, and so were the things we did within them.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Our visitors back then were never going to spend 20 minutes exploring framed pieces
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: when actual horses were waiting for peppermints a short distance away.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just beginning to understand what purpose the tiny house will serve in the new farm.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we still have a ways to go before it's completed,
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: but already visitors linger there, looking at the walls, sitting on the couch.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: I linger in that space, usually doing nothing but just sitting.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Our guests now have an opportunity to begin their journey with the understanding
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: that the horses they're about to meet have lived long, varied lives.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: The horses have seen some things.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And visitors can now see the people that came before them.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: They can see me.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Before I quit my real jobs to manage a horse farm,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: I learned that an object's arrangement influences how people experience
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: and understand what is in front of them.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm doing the same thing in the tiny house without knowing what
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: the finished collection will look like.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really satisfying reversal to use those latent skills to present my life's work.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: The collection isn't finished.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: As I work through this process, I'm deliberately leaving blank space on these walls.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I want the people who are a part of Bramblewood now,
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: the people who believe in what we're doing and helping us move into
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: the next chapter, to bring me their own photographs.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: I want them to contribute to the collection.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want someone to walk into the tiny house in five years and find photographs
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: of themselves beside people who came decades before.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want our history to keep accumulating on these walls and for people to recognize
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: that they belong to it.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: A museum preserves and collects what has already happened.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: A gallery makes room for new work.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing a little bit of both with the tiny house.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And while I haven't quite figured out everything this space will eventually be used
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: for, I know I want it to be a place where people feel comfortable spending time.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: But this time, I want to be in the picture too.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hope Always Goes Clean
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Ramona Jones left a comment on my recent post about the epic pony blackjack.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the phrase she used made me feel like some edge of my distant memory was being dredged up.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't place it, but my cells knew it.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hope always goes clean.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love the phrase so much that I wrote to ask her where she had heard the phrase.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Where did it come from?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Ramona responded that she had invented it while riding to me.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: She told me that her great-grandfather was a horse trader in Manitoba,
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: but that she had only ridden one horse.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: She said that she wasn't very coordinated and didn't feel comfortable taking risks.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: As a child,
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: her mother was afraid that a horse would hurt her,
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: so when her school class took a trip to a farm 60 years ago,
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: she wasn't given the dollar required to ride a pony.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: She watched another little girl climb aboard a sassy pony who put his head down to eat.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, Ramona was jumping out of her skin, begging someone to let her have a turn.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then someone took mercy.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: She climbed aboard,
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: the pony trotted,
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: and 60 years later, she still remembers it as one of the best days of her life.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then she told me why she'd written those four words.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: My stories had touched something in her that went all the way back to that little girl.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And she appreciated that I treated horses the way she wanted to be treated herself,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: with care and thoughtfulness.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for those of us who have spent our lives around horses,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: The phrase going clean means that a show jumper has negotiated a course
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: without incurring any jumping faults.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: No rails have been dropped and every fence still stands at the finish.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Your horse has answered every question you've asked and the two of you have made it
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: to the other side.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Photographs cover the tiny house of horses and riders trying to do exactly that.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: There are photographs of me doing it.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've spent a huge part of my life in pursuit of clean rounds.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: I know the feeling of exhilaration when a talented horse soars over a fence.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I know the disappointment of chipping the takeoff,
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: dropping a rail, crashing through, or worse, a full refusal.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: The few minutes in the ring take years of preparation.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: But what does going clean mean when there are no more fences to jump?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't care anymore if we make it over every obstacle.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm more interested in what happens to us along the way.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: A horse can jump a perfectly clean round while they are frightened or hurting.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: So can I.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: The scoreboard doesn't have a meter for those who are willingly participating
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: and those who have very little choice.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: For all the years I spent learning how to get horses to jump over fences,
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: all I'm interested in now is what happens when we stop putting fences in front
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: of them.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think the same question applies to people.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: How many of us have spent our lives trying to clear every obstacle placed in front
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: of us by accumulating accomplishments and arriving at the finish line
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: with everything visibly intact?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: How many of us have been congratulated for our clean rounds
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: while we're secretly trying to figure out how we ended up on the course?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know a thing or two about this because for almost 30 years,
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: I have built a farm around other people's experiences.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: I have taught and organized and photographed and encouraged and celebrated.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: I made sure everyone else had opportunities to do the things they wanted to do.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I documented their accomplishments and hung their photographs on the walls.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then I forgot to include myself in my own history.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Going clean at this point in my life is about acknowledging the things I did well,
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: the mistakes I made,
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: the people I loved,
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: and the horses who taught me lessons I wasn't always prepared to learn.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: I can hang the photographs and tell their stories
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: without pretending I would do everything the same way again.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: I will leave blank space on the walls of the tiny house for what comes next.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: I love that the person who gave me this expression,
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: hope always goes clean, isn't a writer in the traditional sense.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: She had one glorious afternoon on a pony and a memory that has sustained her love
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: of horses throughout her life.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't need to become a better rider or prove that she belonged on a horse,
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: despite her mother's fears.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: She just needed someone to give her a chance and a fat pony that took a break
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: from eating grass and made a little girl's dream come true.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder how many of the people in the photographs I'm hanging
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: on these walls remember the joy of their experience with the horse.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do I remember my own joy?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Was it about scores or ribbons?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or do we remember the horse we are on or the person who believed that we were capable?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do we realize that we are capable ourselves?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: The tiny house is an extension of me and the farm that built me.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: While the old barn was filled with activity,
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: the new place invites people to sit down, get comfortable, and look around.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And in the blank spaces I've left on the walls,
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: I hope the new photographs we acquire will capture moments of stillness.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I hope the people in those photographs will remember how they felt.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Going clean for me now means that I am clear of conscience.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: I can acknowledge the rails I knocked down,
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: learn from them, and make peace with the woman who rode the course.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: I can't change the past,
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: but I can choose how I treat the horses and people who share my life today.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a round I can live with.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Field Notes
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: There is a Turkish saying that translates roughly to, God does not need hands.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: I agree wholeheartedly,
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: but I am fully mortal and would really like to have my hands working again.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll be taking next week off from Stable Roots
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: because I'm having carpal tunnel surgery on both hands.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want to send the bill to the horses,
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: but none of them have a mailing address or thumbs to open the envelope.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Christopher has agreed to be my hands for the week,
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: but I think he will object if I ask him to take dictation.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've already ordered 12 bags of winter rye for him to overseed in the fields.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: It might be a bit too much to ask him to write for me.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be going totally bonkers,
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: but I don't think I need hands to teach so you can find me in the ring.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: The number one question people have asked me about the surgery is why I'm opting
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: to have both hands done at once because I'll have to have someone help me in
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: the bathroom.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it's all good.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I promise I have a bidet.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm impatient as hell.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: I need to have feeling in my hands again so I can properly groom the cats.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's tough to find their mats by sight.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you all for taking a journey through the farm with me each week.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Your comments are sustenance, so keep them coming.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need hands to read.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been walking you around the tiny house with my words,
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: but I'd love to show you the room that all of these images live in.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: In this week's paid subscriber video,
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: if you click on the actual essay instead of the voiceover,
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm taking people for a walk around and we'll go through some other events
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: that have happened in the farm, like books at the barn.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you're one of the many new readers who have found your way here lately,
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll consider joining us.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Your subscription goes directly towards caring for this farm of old horses
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: who change people's lives each and every day.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that you're here with me.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Love, Kim.