Two Bears Farm and Three Cubs and I quite literally met over lunch. Really! We meet over a Muffin Tin lunch! I came across Two Bears Farm and Three Cubs on a Muffin Tin Monday link up. She is a regular there as am I. We started visiting each others blogs and commenting. I love to read her comments on my posts, but it is her posts leave me in awe. She posts recipes, muffin tin meals, amazing creative writing posts, posts on writing marathons and the joys of parenting three small boys. Her posts have depth and detail that will leave a reader hanging on to the very last word.

Today I’ve abandoned my standard mom gear of black yoga pants and an LL Bean quarter zip sports fleece for well-worn barn jeans and my well-loved paddock boots. It’s been a while. Like everyone else with young children in the home (three in my case), it’s not often I get out for a solo moment. My husband is gamely watching the boys this morning so I can get out to lunge Zip. He’s my project horse, a handsome sorrel quarterhorse that was given to me just before I got pregnant with the twins. The lady who owned him before was timid, and he turned out to be too much for her. I was working him regularly and making solid progress, but then I got pregnant with the twins and didn’t want to take any risks working a green horse. It was a worthy sacrifice, like so many others that I made for my boys.

It’s been three months since I last worked Zip. I need to be working him at least twice a week, but it just seems impossible with cloth diapers to wash, meals to cook, phonics to teach and playgrounds to climb. Since it’s been so long, Zip is suspicious when I enter the pasture. I love the freedom I feel as I walk across the just-beginning-to-green March grass in my boots. Even using a calm voice, the same voice I use when rocking a sick boy in the middle of the night, Zip is wary. I use some grain in a rubber tub to catch him – he just can’t resist.

I snap Zip’s halter into the crossties and brush his unruly mane, gently picking out a few cockleburs and he starts to relax and enjoy himself a little. The scent of his dusty, long, winter fur is candy to my nose. I’ve ridden horses my whole life, and breathing them in regenerates my soul.

It would be unwise of me to just hop on a horse as green as Zip after a three month hiatus, so instead I’ll be working him on the lunge line. This is a long 15 to 20 foot rope that attaches to the horse’s bridle and allows him to work around you in circles as he goes through his paces. I use special equipment that helps Zip to learn how to balance himself, and set the side reins at their loosest setting. The side reins help Zip to learn how to carry his head properly, but since it’s been so long I don’t want them to seem too constrictive to him.

The crushed gray stone is soft under our feet as we enter the riding arena. I carefully pull the red metal gate shut behind me, and check all the setting on Zip’s tack for an appropriate fit. Zip is anxious. He’s calling to our other horses, crying to them from across the fields and arena. In the distance, they answer back. Zip snorts and the whites of his eyes show. The second I give him the cue to work he takes off.

He’s refused any chance of a warm-up, and instead breaks away into a rough canter. He starts off on the wrong lead, and I admire his spontaneous flying change – a sign of his innate flexibility. He’s leaning hard on the line, pulling the rope in my hand. He’s fighting the side reins, tossing his head and snorting and bucking on occasion, his tail sticking up in the air in excitement. I find myself thankful that I’m not on his back while he acts this crazy. I have plenty of time to think as I watch his internal struggle. He doesn’t want to give up his freedom. He doesn’t want to settle down into his work. I can empathize. As a mom, I have so many days when I don’t want to do another load of laundry, to cook another meal, to pick up the 5 million toys scattered throughout the house again. I want to fight the chains that bind, to run and flee my obligations. I mentally fight the little hand pulling on my sleeve, making demands; there’s always something else that needs to be done in the endless job of motherhood. Zip is struggling to hold on to his spirit, just as I struggled to hold on to the memory of dining out, unfettered careers, and solo shopping trips.

And just like that, I see it. Zip starts to slow his breathing. His tail drops. The rapid staccato of hooves slows and softens. I see the gentle arch in his neck, the arch a symbol of the acceptance of the side reins. His ears, once back in anger, now angle forward, eager and listening. He stretches his neck and then I see the sign I’ve been looking for. Zip begins to mouth the air. He works his lips and gums gently. It’s a sign that he is ready to work. He has come into his own. He has accepted his job and his place with happiness but without completely losing his spirit, and he has realized that this is what he was bred for, that this is who he needs to be, right here and right now. And I think that this too is like motherhood. This is the moment the baby falls asleep in your arms, the sweet smell of graham cracker face in a hug, the quiet contentment of tucking my boys into bed for the night. The moments that I wouldn’t trade for the world, the satisfaction of a job well done, the knowing that each brick laid in our family is building character and strength and teaching my boys to be socially conscious in our world. There is no job, no career more important than this.

Quietly, I tell Zip he’s done. He stops, and waits for me to approach him. I pat his neck and tell him what a good boy he’s been and he nuzzles me with affection. He slimes my shirt with drooly grass lips and I laugh. We walk back towards the barn, side by side, a mutual respect and understanding between the two of us. Horse and mother, spirit and family, we are one. Next time, I think, we’ll ride.

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