Well, it's taken all of three days for the old feelings to resurface...the hunger pains, and all the remora's clinging along to the underbelly. It's a funny thing about years of dieting, there is an element of total acceptance, of watching people eat and drink with nary a jealous twinge. The evil twin of that element is the heightened level of sensitivity, the physical reality of your body gettin' mighty pissed I'm not showing it any love, or even a freakin' saltine, a peanut fercryin' out loud! There is a physiological reality here of course, the internal clock of survival ticking increasingly louder...and I think combined with the heightened sensitivity, I used to become something like a winter animal coming in to town out of desperation doing all sorts of weird things. Landhope, my local store, has a buffet style lunch that goes for a couple hours of the day, soups and whatnot...and they kindly offer saltines to go with whatever gumbo you choose. I can't count the days I would stuff them in to my pocket to have in my car whenever Saturday would roll around, the races would finish and I would be driving home...needless to say, the fact I was stuffing my pockets on Monday did raise a few alarm bells. But can you believe I managed to not eat the stinking saltines all week?!?! I did. Not sure how, but I did. And really, this is the crux of my curiosity inside this juicing cleanse...the angst of being hungry hours a day, the ability to continue, the mental hoops and masochism just to avoid eating what I shouldn't...over the years it continued; the trade off of a commitment towards dieting with something like a few drinks with my salad...then I added two slices of bread. Ironically enough, I never increased the bread intake, just the vodka. From two, to three, then finally to four. And right now, as I sit here and flail around in the dark trying to describe some of what I'm going through, this very second some part of my brain is bargaining...we won't eat, but you gotta give us something!! Amazing how my puny little cerebrum can get clever. But what is the source of the bargaining mind anyway? I mean, is it simply survival, trying to fend off the physical experience of hunger? Yes, one of alcohol's many devilish traits is the numbing effect it grants you...Yet, I sit here and wonder, is it only this, or does the psyche go to much deeper levels at times like this? Am I attaching something to the act of cleansing, or dieting in years past? Hmmm. As soon as I type it, it hits a nerve. All the years of showing up, having done my job, only to sit on a horse ill-prepared, not good enough, running in the wrong race, etc. etc...and yes, I'm nodding my head in agreement, for I can easily admit the resentment I've allowed to build up over the years when this happens...and it happens almost every weekend when you're riding regularly. It's the nature of life with horses we get it wrong, whether you're a jockey, trainer, groom or exercise rider. The science of reading a horses mind is inexact at best, and if you're not inclined to read it at all, which is a sad reality I'm afraid, it's harder to get right than a first date.
I remember spending three weeks getting ready to ride a horse for my dad last fall, Pierrot Lunaire, at Belmont. We had won a big race in the spring, beat the reigning horse of the year and in the process became the favorite for the Eclipse Award, for horse of the year. The race at Belmont was a prep race for the biggest race of the year, the Grand National, but it was a $150,000 race and big in its own right...I didn't ride much during August at Saratoga, and it was something like 5 or 6 weeks between rides for me...which means too much time to continue with a rigorous weekly schedule if not riding every week...at any rate, after 3 weeks spent dieting for one horse and one race, I'm headed to Belmont early so I could sweat off the last 4 pounds...being the first one in the jocks room has always been an ego boost, kind of like being the first to work. Well, after driving 3 hours and 3 solid weeks of anticipating one ride, the last thing I wanted to hear when I signed in the jocks room was, ummm, Chip, your horse is scratched. Sorry to tell you, but he's not running. Now lets get one thing straight, I've been around the block long enough to know Murphy's Law exists, everything that can go wrong will go wrong, at some point. It is life with horses. I get it. But at the end of a 3 week commitment for that one stinkin' horse, the days of running and yoga, the hours of hunger, the meals passed up, to have nothing more to show for it than an egg sandwich and a bag of chips from the jocks room kitchen...it'll drive a rational man bonkers. In that particular moment I was anything but rational...And then when the trainer, who also happens to be your dad, calls you up an hour later to say he simply couldn't get some paperwork in order, but he managed to only drive an hour up the road before finding out the horse isn't running...well, a man could go postal after that.
For me, I don't have much of a postal inclination, and it has always been my nature to see a bigger picture...but there are times, I gotta tell you, where I would like nothing more than to bite someones head off. And now that I'm sitting here typing about a similar feeling washing over me, I can see how shortsided this line of thinking really and truly is. Instead of accepting the sacrifices in and of themselves as worthy, as I did for ten years or so with a small amount of equanimity, I have to admit to myself I allowed a different mindset to creep in...WHAT IS THE PAYOFF?!?! Yep, a one way street to strings attached way of being. Even now I can see the progression, the slow decay of integrity and non-attachment...Oh, I could hide behind some trainer not having a horse ready, paper work not in order or whatever to ease my guilt about having chicken on that salad, one more ketel and tonic...
Ahh, the irony. Here I sit, no race or horse on the horizon, and still these feelings bubble to the surface like old friends just waiting to keep me company. Choice? Gotta get there, gotta get there. Forgiveness? Just a vague notion somewhere in the distance...
And this is why I'm here. Beg your pardon if there is little rhyme or reason to all I just shared... The feeling of being scattered is something like eating soup with a fork. With two tines.
Where is that spoon???? I read A Million Little Pieces last year, by James Frey. You might remember the kerfuffle when Oprah had him on the show, told her audience what an inspiration it was, and everyone should read his true story...only to have it come out some time later he took a few artistic, oh what do they call it?, oh yes liberties. I didn't really see what all the fuss was about really, I mean the guy smoked crack and drank a quart of liquor every day, how on earth is he supposed to remember every detail? I think he had a pretty good idea without total recall. At any rate, I thought the book was scary good, and I came away with one mantra I hope I never forget; when things are getting rough, just hold on. Hold ON...
And I'm trying like hell to.