"When you're going through hell
Keep on moving
Don't stop now
If you're scared, don't show it
You might get out
Before the devil even know you're there"
... Fair enough.
I live my entire fucking life for others, and I would never have it any other way. I love violently and I live passionately and every single blow to my confidence shakes me to my core. There are days like this where I push myself beyond the edge and I can't think and my entire life feels shallow to the very end, but I know, I know somewhere behind it all there is a fucking purpose here. There are children who look up to me and there are peers who stand beside me and there is a horse in a comfortable stall in northern Florida who is a dream maker and I cannot lose this, and I will not watch myself fucking fall.
"When one door opens to another door closed
I hope you keep on searching
Till you find a window"
If I have to recite stupid songs and sayings over and over until I get the point, I will. I don't care. [Imagine prose better than this - I have edited for the sake of sanity, clarity, and the future that now exists.]
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
For Olivia
It's started early.
For years now, I have had insomnia in this season. I used to draw late into the night, smearing pastels and charcoals across cheap paper and calling it art. I would wake in the morning, having forgotten I spent the night creating, with colors faded across my hands and face. I drew a man, the type who has not seen boyhood for a long while but is not, in any respect of the word, old. I drew his beautiful eyes in shades of black, I drew his too-long nose which my mother attempted to correct me for. "Noses aren't supposed to be that long." But his was.
Underneath his portrait, I wrote the words, 'Fire burns the hand, but smites the darkness.' I completed this at the age of twelve, signing my grandmother's name in the corner.
I am a day less than a week from my eighteenth birthday, and I believe my summer insomnia has taken an entirely new energy source. Oh, god, how I don't go a single day without breathing for the two weeks spent in New Mexico, where the mountains provided the only possible backdrop to a place where children were changed to heroes in all of our eyes. There was magic in that place, raw and powerful, born of entering an arena with a group of peers knowing that one will be named the Champion of a Nation. Knowing that ten will receive honor as being the best in this country, knowing that one will forever be just a mark off from perfection, while another has captured it completely.
Yes, we do this for the love we have for the animals who make our lives worth living. Yes, we do this for the hard adrenaline rush we all feel as we're entering the ring. Yes, we do this for the support and the cheering from the friends and fans. Yes, we do this to keep working to have the best ride we possibly can have...
But above everything, above the rider and the horse and the trainer and the outfit and the dance that we all strive to master... above all of it is glory. A shared glory between all of those it takes to achieve the red rose blanket, the silver statue, the red-blue-yellow ribbon. We do this for that one moment, and in that one moment, "we were infinite."
I am going to have a hard time sleeping this summer. My mind constantly falls back to everything about Albuquerque, for the color of the Mexican brick and the smell of the dust and the eyes of the horses watching you through the barn aisles. I think of the girls who fell, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, onto the necks of their horses as their names were called as the 2006 National Champions. I think of the years they have spent working towards that one single moment, what they have put into this game to be rewarded so greatly.
I think of them, and I realize that I truly stand amongst giants, with dreams that only those red mountains can fence in.
And most importantly of all, I stand beside one woman (for it would be an insult to call her a girl in this context) who will be defending her National crown this year, who will certainly be an even fiercer competitor in 2007 than she was in 2006... and who I am glad to recognize as the best in the division I compete in because she does so for one reason: she believes that her best friend, her horse and partner, deserves the title and the honor more than anything in the world.
(I believe the same, and my belief in Prism, the most glorious creature God has ever put upon this earth, is unwavering and profound. He will have his nation.)
For years now, I have had insomnia in this season. I used to draw late into the night, smearing pastels and charcoals across cheap paper and calling it art. I would wake in the morning, having forgotten I spent the night creating, with colors faded across my hands and face. I drew a man, the type who has not seen boyhood for a long while but is not, in any respect of the word, old. I drew his beautiful eyes in shades of black, I drew his too-long nose which my mother attempted to correct me for. "Noses aren't supposed to be that long." But his was.
Underneath his portrait, I wrote the words, 'Fire burns the hand, but smites the darkness.' I completed this at the age of twelve, signing my grandmother's name in the corner.
I am a day less than a week from my eighteenth birthday, and I believe my summer insomnia has taken an entirely new energy source. Oh, god, how I don't go a single day without breathing for the two weeks spent in New Mexico, where the mountains provided the only possible backdrop to a place where children were changed to heroes in all of our eyes. There was magic in that place, raw and powerful, born of entering an arena with a group of peers knowing that one will be named the Champion of a Nation. Knowing that ten will receive honor as being the best in this country, knowing that one will forever be just a mark off from perfection, while another has captured it completely.
Yes, we do this for the love we have for the animals who make our lives worth living. Yes, we do this for the hard adrenaline rush we all feel as we're entering the ring. Yes, we do this for the support and the cheering from the friends and fans. Yes, we do this to keep working to have the best ride we possibly can have...
But above everything, above the rider and the horse and the trainer and the outfit and the dance that we all strive to master... above all of it is glory. A shared glory between all of those it takes to achieve the red rose blanket, the silver statue, the red-blue-yellow ribbon. We do this for that one moment, and in that one moment, "we were infinite."
I am going to have a hard time sleeping this summer. My mind constantly falls back to everything about Albuquerque, for the color of the Mexican brick and the smell of the dust and the eyes of the horses watching you through the barn aisles. I think of the girls who fell, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, onto the necks of their horses as their names were called as the 2006 National Champions. I think of the years they have spent working towards that one single moment, what they have put into this game to be rewarded so greatly.
I think of them, and I realize that I truly stand amongst giants, with dreams that only those red mountains can fence in.
And most importantly of all, I stand beside one woman (for it would be an insult to call her a girl in this context) who will be defending her National crown this year, who will certainly be an even fiercer competitor in 2007 than she was in 2006... and who I am glad to recognize as the best in the division I compete in because she does so for one reason: she believes that her best friend, her horse and partner, deserves the title and the honor more than anything in the world.
(I believe the same, and my belief in Prism, the most glorious creature God has ever put upon this earth, is unwavering and profound. He will have his nation.)
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The dead center of the most dangerous
Sometimes, I feel like I grew up far too quickly.
I'm seventeen years old, a college student majoring in pre-vet and my boyfriend is going to ask me to marry him. I drive a two hour commute every day and ten hours on the weekends, to and from Ocala, and I compete nationally with my horse.
I am aware of finances and the price of gasoline because I have to be, I am the most independent person I know. I do my own laundry, I clean, I cook, I look after my animals, I make my own appointments and I drive myself to them.
But last night, I was just a girl and you were just a boy, and we were just kissing like teenagers are supposed to. My first car, the Mustang engine revving and the scent of you that has had me intoxicated for years, and blue jeans and the radio and your mouth against mine. It was such a perfect moment, the one I know I'll think of when years pass and I say, "Where was I at seventeen?" I won't remember $3.00 a gallon or Leia gets 1.5 cups of food twice a day. I'll remember that it was hot in April and that you kissed me like I've never been kissed before.
I love you so much, my Canis. Thank you for giving me this.
I'm seventeen years old, a college student majoring in pre-vet and my boyfriend is going to ask me to marry him. I drive a two hour commute every day and ten hours on the weekends, to and from Ocala, and I compete nationally with my horse.
I am aware of finances and the price of gasoline because I have to be, I am the most independent person I know. I do my own laundry, I clean, I cook, I look after my animals, I make my own appointments and I drive myself to them.
But last night, I was just a girl and you were just a boy, and we were just kissing like teenagers are supposed to. My first car, the Mustang engine revving and the scent of you that has had me intoxicated for years, and blue jeans and the radio and your mouth against mine. It was such a perfect moment, the one I know I'll think of when years pass and I say, "Where was I at seventeen?" I won't remember $3.00 a gallon or Leia gets 1.5 cups of food twice a day. I'll remember that it was hot in April and that you kissed me like I've never been kissed before.
I love you so much, my Canis. Thank you for giving me this.
April fires without you in my sight
I never thought it would be like this.
And now, I look back, and I see photos of you from when I last saw you - I was a fifteen year old girl in September of 2004. A fifteen year old girl with problems, with rebellion tucked inside her pocket and angst written across her face. I was fucked up, and you were not, but you understood me. You loved me so much, and you didn't worry as much as my mother did.
I called you one day, tears streaming down my face, my breath hard and heavy and I told you I was having an episode, and I couldn't calm down.
"Jacqui? Jacqui, what's actually wrong? Nothing is wrong. Life is beautiful."
And I couldn't give you an answer because you were right. "I'm always right," you'd say, and you meant it.
When people would ask you how you were, you'd tell them, "Better than you could possibly imagine." And you meant it. You were a light in this world, a constant, huge light. You looked down at everyone around you, and they stared up obediently! God.
You were a city skyline of a man.
I look at pictures of you now, and I feel strange. You haven't been here these last three years, you haven't seen... You missed my sweet sixteen, my high school graduation, my first National Top Ten.
But these are all such human little markers of growing up, I know. I know that you saw what you needed to see - you saw me at the worst, the very bottom of my psyche, you saw everything. You taught me and you hurt me and you loved me more than anyone ever has.
And now the everglades are on fire, the ash is thick in the air around everything, it settles on the windshield of my first car, the one you never saw. It is April, and there are fires around me, and the man who burned the brightest of all has been extinguished.
(I love you so much.)
And now, I look back, and I see photos of you from when I last saw you - I was a fifteen year old girl in September of 2004. A fifteen year old girl with problems, with rebellion tucked inside her pocket and angst written across her face. I was fucked up, and you were not, but you understood me. You loved me so much, and you didn't worry as much as my mother did.
I called you one day, tears streaming down my face, my breath hard and heavy and I told you I was having an episode, and I couldn't calm down.
"Jacqui? Jacqui, what's actually wrong? Nothing is wrong. Life is beautiful."
And I couldn't give you an answer because you were right. "I'm always right," you'd say, and you meant it.
When people would ask you how you were, you'd tell them, "Better than you could possibly imagine." And you meant it. You were a light in this world, a constant, huge light. You looked down at everyone around you, and they stared up obediently! God.
You were a city skyline of a man.
I look at pictures of you now, and I feel strange. You haven't been here these last three years, you haven't seen... You missed my sweet sixteen, my high school graduation, my first National Top Ten.
But these are all such human little markers of growing up, I know. I know that you saw what you needed to see - you saw me at the worst, the very bottom of my psyche, you saw everything. You taught me and you hurt me and you loved me more than anyone ever has.
And now the everglades are on fire, the ash is thick in the air around everything, it settles on the windshield of my first car, the one you never saw. It is April, and there are fires around me, and the man who burned the brightest of all has been extinguished.
(I love you so much.)
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