Dying More Than Once

Highly organized people suffer from a different neurosis than those from which I suffer. It seems that the more stressful the event will be the more they want to prepare for it. Preparation is organized worry extended over long periods of time, constantly imagining failure and constantly coming up with scenarios to deal with that anticipated failure.

I have never been inclined to seek multiple deaths. If the future event will be stressful for only 45 minutes why on earth would I want to spend many hours of stress, over many weeks preparing  for that relatively brief period stress? This is not to say that I present significant public statements without adequate preparation.

It is just that by "adequate preparation" I mean making sure that the microphone is plugged in.

I am always a bit perplexed when people want to know what I "plan" to do in a round pen demonstrations with a completely untrained horse. I "plan" to get in the pen with him and take it from there.

People ask me what "accessories" I will need for a demo. I plan to drink some ice water if it is hot and I Plan to go to the hospital if things go really bad. 

I find rehearsing tedious. Lydia was once discussing which type horses different people liked. Some went for beauty, some for fancy gaits, some for flashy color--Lydia told me that all I wanted is a horse was one who would shut up and get the job done. I had never thought about it, but she was exactly right--the traits that I admire in people are those I admire in my horses.


All of which is a lengthy wind up to explain how much Ashley impressed me Thursday night. We gave a presentation to a Rotary Club. Our preparation consisted of this--me to Ashley "I'm going to talk to them a while abut the horse lot then I will turn it over to you to dazzle them and wrap it up."

She just said "o.k." And then proceeded to do so.

Afterwards we headed over to Discover Teas. I planned to do a few songs that I wrote--just before I went up there I asked her if she wanted to come join in on the choruses.

She just said "o.k." and proceeded to nail the songs, note for note.

And she is 19 years old.

Not a whole lot of 19 year olds out there that could have pulled those two things off.

I am highly impressed with this young lady.