Falling Off the Horse and Getting Back On Again

So this post is both metaphorical and literal. We have all fallen off the metaphorical horse and had to get back on again, but two weeks ago, I fell off a horse...literally.

I had taken up horseback riding here in Sumner, in the most beautiful spot nestled in a valley at the back of town. I was having a really smashing lesson, my fourth, when my horse, Spud, (yes, I was riding a potato) had enough of me and decided it was time for some of the nice hay one of the little homeschooled girls who are endlessly scurrying around the paddock had place in the bins. Instead of continuing to trot back and forth across out in the field, as I had requested, he took off for the barn. To my credit, I did manage to slow him down, but much not to my credit (read: I'm an idiot). I decided I wasn't going to let him win. I was going to take him back out to the lesson. I turned him out and demanded he return to the field when he promptly took off around the mulch area nearest the barn at a gallop. (Okay, for truth sake here...I think it was a gallop of 40 miles an hour, but my riding instructor, Lisa, the most fabulous, spit-fire of a woman, who says she's dyslexic when she wants to be, Irish when she has to be and Kiwi the rest of the time, or maybe its the other way around, but either way, you never have to guess what she's thinking, informed me it was a trot and more like 4 miles an hour. In any case, it was bloody fast.) At some point, I knew I was coming off. I hit the ground thinking simultaneously, "Please G-d, don't let him trample me" and "This is going to be a serious hurt." I landed solidly on my lower back and there wasn't a mark on me, but something inside moved.

I have been hobbling around for the past two weeks. Slowly coming back to myself, though occasionally, as my balance is off and I am tender (think prolonged back labor without the drugs or baby at the end), I keep falling over and hurting myself again. (Sneezing is also a real b_ _ _ ch.)

But that is the literal story. The other story is that when we moved here, I sort of fell off the metaphorical horse. Transition was much harder than I thought it would be, particularly when we arrived and it seemed to some degree that NZ was "here (home) with an accent." But it is different, and I did fall and fall hard as some of you who got some fairly dark emails can attest to. The good news is, that though I (and we) are all hobbling a bit, we are definitely on the upside of our metaphorical fall.

And as they say (who are they anyway) the trick is to get right back on the horse and gallop away. (Which I will as soon as I can walk standing up straight again.) Till then, we are off to Nelson tomorrow and more adventure.

Giddyup!