Janet Wolanin Alexander - At Home On a Horse in the Woods: A Memoir

At

Home

on a

Horse

in the

Woods

A Memoir

Janet Wolanin Alexander

At Home on a Horse in the Woods: a Memoir

Electronic Edition

Copyright 2017 Janet Wolanin Alexander

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ISBN 978-1-942166-31-3

Electronic Edition 2017

With the drum of hoofbeats as a backdrop, it's a privilege and honor to experience life and the trail through Janet's love of horses and her memoir At Home on a Horse in the Woods. Thank you, Janet, for giving us all courage to never quit believing in the power of faith and the childhood dream.

~~ Amber H. Massey, author of For the Love of Horses

To horse-crazy kids young and old -- may hoof beats accompany your heartbeats.

Special Thanks

To my mother who encouraged me to read and my father who encouraged me to write.

To my husband Jim for "getting" me and for bringing animals into my life.

To those mentioned and to those not who accompanied me on parts of my horse journey.

To colleagues (Frances, Ed, and Phyllis) who served as encouragers and editors while I was teaching.

To the Southern Indiana Writers, an eclectic group of wonderfully wrought characters with grand imaginations, who took over the role when I retired.

To Per Bastet Publications for sculpting my tales into this memoir.

To Geronimo, Dancer's Streak, and Highlander -- oh, the places you have taken me!

To the Unity Church for its teaching of positive, practical Christianity.

And to God, for knocking on my heart to let horses in.

Foreword

Horses gave me my writing voice. I've always felt compelled to write up certain horse experiences, but not until recently was I inspired to compile them into a book. I'm still not exactly sure why.

This memoir traces the path horses took me on. Part I begins with a spiritual crisis during my mid-40s and continues almost to the present (my mid-60s). Part II (my 20s) and Part III (my childhood) provide background to Part I. Part IV circles back to a couple of prepublication updates. Although the tales can be read in any order, reading them as presented will probably make the most sense.

My horse tales vary in mood; e.g. from serious to funny, from nature descriptions to inner reflections, from realistic to fanciful, from happy to sad. The tales are all true, but the names and places have been generalized, resulting in "word paintings" more akin to watercolors than photographs.

Deciding to share these tales is both exciting and terrifying. Ultimately, I chose to share in the hope that one or more will somehow, somewhere, speak to someone.

Preface

Every decision I make is a choice between a grievance and a miracle. I let go of grievances and choose miracles (Deepak Chopra, The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, 2003, p.214).

PART I: Late Adulthood

1: Meltdown and Epiphany

Hi, my name is Janet, and I'm addicted to horses. Always have been, and suspect always will be. Where my love for the critters came from -- I was born in a big northern city totally unconnected to horses and anyone even remotely associated with them -- was a mystery.

Until one day, out of the blue, a year or two after my marriage at 43. I was enrolled in a class at my husband's church to learn more about his faith. An assignment was to schedule a private meeting with a minister.

I was sitting in Reverend Judy's office when she invited me to talk about anything I wanted. What popped up was something I thought I'd successfully suppressed but which had recently raised its ugly head. I hesitated to share it with a person of the cloth -- even one who had played an important part in my mixed-religious wedding. At best, she would find it silly or trivial, the world being so full of people with serious, life-and-death problems. At worst, if it's true that the earthly domain is merely a testing ground for eternal life in Heaven and the price of that prize is suffering and self-denial, she might even find it blasphemous. Despite my reluctance, I felt safe in Judy's presence, so quietly and tentatively began to speak.

During my warm up, I clued her in about my horse-crazy birth into a horseless environment. I'd obtained my youthful fixes by reading books, watching television Westerns, collecting statues, and pasting newspaper and magazine pictures into scrapbooks. Occasional experiences with flesh and blood horses had fanned my love into a passion.

I shared how I'd gone off to college and graduated at 21 with a teaching degree -- debt free and with the family car, thanks to my generous, hardworking parents. And lived in a boarding house during my first year of teaching so I could buy my first horse, and then sold him five years later to move out-of-state for grad school. The goal was to transition into a better paying profession that would allow me deeper entry into the horse world; but, after earning my master's degree, I found myself right back in teaching -- this time with a student loan to pay back. And, despite the school's location among Louisville horse farms and its large rural campus where I enjoyed sharing my love of nature with my students, I had few opportunities to ride, let alone buy another horse, thus demonstrating the definition of insanity -- repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result.

At this point in my monologue, I started picking up steam. It was torture driving past the farms to and from my apartment in the city, as well as watching parents dressed in equestrian garb and pulling horse trailers drop off their kids before going riding. I confessed that I was jealous of the ones who'd been born into horses.

Reverend Judy was still calm and quiet, so I cut to the last straw. Recently, a colleague looking for a good home for her well-trained, aging gelding had offered him to me for a reasonable price. I rode and liked him, but, as much as I wanted another horse, the timing still wasn't right. My husband, like me, was a workaholic educator who'd never put down the roots necessary for investing in a house. Also, his job wasn't permanent, so we were still renters. Both animal lovers, we knew the responsibility that comes with ownership and that we were not in the position to take on a horse.

The experience still burned. What kind of God would offer me such a wonderful opportunity knowing I would have to turn it down?! A very sick and cruel one, that's Who! My supposedly well-suppressed emotions churned and surfaced in rapid succession. I began to rant. My rant turned into a tirade. I talked faster and louder. I'd absolutely HAD IT with God. I was SICK of being tormented by a Sicko-Psycho who enjoyed teasing me with tidbits only to snatch them away as soon as I reached for them. And jerking not one, but two, horses away was beyond cruel. Time was running short as I was now -- gasp -- middle-aged! Was it so wrong to want some more horse happiness during my waning years on this planet?!

Then and there, right in front of Revered Judy, I put God on notice. I informed the Big Bully that I was no longer going to play the enabling victim in this game, because I no longer wanted a horse. Horses were too frivolous, too expensive, too dangerous, and I was too old. So there, I told God, You can't hurt me any longer, then reiterated, in case God hadn't caught on the first time, I NO LONGER WANT A HORSE!!