Tuesday August 12, 2009
My RV has now arrived in Colorado but I must admit that I’m finding it hard to leave the comfort of Erica and Jeannes ranch house. It’s become my home away from home and they sure know how to treat a guest. For example, a few days a week Erica wakes me up and takes me on the greatest horse back riding adventures, in the most outrageously gorgeous places on earth. I get to ware chaps, sport a cowboy hat, walk with a swagger and occasionally spit without having to explain myself. It’s fabulous.
This morning we got a late start but we went anyway. As Zella (my horse… ok, Jeanne’s horse) and I duck and weave amidst a stunning Ponderosa Pine forest thriving along side a sound filled river, with water falls raging over rocks and fallen trees, in a canyon so beautiful that my eyes don’t know which direction to look in first, I can’t help but think about how I treated Erica during her last visit to Cocoa Beach. I too woke her up and took her on an adventure of sorts into in the forest…her own forest. I took her to Trudy’s for an early morning Brazilian bikini wax deforestation treatment.
A Brazillian forest, according to Trudy, is the opposite of a Sicilian forest which is apparently what Erica was sporting upon her arrival. I don’t suppose that density or coverage matter when we’re spitting and wearing chaps but when we’re about to wear a bikini, its best to do some clear cutting around the edges so that the shorter children on the beach who might run into us while chasing a Frisbee won’t come face to face with a hairy scary situation due to their vantage point.
Of course, I can always count on Trudy to make my guest feel at ease and in true Trudy style she uncovered the situation and tactfully announced her concern that I hadn’t booked enough time for a bush waking of this magnitude. She hymned and hawed about how she would have to move or cancel her adjoining appointments, questioned Erica about how anyone could see the forest through these trees and told us hair curly stories about a woman who wanted her money back because she claimed to have been scared or worse within her forest walls by the hot, hair ripping, root lifting effects of the deforestation process.
I’m not sure if the humiliation or the eye crossing outcries were the high points of Erica’s visit but I am sure that in this now moment, several hours into this most amazing ride, I’m starting to feel that its possible that Erica has out done me in the hospitality department. Just as these thoughts cross my mind I notice the dark clouds that are now surrounding us, the same clouds I questioned Erica about an hour ago to which she responded, “not to worry”. Within minutes the sky opened up and thunder began to rumble at our backsides, followed by the ominous sounds of lighting bolts hitting the tree branches beside us. I now began to realize how the downed trees in the raging river probably got there as I remember that just yesterday a horse in a neighboring ranch was struck and killed by lightning. We quickly did an about face and started racing back toward bluer skies. “Stay at least 25 yards behind me” Erica screamed out, “so if one of us gets hit by lightning the other can perform CPR.” . “Well that’s just great!” I thought to myself. I don’t know CPR and so now I’m hoping its me who gets hit by lightning or surely we both will die. “Do you want your rain parka?” Erica cries out as the rain turned to sleet and the wind began to howl through the trees. I sometimes wonder where Erica comes up with some of the things she says. I’d have to dry off to enter a wet T-shirt contest at this point, so I’m not sure why we should stop under a tree while its lightening to prevent further wetness. I’m really missing Ranger Jeanne at this point as we galloped around corners, my head frequently hitting branches that seemed much higher in the peace and calm of our earlier experience. The horses were now spooking around every turn, lightning crashing down like a whip, accelerating the heart pounding madness that’s driving us like Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid to the edge of canyon walls, sliding and traversing until finally we could see our lone trailer hitched to our rescue vehicle sitting on the side of a rural mountain road with a beautiful beam of Light shinning right on it, not a drop of rain falling. Soaked to the bone we laugh hysterically and high five like high school kids who got caught in the rain on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon.
Whether physical or emotional, we can use the electrifying storms in our lives that rip our trees out by their roots to reveal smoother and calmer places within ourselves, where we can genuinely appreciate what it means to Feel Alive.
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