I Don't Need a Daily Ritual--or a Different Life

The oddest thing I know is that sometimes what looks like obstacles are actually stepping-stones.

Right now I have a book in my office bathroom perfect for occasional reading. It's called Daily Rituals, and it's a compendium of one-page essays about great artists (primarily writers, but also painters and composers) and what sort of routine they kept. It's pretty interesting but bears absolutely no resemblance to my life.

I'm not saying I'm Monet, or Flaubert, or what have you. I'm saying I couldn't have a single daily routine if my work depended on it. I've noticed before that men who write seem to say, "This is my job, therefore I must have at least 8 hours a day to devote to it, uninterrupted." If they work at home, they have a dedicated office. And child care. And someone who makes them lunch (ok, maybe not now. But in the 1800s, certainly someone made them lunch.) Whereas the women writers, at least the ones I know, say, "This is my job, and I'm absolutely lucky that I'm able to fit it into short bits of time around my family obligations."

I've never once resented my family obligations. (Well, okay, maybe cooking, once or twice. And laundry, sometimes. But otherwise.) My children were and are a delight to me. There were days I was so tired that when it came time to write I longed for a nap--and some days I took the nap. I was primarily a journalist and ghostwriter before my second child was born, so I had pretty tight deadlines, but once I had the freedom to write as I pleased I could afford to be relaxed about time. The hard stuff from toddlerhood--the child that puked inside my bra while we were at the bank, the days when both were crying and I could only comfort one--they became part of my writing. As did everything else about our lives as my children grew.

I can't tell you how often I have to restrain myself from telling a really good true story about my children on this blog. We have an agreement: if it's not my story, I can't tell it without their permission. And they rarely give permission. Fair enough. It is their lives--but it's my life, too. Their stories blend with mine and enrich everything I write, whether or not they approve.

I've said before that I had a traumatic childhood, and it's true; while I never plan to go into the details here (again--not only my story) I've always known that I grew up on the edge of flight-or-fight, with a wariness and attention to detail, particularly to emotion and dialogue, that most people don't have. It leads to problems like depression and anxiety--but it also made me a writer. Some recent studies show that writers have different brain wiring that non-writers. I love neuroscience, so I'll be paying attention to that--I've always wanted to know how much of my odd brain is what I was born with, and how much is what happened to me afterwards. Yet it doesn't actually matter. The funky thing is that I've lately realized that if I could go back and change my childhood, take away the trauma, I'm not sure I would. Now, I'd do anything to keep one of my own children from being traumatized. I also know that without the help and love I received after my hard times, including to this day, not to mention modern pharmaceuticals, I'd be in a much worse place now than I am.

I like the place where I am. I like the writing I do from this place. I wouldn't want to change that.

You can only live life forward, so maybe you could argue that it doesn't matter what happens to you, how life shapes you, but I think that's incorrect. What happens to us does matter--and so does how we frame it. I'm grateful to be a writer, and I'm grateful for whatever shaped my writing--trauma, frenetic schedule, and all. I don't need a Daily Ritual; good thing, since I probably won't get one anytime soon.

All Lauren Kieffer, All The Time

Kidding. But sheesh, the number of blog hits. It's like the adage that if you want teens to read your YA novel, stick a vampire in it. Clearly I should write about Lauren Kieffer a lot more often.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to post this. We had a storm last night that seems to have taken out the internet. I'm appalled by how much this has hampered my work. I'm supposed to be emailing my editor some last-minute corrections to The War That Saved My Life, but guess what? No email. I've typed the corrections and printed them out, and if I can get her to send me a fax number I'll fax them to her.

In the old days we used actual mail service for this sort of thing, and it was fast enough.

Meanwhile, my new laptop's trick of saving my new manuscript "on the cloud" is looking like a fairly stupid idea.

Speaking of stupid ideas, I had one the other day. I was writing a pretty funny scene in my new novel, and though I knew I'd gotten the basic idea from something I'd read elsewhere, I thought I'd gotten it from a Dorothy Sayers mystery novel written during WWII, so therefore practically research material, so therefore mostly legit. But I felt unsure about it, so I found myself recounting just that one scene to some of my book club members, who nodded and said, "Right. Like in The Guersney Literary and Sweet Potato Peel Pie Society."

Yikes. Busted. This is precisely why I try to stay away from all fiction pertaining to the setting or subject of my current novel. I read so much, and it all gets churned up in my head. Anyway, I think the humor of the scene was sort of leading the novel in the wrong direction anyway. I've been staying away from my keyboard in favor of surviving April doing a bit more research, and now I think it's time to move forward again. If only I could get my manuscript off the cloud.

Lauren Kieffer: Nine Years to An Overnight Sensation

So, my dears, I'm atypically at a loss for words. I've been both eager to write this blog post and puzzling over how to do it. The short form of the reading: Lauren Kieffer rode brilliantly in both cross country on Saturday and showjumping on Sunday; she finished on her dressage score, which is the best you can do; she finished in second place behind William Fox-Pitt, who I think is the number-one ranked eventer in the world, or if not should be, and if he'd had the grace to knock down just one showjumping rail Lauren would have won it. It was her second four-star and pretty much her horse's first (Veronica started Rolex two years ago with a different rider but was eliminated at the fifth xc fence).

On Saturday, my daughter and I watched Lauren through the first water complex, a series of three jumps. She rode it beautifully: steady, even strides and perfect lines. Our plan was to then go down to the finish line, watch her cross it, and head to the vet box where uber-groom Max Corcoran was scheduled to give a presentation. Vet boxes are only featured in international events and pony club rallies; my daughter, heading to pony club championships this summer, wanted some tips.

While we walked along the end of the course, we listened to Lauren's progress via the announcer. Clear through 7, the coffin complex. Clear through 13, the tobacco stripping barn. Through 14, the Hollow, though she took the long route there. (Why? Trouble?) Clear through 16, the devious offset brush. (Good girl!) Then, "hold on course," over the speakers.

Oh crap. Hold on course meant that riders were being stopped because either a horse or rider, or both, had fallen and was not expected to be able to get out of the way in time for the next rider. At Rolex riders are sent out at five minute intervals, which meant there are typically 3 on course at any one time. Oh crap. You never want to have a hold. Then, "Lauren Kieffer being held before the Head of the Lake," and it became an oh crap of a different kind. First, worry about the rider in front of her (it turned out that the rider was fine, but the horse had suddenly pulled up lame; it was loaded into an ambulance and later had hoof surgery at the vet hospital across the street, and is expected to make a full recovery). Second, being held is a completely lousy thing to have happen--the horse is in full gallop at this point, with a lovely rhythm, and suddenly is being asked to stand still for an indefinite amount of time, and then, hey! gallop on. Third, she was being held right before the Head of the Lake, the infamous Rolex water complex that is always just about the hardest thing on course. To have to go straight there from a stop, on an opinionated mare who probably was not thrilled about being held--ouch. Poor Lauren!

The hold went on long enough that we gave up on the finish and went to the side of the vet box (a roped-off field) where a woman with a sign about the presentation was looking around impatiently for Max.

"Do you know what Max Corcoran looks like?" she asked, scanning the crowds.
"Yes," I said, "But she's not going to come over here until Lauren gets in."

The woman gave me a puzzled look, but I knew I was right. Max used to be Veronica's groom. She loves the horse. Also, Max and Lauren both lived on the O'Connor farm for years. Max loves Lauren, too.

A few minutes later the hold was lifted. The announcer said, "Lauren Kieffer a bit sticky through the drop into the Head of the Lake, but she's made it out," and my daughter and I cheered. "A bit sticky" means "very nearly fell off," but you don't get style points in eventing. If you did, Lauren might have gotten some: I've since seen video and several photos of that drop--a jump that lands, in this case in the lake, several feet below the take-off. Veronica caught a back leg on the jump, which threw Lauren onto the horse's neck, her right foot out the stirrup, and threw Veronica to the left, making her very likely to miss the next jump, which was in the lake only three strides away. Lauren's reins were out to the buckle, because you've got to let them slip through your hands over a big drop. In the first stride after the near fiasco she had gotten her butt back in the saddle, her right leg, stirrupless, clamped to the horse's side, and both her hands behind her right hip, steering. Remarkable. Sometime after the next jump she put her foot back into the stirrup. It was, in the words of my daughter, "big levels of badass;" more refined pundits called it, "clutch."

My point is that she rode the snot out of that course. From the vet box we could see her cross the finish line, though in the distance. We saw her friends and groom swarm the horse, taking off saddle, boots, shoe studs as fast as possible. Heard Lauren let out an echoing war whoop. Saw Hannah Sue Burnett, still wearing her own xc gear, tackle her in a hug. "There's Max," I said to the woman with the sign. "In the green shirt, sponging off the horse."

My daughter and I drove home Saturday night, but we watched Sunday's showjumping on our laptops in a live feed. Allison Springer and Arthur, who'd led after dressage, had a mishap on xc, so Lauren was in second place. This meant she had to showjump second to last--plenty of pressure.

She jumped perfectly. I've been working hard to improve my own showjumping, so I notice details I missed before, and I'll tell you--Lauren did it exactly right. It's not easy. She was superb.

But now I come to my real point. Right now Lauren Kieffer sits at the top of the world. Team selections are always shrouded in mystery, but I'd guess she's getting strong consideration for this year's World Championships. If she makes the team, she gets to wear a red U. S. Event Team coat for the rest of her life. She'd be, to a large extent, made.

It didn't happen this weekend. It happened over the last nine years.

Lauren has always had talent, courage, and ambition. Anyone can see that. But what she's also had was dedication. Making a living riding event horses is the dream of a whole bunch of teenage girls, but is also unbelievably hard to do. You don't start out riding Veronica at Rolex. You start out shoveling manure, cleaning tack, taking horses on one-hour walk sets in which neither you nor the horse learn a thing and both of you are bored out of your mind. You get the occasional lesson. You work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, at minimum, and you get up at 6 or 5 or 4, depending on the day, and you never have enough money. Usually you hurt somewhere. Then you get the chance to ride some medium-talent horses, and you ride them as well as you possibly can every day even if it's raining or cold or you just got back from working 10 hours at a show grooming for people higher up the food chain. You do this for years. 

When people from your barn go to the World Equestrian Games, you stay on the farm keeping all the horses fit. When people from your barn go to the Olympics, you do the same. When your friend and roommate earns her red coat, you cheer for her, hoping that someday she'll tackle you with a hug at the Rolex finish line. You keep your head down and you keep working and you learn.

Eventually you get your chance. But it doesn't come wrapped in paper with a bow. It comes, as Thomas Edison once said, "Dressed in overalls, looking like work."  The horse is still somewhat unproven. You get to ride her, but due to qualification rules you've got to take her back down the levels, work your way up. And you do.

It takes nine years. Not nine years from the day you first dreamed of riding at Rolex, riding beautifully in front of cheering crowds, nine years from the day you started the serious work of getting there.

This, in the end, is why I understand Lauren Kieffer. Writing is like that, too. It took nine years from the first manuscript I sent to a publisher to the publication of my first novel. I call that my apprenticeship, and I don't regret it, and I don't think it's at all atypical. I always knew I had writing talent. I knew, too, that every year I didn't sell a book I still got better as a writer. And, in the end, the nine years would have passed, whether or not I worked hard all the way through them. A lot of people--a lot--tell me that they've got this great idea for a novel but they don't have time in their busy lives to write it, or they started to write it and it didn't come out they way they imagined, and what should they do? Get to work, buttercup. It's a privilege to make your living in a way a lot of people would like to be able to do, if only it weren't so hard.

After Lauren's dressage, I said to her, "Some day, I'm going to be able to say I knew you--"
"--when I was just a baby!" she finished for me, with a grin.

You bet, girlfriend. Kick on.

That Kid Named Lauren Kieffer

Once upon a time--June, 2006, to be exact--I met a kid named Lauren Kieffer. We were actually both campers at the O'Connor Event Camp in Lexington, VA, taught by world-renowned event riders David and Karen O'Connor. It was a fabulous week.

I know Lauren was there. I remember her vaguely from camp dinners and such, and also remember her from a particular day cross country. In truth, I was too busy trying to sort out my own riding problems to pay too much attention to my fellow campers, but it was hard to miss this intense firecracker 17-year-old, riding a half-Arab horse named Snooze Alarm (barn name Maggot), with a chip on her shoulder the size of Texas. Lauren desperately wanted to be fabulous, and she wasn't, and when in frustration she flipped her horse on the cross-country flat day, I could hear David O'Connor screaming at her from three fields away.

Lauren's become rather famous for what happened next. At the end of camp she asked Karen and David if she could work for them. They asked when she would be available. She said, "now." She followed them home.

I get it, somewhat. I've never been that intense child, but I can imagine being that intense, and I can see it in Lauren. She wanted to learn so much, so badly.

For years, after that first session of camp, I ran into Lauren either at the Virginia Horse Center or in my sojourn in Florida. I'll be honest, for years she annoyed the snot out of me. I'd say hi, and she'd roll her eyes. I'd make what I viewed as a friendly overture, and she'd walk away. Whatever, I'd think.

But I've always said that relationships are the key. I know that after awhile, even the most annoying and most bratty of the Holston Pony Clubbers seem to metamophasize. They may still be annoying brats, but they become my annoying brats. In the same way, I became Lauren's annoying middle-aged amateur. What can I say? We grew on each other. Two years ago when I went looking for a new horse, Lauren was my wingman. She loved Sarah before I did.

A few years back, Lauren rode her crazy horse Maggot at Rolex. It was a culmination of a childhood dream: buy a horse, train it to greatness. They didn't place high, but they finished respectably. I was proud of her. It seemed strange, because she'd pissed me off so much, but I was pulling for her pretty hard.

Then this year she had a Rolex horse again. I knew she had a logo now, I knew she had had shirts made up for herself and her groom and family and friends. I was working dressage. Could I have a Lauren Kieffer Eventing shirt in a white polo, to wear while I was working? Could I ever! The shirt arrived. Today I put it on.

Lauren was both completely calm and wildly nervous. I watched her warm up alongside her parents, meeting them for the first time. It rained, hard, and I stood in the rain. I stayed watching her warmup.


She went down to the ring. So many people I know and care about went with her. They crowded into the little space allocated for family and owners. I stood to one side, where the dressage volunteers could stand.

My girl rode. She laid it down. Halfway through, my daughter, standing beside me, gasped, "She's in the lead!" and I looked at the scoreboard and realized it was true. She was leading. Leading Rolex, the biggest competition in our country. Leading. She finished, and we all went wild--cheering, shouting. Twenty-six years old and on top of the world. I felt like her old great-aunt or something, not really involved but so wholly on her side.

It didn't quite last. Later in the day William Fox-Pitt rode the marvelous Bay My Hero to a slightly better score, and then Alison Springer and her quirky quixotic Arthur did even better. I've always loved Alison and Arthur, and I was so moved when her friends and owners shed tears of joy, that I couldn't begrudge them their higher placing. But eventing is never won on the dressage. Tomorrow my girl Lauren Kieffer kicks it into high cross-country gear, and all my prayers, all my best wishes, will go with her.

Half-Way

1. It's Thursday night, which is $4 wine night at the Hilton Gardens Hotel in Georgetown, Kentucky. Quite a bargain.
2. On Wednesday night, my daughter played quite good tennis and her school beat their archrival, 5-4, thus putting them in the running for the state high school tournament.
3. We managed to leave for Lexington at 8 pm, which was the latest I'd hoped we'd leave and the earliest I thought possible.
4. While a 3-hour drive can easily take 5 hours, there's actually no legal or practical way to make a 5 hour drive take 3 hours, no matter how hard you want to.
5. Therefore, we picked up our Rolex credentials at 12:50 am Thursday, reached our own hotel at 1:04, showered, and turned off the light at 1:22.
6. The alarm went off at 6:30, and since I've pretty much got the horse show timing thing down, we had exactly enough time to dress, eat breakfast, and get to the Rolex dressage arena by the time we were supposed to be there.
7. It was cold.
8. There were a lot of famous event riders and we got to be really close to them. As official dressage volunteers we were allowed on the inner bleachers otherwise reserved for horse owners, grooms, and credentialed officials. My favorite moment of the day was when a small pony clubber made U.S. Olympic coach (and gold medalist) David O'Connor show his credentials before letting him into the bleachers.
9. My job was to sit and watch dressage. Really. I sat out on a folding chair in the arena, next to 3 small girls whose job it was to place and remove the rail at A to let the riders in and out, and whenever a rider came to the end of the test I said, "Okay, now," to the three small girls, and they went to move the rail.
10. I think I was really there to keep the three small girls from throwing dirt on each other, or kicking each other, or falling asleep instead of moving the rail.
11. I did a good job.
12. Once I pooper-scooped a load out of the main arena. This will be my claim to fame.
13. I'm writing this as a list because I'm too tired to write in paragraphs.
14. There are Famous Riders staying in our hotel.
15. I told them about the $4 glasses of wine

Like Ball Girls At Wimbledon

So, picture this: an open town-hall type meeting at this winter's USEA (United States Eventing Association, my tiny fabulous sport) convention. Moderated by Jimmy Wofford, Olympic-rider-turned-legend. Maybe 300 people in the room, including the president of the USEA, the president of the United States Equestrian Federation (the national governing body for all horse sports), the president of the United States Pony Clubs, and a lot of other bigwigs. And me, sitting at the back.

Imagine that someone--I forget who--begins the familiar rant, kids these days. It starts innocuously enough, how do we interest young riders in eventing and thus insure the future of our sport? but quickly falls into kids these days. How they're too busy with other activities. How they don't learn horse management skills. How they all ride ridiculously expensive horses and don't learn anything and never, ever, volunteer. It actually became a full-scale rant involving all those presidents and other big names, about kids I didn't recognize, and the longer it went on, the more annoyed I got, and I stood up at the back of the room.

I stood until the legendary moderator invited me to speak. And I can't remember exactly what came out of my mouth, because I was annoyed and also because 300 people in the room, many of whom I honesty revere, but I told them about my pony club. About how I'd become by default the leader of a small, very inexperienced club that had been fractured by outside issues (mostly squabbles among parents). Actually I do remember what I said at that point. I said, "I inherited a club of six kids, none of them higher than a D3 (that meant something to my audience) and the most expensive horse any of them have is my daughter's, who cost-- (and I said out loud what the horse cost, which I won't repeat as it's private, or at least was until I told all the eventers, but trust me, it was a very low amount to the audience at hand--also, I wasn't being entirely truthful, as in the heat of the moment I'd forgotten about one member whose horse probably did cost more, though I don't know how much as that was private too)--anyway, I went on to say, what I did was throw those six kids together for 3 days on my farm, and what emerged was a team. I said that two and a half years later I had 13 members, including 3 C2s and an HB (again, this had meaning to those in the room, and it's pretty damned impressive, too), and that last year I took an eventing team to Midsouth that finished first in Horse Management (whupping Keeneland!), and that also these same kids were badgering me to find them volunteer opportunities because they wanted to be useful. I said that kids these days didn't need expensive horses, they needed community, and that my club was nothing like the kids everyone else was complaining about, and that if we want to insure the future of eventing what we need to do was create relationships and community.

And I sat down. My hands were shaking a little, because it was a pretty big impromptu rant, and I wasn't exactly sure if anyone cared. But before I could lean back into my seat, a woman was pressing her card into my hand. She told me she was in charge of the volunteers for dressage at Rolex, and if I wanted to bring my kids she'd give them jobs. And I gasped.

It's hard to explain how cool this is. The best comparison I've been able to come up with is that it's like being  the ball boys or ball girls at Wimbledon--the kids who dart across the court to pick up stray tennis balls, then stand statue-still in the corner. It's a chance to be very close to a very big stage. Rolex is eventing's U.S. Open, it's a huge deal for us.

When I left the meeting, I phoned my daughter and said, "We've been offered a chance to work dressage at Rolex." "Um, YES," she said. "Yes, yes, YES." Then I put it up on the club Facebook, since I couldn't access my group email from the meeting, and the girls went wild.

Of our 13 members at that time (we have 16 now) 1 is in college taking finals, 1 has quit riding, and 2 are flaming furious that school obligations prevent them from coming. The other 9 are taking two days off school, driving 5 hours each way, wearing regulation khaki pants, white polos, plain belts and polished paddock boots, and doing this:









And then on Saturday we'll get to watch this:

 


Six kinds of awesome, baby. Nobody deserves it more than my kids.

I Knew April Was Going to Be a Doozy

This morning, after my daughter left for school, my husband was checking a few things on the computer, so I lay down on the couch with my iPad to play Candy Crush check out important current events. It was pretty snug and comfortable, with a dog snuggled up against me, and I was quite tired from being up too late both the previous nights (once because I was flying in late, and once because my husband was.) I've been experimenting with meditation, but it keeps making me fall asleep; sure enough, soon after my husband left for work, I fell into a sound and dream-filled slumber.

I woke to discover that my phone had broken. Because right on the screen it said, 12:24 pm. As in, you've been asleep for nearly five hours.

I'm all for the restorative nap, but that was ridiculous. Still, after some internal debate, I decided not to feel guilty. April has been a humdinger of a month.

1. Varsity tennis. Every weeknight with the occasional weekend or full day thrown in, and the great big tourny in Murfreesboro which is nearly Nashville, which is five hours away, and which involved more hours of tennis than I thought could be crammed into a single day.

2. Easter. Not a time-consuming holiday but we did fly down to Florida to visit my in-laws. We had a lovely time.

3. Rolex. This is our next great adventure. If you're not a horseperson, "Rolex" is properly the Kentucky Rolex Three-Day Event, the biggest eventing competition in North America, the cream of the crop, baby. Riding at Rolex once is a lifetime achievement. Spectating is a bucket-list item. And, because I am constitutionally unable to keep my mouth shut, the members of Holston Pony Club are having an adventure at Rolex this year. I think I'll save that story for tomorrow's post.

Meanwhile, tomorrow looks like this: Take dogs to kennel, run errands, work a full shift at Faith in Action, do barn chores, watch my daughter's big tennis match against arch-rival Science Hill, then--I'm guessing it'll be around 8 pm--head to Lexington, Kentucky, five hours away. Then on Thursday, wake up at the latest at 6 am.

Looks like the nap might have been a good idea.