Racing and Riding

I recently finished reading The Art of Racing in the Rain for our neighborhood book club. I'll report on our club discussion next week. However, while reading the book I couldn't help but note the similarities between driving race cars and riding hunter/jumpers.

The book is narrated by Enzo the dog who shares advice about driving at speed learned from his owner. The following statements caught my attention.

• It requires balance, anticipation, patience. This is so true for riding. Balance in the saddle, anticipating the next turn and/or fence, and patiently waiting for the fence to come to you.
• Your car goes where your eyes go. Exactly. Which is why we're constantly reminded not to look at the base of the fence, because that's where you'll end up.
• Attention and intention is far ahead to the next turn and the one beyond that. The old cliche for jumping is to throw your heart over the fence and follow it. That is the intention. Attention should be on the next fence, the next line, etc., because your horse goes where your eyes go!
• Racing is about discipline and intelligence. Riding horses over fences requires repetition to build trust and timing. The discipline to show up day after day, to ride the horse you have that day (they have moods just like we do), to put the horse first -- always. Intelligent riders enter the arena with a plan and have the knowledge and skills to adapt that plan as the course unfolds.
• A driver's hands should be relaxed, sensitive, aware. A rider's hands should be relaxed, sensitive, aware.  :-)  A tense grip makes for a tense horse.
• The driver must have faith. Hoo boy! The rider must have faith that the horse will take the fence, as the horse must have faith that the rider will never attempt an obstacle beyond their capabilities.
• It's all about the ride. That sums it up perfectly.

Sunday Stills: Liquids

More cooperative weather this week. This is the fountain at our adjacent neighborhood.

Kind of has a "Splish splash I was takin' a bath...."  vibe.  ;-)  With apologies to Bobby Darin.

To see how others met the challenge, visit Sunday Stills.

Sunday Stills: Nature's Frames

Mother Nature wasn't too cooperative for this photo challenge. The Pineapple Express kept us pretty wet this week, and I spent half of our lone dry day on appointments and errands. I grabbed the camera for Indy's afternoon walk but didn't find any photo-worthy material.

So once again I snapped my photo at the front porch.

This was the closest I could come to the assignment. One of Kiyara's old shoes placed in a planter for some interest.

For those who may be wondering -- those are stud holes at the heel of the shoe. Like cleats on athletic shoes, studs give the horse more traction for jumping on turf. The size of the studs varies per the conditions. Once competition is finished for the day the studs are unscrewed and the hole is plugged to keep the threads clean.

To see how others met this week's photo challenge, visit Sunday Stills.

Book Club: The Lace Reader

After a two month break over the holidays our small group reunited to discuss Brunonia Barry's The Lace Reader. Although one of our members was absent we welcomed a new member to the group. We all agreed that two months was too long between meetings and even though a book a month is ambitious for some of our busy members, we decided to stick with it.

When selecting the book for our January meeting we read the five-star as well as the one-star reviews. Most readers praised The Lace Reader. Those who gave it a low rating primarily did so because of the ending. So in reading this book we were expecting a twist at the end. Even so, none of us guessed correctly.

The author's web site describes the story as follows:

Towner Whitney, the self-confessed unreliable narrator, hails from a family of Salem women who can read the future in the patterns in lace, and who have guarded a history of secrets going back generations. Now the disappearance of two women is bringing Towner back home to Salem—and is bringing to light the shocking truth about the death of her twin sister.

In the opening pages of the novel, Towner tells the reader that she lies, and that she is crazy. Barry does an excellent job of hooking the reader with tantalizing hints about convoluted family relationships. The reader struggles to make sense of Towner's past (she changed her name from Sophya) and the parts played by her mother and aunts. In the end we learn just how unreliable Towner really is as a narrator.

Although we all liked The Lace Reader, our discussion revealed just how convoluted the story is. Perhaps a sign that Barry did an admirable job in developing her theme of Perception versus Reality. It would require a rereading of the novel to verify that Barry played fair with the reader. I think she did. During our discussion we were repeatedly correcting each other as to which character knew and did what, and which events were real or imagined.

The Lace Reader does have its shortcomings. There were dangling story lines that were not completed satisfactorily -- at least for us. The first half of the book is written in first person present text. From the middle to the end of the book the point of view alternates between first person and third person and at times becomes confusing as to which POV we are reading. We wondered if the POV confusion was intentional or a breakdown in writing.

Interestingly enough, we found the title and the fortunetelling associated with the title to have little relevance to the novel. Each chapter begins with a snippet from "The Lace Reader's Guide" compiled by one of the characters. I expected these passages to have relevance to the following chapter but didn't always find a connection. Clairvoyance does play a part in the novel, but the vision of the future most relevant to the story's climax did not emerge from a lace reading. We decided the novel should have been titled Swimming to the Moon.

Despite the issues we had with the novel, it did spark a lively discussion about individual perceptions, how we carry and project our personal perceptions of events, and how people cope with trauma (in healthy or unhealthy ways).

Since one of our members had already started reading The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, we selected it for our February meeting. We are all contributing book ideas for the coming year and will choose our 2012 books at our next meeting. It sounds like we'll have an intriguing mix of fiction and nonfiction to sort through.

Really?

I recently read an article about a study on Middle Age. As defined by the study, "middle age" includes those 40 to 60 years old. Based on that criteria, it would seem that I am officially a Senior Citizen.

Now, how this happened, I don't know. Because I sure don't feel old. Oh, there are those physical signs like the arrival of a few arthritic joints and a metabolism running backwards. However, I've always been bad at remembering names.

But really -- when did my childhood toys become collectible?! And what's with the gray-haired woman in my mirror?

Oh well, I'll keep horsing around and learning new subjects as I conduct research for my books. And as long as I can keep up with Indy on our walks I guess I'm doing okay.

For a Senior Citizen.  ;-)

Snow

Indy at our favorite neighborhood high tech campus.

Here in the temperate Willamette Valley, snow is maybe a once-a-year event that causes temporary problems and then is gone for another 12 months. It's a special event. Indy particularly loves to eat the snow.

Snow nose.

I let Indy walk off leash Sunday morning before anyone else was about. Fortunately, he didn't see the wild bunny dash across the drive up ahead of us (I checked out the bunny prints in the snow).

The white stuff is a fun break from our dreary gray rainy days.

Sunday Stills: Corners

I almost forgot about this week's challenge. Indy got me up this morning before there was decent light to take photos, but thanks to digital cameras with their enhancement programs I managed to salvage a couple of snaps.

I like the following photo because of the rust.

The next one I like because of the depth of the picture as well as the metaphor that we never know where we will end up when we turn a corner in our lives.

Visit Sunday Stills to see how others were "cornered" this week.  ;-)