All Things EPIC: Sounds

The low-pitched nicker of horses in the early morning can be equated with the sound of snow crunching beneath fat tires or the indescribable pitch made by rubber tires on singletrack.

How?

These sounds make my world right. I don't need to try or struggle or force anything. Its as if I experience a glitch in the matrix and I get a fleeting look down the proverbial rabbit hole. I do nothing but experience the forceful, intoxicating energy of just being....

They make time pause for a second all my awareness and genuine gratitude come flooding into my soul. I literally "feel" my presence somehow coming into harmony with all the world around me. I can't explain it with words, or logic, or truthfully, emotion. I just know that these sounds erase all worry, stress, doubt, failure, fear and frustration. I can replay the exact tone of each in my mind at any given moment--so I smile and I cherish that I AM ALIVE.

I have smiled silently to myself many times lately because my first week working on a polo horse farm has given me the opportunity to refresh my memory of the one sound I haven't heard in years--that soft nicker of a horse. It has also put me in a hot shower after a day of hard work watching an enormous amount of dirt roll off my skin and disappear down the drain. It has brought the life and the fire back into my eyes. It has put me on the back of millions of dollars worth of horses for five hours a day. It has put me in a tiny cottage with chickens running through the front yard and taught me a million new things about the sport of polo. These horses I ride everyday are phenomenal athletes and they make or break the players.

My job during games can be likened to the pit crew of a race car driver. First horse: feet cleaned, tail braided and up, polo wraps on, bell boots on, splint boots on, bridled, saddled, cinched up, warmed up and ready for the first chukka (polo term for quarter or period depending on how many played), hand horse and mallet to player. Repeat process with second horse. First chukka ends, take first horse, hand second horse to player. Strip first horse, cool out, bathe. Ready third horse....strip second horse. Ready fourth horse...strip third horse....repeat until done. All this happens really fast. Stripping polo wraps off all four legs reminds me of the guys you see in the pits changing tires. You don't think, its just go.

After the game is over, I make sure all the horses are stalled and watered. Then I get to observe and navigate my way through the polo social scene. It has been an interesting and insightful experience, to say the least, as all have been very welcoming, friendly and hospitable despite the fact that the median daily income of this crowd most likely exceeds my monthly income.

But, at the end of the day, when all the social hubub is complete and I walk back out to the barn and hear that soft nicker as I walk down the aisle tossing alfalfa into the feeders, the world becomes right again, the energy surges, time pauses and I smile at the fact that I am indeed, one very, very wealthy, young woman.

Now for the week in pictures: