Chaos Theory

"There is a pleasure sure in being mad which none but madmen know"
-John Dryden

My first semester in college I picked Air Traffic Control as a minor. The aerial and mental ballet involved in wrestling several dozen aircraft into a finite amount of airspace in a set amount of time and preferably without testing the theory that no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time, intrigued and challenged me. Unfortunately, the course required that I actually attend classes on a regular basis so I dropped it like a load of bad asphalt.

My foray this morning into the Arlington backstretch brought back memories of many a waylaid aircraft.

There is a moment at dawn, numinous and ephemeral, when the sun is pregnant on the horizon and the world is quiet and fresh, where the rhythmic clacking of shod hooves and the dull creak of leather is all that interrupts the tranquility. The horses and their grooms are deep into their rituals and as the steam, from an ungodly early work rises from their bodies, one forgets the trappings of modernity and is transported to another time.

I pull up to barn 7 in a sober daze and drift toward the stalls assigned to one Michele Boyce. That is the last moment of peace I remember for the day. What follows is a cacophonous blur of fish out of water floundering that I cannot do justice with words.

Horses hot-walked around the shedrow and washed at the rack. Stalls mucked and freshened with new hay. Heads poking out of stalls, nipping and biting for attention or just surly ennui. Going to work, coming back from it. Saddling, unsaddling, oops...tacking, untacking, fetlock, stifle, wraps, saddle soap, condition books, entries, scratches, riders, agents, vets, scopes, farriers, linament, poultice, mud, epsom salts, eucalyptus, hoof pick, curry comb.....

And that was before I said 'Good morning.'

I don't work there, I am volunteering so I am there because someone is doing me a favor and this concept is dominating my thoughts all morning. I'm chatting with the foreman and he doesn't know what to do with me. I know he's thinking 'Why the hell are you here, with that shit eating grin on your face, begging me to let you muck out a stall? For nothing?' But he is graciously tolerant of me and willing to let me jump on the stable pony. I flash forward to me careening into a million dollar stallion and setting him loose along the backstretch, where he does a smashing rendition of Mrs. O'Learys cow and burns Arlington down for the second time, so I quietly decline. He does, however, become my favorite person in the world.

The other workers look at me with the bewildered smirk reserved for someone in chest-high shorts, black socks and sandals. They even joke with the foreman a little before he warns them that I can understand everything they are saying.

I manage not to damage any horses or property while I am there and am, surprisingly, welcomed back whenever I want. I clean my last bit of tack and head home invigorated and drained. My dogs maul me when I get home with accusatory sniffs and howls, wondering in all hell with whom I've been out cavorting.

In an exhaustion induced flight of fancy, I contemplate the possibilities of doing this for a living.

I wonder what the medical and 401k benefits are like?