I spent years working there, the family law firm. Although I did good work, my head and heart were never in it. I went through the motions, figuratively and literally. Still there were everyday thoughts: I want out.
Chapter 1
I was a lawyer, until I woke up one day.
Those hungry mouths that relied on me were out of college. I only had myself to worry about day to day, I knew I could finally hang up the law license. I had options didn’t I? But admittedly, it was hard to break out of the cycle of practicing law, making the kind of money I had gotten use to making, and needed to pay for all my stuff! Acquired: pickup, Jeep, Miata, large 2 story Victorian home, horses (too many to admit to) stable bills, horse trailer, and all the accoutrements, fashion conscious clothing, shoes (yes, separate from clothing) food, utilities, and chronic three day weekends. It seemed a lot. I was possibly spoiled, and I was overwhelmed, stuck like a tire in swampy mud, spinning and spinning yet going nowhere.
In a fit of self-pity, my first try at “options” was to run away! I bought 50 acres, 50 miles away, and sold the yellow jeep wrangler. Plus, that jeep was wanted (and the driver) by the police Dept. and possibly the state patrol, because of driving a violation in the town of _______, that I had to drive through most days. That great get-a-way from all humanity, except for at work, cost me a commute of about an hour and 15 mins a day and I missed my jeep! But it sure was a peaceful home for myself, my dog and horses. No more stable bills, downsized the home, downsized my living large.
Still, running away hadn’t really taken me away from my stressors – you know, “Life”. Not just the clients either. A family business can be hellacious – and believe me, it was. All those years of family dysfunction wrapped up in a law practice. I bet if you are reading this a migraine headache could develop just thinking of the scenarios possible.
Then my options widened. My brother, my law partner decided to leave the practice of law. Yes, more complications, so instead of dealing with the problem head on, I chose to run again. I didn’t have a plan, I just wanted “OUT”. I left a thriving practice, impulsively because my gut said “go”, we sold out to another firm.
Sure, my friends said, “you’re nuts, how will you make a living, where will you go, and what??????” Some made bets on how long it would take to get me back to the city, but by then, I was already long gone. Heads were still spinning with curiosity and I was chalked up as being crazy! I was saddling up a horse, and was gone. I sure did a lot of riding. That is the thing that always grounds me. That’s where my heart and mind collide, on the back of my horses. Surely no one could catch me now!
Still, after the horses were turned out every time, the cold hard facts of reality were still staring me in the face, you can only leave “it” behind for so long. I had to figure out what I was going to do, and fast. I had just given up the law firm and being a lawyer – just like that. What do you want to be when you grow up? That’s what popped into my mind, who am I, what in the world am I going to do? If I’m a grown up, why am I still asking myself what I want to do when I grow up? Shouldn’t I know by now? I was 45.
CHAPTER 2 “A cowgirl.”
I was told as a young girl, “Cowgirls aren’t real – you can’t be that. Choose something else.” God, what an ego & mind crusher. “Hey you” dream crusher, “lighten up for Chrissakes, I was just 6, can’t a girl dream?” Not in my family, if you didn’t know your career path at age 6, you were just medi-f_cking- ocre. And the career you chose had to be one my parents understood. Cowgirls were not on that list! I didn’t believe them – they told me I couldn’t be a cowgirl – I didn’t let that distract me. My heart’s desire had been reinforced by “Sand Dune Pony”, a book about a boy and a wild buckskin stallion! It was a book I read too many times to recount. Could be that book started me learning how to ride.
I was born with the heart of a cowgirl. By age 6, I thought I already knew how to ride a horse, though I’d never even seen one in the flesh. I love travel, fast horses, faster cars, wide open spaces. I love feeling the rhythm of the horse move under me and the heat rise off the back of my horse. I love the wild Oklahoma wind whirling me about and tossing my hair. The night I was born, there were tornados twistin’ and turnin’ all over the state. I once published the tall tale that a tornado sucked me out of my mother’s womb! Being born in a storm may help explain why I need to keep moving, and why I also néed plenty of space to breathe. Being a cowgirl is also a state of mind.
FLASHBACK:
Age 9, vacationing near Taos, NM, please picture me in Sears and Roebuck black cowboy boots with turquoise and white stitching, with a longing to ride. A longing that has never left my soul. Picture a dude ranch with a string of stable horses. See a honey haired girl blinking in the bright sun, hoping the horse she gets to ride is a pretty one. Believe me when I tell the head wrangler, “Yes, I can ride”. See, he’s asking me to watch out for my little brother, who doesn’t know how to ride a horse. The wrangler has his hands full with a crowd of folks none of who know how to ride. I know who I am on that trail, on a pretty horse. I felt the sun heating up my scalp at the part of my hair. I remember the trail, the sky and the thunder from far away. The dark thunderhead clouds knew me, friends of mine. It seemed like the only life I had known that day.
Of course, I had never been on a horse before, but I “knew” how to ride I figured. I had watched enough westerns, and had captured and broke a wild Mustang reading San Dune Pony. Apparently, it was easy to ride a horse. Anyone could do it. My babysitter next door was a rodeo queen. She brought us her cast off Western Horseman Magazines, and last season’s lipstick tubes. She gave us a doll trunk full of plastic horses of all kinds, colors and postures. If Hoss and Little Joe could ride, if the Lone Ranger and Tonto rode, if Roy and Dale could ride, and a host of others, then I had grown up riding right alongside them all.
Because I knew I could ride, I did ride that day. However, I was not able to help my brother, who was on a seasoned pony that continually tried to rub him off every fence post and tree; ½ mile from the stable, the pony took off at a dead run – my brother screaming for Mama! I digress.
The reality was, being a cowgirl probably doesn’t pay much. I still had to earn a living, and there wasn’t much time to figure it out. The next month’s bills were starting to arrive. I decided to spend a weekend learning to be a cowgirl, and maybe some bright idea would pop into my brain, loping along on the prairie of NW Oklahoma. Because I knew I had to come up with something.
CHAPTER 3 Paying to be a "Cowgirl"!
I paid to be a cowgirl. I signed up for a greenhorn’s long horn cattle drive, at Selman, OK. It has been said by some wise woman, or a philosopher, or both, that if you just do what you love, love will find you. Maybe that applied to careers too. I had flung aside my career, and was waiting for a replacement to magically appear all while enjoying myself riding. Not only that, but for the record, I had already flunked out of the school of love 3 times, each time as bad a disaster as the first time. If either love or a new career were going to find me, it would be on this trip I told myself. My mind was a blank. Later that day my thoughts were, the wind is fierce – o.k., I love it, my mare and I are both “in heat” with p.m.s. – o.k. we’ll deal with it; there is only one tree out here – o.k. I got here in time to park under it; I will light a campfire, the stars will shine in the pitch dark at night on the prairie, miles from nowhere. Nothing can possibly go wrong.
The Universe will provide, I had read somewhere. I hoped it was true, and I tried to act like it really would. It was difficult, kind of like meditating. It had been a very long drive to NW Oklahoma, near Buffalo Creek and the Cimarron River. There were no signs, no landmarks, just dirt roads and wind. A herd of Tarantula scurried across the road, it stopped me in my tracks; I wondered if I was hallucinating! Surely the dance of migrating Tarantulas, a tarantella of sorts was a good omen for me. Harking back to memories when my ‘cello teacher sensed my boredom with gavottes, he whipped out a quick and wild tarantella for me to learn! The frightful sight of hundreds of huge hairy spiders almost caused me to miss the small sign showing where to turn in to the cattle drive.
Because there is nothing out in NW Oklahoma but the wind and prairie, when I saw the sign that I had “arrived”, I was relieved. It had been such a long drive, I felt like I was in a Twilight Zone episode. There was not another car to be seen for miles.
Lonesome describes the area. Tumbling tumble weeds. Time is lost, it could be any era, any year, any date, any time. No electric or phone lines, no gas stations, no nothing. Just what I needed to relax my mind, and just be. I was becoming more open to the Universe. My pick-up and trailer rumbled along the dirt road, raising up enough dust to engulf me in a cloud. I saw the camp site, and one tree! I headed for that tree, and was lucky enough to park beside it. I opened the truck door, but it shut closed, after several attempts to open it, and the wind shutting it again and again – the wind was that fierce – I climbed across to the passenger seat and was able to open the door and get out. What a place!
CHAPTER 4 My Chance or Don't Blow it!
I ARRIVED.
My horse was very glad to back out of that trailer. I got her settled in, and she seemed to enjoy the wind and the promise of all that rode in with it. I was looking forward to sleeping with the lullaby of the prairie and the sound of contented horses that night.
My canvas cowboy tipi and poles were laying partly twisted at my feet. I had put it up before on my own, that’s one reason I loved it. Not to mention it was a tipi after all! I was trying to unpuzzle the poles to get the tipi upright, so I could set about to hammer the tie downs in the ground when a good-looking man in a cowboy hat sauntered up. Glory be, what a smile! “Hi, need some help?” I’m not sure why, but I was surprised. So unexpected, a good-looking cowboy was offering me help – right out of the blue. “Well, sure” I answered. He said, “Oh, its’ YOU! Don’t I know you from somewhere?” All this excitement was a bit much for a hermit like me. It really threw me for a loop! I forgot my manners and I totally disappeared, leaving in my place, the stern, “don’t interrupt me I’m important” lawyer persona I had unfortunately acquired. The lawyer took control of my mouth: “I don’t think so cowboy, it’s a good line, but it’s not going to work.” I can’t believe he didn’t tell me to f_ck off, and turn and run! But thank God he didn’t. “Well, I think I’ve seen you somewhere. Are you here with anyone?” The lawyer then replied, “I’m with everyone here at the trail ride.” By golly he tried again, “Well, can I ride with you tomorrow then?” Can you believe the lawyer answered, “It’s a free world, you can if you can keep up.” It’s a fact men love a challenge, and apparently he did; but a woman would have said, what a bitch. I was shocked when I realized, then and there, that being a lawyer for 20 years had changed me into a monster! I wondered if I could ever act like a nice person again. Why was I making it so hard for the Universe?
Handsome Cowboy hammered the spikes in the ground and my tipi was secure. We chatted, exchanged pleasantries, or what was left of them, and he said goodnight
DUSK, AND THE SETTING SUN
Can you feel the crisp air of the coming night? It’s cool and getting cooler as the sun goes down. The wind is reminding me that I am alive. See the beautiful sunset. See the honey haired girl in a western hat sitting on the steps of the horse trailer, watching a handsome man in a cowboy hat walk away. Imagine her wondering where life had gone wrong; was it was still possible to fix it? Hear the nicker of the fine mare, Jolie Blon saying good night. Bullfrog croak carries on the wind from a far-off pond. Smell the campfires all around, and some guitars playing and singing. Tomorrow will be a new day, thank God.
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