Now

The seasonal flood of work has once again floated around my eyeballs for the past few weeks. I am tired, deeply, another seasonal affliction from the dramatic change of pace -- one minute I'm on vacation with nary a question to answer and the next I'm back at work fielding 100 questions a day and most of them repeats.

But underneath it all, I've been quietly working to change my life. Yesterday, I drove south to spend the morning with Peggy, the horse whisperer, as we prepared for our presentation at an Independent Schools conference. There is something about spending time with Peggy that is both ethereal and grounding. It was heady work yesterday trying to grapple with how we meld the classroom experience with the students' work in the arena with Peggy's horses. It's transformational, I have no doubt about it, but explaining how it works or why or even how we evolved to the methods we use is complicated and overwhelming. It doesn't help that we only have an hour and 15 minutes to present, which seems like a lifetime in some ways and like a split second in others.

After Peggy's, I drove north to visit with Dave, the dog trainer, to see if he would be willing to take me on as an apprentice. We met at Starbucks and talked about our lives, our goals, animals, and teaching. In many ways, the conversation with Peggy in the morning was the same conversation with Dave in the afternoon though I can't give any concrete examples of exactly how it was the same.

Peggy talks about the four areas she works on with children and horses -- Connection, Intention, Being Present, and Authenticity. She also uses the term Claiming Space with the girls in reference to all of the four areas, and throughout the school year, we circle back to these concepts again and again. In addition, we add the concept of Intent vs. Impact, of how we can positively claim space versus negatively claim space by examining our intentions and observing our impacts.

See, it's really hard to explain, but the girls get it (probably through repetition more than anything) and by the end of the year, when we head back to Peggy's in the spring, they are able to create personal goals that are more genuine and real than most goals adult set -- I want to be friendlier, I want to know that my quiet way can still be seen as a leader, I want to be aware of how others feel, I want to be more patient...

It's powerful stuff so as I sat in the coffee shop chatting away with Dave about training and life, I could feel myself practicing all those things I've seen Peggy teach the girls -- connection, being present, authenticity, intention, claiming space, and intent vs. impact. I tried to explain it all to Dave and amazingly, he understood.

"It's the same when you work with dogs," he said. "I don't have any scientific basis for it, but if you picture what you want the dog to do, he reads your thoughts. It's that connection that I have to have with someone if we're going to work together. It's why this conversation with you is so important."

Dave is a gentle soul. He's a big, big man working his way through the South Beach Diet to lose 65 pounds or more so he no longer tips the scale at 300 pounds. He was a high school and college wrestler and his fingers are the size of bratwursts. At first glance, you'd think he was brash and loud and burley, but when he works with dogs, he is gentle, thoughtful, and quiet. He can get the most energetic puppy to fall asleep in his arms within 30 minutes of working with them and quiet the most angry of canines simply by slowly massaging his large hands across a dog's back.

I emailed him this morning to thank him for meeting with me and for agreeing to "train" me. He wrote back and said, "We're going to make a great dog trainer out of you" and I felt the same kind of magic bubble I do when I watch Peggy work with my students.

Of course, when I got home I was exhausted. My ass hurt from driving over 150 miles in one day and then sitting in a dining room and then a coffee shop and my head felt heavy with all the ideas and discussion and scheming of the day. I've had a hard time recovering today, but this evening I took Rubin on a long walk and tried, as Peggy so gently commands of my students, to be in the moment. About a mile from home, Rubin got very excited and when I released him from his "right here" or "heal" position, he raced like a crazed puppy back and forth across the grass turning at the exact moment he knew his leash would run out. He smiled and pranced and pounced, growling playfully all the while. A passerby stood a few feet from us and laughed with me as Rubin continued his wild frenzy until finally he flopped in the grass exhausted.

This year is going to be a hard year. I know that. Teaching will drain me as it does every year and the dog apprenticing will be like going back to school again, energizing but exhausting. While I look forward to the latter, I know I must muster up some serious energy to be fully functioning with the former and count the days as they slowly pass by.

Peggy told me, as we sat in her dining room planning our presentation, that if there was one word of advice she could offer me as I transition from one passion to the other it would be to be kind to myself. Forgiving was the word she used. Forgiveness has been one of my life lessons and when hours later I heard Dave say the same thing, "A good trainer must be able to forgive themselves" I realized this is one of those lessons that will present itself to me again and again, no matter how deep the flood of my life.

I shall end this ramble with a picture of Rubin, who along with Ann, is a great joy and a brilliant reminder of staying present, staying connected, being authentic, as well as being intentional while I move into claiming my new space in life.