The past two days have been full of wildfire smoke here on the east coast of the US. What at first seemed like a weird orange sunrise turned into an all-day warning to stay indoors and watch through closed windows as the neighborhood was enveloped in a thick haze. Horses, unfortunately, didn’t have the option to go indoors or wear a mask outside. Those at the barn with pre-existing breathing problems were given their inhaler or nebulizer treatment throughout the day, and no one was ridden. Hopefully this round of smoke has moved on, but the lung irritation from so much smoke will continue for a week or two.
As for me, my allergies extend to wildfire smoke, it seems. I woke up yesterday with a headache, strange feeling in my chest, and an exhaustion that wouldn’t go away with caffeine. Even though I stayed in my house, I was still struggling. I called off of work because I couldn’t concentrate through my symptoms. I felt guilty, like I was making too big of a deal out of it. Why could everyone else cope and I couldn’t? It didn’t change my symptoms, though. Feeling guilty about them didn’t help me get rid of them.
Sometimes I still struggle with feeling guilty about not making horses work too, like it’s some failing on my part that I stop when they’re telling me something is painful when others would push them through it. One of the horses who used to breathe heavily and cough while in lessons was one I was hesitant to make do things. Sometimes I would push him anyway, though, because there were several people who told me that was just normal for him and he got over it once you pushed him through it. He ended up being diagnosed with heaves. He’s one of the horses on a nebulizer this week. He never felt guilty about his symptoms. He just displayed what was happening with him, and tried his best to create a scenario where he would feel better. It was the humans feeling guilty about his “lack of work ethic” that caused the issue. Feeling guilt for not making him work, like we’re conditioned to believe needs to happen for a horse to justify their expense. To avoid embarrassing us.
What if we stopped berating ourselves when we stopped to rest? Would we extend that grace more easily to others? If we felt less guilt, felt less need to justify taking up space in this world, would we feel less pressure to say “you have to work” to the horses in our lives? One can only hope.
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Maeve Birch Home 