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BULLET, CHAPTER 32, PART TWO
May. 28th, 2013 05:08 pmLast year, my mother's Christmas gift to me was that when it got warm enough, she would pay for a trail ride for me. Today was the day I redeemed that. Dad took me out to a ranch, and I was signed up for a two-hour morning ride with a group. I had been here before and knew that they had five black Percheron mares, and I asked if one would be available for me to ride, and, yup, one was! Lola, same girl I had last time. She's this big gorgeous thing with a white blaze on her face and three white socks of varying heights. She's a wonderfully smooth ride, as drafts tend to be, and her one quirk (all the horses there are mostly perfect but have some quirk, I've noticed, because after all they're not machines!) and hers is that she likes to rub her belly on things. Stumps, young trees she can bend over, that kind of thing. It's not her fault, she's got a fly allergy so all the fly bites on her underside itch her something awful. I'm told she also bites but I've never had a problem with that.
She behaved pretty well for me this time though! There was really just one problem spot where I couldn't get her off some trees (I am not afraid to give a horse a good kick, it's just that doesn't have much effect when the horse weighs around a ton!) but the guide helped. We passed by a deer that was nestled in the brush, and it didn't move even though it was less than ten feet from us. The guide said that it smelled the horses and not us and that's why it wasn't afraid. Despite it being a Georgia summer, it was pretty cool too since we were in the woods and thus shaded the whole time.
Only one thing was unfortunate, and that was the conversation. I admit, my ideal trail ride is one in total silence to just appreciate the woods and the horse, but I've never gotten that. People in a group are going to talk, that's just how it is. And I don't begrudge 'em that. What I most certainly do begrudge is where one guy decided to lead the conversation.
People in some parts of Georgia will ask "Where do you go to church?" upon meeting you because church is a really social thing, almost like a club for some folks/in some areas, but this guy straight-out asked one of the women in our group "Are you religious?" and even in the south that is a REALLY personal question. Definitely not one for a bunch of strangers on what should be a nice relaxing horse ride. She said she was, and they got to talking about it, and he basically used the conversation as a platform to very loudly broadcast his pretty fundamentalist and judgmental interpretation of Christianity, and, as if that wasn't uncomfortable enough, it seems no one else in the group was bothered, because they seemed to agree with him, at least everyone who spoke, and one turned out to be a nanny who was actively trying to convert her teenage charge, including taking him to church against his will. Needless to say, my ride got pretty nerve-wracking because I was terrified of any of them taking notice of me and asking MY opinion about anything, knowing then that, as an atheist lesbian, someone like me would probably be an object of hate and/or pity for them all, judging by the opinions being bandied about and praised. Luckily I was on the opposite end of the line and am a very quiet, easily-invisible sort, so no one talked to me at all about anything except the guide.
It's not that I think religion should never be discussed, but I do think it's rude to bring up a really divisive issue out of the blue in a group of strangers who are doing what is supposed to be a fun, relaxing activity and who CAN'T GET AWAY FROM YOU. I guess he just wanted a captive audience and/or expected everyone to agree with him, which, as I said, pretty much everyone seemed to except for me and maybe the guide, who was the only other one that didn't join in that particular conversation.
I think he also tried to sell some of the women a cruise. So yeah, captive audience. At least I had a choice to stop reading...
( BULLET, CHAPTER 32, PART TWO )
She behaved pretty well for me this time though! There was really just one problem spot where I couldn't get her off some trees (I am not afraid to give a horse a good kick, it's just that doesn't have much effect when the horse weighs around a ton!) but the guide helped. We passed by a deer that was nestled in the brush, and it didn't move even though it was less than ten feet from us. The guide said that it smelled the horses and not us and that's why it wasn't afraid. Despite it being a Georgia summer, it was pretty cool too since we were in the woods and thus shaded the whole time.
Only one thing was unfortunate, and that was the conversation. I admit, my ideal trail ride is one in total silence to just appreciate the woods and the horse, but I've never gotten that. People in a group are going to talk, that's just how it is. And I don't begrudge 'em that. What I most certainly do begrudge is where one guy decided to lead the conversation.
People in some parts of Georgia will ask "Where do you go to church?" upon meeting you because church is a really social thing, almost like a club for some folks/in some areas, but this guy straight-out asked one of the women in our group "Are you religious?" and even in the south that is a REALLY personal question. Definitely not one for a bunch of strangers on what should be a nice relaxing horse ride. She said she was, and they got to talking about it, and he basically used the conversation as a platform to very loudly broadcast his pretty fundamentalist and judgmental interpretation of Christianity, and, as if that wasn't uncomfortable enough, it seems no one else in the group was bothered, because they seemed to agree with him, at least everyone who spoke, and one turned out to be a nanny who was actively trying to convert her teenage charge, including taking him to church against his will. Needless to say, my ride got pretty nerve-wracking because I was terrified of any of them taking notice of me and asking MY opinion about anything, knowing then that, as an atheist lesbian, someone like me would probably be an object of hate and/or pity for them all, judging by the opinions being bandied about and praised. Luckily I was on the opposite end of the line and am a very quiet, easily-invisible sort, so no one talked to me at all about anything except the guide.
It's not that I think religion should never be discussed, but I do think it's rude to bring up a really divisive issue out of the blue in a group of strangers who are doing what is supposed to be a fun, relaxing activity and who CAN'T GET AWAY FROM YOU. I guess he just wanted a captive audience and/or expected everyone to agree with him, which, as I said, pretty much everyone seemed to except for me and maybe the guide, who was the only other one that didn't join in that particular conversation.
I think he also tried to sell some of the women a cruise. So yeah, captive audience. At least I had a choice to stop reading...
( BULLET, CHAPTER 32, PART TWO )
