I finally made it over to the new Blue Bottle Coffee location near work, for yogurt parfait and New Orleans iced coffee. It’s a stunning place, all blond wood and huge windows, just like my idealized typical Sydney cafe. Idealized Sydney is awesome; the food is incredible and there are no cockroaches and everyone is going to live forever. I am about to head back to Australia and tear myself apart all over again, the neurotic expatriate’s annual orgy of second-guessing and self-doubt. Whee. I didn’t love my country until I left it and now I long for it with an intense and hopeless passion. I also greatly fear having to move back. Don’t you wish you were me? To paraphrase Garfield, until you actually go and live there again, Sydney makes a very serviceable paradise.

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t obsessed with the notion of sanctuary: a farm in a green valley fortified by impassable mountains (it was somewhere near Lithgow, or maybe Braidwood), a nine-hundred-year-old college quadrangle, a city on a hill. After ten years of war and bloodshed and political heartbreak, and after having my babies in an empire that seems to have gone mad with its own power, my longing for safety is more intense than ever. And at 38 I am finally smart enough to have figured out that nowhere is safe. Bushfires threaten my parents’ little country town; California’s bankruptcy is the water eroding the foundations of UC Berkeley; San Francisco trembles astride the San Andreas fault.

James Ellroy says “Closure is bullshit,” and he is right. Sanctuary’s bullshit too, and so are happy endings, and so is vindication. The grave’s a fine and private place; other places are busy and beset with interruptions and altogether not so fine. I blame time. It’s time that slams asteroids into your Chicxulubs and shoots your last breeding female in the eastern migratory Whooping Crane population. Of course it’s also time that puts a brand new baby Claire in your arms in the dark of a Christmas morning; that wakes you up at dawn to look into the wide blue eyes of a brand new baby Julia. I would not, in fact, have wanted to miss those moments.

Sanctuary is bullshit. Imaginary Sydney is imaginary and so is imaginary San Francisco, and this sensation of treading water, of struggling to finish a to-do list that gets longer the more items you cross off, this is, in fact, the experience of life itself. You wake up and hug your brilliant, stubborn children, you go to work and listen to peoples’ stories and try to figure out what it is they are asking for and which wishes of theirs you can grant, you listen to music and you mourn your beloved dead. And if you’re lucky you get a few minutes a day, three strides of Bella in a collected canter, one really good cup of coffee, kissing Jeremy on his throat and feeling his heartbeat quicken. The memory of the candlelit table on Sunday night, and everyone laughing.

…is to try to host a small dinner for Optimal Husband on the occasion of his birthday, and to have it pack out the beautiful back room at a favourite local restaurant, and to look up the table at our friends’ faces bathed in candlelight and to be amazed all over again at how smart and funny and pretty they all are, and how much I love them.

As you can probably tell I’ve been having kind of a hard time lately, and I dragged myself out of bed before dawn this morning wishing I could just stay snuggled under the covers with Jeremy and Jules. I drove down to the barn thinking about how little progress I’ve been making in all areas of my life, really, but especially with riding, and wondering about my apparently-innate predisposition to settle for mediocrity and sabotage myself. It was awesomely cold at the barn, and the rain had stripped the poplars of their leaves.

There were horses listed for our lesson but no riders assigned to them, and since Bella was on the list I took her out of her stall and groomed her and wrapped her polo wraps and didn’t make them too lumpy. It’s comforting just to be in the presence of a horse, even when you suck and are a failure. Horses are large and warm and they like to be scritched just so, and they don’t really care whether you’re getting published in professional markets or how well you are hitting your quarterly goals.

We rode in the indoor and after we had warmed up, Erin called us all in and told us we were going to work on riding in a frame. This is the new, politically-correct term for getting the horses on the bit. It’s actually a much better term because it avoids the very common but mistaken emphasis on hauling the horse’s head in… anyway, Erin made an excellent point, which is that getting the horse into a frame is as much as anything else an exercise in multi-tasking. You need to be riding off your leg and into a soft hand with a good feel, yes, but at the same time you need to be making rigorous checks of your position and correcting any bad eq. She said we all had decent balance now and should be capable of doing both things at once.

I’ve learned this before. I actually learn it about once every eight years, and always on chestnut horses for some reason. The first was George, a spectacularly ugly liver rabicano of extreme amiability. I will always remember him for giving me that first feel of a horse’s jaw softening, his neck bending and his hind feet stepping up under his body. The next time I learned it was on my Alfie, who was far better at dressage than any purebred Arabian is supposed to be. The next time I learned it was in my late twenties on Noah the Swedish Warmblood with his fiery forward trot.

Now I am almost forty and my body has been through two pregnancies and its left sciatic nerve is fond of firing randomly. On the bright side I have more tact and patience and humility and clue than I have ever had before. And I am on Bella, who is cranky and has no neck, but who is also so very clever and kind. I had already been bending her in the corners. Now I just asked for a little more bend and a little more give, and she dropped her chin and softened her back and stepped out like she was two hands taller.

As Erin pointed out, the theory of riding in a frame is very simple. You keep a steady outside rein, you push forward with the outside leg and you keep a soft and asking and giving contact on the inside. The horse should move off your outside leg and into that giving rein, and should engage her hindquarters and drop her poll and chew sweetly on the bit. I guess that’s where the old name comes from. The theory is simple but the practice, of course, is almost infinitely complex. You can go on learning this every eight years for the rest of your life, and I hope I do.

Bella was spectacular. Erin, who is never complimentary, was complimentary. The little mare stepped up behind and arched her little short neck and I could feel the muscles under the saddle all relaxed and ready for work. I felt, too, what Erin had said about my balance. It’s taken me a year to regain the strength in the saddle that I need in order to be able to ask for this kind of work. The irony is that it’s much easier to ride when the horse is engaged. The horse will respond to a much lighter leg aid; the constant communication through the bridle makes turns and changes of directions almost trivial.

And it feels so very, very good and right. This is the gift horses give us: their willingness, their power and grace, their readiness to play along. Even when I let the reins out to the buckle, Bella would still cooperate, would drop her nose almost to the arena sand to stretch her neck, would come back to the walk at no more signal from me than me flexing my stomach muscles. What a remarkable thing it is, to achieve this kind of Vulcan mind-meld with a big strange alien animal. How much of my education and the good parts of my character I owe to horses like Bella. What good timing it was to have a ride like this after so many hard weeks. And how very, very lucky I am.

My birthday came early. There’s a new Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

I was feverish when I wrote that last one. It is always worth pointing out, especially to myself, how extraordinarily lucky I am. When I was a child my dreams for the future could be summed up, very simply, as a library next door to a stable. These days the San Francisco Public Library does an exemplary job of meeting my book-related needs, while McIntosh Stables keeps me regularly supplied with new, interesting and gobsmackingly beautiful horses.

What I didn’t specify as a child, because I didn’t notice it, is that I also needed to be loved. I was doted on as a child, not only by my lovely and adorable mum and dad but also, although they’ll deny it strenuously, by my sister and brothers. Now there’s Optimal Husband, my favourite standup comedian and co-conspirator, plus way more serious friends than I’ve ever had before, a goodly proportion of whom live about a mile from my comfortable Victorian apartment in a cool San Francisco neighbourhood. All of which makes it possible to do what I do best for the kids, which is to fire continuous high-energy quasars of love at them.

I’m pointing all this out because while the worst side-effect of swine flu was to greatly amplify my chronic anxiety, my life is a very good one. I have a plot in a community garden and my kids have a good public school. Geopolitics and climate change are scary, but this little life we have carved out, my little family and I, this is a good strong place from which to stare down the scary world.

I don’t want to talk about swine flu, or Bellboy’s death, so instead I will talk about Scottie. He’s a big dark bay ex-racehorse at the barn. I’ve ridden him twice now and it’s clear from what Erin and Michelle said during these lessons that he’s considered a hothead with a hard mouth.

For once in my life I think my misspent childhood on genuinely hotheaded horses with mouths like cast lead is paying dividends. Scottie is such a sweetie that even when he’s feeling his oats I can feel exactly where I need to apply pressure for a double downward transition. He’s anxious, but it’s mostly anxiety to please. I can’t quite bend him around my still-fairly-noodly lower leg, or get him into a consistent frame, but it sure is fun trying.

We’re spending the month of December working on the flat, to spare the horses’ legs and improve our seats. So today Michelle had us ride a course over poles on the ground. It was intriguing; exactly the same bending lines and careful approaches as an actual course with jumps, and with none of the carefully sat-on terror involved in piloting a thousand-pound animal through the air.

I haven’t jumped Scottie yet, it occurs to me, so all kinds of jests and japes doubtless lie in my future. But I haven’t seen him do anything silly or mean yet, so hopefully I’ll be able to keep my confidence and continue riding him with tact.

Funny brilliant daughters. Optimal husband, restored from Shanghai. Cat with IQ of a pickle. Family in Oz, that I will see soon. Friends, art, music, books, horses, Bernal, progressivism, public libraries, state parks, community gardens, single-payer health care (where applicable). Physics, astronomy, maths!

Jules: “The world is beautiful!
The sky is so pretty
and the trees are sweet
like my mom!

“Mama do you like my song?”

Me: “I think it’s the best song I ever heard.”

*

Fall! And the hills are green and the leaves have turned and the air is clear and cold and the sunlight pours out of the sky. Since we started going back to Australia for Christmas again this has become my favourite time of year; pie and butternut squash soup and the chill in the air all carrying the promise of summer.

*

The new swim school is insanely great. Claire can now jump in from the edge and swim loops around her instructor. Julia and Milo can each swim a couple of feet unaided.

It’s like watching them learn to fly.

*

My favourite moment of Julia’s ridiculously awesome fourth birthday party was watching Jamey, Liz and Shannon’s niece Shelby compare their spongiform tonsils.

*

Best little mare Bella is for sale. CHRISTMAS HINT, PEEPS. I’ll be sad to see her go but if ever a little copperbright horse deserved to be some lucky girl’s own beloved pony, it is Bella.

*

Reviews to come of Aaron’s residency in the Headlands, Colin’s exhibition of photos of the Berlin Wall coming down, Jennifer’s trio playing at Socha and McKenze and Hallie’s recital at Noe Valley Ministry. We live in such a fantastic neighbourhood and have such incredible friends.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Hopelessly epic day. I dropped the family at Mission Playground and because I wished for chai, we made a twenty-minute detour to Four Barrel. Which doesn’t sell chai. So I was very late, but Jeremy got me a yummy latte instead, and I figured I could hop in the fast lane and zoom down, and maybe it was the latte or the classical channel that I had cranked up to listen to Beethoven at volume, but I was doing about ninety when I saw the highway police. Ulp! It’s a fair cop, guv!

I blame my mother.

I pulled over on the left shoulder and saw the lights flash and turned Ludwig down to hear the nice officer explaining patiently over the loudspeaker: “NOT ON THIS SHOULDER. PULL BACK INTO THE TRAFFIC AND PULL OVER ON THE RIGHT SHOULDER,” at which I realized D’oh! I’m in America aren’t I. They drive on the other side here don’t they. Once we’d sorted ourselves into NOT THE SHOULDER RIGHT BESIDE THE FAST LANE, he dinged me for speeding and gave me a fixit ticket for my out-of-date tags, but spared me what he assured me would have been a massive fine for stopping on the wrong side.

I am afraid the nice officer formed the impression that I was not the smartest woman in San Mateo, especially after I forgot his clear instructions for pulling back into traffic at high speed and absolutely not stopping, confused, on the 92 upramp. The last I saw of him in my rearview mirror, he was dancing with frustration and shrieking something I couldn’t make out. I hope his morning improved after that.

Mine certainly did; the peerless Bella was waiting for me in the crossties, cleared after her lameness and ready to jump. We marched all the way to the big arena, where I rode with the ectomorphic teenagers and their preternaturally good lower leg positions. As a buxom matron with a torso-to-thigh ratio exactly the inverse of what’s required in the Olympic equestrian disciplines – I am basically a human corgi – I’m at something of a disadvantage in this class. But Bella and I just click. She forgives my innumerable faults and I don’t even register any possible shortcomings she may have.

My God but we had a great ride. California was doing its best impression of the south of France with the crystal clear sky and the air like chilled champagne. The aspen leaves were made of light and air. Bella’s ears were pricked and she strode out with glad goodwill, as she is wont to do. I can’t remember ever meeting another mare so cheerful and merry.

Erin, who is cruel and exacting, has a particularly brutal exercise where she has us canter between the two rails of an oxer, or spread fence, so that we are perfectly straight as we approach a crossrail. Today’s pattern started with this death-defying chute, took a flying change to the right and circled into a 2’6″ vertical (still pretty high for me), then took a flying change to the left and down through a SUNKEN LANE! And then back to the trot and over another crossrail and a canter circle.

“Fun!” I said, and the teenagers looked at me in disbelief, so maybe I do have something they don’t have after all. I thought, Whee! I can pretend I’m doing cross-country exercises at Badminton. Then I thought Wait. I don’t have to pretend I am riding a spectacular horse through a fun jumping exercise. For once in my life I do not have to pretend to be doing that because HERE I AM! D0000000D!!!1!1eleventy

This was a moment of purest distilled awesomeness, and it was the third coolest thing that happened during my lesson today. The second coolest thing was that on our second try, Bella and I rode the exercise quite well, well enough that tough and sparing-with-the-praise Erin nodded and said: “Not bad.”

The first coolest thing is that after only TWENTY FIVE YEARS I have finally learned what to do with my legs. You’d think this would be a pretty fundamental aspect of riding and you would be right. I am probably not, in fact, the smartest woman in San Mateo. My entire life, my whole riding career, I have had a weak and stupid lower leg. It is not perfectly still. It swings back over fences. Its heel comes up. It loses its stirrup. It has been known to kick. People, my lower leg has been a national embarrassment. If I could, I would divorce it and marry someone else’s lower leg altogether.

WELL. It turns out you don’t just dangle the things like limp spaghetti over the sides of the saddle. Nor do you point your heel down or try to hold on with your calf, my various attempts at a refinement of the spaghetti technique. No. Apparently when your Podhajskys and your Morrises talk about an active thigh and seat, what they mean is to use your damn thigh and seat. Somehow in my last couple of lessons I have found a pair of muscles in my lower thigh that I can use to hold my whole lower leg in place. (Salome says they’re the quadriceps, and also: “Duh.”)

Revelation. When I needed to press Bella into a jump, my leg was just… there. I didn’t have to rock it back or swing it forward. I could just squeeze. When she jumped I was ready to move with her, and my leg didn’t drift out behind me. When I needed to collect her up in a half halt or downward transition, my seat was where it needed to be, balanced on its seatbones. Bonus: I could feel the muscles in her back through the saddle. I really could. They were tense as we warmed up, then softened and relaxed as she rounded and collected herself.

Absolutely miraculous ride, among the all time top ten. I proceeded back to the city at a stately 65mph, lesson learned.

To whom it may concern,

As a graduate of Sydney University, I am appalled, but not surprised, to read that a group of past and present students, including many from St Pauls College, created a pro-rape, anti-consent Facebook group.

It’s no secret that the colleges have long fostered an environment of privilege where binge drinking and violence against women can flourish out of control.

What’s horrifying is that in the second decade of the 21st century, the university still apparently lacks the institutional leadership and political courage to address this toxic culture.

I call on the colleges and the university to expel the students involved.

Failure to take strong disciplinary actions against students who advocate for rape sends a clear signal to women that the university does not consider them fully human.

Rachel Chalmers
BA Hons and University Medal, 1992

ETA:

Tracey Fredson
Personal Assistant to the Master
Accommodation and Function Manager
Wesley College

Hard though this may be to believe, I sometimes underestimate the sheer well-bred-ness of the horses I grew up around. We all knew Ralvon Ilk was royalty, and Wellworth Morning Star and Finewood Lefire, but at the time I failed to appreciate that my own Arab horse Alfie’s milk-white half-nephew Tristram Apparition was Australian champion Arabian stallion in 1984.

Alfie’s family is still in the ribbons. His jet-black great grand-nephew, River Oak Tabu, was three times reserve champion on the East Coast.

Here’s Bellboy’s father Aethon looking exactly like our pony.

Poldark is by the same sire. (You only call them half-siblings if they are out of the same mare.) Poldark famously won a supreme championship in open company, and his son Zakah Zahara is a world champion endurance horse.

So, you know, it was nice.

[09:19] mizchalmers: o noez
[09:19] FurHordinge: ohez?
[09:19] mizchalmers: we forgot to have a windoze 7 launch party
[09:19] FurHordinge: zomg!
[09:20] mizchalmers: *fake laugh* what do you use the new features for, my husband jeremy???
[09:21] FurHordinge: oh, it’s so easy! if I want the screen to go blue, I just do this!
[09:21] mizchalmers: here is our friend token minority! she has this to say! “…”
[09:22] FurHordinge: look, Female is showing off her recipe database and pictures of the kids!
[09:23] mizchalmers: teehee!
[09:23] FurHordinge: and Male is watching his DVD of explosions again!
[09:23] mizchalmers: (resignedly) oh, male!
[09:24] FurHordinge: (I propose we make a family movie for all the family: Exploding Princesses Talking About Their Feelings)
[09:25] FurHordinge: (And Ponies!)

[11:07] mizchalmers: of course the seminal Exploding Princesses Talk About Their Feelings (And Ponies) film is LadyHawke

Bit better, although I can’t walk up the hill from Safeway without getting out of breath. McKenze has the girls. Pleased with myself for roasting butternut squash for soup and changing cat litter. (Separate operations with thorough hand washing between.)

Beebs is so awesome when I am sick. She just snuggles up to me and purrs and purrs and purrs.

So sick. Jeremy is in Tokyo and I have manflu – fatigue, muscle pain, headache, cough and debilitating self-pity. I stumbled out of bed and made it to Nervous Dog where we found Katherine, Claire’s friend from Mandarin camp, and her mom Michelle. Katherine took up wushu after Claire’s demo at Mandarin camp, so Michelle walked both girls over to the studio. Then Salome arrived, took charge of Julia and sent me home to bed.

All of it unplanned. Reminds me why I work so hard to live where I do. Thank you neighbours; you are beyond price. I sleep now.

We bought the girls’ alarm clocks and imposed new structure on bedtime and the morning routine in the hopes of getting more shuteye, because we are all a bit psychotic from sleep dep.

Apparently the clocks gain quite a lot of time, because this morning they went off forty minutes early.

Results:

MORNING SCHEDULE

7:00am Wake up and sofa snuggle
7:10am Get dressed for school
7:15am Breakfast, one episode of TV
7:45am Put on shoes
7:50am Brush teeth and hair
8:00am OUT THE DOOR, ON THE BUS

EVENING SCHEDULE

3:00pm Home from school
5:30pm Homework
6:00pm Besos y abrazos por Blanca
6:30pm Piano practice
6:45pm Dinner and one episode of TV
7:05pm Dessert
7:15pm Put pyjamas on
7:20pm Brush teeth
7:30pm BEDTIME

To support the project, aimed primarily at More Sleep For Everyone, Jeremy got a frog alarm clock for Claire and bees for Jules.

…we’ll see how this works out.

Fish tacos. Lemos Farm. Spork. Don Reed’s East 14th. A nice day.