Yesterday about 1:00 I got ready to leave for the barn. The weather had not been sunny and 50 degrees, as the weatherman had said. I was whining, whining, whining.

Whining about the ugly weather: 40 degrees, windy, spitting rain and sleet. Whining about the fact that it would be COLD at the barn. Whining that I wouldn’t get to have much time with Galahad because I had an appointment with a friend at 3:00, some distance away. Whining about the fact that I hadn’t gone to the barn earlier in spite of the weather.

You get the idea.

Well, it was COLD and windy and spitting rain—really raw! So I decided not to go until it got warmer. But I couldn’t just be OK with that decision. By the time I finally left the house, I had worked myself up into a really bad state of mind.

And then I momentarily misplaced my keys just as I was getting ready to leave. That was too obvious a signal to be missed: I slowed down, realized what was going on, and said (finally), “OK. That’s the decision I made, that’s the time I have, let’s just go.”

And really, that little snippet of time with Galahad was the sweetest half-hour!

He came over to me as I crawled through the fence. We did a little follow-the-leader, like we always do—walk, stop, turn, back up, go the other way…. Then I walked to the hay bale. Galahad seemed to think that I wanted more from him, and it took him a while to get back to eating. But he finally did, and we just stood there: he and his buddies crunching and grinding, me just watching. It was blissful!

It occurs to me now, looking back, that it would NOT have been blissful had I gone out there earlier. I would have been standing there in the cold and the wind and it would have been miserable. With more time, I would have felt compelled to DO something with him, work with him, whatever. What was really called for was BE-ing, not DO-ing—and that’s what I got to experience.

That half hour was all that I needed—it completely changed my mood. Another learning experience, but a good one this time!