My High Horse

My High Horse

In the right-hand corner of my condo stands a small stool, about a foot high and just about square.  It has a hole in the middle, for handy carrying, and two other very distinctive features.  This stool has a pair of felt, purple ears that stand erect and point slightly forward, if a stool has a forward side, and a lovely chenille yarn, cranberry colored tail that reaches all the way to the floor ending in a little “poof”.  It seems out of place next to the decidedly modern chairs, almost an anomaly, quietly resting against the wall.

It is the first thing I see when I open the door, tired and often frustrated at the end of the day.  It is ironic that it sits here, while I am out there, seriously trying to change the world.  It rarely speaks, stools do know their place in the great scheme of things; perhaps, a lesson I should do well to learn.  It often just looks at me, or at least I imagine that it is so, and I look at it, and we draw collective sighs.

As far as I know, there are no other step-stools like this one; because, I made it.  Late one night I was prowling around the living room, board and sleepless, and an idea came to me.  I needed a tangible object in my life that symbolized the endless hours of time I spend on moral rabbit chases.  Alice had her white rabbit and her looking glass, I had nothing, nothing at all to touch and hold that seemed real and concrete.  I just had a bunch of ideas, and dreams, and as a friend commented, “A whole barrel full of youthful enthusiasm.”

There was no sacrament in my daily ritual, no host or wine; there was nothing that transcended the ethereal and made manifest, no mysterious word to tangible object.  I just had me and my beliefs.  Sometimes, I felt like a street evangelist, spouting the gospel and waylaying busy people as they hurried to work.  Sometimes, I felt like the little match girl, sadly offering my pitiful wares to a world filled with greater and grander lights. Mostly, I felt like Horton the elephant, from the Dr. Seuss classic, “Horton Hears a Who” in constant danger of my precious dust speck being boiled in beezlenut oil.

I am a lobbyist for smaller clients who are mostly politically unsavvy, have very little money, and even less of a voice.  I am a sucker for underdogs and lost causes.  I am the absolute worst capitalist and yet a small business owner, employing of course, myself.  I spend most of time with a red mark on my forehead, pretty much permanent, from banging my head against the wall, the wall of the establishment.  Of course the “establishment” is anyone that doesn’t see it my way.

So, on this night that I couldn’t sleep, mindlessly clicking channels and staring out of the window, I had what I like to consider a small epiphany, mainly because I like the sound of the word.  I thought about my work and my reputation, actually I had had a really nasty altercation with a Senator, who had done something rather underhanded, and obviously should have known better.  I had handled the situation quietly, relying mostly on my facial expressions because they can’t be repeated in the media and because they rarely take a back seat on such occasions, one reason why I refuse to play poker.  It was later, in the cafeteria, that I flung, and only truly southerners will understand this, a hissy fit.

I have always assumed that a “hissy fit” had something to do with what a cat has when it is upset.  I have a cat, a big old tom cat, and on many occasions he has shown his displeasure with me, or the world, by hissing and frothing at the mouth.  He accentuates this state of being by swatting, claws exposed, at anyone or anything that comes near him.  I didn’t actually scratch anyone, but a close friend did make a screeching noise, much like my cat, imitating my voice as it rose to a high crescendo.

As I began my journey into the surreal on this evening following my feline fit, I felt the intense need to speak and be heard.  Secretly, you must know that I heard the words to an old Neil Diamond song in which he croons, “I am, I said, and no one heard at all, not even the chair.” Ashamed as I am, I am a Neil Diamond fan, and I know all the words to all the songs he ever sang.  That’s me, just full of useless information, fun facts to know and tell.  So, between the verses of old music and hot tears on my cheeks, I formed the one piece of my life that makes sense when nothing else seems to.  I created, from the dust of my pitiful existence, my high horse.

Of course I could have formed a soap box, and called it such; but a soap box just doesn’t seem to fit the bill.  I have always thought of a soap box as a mechanism for sales and personal gain.  Somehow, that just didn’t fit.  A high-horse bespeaks of callings, and grand campaigns, of challenging windmills and charging shadows.  It denotes the chivalry of battle, and the holiness of victory, or the sanctity of defeat in the face of insurmountable odds, bravely fought.

When people enter my home, they seem unfailingly to spot my high horse.  I think at first it appears a mere child’s toy, tossed to one corner of the room.  It seems oddly infantile in a room full of adult accoutrements. But slowly, almost surely, they inquire as to the strange little maple stool with felt ears and a chenille tail.  I proudly, as sure as a parent displays a child’s refrigerator drawing, extend my arm, palm out like a game show host, introducing my masterpiece, my sanity, my high-horse.

If it is true that laughter is the best medicine, then I have a found a prescription I intend to perpetually refill.  Sometimes I medicate myself, coming home to an empty room angry, frustrated, and voiceless.  As soon as I turn and close the door and drop my briefcase, I practically run to my high-horse.  Once several feet higher than my normal stance, I clear my throat, and enunciate loudly as I address the silent walls.  More often than not, I approach a mere whine, the whimper of a child left for lasts in the choosing of sides for a ball game.  But, there are times when my spirit soars and my consciousness simply lets itself go, and I am Caesar addressing the Roman Senate.  I bring the populace to their knees and enlighten the hearts and minds of the sooth-sayers and wise men.  Those nights are keen and remain forever etched in my memory.  Those are the nights, that surely, if the world could hear, there would be peace on earth, and goodwill towards mankind.

But, mostly, the evening springs into the sky, the lights of the city illuminate the landscape and the world revolves on without ever hearing my soliloquy to reason.  I gingerly climb down from my high-horse, pull off the panty hose picked and running, that never last more than one wearing, kick my shoes deftly into the closet, and plump down onto the sofa, my feet not quite reaching the floor.  It is very hard to be a force to be reckoned with when your feet don’t reach the floor. 

But, having sung my swan song, for tonight anyway, I feel better, relieved and a little revived.  I pad barefoot into the kitchen, grab a box of cheese straws and count out my caloric and carb intake for the evening.  As surely as I am a southern woman, and as surely as I can fling a hissy fit, I know that surely, tomorrow is another day.