But Keep the Old

Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver and the other, gold.

What’s it like to meet your best friend after 39 years?

Weird.

Wonderful.

But weird.

While I was in New York [Posts], I met up with a woman I had known in grade school.

When I was 14, I moved from NYC to Washington DC. This was long before the Internet, so email wasn’t an option. Phones existed but long-distance calls were expensive and reserved for special, usually family, occasions. We tried. We wrote. We swapped visits. Ultimately, we drifted apart.

Life went on. I’d wonder about her occasionally, but didn’t have any mutual acquaintances to ask.

Enter Facebook.

Her name is non-standard in the USA. Google can only find one of her. If her name were Mary Smith, I’d still be wondering. (Internet says 18,846 Mary Smiths). Plus, she kept her name after marriage. One argument for that practice. I did not retain my maiden name, and I changed my stable name. Unless you knew me in both incarnations, nothing connects Kathy Tuttle of yesteryear with Katherine Walcott of today. (It feels weird to even type that.)

We knew each other for six years and were inseparable for four of them. As an adult I have jeans older than that. As a kid, a small number of years is a huge percentage of your life. This was also the last time I had all my friendship eggs in one basket. When I left New York, I started riding, which meant separate groups of barn friends and school/work/non-barn friends.

So what happened?

We talked.

We talked a blue streak.

Conversations about her kid led to our college experiences led to jobs led to husbands led to family. Politics wandered in briefly. (We reach.) I don’t think either one of us mentioned our school days together. There was a little bit of, “What happened to …” from people in her high school. Mainly it was now and how we both got to now.

With most old friends, you share the weight of your years together. In this case, we went from the age of 14 to 53 in a single bound. I discovered, all over again, what a cool person she is. If I met her today, as a stranger, I’d want to be her friend.

One breakfast was not enough time.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Foto Friday: Caeruleus Descending

blue-stairs-final

 

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Original

blue-stairs-start

 

Entrance stairs at Astor Place Theatre for the Blue Man Group.

Title Derivation
Since I have a cat named Blue …

Blue 6 29

,,, and he’s not in the photo, I wanted a non-English word for the color. Some were too close to the original, bleu (French). Others were too far apart, zelena (Slovenian). The Dutch word is blauw, but New York really doesn’t do much with its Dutch heritage. New York doesn’t do much with any heritage. The city is all about ‘What are you going to do for me tomorrow?’. But I digress. Latin was the right mix of obscure and familiar (cerulean), as well as being a pretty word.

Mainly I bring all this up as an excuse to include the link to a chart of colors in other languages, Omniglot: Colour words in many languages. Too cool.
~~~
List of NYC Posts

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Life Choices

Spotted in the sleet. Note ice-encased leaf in the bottom right corner.
Spotted in the sleet. Note ice-encased leaf in the bottom right corner.

Last Saturday, we went to Stepping Stone Farm to feed breakfast after the ice storm. We live close by and the Fiat [Stocking] is a reliable, front-wheel-drive star in bad conditions [On Account of Snow, Snow Day Montage]. Laugh at the South for freaking out at a snowflake, but ice-coated roads are a nightmare anywhere.

As I have said before [Motivating], my stint as a working student was not the most fun I’ve ever had with my clothes on. However, one positive thing came from the experience. I realized that I had no interest in being a professional. I have never had cause to regret that decision.

Feed and care for my own horses? Fine. Feed and care for other people’s horses once in a blue moon (every 32 months (derivation, blue moon calculator)) as an adventure? Sure thing. Feed and care for other people’s horses twice a day, every day? No, thank you. Be responsible for ensuring that someone else feeds and cares for other people’s horses twice a day, every day? Not that either.

I did enjoy the sound of a barn full of horses contentedly chewing their hay. Peaceful.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Spotted on the windshield.
Spotted on the windshield.

An Inconsiderate Guest

gmck-header

I was rude. Gina McKnight did something nice and I dropped the ball. I shall attempting to explain and remedy that.

I fell into the holiday vortex. The bad what-is-the-point one rather than the happy festive one. There was no obvious reason. I just wound down as the year did. I couldn’t get organized to drag my ass to the saddle seat barn for a lesson. I was screamingly late with a writing assignment. Reliability is usually one of the things I’m good for. I forgot to call the blacksmith to confirm. He came anyway, but thought the lack of contact was very unlike me. In short, December was a bit of a mess. Happy to leave it behind. I know it’s an arbitrary number, but I’m feeling very New Year, New Start at the moment.

One of thing I overlooked, wimped out on, was my guest post on Gina’s blog, Riding & Writing: Rodney’s Ready for Christmas.

gmck-post

In my defense, I was out of town when it appeared. I got home, saw it briefly, then stuck my head back in the sand. I didn’t comment. I didn’t say thank you. Of course, the later it got, the more socially paralyzed I became. The post was also mentioned on her website, Gina McKnight Riding & Writing: Rodney’s Saga with Katherine Walcott

Therefore, I offer this post as public penance. Thank you, Gina!

Living in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains promotes inspiration and passion for creative writing; children’s literature, poetry, freelance, and more.  Gina is a graduate of Franklin University/Leadership Scholar/BA, Columbus, Ohio. Writing at an early age, an avid reader and lover of words, Gina continues to be encouraged by her horses, neighbors, family and friends.
Gina McKnight, Riding & Writing

Her Amazon page lists Gina as the author of three books:
The Blackberry Patch
To the Heart: A poetry collection
Poetry from the Field

& a contributor ( I assume) to a fourth:
The Significant Anthology

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Letter Art, AlphaBooks: A is for Anderson

2017-a-2

cov-shot-anderson

Horse Show
C.W. Anderson
Harper 1951

In honor of his body of work rather than this particular book, which has more catastrophic falls that I wish to contemplate at the moment. C. W. Anderson’s Favorite Horse Stories & C. W. Anderson’s Complete Book of Horses and Horsemanship were fixtures on my childhood bookshelf. I remember staring at the covers more than I recall reading the books. I guess I was imagining a day when I would need to know about horses & horsemanship. The weirdly talismanic behavior of a horse-crazy kid in the middle of Manhattan.

 

Cover images from Good Reads & Amazon.

Since Anderson does not have an author website, two About pages: Author Factsheet & Pony Mad Booklovers.

Bought from Robin Bledsoe, antiquarian horse books and art books.

bledsoe-logo

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A Authors on Rodney’s Saga
Abernethy, The Essential Fergus [Book Arrivals ]
Aaronovitch, Rivers of London [Energy Shortage]

[2016 Alphabet]
[2015 Alphabet]

Project explanation [AlphaBooks 2017]. Open to recommendations for the remaining letters. Which books would you choose?

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott