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[Fi] Perfect Moments

V

violaine

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So ever had one? By perfect I mean you were completely satisfied with the moment/experience. It can be your happiest moment or when you were at your most miserable or peaceful... or an amazing coincidence, you get the idea. It would be good if they are specific moments and not "I am happiest when______". Rather, describe one instant in your life... (or whatever, there are no rules!!)

I will go first... hopefully others will join in...

Once I was on top of a mountain... it was quite deserted on the way there and took me a little while to get to. I had gone to watch the sunset and wasn't expecting many other people to be there. To my disappointment there were about 40 other people with same idea, from all over the world. Everyone was jostling and chattering away, but when the sun started to set everyone grew hushed and stayed that way for the 20 minutes or so it took to go down over the city. It was stunning. It felt like a perfect microcosm of humanity. I'd never felt so peaceful and connected with humanity.

When I got my driver's licence. Ecstatic! I can get really caught in the preparation-loop, I couldn't understand how it would ever be safe for me to be in control of a car... but apparently it is!
 

nolla

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I think I've told this before, but it's the only perfect moment I have had, so...

I was on a reggae festival in Italy and I had no money, food or friends (long story...). I basically fasted for the weekend and wondered around wrapped in a blanket, hanged around a tent they teach you to meditate. Anyhow, in the evening I was feeling really miserable. The rain had knocked down my tent and I sat in one of the party tents, just watching the people have fun. There was a black woman that danced with her wheel chair, and I felt great seeing how happy she was. It gave me perspective on my misery, so I didn't feel bad at all. The best description for this is a perfect moment.
 
V

violaine

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^Wow. That's awesome. I think some of the best moments must be the ones like these, the ones that pull us out of ourselves.. thanks for posting it again.
 

Domino

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I've also described this before, but here goes... Sorry if I go on a little long...

One late afternoon, many many years ago, toward the end of a long ride, my stepmother called back to me, said that Lady (her thoroughbred/arabian) was getting tired. We'd already covered about two miles, so I agreed. Bigfoot (my Quarter horse/Morgan) had been such a good boy, hadn't been a pill or acted up, so I thought I'd allow him to stretch his legs on the way home. He liked to do that -- gallop home. I guess he felt he'd get his sweet feed faster, the addict.

But this time, as I turned him, I scooted closer to the pommel, got a tight grip on him with my legs, and drew the reins up to his neck. His head lifted high, his ears pricked. I could feel him capacitating under me. I knew this time would be different from the other times I'd run him for home.

I barely touched his sides, said "Take off," and he erupted, digging his back hooves into the earth. A bunny hop buck, and then he launched. I'm glad I'd had the foresight to adjust my position in the saddle or I would've been flat on the ground. I could never remember that he'd been a barrel racer in his former incarnation. I even sometimes took for granted that he was half Quarter Horse -- he was such a lazy boy, laid back, unexcitable. His chunky physique belied the speed he was capable of.

Lady was fast. Bigfoot was terrifying.

Everything became a blur. All I could see clearly was his head with his ears laid back. His pace was so rapid, it became choppy, and I could no longer move with him. I had to raise myself just above the saddle to maintain my balance. It was like trying to stay upright on a cannon ball.

Along the old highway, signs were posted "45 mph" in some places, "55 mph" in others. There was a car up ahead. Bigfoot blasted by it as if it were parked. That's when I knew I was riding the fastest horse I'd ever thrown a leg over and the surprise was it was MY horse -- my big grunting lazy "pat-me" Bubba. I was stunned. I'd ridden a million horses and never had I felt as if I was strapped to a rocket.

He wasn't galloping. He was soaring. The only thing that told me we were still in contact with terra firma was the heavy thud of his hard black feet, with barely a skip in the rhythm as he hurled himself over a train track. He was attacking the distance American horse style -- enthusiastically, inelegantly, powerfully.

I took a chance and cast a look over my shoulder. My stepmother was no longer to be seen. Lady was a speck behind us, furious at having been left behind. She hated that.

I decided to rein Bubba in a bit, slacken his pace so I could put my rear end back in the saddle. My thighs were screaming for relief. I hauled him down to cruising speed, and the scenery to either side began to crystallize again. No more warp-speed blur.

The car we'd blown the doors off of came rolling up, matched us. Arms and clapping hands were flailing out the windows followed by hoots and cheers of approval. I laughed, waved a little. I couldn't do a big wave -- I was exhausted and Bubba was still juiced up, so I dared not drop the reins. I gradually slowed him to a trot, then to a jaunty walk. I was patting him, crowing praise. He lifted his neck straight and I patted him and patted him. His ears stood up and he turned his head a bit -- "Look what I did!"

"Yeah, that's right, Big Boy!" I said, tugging one of those twisting ears. "You were 4 years old again. Very impressive!"

He strutted the rest of the way home, promenaded across the sprawling front lawn of my father's house. Dad came out and asked where we had left my stepmother. Dropping out of the saddle, I prevented Bigfoot from tearing up a huge mouthful of grass and began to hot walk him. I told Dad about the warp-speed tear along the old highway, and Dad raised his eyebrows. I wasn't the only one who'd forgotten about Bubba's breeding. My stepmother finally arrived with Lady in a foam.

"You were flying!" she laughed. "Lady is so mad at me right now!"

We bought Bigfoot when I was 11 and he was 13. He'd always been known to be fast, but he never felt like showing that off. Not much. He was much too easy-going to be truly bothered with speed. If you wanted a mad gallop, you got on Lady, who was part Thoroughbred and was never allowed total control of her head at a gallop because she could be fiery and willful. She was a horse that you couldn't take for granted in any way. A sweet, beautiful, cuddly gal without a saddle on her. An equine Hera under tack who wouldn't think twice about casually unseating someone. She wasn't mean -- just felt like she was the Boss.

Bubba -- you could practically fall asleep on him and nothing would happen. He'd probably have fallen asleep himself before you did. A cop car, sirens and lights going, shot by him and he simply turned his head to see what the trouble was. Lady, a nervous street-smart little mare, did NOT like surprises.

Bigfoot, over the years, showed flashes of brilliance when the mood took him. As I'd said, Lady was quick and surefooted as a jackrabbit. She kept her back straight while churning her legs at a gallop which made her a very easy horse to keep pace with. She would have made an excellent mount for some cowboy in the old West.

Our boy, he was just too lazy. The cowboy would never make it home again. But strange things happened, when all the planets aligned. A spell would come over burly, temperate Bubba and he'd turn into Pegasus. This is when the Quarter Horse in him would exert its power. Anything under a quarter mile was toast. Sometimes, in a turn, he'd channel his former self, plant a forefoot, and swing his entire weight around, dipping his muscular body so close to the ground the stirrups would gout the dirt. He was racing again...

But never so fast as that one day along the highway. That was the fastest he'd ever gone under my command, never to be repeated. He would have been about 20 years old then, I was about 18. Unbeknownst to us, we were both reaching the end of our riding days together. Soon, only a year or two later, I had to stop riding because I could no longer do so without pain. Pain was rising in my spine, radiating out its despair into every inch of nerve and muscle. Bigfoot began to have serious trouble with lameness -- his injured back leg had never quite recovered from that run-in with barbed wire. He was kept as a pet for the next several years, a companion for Lady, and for Dad who'd grown very attached to their manly morning visits.

I didn't realize that that would be our last ride together.
 
V

violaine

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^Beautiful. Thank you.

I think I'm going to cry. Thanks again for posting this, very moving.
 

nolla

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That's a great story, Piranha. Sounds incredible.
 

Domino

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Oh, thanks so much, you two. I'm honored to share a moment. The mountain and the reggae festival sounded so real to me, I was there with you both!

I do miss Bubba badly. He died a few years ago and I still cry. I wasn't told that he'd died because I was so ill at the time, my father thought it would break me completely. I found out a year and a half later. Maybe I'll have kismet like that again. He was my hero.

EDIT: I was so upset when he died, I sat down on the stairs and cried like a baby. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye. The next night, he came back to me in a dream, laid his head on my chest. I knew that was my good-bye and I could get calm again.
 

nolla

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The way you describe him, sounds like he was really special... Reminds me of our dog. I basically grew up with him. I had to fight him before he took me seriously. Proud dog.. never too smart, but he had a good heart. Another dog killed him about five years ago.
 

Domino

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Nolla, another dog killed your dog?! That's awful! o_O

S, what mountain were you standing on?
 
V

violaine

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^It's called Sugarloaf in Rio, I had to walk most of the way there.. (not to Rio, to the mountain!)
 
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Domino

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^It's called Sugarloaf in Rio, I had to walk most of the way there.. (not Rio, the mountain!)

Ah! I'll google that! :yes:

Odd note: my nickname is Rio! :D I like it already!

EDIT: What a very interesting mountain!! It really does look like a sugarloaf!
 
V

violaine

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^It is amazing... not a lot of people seem to go there from what I understand, they all head over to the Corcovado.

haha I love the name Rio... if I were to ever have a child I wanted to work that in somewhere...
 

ArtlessFuture

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Wow, PinkPiranha... that was a wonderful story. Stories like that make me want a horse so bad. Thank you for sharing it!

I really can't think of any perfect moments right now. I will think on it and hopefully drum up one to share.
 

kiddykat

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Perfect moment for me? It felt like the dinner scenes in the movie Soul-Food. Perfect moment for me was when my extended family/I all lived in a big house together. Every dinner was spent with tables pushed together that literally went from the kitchen & towards the back end of the dining room. I LOVED watching everyone, the unity, the feeling that no matter how rough our day was, coming home to family to share a nice warm meal together was what made life special.

Other perfect moments?.. The simple things in life that make me happy. Hanging out with my close friends, sharing good laughs/old-times together.

(Side Note: When the U.S. actually had an economic surplus; when we had a fairly intelligent president).
 
V

violaine

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Perfect moment for me? It felt like the dinner scenes in the movie Soul-Food. Perfect moment for me was when my extended family/I all lived in a big house together. Every dinner was spent with tables pushed together that literally went from the kitchen & towards the back end of the dining room. I LOVED watching everyone, the unity, the feeling that no matter how rough our day was, coming home to family to share a nice warm meal together was what made life special.

^That sounds truly wonderful. Phew, this thread makes me emotional... I didn't count on that. Thanks heaps for posting this. It really lives, beautiful.
 

batumi

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Ok I love to feed seagulls at a certain coast location a few hours away.
They will hover above my head and catch what I toss up to them and sometimes make eye contact with me. I did it last week. One was going in circles and coming back around
and crying out to let me know he was almost to my location.
For some reason this is the most awesome experience in my life, truly.
I have been doing it for years.
Occasionally they land on my shoulder or are so close to me that they take
it out of my hands. Yes, I know other wild animals do this too, but I do
love seagulls.
They make me laugh so often when I am with them.
They are comedians of nature.
 
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