I love writing, and it never feels like work to me, but it is work, of course, and hard work and I didn’t realize until early this morning that this was an intense week and I was exhausted, in the brain and in the body.

I did a ton of writing this week, and a lot of it was emotional and intense. I suppose the most intense emotional moment was seeing Joshua Rockwood get his ponies back, stories with happy endings are special. Joshua, like me, doesn’t tend to show a lot of feeling, and he was worried about his horses and  how they were.

But he also had the biggest smile I have yet seen on his face, and that felt quite wonderful. It seemed to be a kind of closure for him, a king of moving forward now. Truth does matter, there is such a thing as justice and courage and strength are sometimes rewarded. Good to remember.

The cold came this week, and with it, a fierce wind, and that seemed to drain me, tire me.

Maria picked up a lot of the early morning farm chores, I couldn’t quite get out of bed. Then the newest carriage horse crisis hit, and I was up half the night talking to people, gathering information, trying to dissect the very complex negotiations going on between the very strange mayor of New York and the tribal chiefs of the carriage trade, and the tough and savvy negotiators of the Teamsters Union.

It was not easy keeping up, but I think I finally got there after some twists and turns. Another emotional kind of writing to me, the horses and I have spent a lot of time together in the past couple of years and I care what happens to them. I fear many of them will be sent away from New York, back to the hard work of farms, to some rescue preserves, many to slaughter. Lots people – me too, I guess – have worked so  hard to try and make sure that wasn’t going to happen, but there are forces in New York that seem much bigger than people, and the fate of the horses is surely not in my hands.

I had it in my mind that the city would find a way to keep all of the horses there, and commit to keeping these animals around. That is the wish of the people, and the vision of many. But not of the people in charge. Must we accept this and move on, or struggle forever? I have to think about it.

If the horses get a stable in Central Park, at least they will be protected from arrogant mayors and greedy developers. There is something in that. And children will still get to see and touch them. But a way of life will perish, along with many of the horses if this new deal is signed.

As I write this, negotiations rage on in the city, things may get resolved over the weekend, or drag on for days, months, even years. Perhaps I ought to get down to New York City and feel things for myself.

Tomorrow morning, I teach my writing class at Pompanuck Farm, that is always nourishing and restful. I think we have nothing planned for the weekend, Maria is getting fixated on painting the dining room over, this may erupt tomorrow morning. We’ll see, that is always fun. Perhaps she’ll let me paint a bit. She does let me do the straight parts.

I need to track my daughter down and catch up with her, she is a big shot at Sports Illustrated, she doesn’t have a ton of time.

I see I need to rest this weekend, to get some sleep, read some books, listen to some music, walk in the woods, blog a bit. Is that too much for resting? I don’t think so, I can’t do less than that, only more sometimes.

I thought this morning that writing well, or trying to, take an enormous amount of concentration and head energy, it is difficult to describe to people who don’t do it, easy to people who do. My head is telling me me to take it easy. I’ll give it a shot. My head feels like I opened a spout and spilt my brain on the ground.