“Not the ones speaking the same language, but the ones sharing the same feeling understand each other.” --Rumi

Greetings Dear ones!

September is here. The nights are getting cooler and the butter in the glass dish on the counter is gathering more Resolve each day—it has stopped its languid, sloppy slouching and now stands up straight, its shoulders high, defiant even, ready to give a knife some trouble. It looks like butter that can look itself in the eye and keep its promises.

It’s wedding season. The high rack is clogged with suits and long bridesmaids’ dresses in Autumnal colors. I’m altering my fourth wedding gown in ten days. Two gorgeous gowns take up nearly the whole of the fitting room. “We’re getting hitched!” say two women, smiling fondly at each other. They call each other “Babe” and each doesn’t want the other to see her dress until the big day so I have to keep them all bagged up and secret. The thing that amuses me so much is how truly similar both gowns are. Both have similar-length trains with dozens of buttons marching in single file all the way to the hems. These are two people who think very much alike. Hitched. I can’t help thinking about how one tries to pair a team of oxen. These two seem like a solid match.

I cringe to admit that six weeks of training oxen has taught me more about “getting’ hitched” than twenty-five years of matrimony ever did.

I have a wonderful new friend and mentor I’ll call “H” helping me train the wee bulls. He’s “Vermont” through and through, from his baseball cap to his boots. He’s been driving teams since the age of 6. (He’s 78.) He said that every summer when school got out, his uncle would put him in charge of two new calves. If, by September, he could make them back up 100 feet in a straight line without touching them, he was allowed to take them to the county fair and compete. Being able to back up in a straight line on voice commands only is a sign that one has done one’s homework in the Ox world. (It works pretty well in the shop with balky customers too.)

We learned a lot about each other the first day. He brought a tiny yoke out of his truck and showed me how to fit the bows around their necks and pin them in place with cotter pins. I was very excited, prone to exuberance. By contrast, his movements were methodical and silent, almost stern. The boys stood quietly, curious, watching us both.

“Do this the exact same way, every time,” he said firmly. “They need to be able to predict the routine.” I nodded vigorously. All animals prefer routine. Routine helps us feel safe. Consistency is how we know what happens before the thing that is about to happen happens. Accurate predicting is not just the basis of all learning, it is the foundation of Sanity.

We unhooked them from the hitching area and brought them out of the barn, bound for the first time in their little lives by a bar of wood across their necks, resting just behind their heads. Otus seemed just as happy as ever but Gus, the smaller ox on the left, wasn’t having it. He dug in his heels, lowered his head and quit right then and there. I got behind him and pushed him halfway up the hill as H led the team from the front. Gus took a few steps on his own then quit again. This time, his eyes rolled back in his head and he threw himself on the ground. This is known far and wide as “The Jersey Flop.” Jerseys are renowned for these dramatic bovine temper tantrums. Gus is a flopper. As a calf, he flopped seven times the first time I tried to lead him by a halter. He sticks his neck way out, stiffens all over, and down he goes, looking like he has just had a cardiac arrest. He lies quite still, with no thrashing or kicking, while I wait for him to get up. It’s like he just refuses to live any more in that moment. He can be pushed NO Further. He’s DONE.

Ever since I learned about the Jersey Flop, I’ve realized how much my own inner seam-stressing cow wants to flop like that—especially at the sight of not one but TWO five-layer wedding gowns complete with closed linings and horsehair braiding in the hems—that have to be done in less than two weeks. I want to flop at instant deadlines, zippers, down coats, anything eaten by moths, and vintage silk dresses where the original stitching is still strong but the fabric is rotting… I especially want to stiffen up, roll my eyes back, and throw myself on the ground when oddly-scented men bring in their ex-brother-in-law’s hand-me-down boxers to be refitted to them.

Normally, Gus’s little flops don’t mean much. But now that he was yoked to Otie, he was taking Otie down too. I watched in horror as Otie spooked and darted to the right, swinging his butt around so that he was facing the wrong way. He was yanked backwards by the yoke, which twisted around his neck as he fought. That put pressure on Gus, who was trying to stand up but wound up falling again, into Otie, who now went down too. Slowly, they rolled over one another in a wood-and-bull somersault and then scrambled to their feet, shaking. The yoke that was supposed to be across their necks now hung under both their chins and they stood there, trembling, heads down, confused. I wanted to scream but something about H being there kept me very quiet instead. I thought my eyes were going to roll out of their sockets, down my cheeks, and into my open mouth. I couldn’t believe nothing was broken.

H said nothing. His face never changed expression. He had watched as calmly as if someone were pouring tea. He simply handed me the rope connected to Gus’s halter and said “Hold this.” Then he stumped off to the barn. The three of us stood there in wordless, moo-less shock. When he came back with two more lead lines, I peppered him with questions. “That was bad, right? Wasn’t that a bad thing? Does that happen often? What should I have done? Are they going to do that a lot? How can we stop that? That didn’t look quite right to me, but then what do I know?”

H worked silently to unyoke the boys, reposition the bows, and yoke them again. They stood quiet. I shut up. Finally, when everything was set to rights, I was brave enough to ask again. “That was bad, right?”

“Yup.”

He stood there stoking their little backs. After a long pause, he said, “Pretty much the worst thing that could ever happen to a team…We’re lucky they weren’t hurt. Let’s just hope they forget about it by the end of the lesson. Let’s go.”

Unbelievably, this baby duo still trusted us. After recovering as best we could from the initial disaster, we set off, lurching, attempting to keep ourselves all pointed in the same direction. It’s incredibly important to have a team pulling together in the same direction at the same pace. You can’t have one attempting to GO and DO and BE while the other one wants to flop… You really can’t have one thinking that maybe it’s time to buy a house and a dog and a picket fence while the other one wants to sell all her possessions and run off to India. Walking Together is very hard to do at first—the strong one pulls the smaller one off course any time he wants. Yokes are exhausting to those accustomed to self-oriented individualism.

We stopped after about twenty minutes, before they got too tired. I agreed to work them fifteen minutes a day for the next few weeks.

“Words are important,” H said. “Don’t use too many of them and always use the exact same ones to mean the exact same things. Don’t say ‘whoa’ if you intend to let them keep walking. ‘Whoa’ is only for a dead stop. If you want them to slow down, pick another word, like ‘Easy.’”

“Work on just one word at a time. Just do one thing at a time and don’t chat too much. They need to hear the word clearly and it has to be connected to a request they understand.”

How many tearstained brides and grooms could benefit from understanding that expectations must be made Very Clear—they can only be answered effectively by the animal you are attempting to control if (he/she) understands what you want done.

Two weeks later, H came back to see how we were getting on. The boys are much better, mostly because I am getting better. I spend a minimum of fifteen minutes a day doing creative problem solving by trying to think like a cow—in pictures, in fears, in wonderment at strange things that are new. I’m not actually a cow (most of the time) but learning to think like one is helping me learn Empathy, Courage, Obedience.

“You’re going to be a very different sort of lady when you get done with these two,” H says appreciatively. “Nevermind them, this is going to be the making of You!”

Later, over a cup of coffee in the kitchen, he opens up a little.

“You surprised me,” he admits. “After that first mess, when I saw them bulls rolling down the hill in that yoke, I thought ‘here we go…I’ll come back and find this gal all tangled up half dead in the ropes.” His shoulders shook in silent laughter. Then he looked me right in the eye and said words I cling to daily now, “Girl, You’ve got grit. These guys look alright. You’ve got a long way to go but you’re going. They’re keepers. Keep at it. I’ve seen worse and you’re gonna’ be OK.”

For those of us craving the dream relationship partnership, love, trust, harmony and teamwork, we can learn a lot from these tiny bulls:

Go the Same Direction. Momentum in opposite directions is extremely dangerous.

Fears must be addressed one by one.

Words mean what they mean.

Empathy is the key to problem solving.

Be Flexible, Patient, Consistent and Kind, EVERY DAY for as long as your endurance can manage at first.

In everything little thing we do, we are training others how to treat us. We teach them whether our words matter or not by our actions. We create trust by our requests and responses. In minutes every day, with consistency, discipline, and repetition, we can come to see amazing results. So it is with bulls, partners, marriage, and Life. Getting Hitched is a damn big deal. Happily ever after doesn't come with the dress. It can't be made in a day, or even by next Friday. Only after you’ve spent the agonizing daily minutes can you realize you’ve actually won the years.

And so I say to you now, Dear Menders, just in case you need to hear it as badly as I sometimes do— It’s not great to fall, but it’s survivable. Get Up. Keep Going. You CAN do this. You’re alright. You’ve got what it takes. Do your minutes! They count.

With sew much love,

Nancy