Good Friends

I once told the fellow sitting on the right, "I am the original Yoda." It was a moment of inexplicable silliness - one that garnered much ridicule, and rightfully so. We were sitting outside on one of the first warm days of Spring, discussing the vital issues of the day. Simultaneously the subject turned to both the horse farm that I lived on and the characters in the original Star Wars trilogy.

I often compare Eddy Farm, a riding school in Vermont to the Degoba System. Both were very much brimming with life, each environment surfeited by insects and leafy things. Much like the Degoba System, Eddy Farm was none too refined during the time that I spent there. It was lush, and there were bugs chirping every minute of every hour. Doris Eddy, the owner of the farm had big bulbous bumps on her head, she was balding a little bit, and all of the joints in her body were gnarled from years of heavy labor; riding horses, hauling bales of hay, and putting water into over trough.

In retrospect, I was much more like Luke Skywalker than Yoda. Doris Eddy was the Yoda of the farm. She taught me about respect for living things. She pointed out that you can't just mope around, consumed by your own feelings. She taught me that when one is self-absorbed - one runs the risk of forgetting how we make others feel. She taught me that lesson by shouting at me, "You can just drop dead!" after I insulted her once. And then she slammed a door in my face.

As my friend Jon here pointed out, "It took a lot of brass, a lot of moxy to make that claim. But hey, "You're Erzsi, you can make that claim and get away with it." I think that's because my father was a world class fencer? I don't know. And I certainly don't know why I said that, looking back. During that point in my life I was much more of a student than a teacher. But something in me, blurted it out. To blurt is human, to laugh about it is more fun than taking ourselves too seriously.

Now, I teach people how to exercise and eat right, how to use the force. But of course, we're talking kinetic force - my clients and me. Still, I can't help but think that when a conversation has a little bit of that learning process deeply imbued into it, that conversation is a lot more fun. Use the force, Luke. Use the force.