I’ve been riding and volunteering at Tranquility Farm for about the past year. The riding came first, after a visit to the Farm my wife, Michelle Mannering, and I made as part of the Frederick County Farm Tour several years ago.

I started lessons very late in life — mid-60s — and thought I was living out a childhood wish to be like Roy Rogers or Gene Autry, or Kit Carson. Lately, though, I think it has to do with putting things together — either again or for the first time.

When I was very young my right eye turned out and I had an operation to straighten the muscle. To make me use the eye, the doctors covered my left eye for a long time. When they took the patch off, my left eye had turned out.

Rather than another surgery, the doctors decided to put me through eye exercises. The one I remember most was looking through a machine like a giant set of binoculars. My left eye saw a cowboy and my right eye saw a horse. I was supposed to move the muscle of my left eye to put the rider on the horse.

Of course, I never did.

I’ve grown up and old pretty much seeing out of one eye or, when I’m tired, seeing double. When I’m not tired my mind suppresses the image from my left eye so I only see half of things most of the time.

I think, now, that I came to Tranquility Farm to put the rider on the horse and see things whole.

And that takes me to the volunteering. I’m getting a lot from learning to ride – a profound respect for PJ’s patience and intelligence, for one thing. But if I only get, then I’m not seeing and doing things whole. So, my volunteering is also part of putting the rider on the horse, this time of getting the balance between getting and giving right.

I make my living writing and thinking strategically with my clients about the way they connect with the people whose lives they touch. It’s a good way to make a living for me and the transaction is pretty straight forward. I provide them what I know and can do; they pay my fees (mostly on time).

Using what I know as a volunteer at the Farm provides something else, a place that engages my heart as well as my mind. So, for whatever I’ve been able to do as a volunteer – setting up a Face Book site for the Farm, raising money for the horses – it’s been a happier bargain than I usually enter into. And I’m still getting more than I’m giving, so I’ve got a long way to go to balance the books.
Bob Cornet