Horses

It began by watching the Morgan horses next door being let out after a North Carolina winter brought above average snow that kept them up for a week. I could see them from my upstairs bedroom window, through the 3 acres of woods that separated our property from the pasture. The glee they had tossing their manes and taking turns running for no reason other than joy, made me fall in love.

And I've been in love ever since.

I wrote stories about horses as soon as I was old enough to spell. I still have a few of them, written in messy pencil because my mind always moved faster than my hand could produce the words.

For someone who has a hard time keeping her feet on the ground in reality, horses ground me from running adrift in whatever thought or emotion that wants to run with me at that moment (even if most of my daydreams revolve around them anyway).

They even smell like earth.

Over time it became clear they were lifeblood. My reason. I know, as a mother that is pretty much blasphemy, but I mean my reason for me. Aside from every other person in the world and what they needed from me, horses ARE me.

Alone in the barn with no one's opinion to intrude, great dreams are hatched. Plans are made. Brown eyes look back at mine agreeing to whatever grandeur I can create as long as I promise to scratch their mane while I scheme. How lucky I am to know where I fit in God's world. Everything is perfect and right with them in the dust and dirt and nothing else makes a sound.

They dream too.

Each time I ride a horse out of my pasture and through the trees of the property that borders ours, they are interested in the novelty of it. Reveling in the lack of borders to hold them in. When my horse clears a tricky jump or course and I feel every bit of good I have rise all the way up, they toss their heads and feel it too. Especially the Thoroughbreds, they crave the individual we become together just as much as I do.

There's a song that is made in the silence of a ride before dawn and it's all mine tomorrow.

"Four things greater than all things are, women and horses and power and war" R Kipling