It’s
been quite a while since I have had time to write anything. We have spent the
last month entertaining one set of guests after another in our home, and while
it was really fun and lively, I am ready to step back and regroup. The horses are happy that I am out in
the pasture with them more now, grooming and cleaning up as the weather gets
milder. Everything is exploding
with shades of green, and the girls are wandering around, sampling the little
blades of new grass.
We
celebrated Silk’s 25th birthday on Sunday, and my daughter and I
sang her favorite song – “We love you in the morning and in the afternoon. We
love you in the evening, underneath the moon. Skinneramerinkadinkydink,
skinneramerinkado, we love you!” My daughter began singing that kids’ classic to
her fifteen years ago, and Silk always perks up her ears and bobs her head when
she hears it like she would like to sing along with us.
I
was listening to an interview this morning with poet Mark Nepo ,and he
suggested looking at the first time when you
had a sense of your own aliveness. I realized that for me, it was the first
time that I rode a horse. I was
really young, only about 3 years old, but the emotional connection that I felt
with the horse and the power of the animal combined with how gentle the horse
was with me made me feel more alive than I had ever felt before.
Then, Nepo asked when was a time when
you felt pulled away from that aliveness. I remember it came about ten years
later, when my parents flatly refused to ever let me own my own horse. My father was afraid of them, and my
mother had other plans for whom she wanted me to be that did not include
spending even more time at the barn.
So, I was pulled away from the beautiful creatures that made me feel
most alive and sent off into the world to make something of myself that my
parents approved of and understood more. It wasn’t until I had my own child
that I allowed myself to have the joy of being with horses in my life again.
Silk touches that aliveness for me every day. The older my horse and I get, the
stronger the connection becomes between our hearts.
.
