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Excerpt

I really love going to church with him. He dresses in black and I do too and sometimes it looks like we’re goin’ to a funeral. He jokes and says that we are. Most of all I love the drive; an hour into the northeast, and an hour to get back. In the hour’s drive we pass through fields of lolling hills. I look out the window, and he tells me stories.

“If there is one thing you’d like to know,” he says, “Time is an Illusion. Time does not move forward as we think it does; there is no arrow guiding it that way. Rather, physical influence is bidirectional- physical influence comes from both past and future.”

“Hmmmm?”

He laughs and then continues.

“I know because I have experienced it. And yet, due to entropy, causality is detectable in one direction only.”

I’ve heard him speak to this before.

“So what is they key takeaway here?”

“Life is Chaos.”

“Bingo,” he says.

Excerpt

I remember things he said to me on our trips together far more vividly than things from in town. I remember all the strangest stories he told me and where we were when he told them. There is something to be said for the midwest, the prairie landscapes all drawn out on a grid, with the differences stark in contrast, the property lines, the seismic lines, the churches and the grain silos and the pump jacks lining the horizon. On a clear day you can see for miles, endless. You can see the fog roll in, and sometimes, on the flat lands you’ll get lost in it. It is all that you can see. Yourself and a haze of everything around you.

All Horses are Good Horses

I saw her again and it had been 7 years; and at that time 7 years ago she was but a pinprick in the foothills.  It’s evening at the ranch and there is campfire. The women talk horses; we talked about horses present and horses past; about mares in foal and yearlings just learning, about those who retired and those who had died. When I asked about her they pointed to the hills, and when they did two chestnuts and a bay came trotting down the hill. “There she is.”

Sienna. She remembered me. She stuck her nose in my face and blew hot warm breath in my eyes. This horse I knew from 10 years prior when we were both 15 years old. Sienna, the large and doe-eyed chestnut mare that lived her former life in the city. She was purchased by a rich white lady. When I was a kid I rode this mare, rode her around in circles or in the field jumping fences or in the streets. She was a good horse and I don’t think I ever fell off of her.. the mare did have an affliction for rearing up on her haunches and it did scare the woman. The horse got given to the ranch.  Janice worked with her and took her in as her own.

“Yes, she had a lot of problems.”  From her pigeon toes to her distaste for bridling, we talked about it all. “We have a good farrier,” she said. “He fixed her.”   I recalled how the best farrier in the city disowned this horse as a client after she kicked him. “Yes, our farrier would do one foot of Sienna’s, go trim another horse, do one more of Sienna’s feet, and then come back the next day to finish off her rears.”

Janice really loved Sienna. She saw the willingness in this mare, it was just wrapped underneath pain and fear- the life of a misunderstood horse. Trust does not come overnight. Trust has to be earned.

“Last year I introduced her to cows. We were herding. She wouldn’t look at them, but she was a gem. She did everything I asked her to, and then some.”

Janice said I ought work with Sienna.  Guided by another girl, we set out with halters to find the herd. Marleen whistled to the trees and she found her horse- a beautiful black young Clydesdale cross- Atlas. She called for Sienna but Sienna wasn’t there. I set out wandering zig-zagging in search. Marleen pointed across the hill to a brown dot by the cabin- “I’m not sure,” she said.. “but that might be her.”

We wandered across the way.

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In the arena we did ground work. It’s a bit like dancing. It’s all about footwork, the movement, keeping tune with your partner, locking eyes and winking. Sienna had come a long way since I had last worked with her. I could tell she was listening, unfazed by all the action. We were in an arena with four other horses, surrounded by green fields dapples and greys, roans and bays.

When the time felt right, I threw leadrope over her neck and tied it. I walked Sienna to the block and I ran my hands over her back. And then I hopped on.

Damn. It felt good to be on a horse again. I hadn’t been on a horse in a year. I rode bareback in a rope halter. Sienna was soft and supple, attentive to my every move. I walked her around in circles, yielded her on and off the rail. We did turns on the haunches and turns on the forehand. I asked her for a trot and she trotted. It took me a bumpy circle to find my seat, but I found it and we were in sync.

I asked her to give and she gave. I sat deeper in seat and she slowed. A bit of leg and she followed through. A turn of my head and she went. A pat on the neck and she relaxed, a bit of rein and she loosened. At 24 this mare was light as a feather. At 24 she appeared to be aging backwards.

Patience. I’ll reiterate the well known gospel;  Patience is a virtue. Give a horse what she needs and she’ll give you more in return. All Horses are Good Horses.

 

Quote McCarthy

“He lay there three days. He slept and he woke and he slept again. Someone turned off the light and he woke in the dark. He called out but no one answered. He thought about his father in Goshee. He knew that terrible things had been done to him there and he had always believed that he did not want to know about it but he did want to know. He lay in the dark thinking of all the things he did not know about his father and he realized that the father he knew was all the father he would ever know. He would not think about Alejandra because he didn’t know what was coming or how bad it would be and he thought she was something he’d better save. So he thought about horses and they were always the right thing to think about.”

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Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses (1992)