As often is the case, I really had no idea what I was doing... but I did it anyhow.
And it's not that it felt right
It didn't feel safe
It didn't feel smart
It didn't seem realistic
It actually felt quite scary and that's still not why I did it
I don't know why
There is no poetic explanation
Only that something in me knew to say yes to the yes that wanted very much to leave my lips
and to be a YES, instead of a no...
There is a saying that many have said, but I recall my darling stepfather as being the one who brought it up to me most often in my life.
"There is no free lunch".
I have altered this saying a bit; "There is no free horse".
I got one of those free horses offered to me and that's where the whole YES that wanted to be comes in.
As often is the case, I rationalize that I did this for my children...
And I did...
As I have done and continue to do many, many things purely for my children's sake; like going to watch a Disney film yesterday in the 111 degree heat, where I forced myself to sit idle, eating popcorn and Milk Duds, while there was carpet to be vacuumed, laundry to be sorted and paper to be filed at home.
I took a free horse for my trapped child
I took a free horse, who was beautiful and lost, for my lost and beautiful daughter
and he freed her
and he filled her days
which fill my days
emptying my pockets
leaving impossible to displace hay in my car
mud on our boots
calluses across my hands
And these things multiplied when the love doubled and I "yessed" again on a second horse...
The no free lunch/free horse had a bum leg, but so do I and I never let it stop me, so why should I have let his stop him/stop us?
And he's been a blessing and maybe he's a curse, because today the Vet will come to the stall I find myself cleaning all the time. Today, after months and months of free lunch love, the bum leg of the free horse will be examined more thoroughly.
She says, "I can feel his pain"
I tell you that I can feel her pain
She says, "It's killing me"
I tell you that I can feel the dying part of her, while I know with all my heart that a portion of her is more alive and stronger then ever
...and somehow it's the most gut-wrenchingly, beautiful thing I've ever experienced.
The no such thing as a free horse may be trapped now, but he freed my daughter.
My different girl is different now, though her heart is breaking, she's less broken
She's become someone she never was or might have been if not for him.
And for that and for one thousand other reasons, he is, quite possibly, the great love of my life.
And I don't know what I'll do when I know more...
I'll probably follow my heart
rack my brain
empty my pockets
grow some
change some
arrange something Find another yes or no or maybe so...
and hopefully there will always be impossible to remove hay in my car
mud on my shoes
calluses on my heart...
"There is something about the outside of a horse that does something to the inside of a human being" -
I absolutely have better things to do with my days
But I would/could never say that.
Instead I hung up the phone and made the requested phone call immediately.
In the morning after dropping my son at school, I headed off to do this favor, the favor I was not in favor of doing.
I was lucky with the traffic, rather the lack there of.
I took the highways my Nav system told me to take, inland toward the desert and through the low foothills to where it's hot and dry, with low, scratchy looking shrubs dotting the sun-scorched landscape
And I took the exit the dog trainer told me to take.
I was early and there were a few stores I like in the parking lot where we were meant to meet.
I partook.
I killed time.
I bought sandals for my daughter, which she won't want
and didn't buy sandals for myself, which I want, but don't need.
Ring-a-ling-a-ling
"Where are you?"
I'm not at the right exit, apparently.
Not Summit Road, but the summit, the actual summit of the Pass...
Oh shoot.
AGAIN, I remind myself that I have better things to do today, any day actually, than pick up a friend's dogs from Hunting Camp in the high desert, when it's hot and the last days of school are dwindling down and things feel hectic at my house.
I grabbed an iced tea from a drive-thru and drove on and upward deeper into the heat and up to the Pass, to the summit of the Pass and pulled off to the side of the road, to the dirt and gravel and brush encircled space.
Two crates in the back of a dusty pick-up.
This could be Taliban, I think to myself.
eek...
A Duck Dynasty look a like, and me, with my clean, white SUV, in my Juicy sweat pants, iced mint tea in hand, sandals showing painted toes
and oh no, no, no, no...
He pulled the dogs from their crates strapped into the truck bed and showed me the problem for the one, but there were many problems for the two, none of which I mentioned, maybe on account of the beard and the gun rack and the fact that I was shocked which rendered me speechless.
I pointlessly spread a beach towel in the back of my car and we placed the crates with whimpering dogs inside them in the rear of my no longer pristine vehicle.
I drove the two hours toward my home, closer to the sea, away from the scorched earth and harsh heat, with the windows wide open in attempt to stay above the rancid odor.
I didn't/couldn't listen to the radio, but found myself humming lullabies, the kind I used to when my kids were smaller and hurt or sick.
I dialed the Vet near my home.
"He's leaving soon", said his stern receptionist insistently.
"No he's not", I thought, persistently.
I was embarrassed to carry the stool covered, bleeding dog into the Vet.
Her silver stapled abdomen seeping serous fluids and her mouth dripped green bile.
She was cut up all over, but the stomach part was the worst.
I'd made the two hour drive in under 90 minutes.
I stuck around the waiting room, silent while taking a verbal beating about animal abuse and I kept my mouth shut as my breath felt stuck in my throat and tears pooled in my eyes.
Shaken, I got behind the wheel of my car.
I held a clump of wet wipes over my mouth, because I now stunk as fowl as the dog who I'd left howling
shaking
dying?
I reached my home and went into autopilot mode.
Crates out of the car, dragged beyond the high fence and into the backyard where I doused them with detergent then sprayed them down, left them to bake in the sun before I dealt with them further.
The second dog, who once upon a time was white, stayed hidden, pacing back and forth along the high wall behind the rose bushes while my own pup tried to lure her out to play.
I scrambled an egg and put it on a plate on the ground next to a leash, sat myself in my favorite wicker porch chair and waited, acted as if I wasn't watching her watch me...and in time she came toward me and ate her brunch slowly, painfully, her mouth torn a bit, her long ears full of thorns and small bits of sticks
I leashed her to the lawn chair and carefully, quietly poured buckets of warm water over her, being sure to avoid her head, in part because it was bloody and fur-less,
in part because I was afraid she'd bite me, though it was not in her nature
I didn't know who she was anymore
Tea tree oil shampoo, half a bottle
painstakingly pulling ticks and burrs with my finger tips till I caved and cut with scissors, the clumps and bunches of filthy fur.
She trembled, though the water was warm. I lifted her into a kiddie pool, which is not at all for my kids, but rather for my Labrador to play in.
I laid her down in more water, which turned pink, though I'd been washing her for a long, long while.
I examined the pads of her feet. Where did they go?
Then I patted her dry with a soft towel and let her disappear again behind the rose bushes.
My daughter came home from her day at school and soothed her into another bathing, afterwards applying heaps of antibacterial ointment to the dozen or more various sized punctures and to the bare, raw, sore spots where beautiful white fur used to be.
The dog remained aloof the rest of the day.
Avoiding me, but approaching my children now and then.
Good news, the other dog survived her emergency surgery.
I wanted to cry when I hung up the phone with the Vet, but I never can.
I was instinctively gentle with the doggies owner, when we spoke on the phone. He was far away and unaware of the situation, which left me wondering what sort of man he really was.
I never understood the pull to the high desert dog camp,
nor his ability to leave these dogs, who were really more like his children, when he went away for long stretches.
There are times that this man has made me feel like I'm maybe not the best decision maker
I was non confrontational with the trainer, who around happy hour began blowing up my phone with inquiries about the dogs, the cost of surgery, and his advice on how to care for them
though clearly he did not care for them.
A powerful funk took me over, one I could not shake, one that blanketed everything else in my typically peaceful and mostly beautiful days
and I wanted nothing more then to go to bed at six pm.
But that's not my life.
After I made dinner and helped with homework and did my usual things; the things I love for the ones I love, I got into my bed, my beautiful grown up bed, with it's beige linens, dotted now with specks of red blood, from the dog's still seeping wounds.
Finally that dog, the now white dog, with red spots, jumped up onto my bed with me.
I like my space...
but I didn't get any.
She didn't want to be pet and each time I tried she'd leave
but later she'd sheepishly return.
Only when I didn't acknowledge her, did she relax -
right across my legs.
All night long she lay over my abdomen.
I could hear her non stop snoring
feel her body shutter
and then I knew
that I had nothing better to do with my day, any day, not right now, not ever.
I didn't know how much I loved animals
though people probably look at my horse drawn, dog filled life and assume I am an animal lover.
But me, I truly had no idea how strongly I felt about four legged creatures, until I felt what I felt all night long;
the weight of her across my body
the weight of knowing how very badly she and the other pup must have been treated and the weight of not being able to say what should be said to the trainer
and knowing too, that I will never tell these sweet dogs' owner how it really was,
because he's my friend
because its my sorrow now,
because for whatever reason, the universe put these troubles in my path today
and so this gets to become part of who I am and who I will be
and happily that's sadly alright with me
It amazes me how everything changes us, if we allow it to
