The Unintended Love

 
The love we do not intend is sometimes the love that saves us. This phrase popped into my head as I was clearing out my emails and contemplating writing for one of the many prompts littering my inbox. These days my muse is a bit of a fickle bitch, so the fact that these words suddenly came to me wasn't something I felt I should ignore. A writer who is not actively writing needs to pay extra attention to such divine inspirations after all.

In many ways, as I think about it, this statement is one of my great truths. I might not have intended to fall in love with my future husband, but I did. At that time in my life, I can honestly say that it was the love that saved me. My heart and faith had been mortally wounded, dealt a death blow by back to back relationships that had worn me down and left me feeling desolate.

Then, unexpectedly and when I wasn't even looking, he entered stage left and restored my hope. In many ways I felt "saved" from taking up a permanent residence in     all my familiar dark places.

And lately, there has been another unintended love that has supported that statement.

Recently various cosmic forces, and one determined little sister, combined to result in us getting a horse for our budding equestrian of a daughter. Roo is 12 year old, sorrel and white painted quarter horse cross that stands about 15.2 hands high. He has a sweet disposition and will be able to grow with my daughter, they are about the same "age" experience-wise overall. When the opportunity presented itself, I knew relatively nothing about horsemanship. I was just starting to get the hang of being a horse-mom though, toting her gear and fetching her tack and using all the right jargon. I enjoyed our times at the barn and her weekly riding lesson was something I had grown to love and look forward too with the same enthusiasm as my daughter. Admittedly though, I hadn't considered ever owning a horse of our own despite the lure of empty and available stalls at my sister's recently purchased horse farm.

Yet, the opportunity arrived. I told myself I would be practical. I told myself that while it might be inevitable given my sister's agenda, it didn't need to be now and it didn't need to be this horse.
Then, it happened. My daughter fell in love with Roo. Unexpectedly however, so did I... the very first instant he nuzzled my shoulder with his big head and turned those big brown eyes in my direction. Roo's owner is good people and she was committed to finding him a "soft place to land". I think she knew he would be my daughter's "heart horse", she might have even expected he'd also become mine too.

For the first time in my life, I came to understand my sister's connection to the animals that had always been part of her life. There is something soulful about horses, some primitive connection that resides in human beings, brought to life by soft nickering and their sweet, grass-scented breath. There is something powerful about an animal who can so easily dominate you, but is simultaneously so willing to try to please you. There is a serenity and grace in these animals and something that borders on the almost mystical.

Roo will always be my daughter's horse and she is very blessed and lucky to have him. He will be a good companion, they will make a good team. He is also however, the second unintended love in my life. He has, in many ways, saved me...albeit in a smaller and more humble way than my husband's love did.

Roo has become the balm on an irritating day and the stream of sudden sunshine on a cloudy one. He is the inspiration to spending special, companionable time with my daughter and my sister, doing barn chores or training. These are hours passed simply and without thought of anxiety, stress or strain. Roo inspires me to think outside my rigid boxes and harness bravery when I feel out of my depth. Roo provides the unique opportunity to see my daughter developing confidence and responsibility because he challenges her to believe in herself, to push herself and to aspire to be stronger.

I tried to explain it all recently to my husband, who to be fair, has not fallen in love with Roo or the idea of having this new 900 lb family member to care for. After a long-winded explanation, I simply ended with, "he makes me happy." And, honestly, that is really just it. Whenever we walk up on his paddock and he flicks his ears and turns in our direction, the worries and concerns of the day just disappear. When I watch my daughter plant kisses on his soft white nose, I feel grateful and blessed. My heart is happy for her and also for him, to know the boundless, unconditional love of a child. My heart is joyful to watch him run, moving with such freedom and grace, but also to see him working with Jaden, seeking that shared conversation between horse and rider. Whenever I take a moment out of grooming him to step in close and lay my head against his neck, breathing in the smell of him, I am content and happy in this simple moment of shared affection. I can see my reflection in his quiet, big brown eyes and it brings me a special peace.

These days, when the crush of daily existence and the pressure of life gets to me, that special peace is what saves me; saves me from rage, from discouragement, from doubt, from the rut of routine. Roo reminds me that my life isn't just about work and bills and responsibilities, but also about things that bring my soul joy. Roo reminds me to take the moment to find happiness and peace in my life - even if I find them in the most unexpected places.

All Things Horse-y

30 Day Blogging Challenge
PROMPT January 28th
I had a different prompt in mind for today, but decided as it’s the last Monday of January, we all needed a little pick-me-up.
Write about something happy in your life! What’s happened recently that made you smile? What’s the last thing you laughed at?

In order to fully appreciate this post, I'll have to divulge something about my personal life. I am very close to my sister but and also very different from her. We refer to ourselves as "city mouse" and "country mouse". My sister lives on a 9 acre horse farm with a menagerie that includes goats, horses, cats and dogs - so you can guess which one of us is "city mouse". I frequently joke that I have nightmares of waking up in her life, in some freaky Friday scenario that suddenly finds me running her doggie daycare and boarding business - something I would be ill equipped to do with my wardrobe of heels and pencil skirts. Notably, she says the same exact thing about my life. Until recently, I had no cause to explore my sister's rural and rustic lifestyle. I was content not to ever know the true identity of the substances she ends each day covered with. Then, my sister launched "operation Jaden" and everything changed.

I'm not sure why my sister waited until my daughter was eight to begin her crusade. It might have had something to do with us moving closer, a mere seven minutes from her new horse property. It might have just been that she had bided her time with her only niece long enough. Whatever the reason, last summer she gifted my daughter three weeks of horse camp and subsequently opened her eyes and her heart to the world of horses. My country mouse sister threw the gates to her world of fur and hooves open wide and my daughter marched through, dragging her mom (with her entirely inappropriate barn footwear) with her. Suddenly they were a secret society of two, planning and plotting for a future strewn with horsey things, weekly riding lessons among them. Just as suddenly, I was a barn mom, which meant I was fully engaged in many, many things I had zero experience with. My daughter attacked her learning curve with gusto and passion while I, accepted my fate with as much dignity as I could muster. I bought myself muck boots and dug in, trying to seem anything but completely out of my element.

Here is the thing...and the real meat of the prompt...I've discovered that I like it. I've learned enough to know my way around the barn now. Her Tuesday evening lesson is time I actually look forward to spending with my daughter. I love watching her, acknowledging that she does seem to have the natural ability as a rider that my little sister always had. She is developing confidence and a real appreciation for the mental and physical challenges of riding. She adores my sister too, and I love the connection they share. I love that in so many ways, my sister has become my daughter's hero. It makes my heart happy to watch them together.

It isn't just about my daughter though.

Over the last year, I've grown to love this part of my sister's life, this part we share with her. I love the horses, their dark eyes reflecting something back about us all. I have an appreciation for the ones that work hard, take care of their riders despite having their own limitations. There is a special kind of grace about being with them, these massive animals who outweigh our fragile human bodies yet trust us to guide them and to care for them. There is an exchange of trust that is connected to something in our souls and it moves and fascinates me.

It brings me a kind of peace...the smell of the barn, the wide open sky above the paddocks, the pounding of my daughter's mount in a rolling canter. I enjoy the moments of tacking Sonny up before the lesson with her, sneaking him peppermints to keep him cooperative in the colder weather when he feels his years more. I love visiting my sister's own horses, and the trio of Friesian babies that currently reside with her - each of them mini black beauties that are all spunk and fire.

We had the task of feeding her horses while she was away on her honeymoon and I grew to love the walk out to their pasture to drop their hay and grain in those late October afternoons. They would see us coming, their beautiful heads raised, expectant and welcoming of the meal and the petting session we were about to bestow on them. Again, there is a peace it brings me - similar in the way I used to feel slipping beneath the waves in my dive gear. Similar but different, because I am more then an observer in this world. This world demands my tactile engagement in a way scuba diving did not. Horses want that emotional and physical connection, those touches and words whispered in their soft, flicking ears. I can see why people have horses, there is a quiet magic to them that brings a certain kind of solace in its wake. Being with a horse is like a balm on those ragged parts of our soul.

Recently we were bringing Sonny out of the lesson ring and paused to clean the dirt from his shoes. Since she was stepped on early in the year, this task is one my daughter continues to be leery of. It usually falls to me to "show" her again how to get it done without getting her feet crunched. I've gotten pretty confident about it now, I've come to know how best to get Sonny to bend his leg up so I can clear out the clumps quickly. I was demonstrating for my daughter again...how you have to lean close against him, keeping your feet parallel to his. You have to reach down and grab his foot, easing him with your body weight, to life the leg and keep his body in balance. I must have been demonstrating it with an air of authority because I heard her trainer exclaiming, "wow Mom, look at you!", as she walked up behind us.

I honestly-to-God swelled with pride in that moment. I felt myself smiling. Because, here is the truth, straight from a city mouse's mouth...I like the way I've managed to learn this stuff. I like the fact that I now own muck boots and can rock a head lamp with pride. I like that I know how to tack up a horse and that I go home smelling like them. I love that I can slip in mud or horse poop and not care which one it actually is. I love that I know how to help my daughter zip up her half chaps or that I even know what half chaps are! I love this little bit of country mouse I found in me now. I love it...a lot. It makes me happy in a way I never would have expected.

The Irreplaceable Truth

Once upon a time I wandered a bit farther than I should have from my hotel in Bogota, Colombia and found myself in a tiny makeshift shop of an old woman who worked with clay. 

I was instantly enchanted by her creations, the intricate details of her tiny donkeys and saints scattered across the folding table.  The woman looked to be in her nineties, her fingers were terribly snarled and crooked with age.  In my tentative Spanish I asked her if she made them all, gesturing to the figures strew about her.  She nodded vigorously, then as if to prove it, she produced a tiny burro from her pocket.  I could see the clay was still damp and dark. She began to carve and smooth it, holding it up to show me how she worked the clay with one of her thumbnails.  She watched me looking over her wares as I tried to decide what I should take, calculating how many of the delicate pieces I could realistically cart back safety.   

I had a tiny donkey in each hand when I noticed the nativity behind her.  I was immediately struck by the serene expressions on the faces of Mary and Joseph and on the tiny baby Jesus in his crib of straw. It was rustically beautiful.  The lines of Mary’s flowing robes and the magical tilt of her face were peaceful and perfectly wrought. In her sweet face one could see all the wonder and mystery of her faith.  The touches of white paint on the trim of her hood and the delicate features of her infant were almost magical in their artistry. It was at once both simple and intricate. This nativity had been clearly made, not just by an artist, but by a woman of deep faith and love.  It moved me, touched something in spiritual inside me.  

I put down the donkeys and pointed to the nativity. The woman broke into toothy smile. Without thinking about how I would manage to get such a fragile thing home in one piece, I handed her a twenty dollar bill – almost twice the price she had told me.  She produced a roll of bubble wrap and some crumpled newspaper and proceeded to wrap each of the figures with deliberate care.

My holy family made it home with me unscathed. Every year since, I have gently unwrapped it and set it out during the Christmas season in a place of honor. Over the years, edges have chipped and some clay has crumbled in places.  I am dismayed each year to find more clay dust in the wrappings whenever I unpack the figures.  I am the only one who handles it and each year I try my very best to minimize any damage. It has become one of my most treasured heirlooms. It is one of the only things I own that is truly irreplaceable. That is why when I came home that first afternoon and saw the anguish on my mother-in-law’s sweet face, I knew. I knew she had broken something. As much as I silently prayed it wasn’t my beautiful nativity, in my broken heart I knew it was.  

She had accidently bumped the table and sent Joseph tumbling to the floor.  He had been efficiently decapitated, the clay fragments turning to dust on the hardwood floor.  She was devastated, asking me over and over if it had been expensive. I assured it that it hadn’t been valuable, and it hadn’t been, at least not in the monetary sense.  My daughter’s eyes were like saucers having learned from a very early age that my nativity was never to be touched.  She reached for Joseph’s tiny clay head, visibly preparing for the rage she expected was coming. I looked at my mother-in-law in tears and took one very long deep breathe before dismissing her apologies and telling her reassuringly that it was “no problem Mom.”   

After, I fled to the driveway to shed my private tears and call my husband. 

He listened, understanding at once the gravity of it all. I believe he must have instantly began combing the internet looking for a replacement sending me pic after pic of nativities that were nothing at all like mine. I told him that was pointless. I knew would never find another like it.  I told him how awful she felt. We agreed that he would not to say anything more. The damage was done, it had been an accident and there was no sense in making her feel any worse.  I reasoned that at least I still had my beautiful Mary and baby Jesus was still safely stowed away until Christmas Eve.  I admitted that we could probably try to reattach Joseph’s head, sans his neck of course, and conceded that perhaps no one would notice his missing hands or nose in dim light.  I reasoned, I reassured, I conceded…and I cried. 

 Standing in the driveway in the bitter cold, tears running down my face, I managed to find a surprising element of humor in the event. Suddenly laughing, I told him that how nativity had survived the trek home from South America, three moves, 14 years of being packed and unpacked, life with two dogs and a toddler and yet it could not make it through the first 24 hours of his mother’s visit. If that wasn’t ironic, I didn’t know what was. The laughter made my heart hurt less as laughter often does. 

By the time I went back inside, my mother-in-law and I had both recovered from our grief. I thought the most important thing was that my daughter had her grandmother here for the holidays. I thought about how much that meant and how much more meaningful that was than any Christmas decoration, regardless of how much it might have meant to me.  

I looked over to the solitary Mary in her corner and saw that the soft glow of the Christmas lights were casting bands of light and shadow over her serene features.  She looked as peaceful as always. 

I love my mother-in-law. Sometimes she is a virtual tornado that knows no bounds…but…I love her.  I love that she loves me and my daughter with the same fierceness that she loves her own children.  She treats my daughter like the treasure she is and lives every moment of her life to better the lives of her children and grandchildren and asks nothing in return.  I am completely and utterly certain this will not be the last thing she breaks, but regardless,  I am blessed to call her mother and to share my home and life with her. I welcome the peace of forgiveness and the humility of realizing that in the end, things are still just things.  It is our people and our moments with them that are irreplaceable.  

Garlic Muffins for a New Friend and the Literary Artisan

"Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 1421: October 5, 2016
Prompt: Random words: garlic, invite, bitter,tower, evade, abrasive, brooch, promote

Note: I find these random word prompts very challenging, they are like aerobics for my brain. Sometimes I feel as if I nail them, other times I churn out something more mediocre (like the entry below) but in both cases I think the exercise is good for me. It keeps me thinking, reaching which is never a bad thing.

Elsa fingered the heavy brooch at her neck. The mother of pearl was cold and solid under her fingertips. Its presence comforted her. It had been a family heirloom and she had worn it faithfully since her grandmother had pressed it into her palm as she expired. She promised Elsa it was a powerful talisman for protection and so far it had proven to be effective time and time again. Elsa stepped off the porch of the old Victorian and into the night. The darkness swallowed her as she turned her back on the lights of her family home. Walking deliberately forward, Elsa looked up at the dark tower that pierced the inky horizon.

She slipped her hand into the pocket of her cloak and felt the crisp invite she had received from her cousin two days ago. Until a month or so ago, she and her cousin Renfield had been very close, more like siblings. He had always stopped in on his way home from work to have tea with her. Renfield was warm and chatty, disclosing even the most mundane details of his day and pausing only to pull her toddling daughter into his lap for a cuddle. Then, two weeks ago Renfield's visits had become more erratic, his jovial behavior turning more abrasive and bitter. He talked about the "disease of man" and wanted to discuss the many ways he had been mistreated and unappreciated. It was as if something had happened that suddenly ostracized him from everyone. When Elsa had pressed him for an answer, Renfield had done everything to evade the question. Then, that last visit, when her daughter had wandered into the kitchen for her customary hug, Renfield had recoiled from her pink, outstretched arms and rushed for the door. Elsa had watched him flee, dismayed and confused at what her child had done to possibly promote such a response in her cousin.

Renfield had not returned after that final visit. He had not responded to her notes and he did not answer the door when she had called on him. Elsa was beyond concerned. She had known something had happened to him and it distressed her terribly. Yesterday, there had been a knock at the door. She had ran to it, hoping her cousin had come back to her. It was not Renfield but someone had slipped a piece of thickly folded ivory paper through the mail slot. Elsa picked it up and opened it. It was a hand-written invitation from Renfield to join her and a friend for drinks at his residence. The address was for the tower, the defunct and derelict building that as far as Elsa knew, had not been inhabited for at least a dozen years. Elsa knew Renfield's new friend was somehow responsible for the sudden changes but she was a proper woman and as such, reserved to pass judgment on someone she had not yet met. She had called for a sitter while she made something suitable to bring to her host. She tried to ignore the pervasive feeling of dread as she dressed which now, as she walked up the road to toward Renfield's new friend, had hardened into something of a knot at the pit of her stomach.

After a time, she reached the base of the tower. It appeared even more ruinous than she had expected. She shifted the bag of garlic muffins to the crook of her arm and raised her fist to heavy wrought iron knocker, hesitating when she found it was in the shape of a horned demon. Before she could use it, the great door was wrenched open and her cousin stood in the dim dome of light. He smiled, his mouth a dark mall, and reached for her....

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
Day 941 October 5, 2016
Prompt: "Fabric is my blank canvas and fashion textiles emerge as wearable art, touched by the possibilities of threads, beads and artful embellishments." If you are an artisan, you will get this. If not, write anything, you want about this.

My grandmother is an artist. She lives as she paints, in a textured world where she looks for and engages with those things she finds aesthetically pleasing to her eye. She had taught me to appreciate those things, to find the "art" in everyday life. I loved to draw and paint but my true artist medium has always been words. I love the way words flow together in a story, how powerfully you can craft images and evoke feelings with words. I think writing is my own "wearable art", I wrap myself in my stories and they become part of my self expression, part of my persona, my own "art".