8.20.24

It’s been way too long since I’ve wrote. I have felt the need to talk to you over and over, here in these words like I once used write.

But I never made the time.

And honestly, I couldn’t. I don’t even know if what I’m typing now will ever turn into a posted entry or simply sit as a draft on my computer, because time has swallowed me whole, like a frog snapping a fly on its tacky tongue. And I’ve been stuck in the bellows of its belly, beckoning to be freed.

This past year was one of the hardest of my life.

(The hardest being the second year after your death.)

I recently stopped taking an anxiety medication I was prescribed for the last two years. Sometime after Forrest was born, I asked for a bump to the medicine regimen I’d been on since a senior in college, because life with three kids had me feeling like my insides were shaking; a direct side effect of my thoughts jetting from one reminder to another to another and then a task and then another to-do and then jetting down the driveway for pick-up.

This medicine helped dull everything out just enough for me to feel the benefits and keep taking it.

But while it mellowed my rushing thoughts, it dulled the softer parts of my brain, where intuition and awareness reside.

My little inner voice had fallen down a well and she’d shout from the bottom up to my ears but the words evaporated in the echoes and I felt like I functioned without any connection to spirit for a long time.

I’d meditate and never feel that flat “humming” place in my brain––the one where the hollows of my head are seeped with a viscous black substance, filling every void. I am then solid and sturdy and strong and on.

And when you get a hold of ways to “turn on,” life has a way of seeming to agree with you. Instead of paddling upstream, struggling against a slow car ahead or a minor inconvenience, like spilled coffee on a freshly pressed pair of work pants––it all just flows and the mishaps brush off your shoulders.

Because nothing is worth turning yourself off for.

These are tools and practices that took me years to adopt as habits. And they fluttered away from me without my awareness.

With my intuition or inner voice or whatever you want to call it dialed down, my communication with you had been turned off, like a radio signal that was projecting static, unable to reach yours. But I am noticing these things again––the signs and feeling connected by sequential numbers on the clock. And they’re important. They’re how I remember you’re still out there, cheering me on.

Yesterday, while driving home from the barn, a huge pileated woodpecker swooped down and flew four feet in front of my windshield. I stopped the car and followed its flight with wide eyes, until it landed on a rotted tree and roosted sideways, anchored in an awkward position.

That bird has been powerful ever since I returned to horse riding. I don’t know how to make someone understand that isn’t in tune with these kinds of things, but the oversized black and white woodpecker has encouraged me and shown up when I needed to make decisions about riding lessons and leasing and barns and all the choices I’ve had to delicately dive into the past few years.

Let me not go into full detail about the dramatics that have taken place since the day I found “Hot August Storm” for sale online­­––a fresh off the track Thoroughbred racehorse that I had no business thinking I could train or ride or even know the first thing about the type of care she’d require.

All I need to tell you is that I did it because something other than myself made the choice for me, as if an agreement had already been signed and I was late to the meeting. The signs outweighed the hesitation by tenfold.

Everyone told me no. But everything in me said yes.

One early morning, while drying my hair, I asked for clarity. In my head, I said, If she is my horse, tell me so. And make it obvious.

Twenty minutes later, I went out to the chicken coop and there at my feet, when I looked down to unlatch the lock, was a freshly fallen spotted woodpecker feather.

I still waited an entire month to purchase Raine because how do you explain to educated horse people that you found a feather (among other strange coincidental odditites) and therefore know she’s “the one”?

The day I bought her and she was trailed to her new barn, I later got home and outside my car, waiting by my stepping foot, was another feather, identical to the first one. It felt nothing short of physical proof that everything came full circle.

I had followed what was to be followed.

Even though I’ve known in my guts she was meant to be mine, it has been so incredibly difficult and frustrating and overwhelming and expensive and there’s been a big room rented out in the compartments of my mind, of which I didn’t have space for another tenant.

My husband and kids and all my god-damn chickens made up this mind-house. And of course, myself and my needs.

Raine just shifted herself right in there and to my surprise, adhered herself to me, permanently.

And I willingly except this, yet she doesn’t even pay rent.

I wanted a horse when I was young, but never imagined I’d love one like this.

She is my very best friend, one who speaks a different language but we are learning how to communicate with one another. There is something real between us––something that’s been there from the beginning, but has now begun to take root.

And I know in time, it will bloom and bloom.

Big changes are happening for my girlfriend and I; we are headed for the flowering part. She’s moving to a different barn September 1st and I’m nervous, feeling as if I’m diving into a dark hole, unsure of when I’ll find my footing. There are so many unknowns. And I have moved barns before; I fear of gaining a reputation, and not the good kind. However, when my intuition speaks, I listen; a flaw that sometimes gets me into trouble but always leads me where I know I’m supposed to be.

I visited the new place with Grandma, and the owner recognized her from a show she’d won lots of blue ribbons at back in spring. She asked if we were from the same barn, simply taking the tour together, and Grandma said, “Oh! She’s our oldest granddaughter!”

And I felt held, maternally. Something I don’t get to feel often. Without hesitation, her words scooped me up and I was safe and on steady ground, nailed into this horse world that can feel so foreign, but it’s quite literally in my blood.

This new move will mean lots of training, lots of riding. And so naturally, the thoughts strike: Am I too old to learn to really ride? To possibly jump like I’ve wanted to since back in third grade? What if I can’t do it? What if Raine’s arthritis from her racing days proves to be problematic?

But then I think of you, whose chances of following something as wild as I am in the pursuit of Raine, were taken away at thirty-nine years old.

That would mean I have six years left to live. And if that were true, I’d sure as shit give this riding a real go––the kind of go I know I deserve.

In a handful of days, the kids are back to school.

Everett is going into third grade. Marion will begin kindergarten, and Forrest will start pre-school two days a week. His speech therapist said, “Oh my! What will you do with all that time? You’ll have to start a hobby!”

“Oh I’ve got one already,” was all I said as I gave a sly smile, leaving the omitted answer dangling like fishing line cast off in the wind. Because when you tell someone you have a horse, it’s like telling someone who doesn’t have kids that you’ve got three.

Everett is all but twiddling his thumbs, waiting for school to resume. I’ve had his Crocs and new clothes and basic zip up sweatshirt for cool morning bus stops, washed and folded in his drawer since June. He is easy and excited and not the least bit nervous about stepping up a grade in a bigger building.

When we all went to open house, everyone at the primary school (K-2) knew Everett. I was surprised at how many teachers stopped to say hello and asked how his summer went. Pride protruded out of my eyes with each pausing chat, because that’s who Everett is: friendly and kind and incredibly empathetic and seeker of a good time always.

Upon leaving, he said “Hi Patrick!” to a child his age, who was walking in front of us at one point alongside his family. This kid nonchalantly turned his head, not even bothering to make eye contact with Everett. He already knew who was behind him and didn’t say anything until he had to respond to Everett’s second hello.

I stared at the boy’s father, who looked over at his son, seemingly surprised at the dull response. If I could’ve pinned my ears and gave him the mare stare the way my horse does, I would’ve.

Everett seems to be very happy socially and friends with a lot of kids. But I am hoping he finds a best friend, one who can come over for play dates and he can grow up with.

I met Meghan in third grade. And she’s still my best friend.

She just had her first baby––a little girl named Channing––and I “met” her over FaceTime, sitting in Raine’s stall while she ate a bag of hay. I cried as I saw not only the baby, but my friend as a MOM. It seems she’s been instantly transformed and has drank the kool-aid, as I knew she would.

Marion was surprisingly collected at her open house. We have an odd connection to her teacher; I’ve unknowingly been selling eggs to her mother and Tatum’s boyfriend is her cousin. So some strange strings have intertwined, enough to make Marion a little more comfortable and very willing to bring eggs as a greeting gift. Right before it was our turn in line, she looked up at me and said, “Mommy thank you for packing these so pretty.” And gratitude shot straight to my head, like I’d snorted sparkle glitter that hit just right.

Because that’s what I think of when I think of Marion: rainbows and colors and mystical things like unicorns. But she knows how to be real, too. And she knows how to use her manners, but her attitude blocks them. That’s why I got such a high when she genuinely appreciated me.

I now know it’s up to me to not repeat the relationship you and I had with my daughter. You know what I’m taking about: the fighting and arguing and clashing, like two of the same chemicals that both needed their own reaction.

You needed to win and get your point across, because I was the child. And rightly so.

But I needed to argue and be mean back, because that’s what you gave me.

You were mean because I was mean.

And I was mean because you were mean.

I only understand this dynamic because it is the same with Marion: exactly the same. And it makes me frustrated to not be able to follow what comes natural. To put her in her place when she’s rude. To give her sass if she gives it to me, as a way of defending my emotions. She’s still shy of six but she can spill a salty attitude over both her left and right shoulders and not care of the consequences.

While I’ve been scared of watching her walk onto that school bus, I know she can do it, because I think of Tatum, who started kindergarten weeks after you died.

She was days from turning five.

I shove that thought down as hard as I can, like stuffing dry crumpled paper into my mouth until I cannot breathe. Because trying to understand how Marion would begin without me is so incredibly painful, I have quite literally stored Tatum’s experience within the tiniest part of me, hiding it away in a random toe that doesn’t take up attention or space because it cannot be real.

But there’s a home video to prove it was.

Dad recorded Tatum on her first day of kindergarten; she is so cute and innocent, with natural white-blonde hair cut short with bangs. He narrates the scene, as he’s done for all us kids since the early 90’s, asking her to show the camera her new outfit and bookbag and walks her to the yellow bus as it pulls up with flashing lights. Tanner sits patiently in the driveway, wagging his tail and smiling wide-mouthed, unaware that he’s on the path your lifeless body was driven out on by an ambulance, once upon a hot August night.

If Tatum could rise up and do what she did and end up becoming one of the most mature and beautiful young women I have ever known––and I mean that so honestly and completely––then Marion will be just fine. Especially if I can tune myself up just enough to be her buoy on the emotional waves she has and not the agitating current.

I owe that to her. And I owe it to you.

My relationship with Marion will always push me and be a challenge. Just as my bond with Raine will be. I finally understand how steady Chris must remain in order to love me to way he does, because I am demanding and expect everything to be done by my terms and decide when I’m in the mood to be nice and playful.

Strangely enough, like myself, Raine makes me work for her affection, but when I get it, I feel whole, knowing she loves me and appreciates my insistent dedication.

That must be how Chris feels with me. It must be how Dad felt with you. When a woman like that gives herself over to you, it must be worth crawling to the top of the apple tree instead of picking up what’s fallen to the ground.

That "reward” is how I felt when Marion thanked me for the wrapped egg carton. It’s how I feel when I pet Raine’s pretty forehead and she drops her nose to my center, in an affectionate surrender. And it’s how I feel when you send me something like a woodpecker with such impeccable timing, it can only be explained by what remains unexplainable.

I don’t know how to be an “easy” woman. I don’t know how to choose the path of least resistance. Neither did you. Neither does Marion. Neither does Raine.

And that’s why those woodpecker feathers said do it. And I don’t regret any part of the last year for a single second.

Because nothing worth having is ever easy.