My Horse Sister

I got a phone call from my sister today. She had some important insights that she felt she needed to share. I found what she had to say important enough that I wanted to share . . .

To give some background . . . my sister is four years younger than me. We grew up in Southeast Idaho on a small piece of land attached to a 40 acre farm. Our nearest neighbors were 1/4 mile away. As children, we pretty much did whatever we wanted, went wherever we wanted and showed up at the house for lunch and dinner. There were chores, but that's not what I remember. I remember spending as much time as possible on the back of a horse. By the time I was 13 or so, my nearest sib (my brother) had opted out of riding horses and prefered to ride his bike. My sister rode his horse and the two of us went everywhere we possibly could on horseback. Why this is important is because she has watched me ride from the first time I got on a horse. She was with me when we rode the horses inside the school, and across the snake river, and up and down the canal, and when we fixed a broken down cart up with bike tires and makeshift harness and forced Sham (our half-pony, proud-cut, mean-as-a-demon, can't-keep-in-the-field horse) to pull us all around town. She remembers us fixing the horses birthday cake made of oats, corn, carrots and grass. She remembers the two of us riding double on Queenie in the sagebrush place, of me squeezing my legs and Queenie leaping forward into a gallop and my surprise at finding her sitting in the middle of the trail laughing her head off when I discovered she wasn't on behind me any more. She was there when we took all six horses into the house and laid the foals on my mom's bed. (Sorry, Mom.) She remembers me when I wasn't afraid, or broken, or old . . . when I made the claim I could ride anything with four legs and a mane. And then did.

So, today, she called to tell me to relax. To trust myself. To remember me as she does - a girl who was more at home on her horse than anywhere in the world. To recognize that I have a gift with horses and that this is who I am meant to be, more than anything else in the world. THIS is my dream, from the time I was four, to partner completely with the animal Allah created from the south wind. To become a modern day centaur in connection with Ashke. She told me that she can see how tense I am, how that tension shows in my face and my seat and to relax and trust that I know what I am doing. To let go of the fear of being thrown and trust that even old and broken and out of shape, my body will remember what it is supposed to do. To let go of Keili and remember Queenie. To shape something new with Ashke. To build love and trust and a safe place to just be together. To be again that girl known as "My Horse Sister".

Thank you, Sis! I love you!