Here's to Brandi!

Okay, I have tried. I have given it my best effort. But I must now admit failure, because I can no longer resist talking about my horse. The whole horse and nothing but the horse.

I love my horse.

I'm not one of those people who is at the ranch every day grooming, bathing, lunging, riding, etc., my horse. I don't have her name tattooed to my chest or shoulder or lower back or rear end, or any other place on my body. I don't run around in blue jeans and leather belt with a silver buckle and a cowboy hat and polished boots, a costume that screams out desperately, "See? I have a horse!"

But nonetheless, I love my horse.

My favorite picture of her is my screen saver, or wall paper, or whatever. (I don't know the difference.) And when I look at it, she's there, looking right back at me. And I practically get shivers down my spine. She is soooo beautiful.

Oh, don't get me wrong. She'd win no beauty prize in any equine contest. Though I'm told she won some ribbons, trophies, or whatever, before I became her person. But in my mind, in my heart, there is simply no other horse in the entire world that can come close to her. She's "just'" a moody, bay quarter horse, with one white ankle on her right rear foot and a "star" on her forehead. (Did you know a mark there of any sort is called a "star" even if it's not in the shape of a star? )

The thing that I love most about her is the little neighing sound she makes when she sees me walking toward her pasture, and the way she walks or maybe even trots right to me when she sees me at the fence, or hears me call her name. No, sorry. What I love best is what happens when her eyes meet mine. There's just this exchange that I can't put into words.

It isn't acquiescence, that's for sure. I'm tempted to say, "She's her own person!" but of course she's not a person, so I guess that has to be, "She's her own horse." I'm her person. We have that understanding. She doesn't belong to me. I belong to her. Or maybe it's just that we belong together.

I ride occasionally. I never call it "working" her, I call it playing together; even though I understand that, in the interest of safety, I have to do my best to remain in control. Oh, I don't even like to put it that way. It's more like, we're working on our relationship, learning to trust each other. It's an ongoing process.

I often tell her I'm sorry she has a person with such a busy life that I can't be there every day, but on the other hand I pay a healthy sum to make sure she is boarded in a place she loves, where she is well looked after in my absence. And my consolation when I am too long from the ranch is this, that "Brandi is happy just being a horse."

I think of her often. I miss her. Thinking of her sometimes brings a smile to my face, sometimes a tear to my eye. I wish I had the time and energy to put in hours a day every day together, but that's not the hand I've been dealt at this stage of my life. So I do the best I can., and I can only hope she, on some level, understands.

And I believe she does.

We just have that kind of connection.