Monday, August 16, 2010

Almost a year

(The title links to a song.)

It's been almost a year since I posted. Finally the grief at losing the farm has begun to ease. I can't write about that day in June 2009 when it all fell apart, the accumulated injuries, illnesses, court happenings, and mistakes crushing the beautiful dream while I stood in the driveway and watched it go away, piece by piece and beloved animal by beloved animal.

Here I sit now on a mountaintop in a light, pleasant townhouse. Lucy is here at my feet, now fifteen years old. Shadow is here, too, sleeping downstairs where it is cooler. Rocket is still with us. He lives in Fayston and I ride him 3 or 4 times per week when all goes well. We raced 50 miles in the "Moonlight in Vermont" ride and placed with the top ten. Elizabeth's horse Teddy (a.k.a. "Ed") died last week; I was there at the Dykema's with him when he left. Memphis lives there too. She belongs to Ne-Ne, Rachelle's niece. Coco is now "Taz" and belongs to Alex. The others I can't talk about--hurts too much.

Life feels like somebody just pulled the knife from a deep wound.

The boys and I went on a picnic yesterday very near here, along a stream near a shallow pool. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and water melon and the boys played with water and stones and sticks while I read to them from The Fellowship of the Ring. Danny waded right out into the stream and played tug-the-stick with Shadow. Then he waved the stick around in warrior-like movements, which Shadow understood to be the same game in a different form, much to Danny's amusement. Shadow tried to find rocks as they disappeared under water when Danny tossed them. Lucy walked in the water and drank deeply, then struggled back to shore trying to stay upright on her weak rear-end muscles with the extra weight of the water pulling her down. Danny helped her. Mikey tried to help her, but she was too heavy for him. Mikey balanced a stick on each shoulder and walked back and forth from a little natural dais near the stream to a huge rock a bit downstream from it. He counted how many times he could go back and forth without either of them falling off. Then he decided which stick had fallen least often. He rejoiced when he caught one on the way down. "Mommy, look!"

Then we came home. I slung my sweatshirt under Lucy to help her up the path again to the car. I lifted her right over the bigger rocks and stones on our way. We all decided that we needed to go back there and picnic again.

This new phase requires a new blog. You can find it at www.ididntsaythat.org. It is something like a blog and something like a workshop for things I'm working on. Enjoy.

Followers