She did it! She got her license. I did a couple posts about it yesterday but it still warrants a blog post I think. This amazing daughter of mine is now finally street legal and is going to be out in the world truly on her own, with a car. Funny, I have not been as worried for her being on the back of an easily spooked 1200 lb animal since she was 4, but the car solo thing really threw me for a loop.
It isn’t her I have ever really worried about. It is everyone else. And I seriously trust the horses and all their jumpy ways more than I trust other drivers on the road. My faith in the animal world always and forever greater than the human one.
Today this amazing girl/woman competes in a weekend long horse show. She is going to do great. She is so confident and poised and serious. My little girl who was known for her tenderness and sweetness is now rising to be a fierce competitor, who knew?
She and Odin (the horse) are an amazing pair to watch. He trusts her and loves her...and the feeling is mutual. They work in tandem with each other. Him understanding what she wants from him and her knowing exactly how to ask for it. It is this intimate connection that surpasses understanding for me.
I was watching the two of them yesterday while she groomed him and cared for him, there was this exchange of something that I am sure I have never experienced. This kind of relaxed trust. This intimate familiar, this closeness and love that is unparalleled. There is this magical connection that supersedes my own experience and often understanding.
And it is my daughter, this young woman I have had the privilege of raising who rounds another corner into adulthood. While I will not miss the inconvenience of having to drive her everywhere, I will miss the time we spend together in the car. I am sure now, it will be much more rare. Like today where we are taking two cars to the horse show. We will drive up together, but separately.
I have learned something about being female and a woman being around horse women. They are this very interesting combination of something that is tough as nails and also quite delicate. Kind of like the horses themselves. I have said for well over a decade that I cannot believe the West was won on the backs of such delicate and sensitive creatures. Really I can’t.
But horse women will march this 1200 lb beast around, own it completely and then start crying when the horse knocks a rail. It is this intense strength that gives way to delicacy that impresses me and, if I am honest, stumps me. How can something so strong, also be so weak? It is this paradox that captivates me, this very sensitive and intelligence animal matched up with a human being who is largely exactly the same.
No accidents I know. They each learn from the other and they shape each other. Grace’s grace and composure absolutely was derived from her work with horses. And Odin’s ability, conditioning and determination absolutely came from his work with Grace. I know this absolutely.
They are both teachers to me. Two beings who have solved communication issues, differing perspectives and worked toward a common agreement about riding and living and loving. Better than most human relationships I know.
It will always amaze me how something so vulnerable and sensitive and intelligent can also be so magnificently strong. But that is my daughter. This is who she is; this amazing combination of grit, humor, intelligence, insecurity, vulnerability and strength. May she ride forever, happy, wild and free.
I have not been the perfect mother. But when I look at her and how she is, I know that I am lucky. I know that I am so very incredibly lucky to have been selected to be hers. Everyone calls her my mini me, but I am pretty sure that I had much less to do with who and how she is than people give me credit for...she has a grace and way of being that I admire and aspire to be...not the other way around.
I guess all of this adds up to how wonderful life is when you get to raise your best friend. When one of the closest people to you is your own kid. And you know that even though she is going to leave soon and strike out on her own, I know that this foundation we have built together with the horses is something that will remain forever.
Good luck today G$ and Odin the Valhalla God! You got this. Let’s bring home some more blue for your wall. And as for me, I am just going to be there soaking it up and in and reveling in this amazing combination of grace under pressure. Literally.
Again, still.
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