Dirt roads and beer bottles

I grew up in a rural area. Dirt roads, horses and Goliath oak trees mingle in my memory with the scraped knees and laughter of childhood. I spent afternoons picking alfalfa to give to the horses that bordered us on two sides. To this day Alfalfa is one of my favorite smells. Instant good childhood memories. Some days I wish I had a bouquet of it.

Of the horses that came and went in the fields around us there was a mare that my dad bonded with more then the rest. I loved to go visit her with him. As a kid I was always standing a ways back, intimidated by her size and beauty. They were old friends, my dad and that horse. He would stroke her neck, clean the bugs out of her ears, even lean far over the fence and rub her belly. I remember thinking once that it looked like a dance. The way the two moved around each other, even with the fence in between. She had a foul that year, and even that hadn't changed much.

Like a million times before I ran after my dad to go visit her that day. The first realization that anything was wrong was the ten metal stitches just below the mare's ear. My dad explained that she had been attached a few days before. Some drunk kids had staggered past and tried to mess with her foul. When the mare stepped in the way they had hit her with one of their glass beer bottles. I remember how horrible the stitches looked. But I remember her behavior more. She was a different horse.

I learned the definition of gun shy that day. For the half an hour we were there, my dad and that mare danced. But this was a new dance. The first time she tried to bite him I took a big step back and asked why she had changed. My dad explained that she was simply scared. But he was more stubborn then her fear. Every time she startled backwards, he would wait patiently for her to inch back to the fence. Every time she tried to bite him he would push her head away and go back to gently stroking her. By the time we walked home I wasn't sure who I was more amazed at, him or the mare. My dad went back more days then not, reteaching a friend what safe people looked like.

Some days, I feel like that mare.

I remember watching my dad raise his hand to stroke the mare's face that day. Watching the panic fill her eyes. Watching her scramble back a few steps to get out of reach from what she was sure was danger. I have found myself in that position more then once recently. Suddenly standing ten feet from a friend, trying to find the weapon I am sure I caught a glint from out of the corner of my eye. Realizing instead it was an innocent statement, or a simple miss step. The hard season is over. Almost all of the visible scars have healed. Life is again good. But I keep thinking of that mare. Reminding myself that trust in anything takes longer to heal then the wounds that break it.