Mateo and Twilight in the Snow

Here is the only other photo I have of Mateo, I took both photos on the same day.

It was snowing, ( in the picture this was a moment before the snow started to fall, the photo of Twilight was taken about three minutes after the picture of Mateo) and with the snow came that spectacular silence that makes one feel like they are the only person on the earth.

The flakes were thick and shapeless, and blew across the landscape in a chaotic swirl, which gave them a life of their own like fairies almost. This was the first snow Mateo and Twilight had experienced at Bishops. The clouds looked painted in the sky an unmoving canvas of grey with lines of black, the shadows caught between the clouds. The sage brush transformed from the grey ragged bush to a carefully trimmed and sculpted  art, with tiny delicate blue leaves arching away from a dark mahogany trunk. The only beings that moved were the horses. Adam carefully moving his charges, Elfie, Carita, Twilight, and Mateo into the shelter of the crocked open shed, which appeared more like the rib cage of some great beast now and forever gone from the earth. Broken branches that sparsely littered the ground down the mountain side were suddenly bleached bones, a remembrance to the sacred silence that came with snow as a blessing and a curse. It was beautiful but with the slightest change of the wind it could turn deadly. Even the horse stood completely still for a time watching the snow fall to the ground, stirring ancient instinct to find shelter and warmth. Snow is a spell to them they react without thought, they just feel. They feel the need for shelter feel the caress of snow catching in their manes and alighting on their backs. Instinct tells them that this softness that touches them with the lightness of a feather can quickly change to the harshness of a dagger freezing them and bleeding them dry of warmth. In this moment however the snow is calm and the horses stray only a few feet away from welcoming shelter to feel it and watch it change the landscape, cleanse it into a white land clean of all prints, smells, and marks that would have made it familiar. As far as the horses are concerned this land that they have grazed on, wandered on and raced upon is foreign now a new world that must be meticulously inspected inch by inch to become familiar once more. I of course feel nothing of this, I just see the potential, the beauty of the snow piling on the ground, a new slippery adventure that will make my noise run and turn my hands red, soak my jeans till they cling to me like my own skin.

Mateo and Twilight

I just stumbled upon a real treasure. I have found a photo of Mateo and Twilight, it is one of only two photos I have of Mateo. I took the pictures with an old phone that was unfortunately murdered by my washing machine. . .on its memory were countless videos, pictures, and notes about my earlier experiences with Twilight and Mateo, which have now been lost to the suds and murky depths of the washer much like many of the treasures from the Titanic were lost to the ocean. I did not think I had saved the photos anywhere else. Somehow two photos survived, I don't know why I saved these two on my computer and only these but, I am glad I did. I love finally having a solid memory, a real picture, since the memories of the mind are biased and illusive, and memories in ink and words can only convey so much.

Tightrope

   For months it felt like I was standing on a tightrope dangling above a city, if I even made the slights movement in the wrong direction, I would topple of the thin wire and crash onto the hard asphalt below. Every appointment with the pediatrician was a panic attack, would the scale tip in my favor? Or had I lost weight. And if I was lucky enough to gain, how could I prevent myself from losing it again? I was frustrated, I was just below my needed weight 110 lbs. but I just could not reach it! I begged and begged for leniency but never got it. I can't recall what my diet was like, what I did and didn't eat but finally, one day I went the the pediatric office, and I weighed in a 111.
   The very next day I had my mom take me up to see the horses I had missed so much. I felt like a child going out for ice cream, squealing every few seconds for absolutely no reason at all, and jabbering away about how much I had missed them, wondering if Mateo had grown, how Tylo was doing.
We pulled into Bishops and I flew into the barn startling the horses. Very little had changed, if anything I could see nothing different but it still felt strange to be back. I had fallen out of the motion of horse life, a coat of unfamiliar strangeness was on everything that used to be as easy as breathing.
  Tylo and Mateo did not recognize me, and did not come towards me when I called to them. I was impressed by their improvement. Mateo was filling out into a very healthy muscular build, his spindly legs were still a little to long, but they had become stronger than before, the angular bones had filled in with muscles and fat. Tylo was starting to fill out, her back was still swayed, her shoulder's met in a peak above the rest of her sunken back and sloped up again to where her spine connected to her sharp withers. She still looked twenty instead of nine but there was improvement. A dim light was present in the dusty tired mare, she raised her head when I approached and awkwardly danced away. She was still a ghost but a faint glimpse of horse was beginning to show through.
 I went and grabbed a halter and lead rope and took both Tylo and Mateo into the small wooden stall. We crowded together, Mateo still pushy and demanding and Tylo still shifting away when I tried to pick her hooves clean but it was nice to be embraced by the smell of horses again and to feel their warm bodies moving under my hands and bumping into my torso. I had made it across the tightrope, and back into the bliss of horses that I had missed so much.