Dar, the horse I probably should never be.
I was in love with Dar. Not at first. At first, I just thought he was everything that Scout wasn't. A young gelding still finding himself, not too much bad training to undo, not hot or spooky. Kind of a bonehead compared to her snap-judgment mind. A slow, heavy mover compared to her stiff, steppy speediness. In him I saw an exciting potential to begin again. If there can be such a thing as a "rebound" horse, then he was that for me, I guess. Of course, I say that now, as though it were a wise insight. It isn't. It's what I say to justify giving him back, to help my heart keep on shrugging him off.
I believe I idealize what we had in common. I think I projected more onto him than any other horse I've had in my life. It's almost funny to me now, since I was so certain I wasn't choosing him from an emotional place, not after Scout. What I actually did might have been worse. I chose him from a place of longing.
Dar had a lot of inner anger. He often expressed it through a sullen attitude. Unfortunately, the same can be true of me. Still, he was very curious about the world around him, just like me. We could both satisfy our curiosity to the point of being pushy and intrusive, barging our way into whatever we wanted to investigate. Sometimes curiosity is little more than a way to measure the lay of the land if one is fearful. That's true for me, but not him. He was not fearful.
Dar had a big physicality, lacking in grace. He was oaf-like, but could occasionally produce an energy that made him thrilling to watch. I also lack physical grace, except maybe in my hands. I can have a mind energy, though, that friends have told me can be thrilling to watch.
Soon after I got Dar, I realized that he carried a hard attitude deep within himself. He reminded me of how I was during a time in my life when I struggled to stop being bitter. It took me years to escape from that place; it was a fight I had to wage with myself. I thought I could help Dar do the same thing. It's that old thing of fixing another thing to fix yourself, dangerous, alluring, and almost always doomed to fail. I thought "fixing" Dar would finally put my strength in my own hands, bring it out of the private place where I keep it. I thought we would be strong together, that one day I'd be able to say, I won this horse away from his inner demons and now he has carried me away from mine.
Next installment: Saxony
4 comments:
This series of blogs are really coming from your heart and I suspect must be a little difficult to write. I have to admit, I miss Dar. I loved his size and goofy side. Really tough decision to give him back, but the right one.
Wolfie, thank you for saying you think I was right to give him back. It helps me somehow that someone who never met Dar and only knew him through my stories and pictures thinks it was the right decision. It means I wasn't spinning the truth enough to delude myself. I appreciate your thoughts.
Dar is a handsome guy but if you felt like you and he didn't exactly click then you made the right decision to give him back. Not every horse we want is the horse we need.
If Saxony is you as a friend then Dar is you at work. When working you show no fear. You do what must be done and you do it with finesse. You are, it's true, pushy and curious yet you certainly have a graceful energy when it comes to ferreting out fact from fiction. Your mind never rests.
Dar is also stubborn, it takes a lot to dissuade him from something he has made up his mind is reality. If he does not want to do it - he won't. To work with him you have to earn his trust and first, make him want to do the task.
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