That's how my day started today. It didn't dawn (not for another three hours yet); it didn't ease into wakefulness. It splintered around me like a china plate smashing. Which is cool -- I love thunderstorms. And then I thought, The horses. Shit.
These are not my horses (sadly). They, like I, are boarders here. They get the barn and pasture, I get the house. Six of them -- the quarterhorses, minis, and pony -- belong to a lovely young woman named Rosa. The Arabian, Amira, belongs to Emily, a delightful nursing student in her early 20s. But since they're here and I'm here, I get to enjoy them, scratch their noses, and help look after them -- which means I get up at 6:30 every day to feed them and muck out five stalls. Yes, I'm still horse-crazy enough that mucking out stalls is actually cool :-)
Not, however, this morning. Lightning lances across the sky as I stomp into my boots at four a.m., shoving the laces down inside so I don't have to waste time tying them. The barn stands out in stark relief against the night sky in the sudden flare of light, and the first raindrops turn to silver streaks as they slant across my vision. I can hear the pony, Stormy, neighing frantically inside the barn, and hasten my steps as the sky opens above me and rain starts to pound down.
The storm is unexpected. The weather has been fair and clear, and so the big 'uns (Amira and the three quarterhorses: Sunny, Chi-Chi, and Ed) were left out for the night. It's this knowledge that makes me dash into the barn, throwing open stalls as I race for the back door...
Oops! Not so easy. Stormy is in Chi-Chi's stall, rather than with the minis where she belongs. First task -- get Stormy back into her stall. Easier said than done. The second I open the stall, the minis, Ace and Freedom, dash out. It's like chasing cats -- they scurry around the barn in a frenzy, little bundles of storm-worried energy that don't even quite come up to my hip. With the aid of a flake of hay, I herd them back into place, then slide open the back door of the barn.
Another flash of lightning sears the air, and rain streaks across my vision. Where are the horses? Not in the lean-to, as I expected. They're clustered together in the middle of the pasture, heads down, nostrils flaring. At my whistle, they streak toward the barn and crowd inside, milling in the open center with the same nervous tension that propelled the minis. Amira's eyes roll. Sunny dances in place, a thousand pounds of keyed-up muscle. Ed tosses his head, snorting. One by one, as the rain turns to clattering hail on the metal roof, I loop a rope around their necks and over their noses, guiding them back into their stalls.
More hay. Soft, murmured words. Lots of forelock strokes and scritches, and slowly they begin to settle. Emily shows up, dashing in frantically in her pajamas. I can see the tension drop away from her at the sight of Amira in her stall, still nervous and whinnying softly. She soothes Amira as I pet the others, and eventually they calm. Outside, thunder booms and rolls, gradually retreating as the storm marches west. One last clatter of hail rakes the roof, and the rain settles heavily into a steady, soothing drone. Emily, looking bleary, heads back home to bed. I stay for a while, sitting on the tack box with the barn cats in my lap, rubbing their ears and listening to the warm rumble of their purring.
The horses shift and whuffle, their muzzles buried in fresh, sweet hay. A peacefulness both deeper and more fragile than the early morning quiet I'm used to settles over us. There's a different quality to it -- a sense of something precious, something gained only through fear and effort and uncertainty. It's not the calm of home, of well-ordered familiarity, but of sudden sanctuary, sweet and unexpected.
It's the nature of humans to take things for granted, I think as I finally set the kitties down and take one last look around the barn. Health, love, safety...even life itself. Maybe it really is only when those things are threatened, or even lost, that we savor them the most deeply, recognizing them for what they truly are -- a gift, fragile and fleeting. I run through the rain, the heavy drops soaking me in seconds. When I reach my door I pause for a moment, shaking the rain from my eyes and looking back at the barn. The storm starts up again with a swift gust of wind that chills me to the bone. A sudden spear of lightning stabs the ground somewhere nearby, making me jump.
I don't care, though. Not about the lost sleep, or the shaky after-effects of adrenalin, or the cold tightening my skin into goose pimples as I stand there, letting the storm pelt me as it will. As far as I'm concerned, this morning couldn't be more perfect. As far as I'm concerned, any day that starts with horses is a good day.
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