Horses and Hounds

I've been in a reflective mood lately. Perhaps it's my age. Maybe it's the fact that I'm now menopausal (medically induced but still violent and caustic). Who knows? Whatever the cause or reason, I find myself reflecting on choices and decisions I've made in my life. Funny thing about my personal choices, they seem to have subconsciously always guided me toward the life I have today.

For as long as I remember, my life was interwoven with Horses and Hounds. My grandfather raised hounds- black and tan coon-variety. His dogs were prized by both himself and my father. By today's standard, they lived a rural, rustic, harsh life. But their kennels were off-limits to children and that created a sense of reverance for me about the great hounds who lived outside my house. Vague memories of an ancient severe man gently assisting the female of the pair whelping her puppies float to my mind in the way that vague memories do. By the hushed tones of the adults around me, and the gentle way he tended to the newborns, I knew that these must be special animals.

Then there was the pony. I was about 3 years old and my father set me upon her back. Her name was Peppy and she was a loudly splashed brown and white Shetland with wild hair and a naughty look. She walked alongside him and I clung to her tangle of mane with tiny hands. We walked together, just the three of us into a large field. I remember that it felt like we were escaping- we were so far from my familiar home. At that moment, I learned that Horses heralded freedom, escape, and independence.

There were others in the years that followed: Frisky, the feeble Chihuahua; Scamp, the German Shepherd; Ronnie, the pony who no one else wanted. It is interesting to me that I still feel the same today as I did in my earliest memories- reverance, freedom, beauty. It is little wonder that I chose paths in my life which allowed me to experience these things daily. My reflective self wonders if my little 3 year old self wasn't guiding me all along?