Road apples. Horse poop. Round droplets of digested grass. One would think something more desirable than animal feces would bring back a flood of delightful childhood memories for the average person. But then again, I have never claimed to be average.
Before my family moved out to the fringes of the country, my third grade class studied the Nez Perce Indians. Mrs. Keller showed one of those old reel-to-reel educational films about the great Chief Joseph and the flight of his people to the Canadian border. As the film clickered and flickered on the screen, I became captivated with some graceful creatures with spots on their rumps called Appaloosas, a signature of the Nez Perce. I had begged my parents for a horse from the time I was three, but now I knew exactly what I wanted - an Appy mare named Duchess. How I thought of the name Duchess, I don’t know; but I knew it was perfect - the perfect name for the perfect horse.
It wasn’t until I turned ten years old that my Duchess leaped out of my dreams into spectacular reality. My parents purchased an abandoned Victorian farmhouse built around the turn of the century. I wouldn’t care until later that the house did not have indoor plumbing and that the only source of heat was a beat-up wood stove. Daddy promised if we ever moved onto some acreage, I could have my heart’s desire, so all that mattered was that this old place came with its very own pasture just the right size for a horse to frolic in.
Things were tough growing up. My home life was a wreck, and school wasn’t any better. To this day, I don’t know which was worse, the upset at home or the torture I suffered at school at the hands of my cruel classmates. My only salvation was riding my spotted fantasy. I transformed into a cowgirl, a jockey, a indian girl, anything or anybody but me each mystical moment I spent flying through the air as Duchess’s swift hooves pounded the ground with magnificant power beneath me.
My favorite memories are of the nights I rode bare-back looking up into the majestic sky filled with thousands of twinkling stars, while the warm summer breeze kissed my face. I pretended to be a princess of some distant far away kingdom filled with art, beauty, and elegance. If I was lucky, on some nights, for a single fleeting moment, I even felt The Monarch of Heaven looked upon my wretched soul with tenderness and compassion and that the entire universe was my inheritance.
Looking back, I realize Duchess was a guardian angel. I rode her everywhere and she loved me unconditionally. She gave me comfort, and more than once I cried my ten-year-old eyes out as I smothered my face into the caresses of her slender neck while her nudges of encouragement and lullaby nickers soothed my emotional heartaches. I would have died inside if it had not been for that horse. She was my life line, my shelter, and most of all, she was my dearest childhood friend.
Yesterday, as I rode my bike up “River Run” as Mr. Big and I like to affectionately call the bike trail up the Columbia River Gorge, I dodged several piles of horse droppings. When bitter-sweet memories of my growing up years flooded the deep recesses of my heart, I realized how Road Apples are the appropriate symbol of my childhood. What may seem like crap to the rest of the world, is really evidence of something beautiful, perhaps even… enchanted.
I’m so glad you had Duchess.
