Dropped Threads 3 Read Online Free Page B

teenager. I rode on and off until I moved to Toronto at age twenty-three to follow my creative muse. When I discovered how broke the muse was, I was forced to repress my equine passions for over twenty years. But every time I saw a police officer ride by on one of those splendid mounts, my breath stopped and I felt a yearning so powerful it was like mourning a lost soul mate.
    •    •    •
    I think now I finally understand what’s going on with me: animals are my conduit to the natural world. In their presence I get out of my frenetic, neurotic human brain, out ofmy messy, bewildering emotions, and I connect with my animal self. I stop thinking, and start to just be. As meditation is supposed to do (but I wouldn’t know …
yawn … snore …
) animals keep me in the present, because that’s where they live, inhabiting fully each ticking second of time. Around animals, I stop fixating on the past. I stop fearing the future. I’m in the moment, where I’m able to somehow transcend ego, self and all my petty problems; I’m even able to stop obsessing over the human condition with its incomprehensible pain and evil. And that’s as close as I get to being spiritual. Animals lead the way.
    And animals will save my life.
    Picture this: my sister is dying. My sweet, kind, beautiful, gentle sister, the person I love most in the world. Her imminent death, at forty-seven, will be the last in a chain of major losses. First, the man I’m living with, despite having declared commitment, walks out. Four months later, I lose my beloved mother; eight weeks later, my father dies. Four weeks after that, my sister is diagnosed with brain cancer. Five months later one of my aunts, who is also my godmother, dies. I feel as though I’m in a slow war, loved ones dying or going missing all around me. By now, everything that has ever given me joy—friends, books, good food, my music, my writing—is powerless to budge me even an inch out of my wild grief and suicidal depression.
    Except animals.
    As my sister’s illness progressed, as hope of her survival faded, animals became my lifeline. I had started riding again in my forties, so once a week I’d leave the city for the surrounding farmland. I didn’t have my own horse yet, so I rode other people’s—skittish young creatures that liked to buck and shy and bolt. In order to stay on I had to stop thinking about my grief. I had to stop thinking, period, and focus,through my body, on each nuance of the horse’s mood, each twitch of muscle or sudden movement. At the same time, in that heightened Zen state of awareness, I experienced the world in stunning, sharp relief: the shapes of clouds scudding over the hills; the scent of fresh-cut hay; the sudden surprise of deer popping out from green shadows.
    The horses also gave me physical comfort. During that whole time of loss, except for the occasional hug or massage, no one touched me. I came to crave contact with the horses and their massive, gentle warmth. I loved the feel of their satiny bodies, their sweet, warm smell—the same smell I first inhaled in that dusty corral—and the way I could lean against them, surrendering my weight to their broad, breathing flanks. I loved that I could climb on and they would literally support me and carry me away.
    But I always had to return—home to dread and trying to imagine how I would live without my sister. When I entered my house, though, my other totem animal came to minister. My cats had no clue anyone had died or was dying, and it was business as usual on the feline planet. Even if I lay sobbing on the floor, they insisted I feed them, play with them, admire their elegant posturing. During that time I also fostered kittens for a rescue group, and sometimes I’d bring my sister over to the house for what I called kitten therapy. She was having seizures by then, we both knew it was hopeless, and yet, as a bunch of striped fluffballs tumbled about and slammed into each other