Home Again

I went home today.  Not home as in "Idaho", though.  Home as in "Pony Barn". 

The number of staff present at the ranch swells every day, and with only a few weeks until the Summer Season is in full sway, it was time to reopen the pony barn. The ponies and other critters haven't arrived yet, so I spent the morning moving water troughs out of storage, cleaning helmets, and soaping saddles. 

When I got dressed, I stuffed my mp3 player into my pocket so that I could have some music while I worked.  But when I sat down to polish the tack and turned the music on, it made me feel strangely out of sorts.

So I turned it off and listened to the natural music that always surrounds me at the pony barn: birds of every feather sang a varied chorus as they flew above my head. The sun-bleached branches of the dead windbreak trees gave voice to the wind.  Muffled, echo-y voices from the tent and maintenance crews drifted by me.

I turned my face up towards the sun and let it warm my eyelids.  The breeze busily braided the tips of my hair. A hummingbird buzzed inches from my nose and nearly gave me a heart attack.

Already, I am sad to think of leaving this place in August.  I know it does no one any good to dread an inevitable future, but this is my home--more so than any place ever has been before. And silly as it might make me look, I am going to savor every moment.  Every wind-whisper.  Every melodic Oriole. 

And I will let the sun burn the memory of this place into my skin until I am as brown as the locals.  For someday, someday I will be one of them.