THE RIDER
“He galloped up … his heels in the horses’ s ribs and it dancing and swirling like the shape of its mane and tail…” (William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying)
The articulation of passion and identity and self—and the loss of it all. At first.
The nightmarish return of haunting images of success. And failure.
Some turning point: the accident or event through which change brutally and relentlessly storms in, damages and destroys—taking off masks, ripping confidence and arrogance open, wounding and hurting.
The daily routine now altered by the unavoidable scar. The visible one, and the invisible one.
Yet, Brady gets to live, unlike the horse he had befriended. Another casualty of life and its rugged surface.
The love and gentleness of the simple-minded sister Lilly who puts paper stars on her sibling’s body when he is sleeping.
The friendship with other cowboys: their aspirations, endurance and fear. The terror and horror of the rodeo experience. And its addictive thrill and thrust.
The beloved horse Gus sold off, and the crazy horse Apollo who gets tamed—momentarily.
The admired friend Lance abandoned by luck, stranded in a place of no return, remapping the boundaries of heroism, probing into the unchartered territory of the power of the soul.
Life compelling you to re-design your priorities, and accept a new perimeter for your wanderings. The scope of a new wisdom, perhaps. And the shape of some eternity.
The final choice: self-less love for the loved ones, instead of the self-centered pursuit of a deadly illusion.
Letting go of the “before” to allow for the delivery of some “after”—however uncertain and unknown.
Finding happiness in the knowledge that you still have life, and in the awareness that your ability to dream lives on—undamaged.
Marie Liénard-Yeterian