For my daughter
I told you years ago.
You have not forgotten.
Neither have I.
You were already riding then. Small ponies first. Lessons. Balance. The first moments when you understood that an animal much larger than you would listen if you learned how to speak to it properly.
I came to watch.
I saw the first steps. Then the first real confidence. The first gallops.
I saw the falls too. The tears. The moments when it hurt.
And then I watched you climb back on.
What I remember most is your face around horses. You are simply happy. Completely happy.
The beginning
I Watched You Learn
It has been four or five years since I made that promise. At the time, you were taking lessons and I was watching you progress.
You never needed me to tell you to love horses. That part came from you.
Even in Meski, when you see one of the neighbours' horses, you want to go closer. You want to touch it. You want to stay near it.
You have loved Meski too. That matters.
Because slowly, the two things joined in my mind.
Meski.
And a horse of your own.
The link
I Do Not Want to Give You
Only a Horse
I want to give you a memory.
Something real. Something that belongs to you. Something you can carry for the rest of your life.
My Meski came to me through childhood. Through my grandfather. My father. My grandmother's house. The rooms. The well. The family. The sounds. The things I did not know I would miss until much later.
You cannot have that same Meski. It was mine. It belonged to another time.
But you can have your own.
Your Meski
Perhaps It Begins with a Horse
I imagine you arriving in Meski and knowing there is an animal waiting for you.
Not a horse you ride for one afternoon. Yours.
You would have to care for it. Feed it. Check on it. Learn its moods. Learn what it accepts and what it refuses.
You would go to see it every time you came back.
Maybe, years later, someone would say Meski and one of the first things you would remember would be that horse.
That is the memory I want to give you.
What passes from one generation to another
My Grandfather.
My Father.
Me.
You.
I do not think every generation has to repeat the one before it.
My grandfather left his mark on Meski. My father did too. He built, planted and continued.
I carry memories from both of them.
I often ask myself what I will leave you.
Maybe part of the answer is not an object kept in a box.
Maybe it is a place. An animal. A routine. A memory that becomes yours because you lived it.
That is why the horse and Meski have become one idea for me.
The part I cannot pretend away
I Have Not Done It Yet
I wish I had.
Money is the only thing stopping me. That is the truth.
I will do everything I can to make it happen. Maybe it will not be the black Arabian I imagine. Maybe it will be another horse.
But I want to keep the promise.
You still mention it. You laugh about it. You remind me.
I laugh too.
But every time time passes and I have still not been able to do it, it hurts me a little.
Because I know you remember. And because I remember exactly what I meant when I said it.
If you read this one day
My Princess
I hope, by then, I have kept my word.
But if you read this before I have, I want you to know something.
Those words were never words I said just to make you happy.
I meant them.
I have always loved watching you ride. I loved seeing the first lessons, the falls, the tears, the gallops, and especially the smile that came back every time you were near a horse.
I still want to see you with your own horse in Meski.
Not because I want you to repeat my memories.
Because I want you to build yours.
One day, I will give you a horse.