I own nothing. I'm also trying my best. Accessing my inner, amazing, apocalyptic Asian/Glenn.
I walk through the gate of freshly-painted white fences. Gleaming and recreated, they smell of chemicals and beautiful futures, and I immediately imagine the toddling of buoyant heads peeking over the pickets. Young humans, touching and pushing and romping without fear or disturbance. The fences are good, and I lower my brow to think of an appropriate smile. Subtle and submissive. Respectful. The fences are white, and they are going to stay that way because I will it. Because through brick walls and streams of blood, I could recognize love and possibility and the mutuality between beginning and end. I put a light finger on the ridge of one fence panel and linger, eventually walking towards my porch stairs with an understandably white finger. I want it that way. I leave that way.
Whinny. That's the designated assignment I had volunteered for today. Project Whinny, a title taken for granted, named sarcastically in place of a palomino horse living on the outskirts of wooded Alexandria. It's really beautiful where Whinny was, under blooming pink trees and on vibrant, untouched grasses. I could see an extension out there, a new neighborhood, where Maggie and I could live prosperously and authoritatively, her forte personality governing a whole new outbranch. I get ahead of myself. But I see it, I see another safe-zone and more, I see my Michigan and I see reborn families. I aspire to become a chance because in all truth, I already am. I'm just a scouting, searching chance. And Maggie and I mold into a chance together.
But for today, it was just a horse. A blonde, skittish horse named Whinny. Alongside some determined men and Daryl, a potential animal whisperer, we brought Whinny back to ASZ, corralled inside a tiny fencing, exciting the neighborhood. A horse is life- a horse is real, and Whinny represents inexplicable amounts of freedom. It's a horse, yeah, but it's a horse with four feet for walking.
Whinny was mostly safe, however. After nearly two years, we cleared out the surrounding woodlands and swamps, the nearest road, and some of the highway. It wasn't a nasty sight to begin with, but we secured it. We are exterminating the corrupt with fast fears and growing hope, and it seems to be working.
Driving. Running. Travelling. Closing eyes. These vast luxuries are happening. Cloture. Maggie and I, the fiery chance, allowing a vulnerable jewel to open her arms, to breathe in the ruins that once were. To have guns undrawn, knives unsheathed. To bask in changing weather and seasons. To step on hot gravel and flinch and not care. To maybe scream a little louder because this Earth has tasted too much death. To join an unknowing life in learning, in ameliorating what we knew.
To hold this life and embrace her in succinct admiration, waves of hysteria, and unillustrated dedication. To know this chance that we were made this. To know we quiver wordlessly around the world's tiniest hands, to cry and unfold at her foreign, glowing glances. To know chance can be lost, but she will be better. To know good things go.
To know that some circumstances are unfixable. That reversibility is an idealistic standard. To know that white fences bend, white fences break, white fences turn grey. To know that one day, I will not hold back.
Her name was Grace. The fences are black.