Twenty

Rituals of a Wound

Every day Comet’s wound begins to scab over and every day I hose the scab away—think of a marshmallow roasted in the fire just long enough to form a crust that you then pull off, the sticky goo put back in the fire and roasted again. It feels a bit counterproductive—every day the healing that Comet’s body undergoes is taken away. But when I compare the wound to the picture I took a few weeks ago, I can see that the flesh is a lighter pink now, also pebbled, less oozy though still raw.

As the days go by, I realize I’ve come to enjoy the practice of getting up and going out to hose Comet. The fresh exuberance of morning is hard to ignore. When I was a teenager I’d sleep in on the weekends and my dad would always admonish me for missing the best part of the day. Dad, I now know what you meant. Even on the worst days, when it’s rainy or I haven’t slept well, I can feel my body doing little jumps for joy at the aesthetic pleasure of morning, seeing the grass getting greener, the lilacs flowering, the fleece flower, lupines, daisies and columbines getting lusher, everything bursting with life, morning exposing the core of it.

I have established a routine. Out of bed at 6:00 a.m., I slip into whatever work clothes are at hand, go downstairs and put the kettle on to boil, grind the coffee beans and then put on my coat and gumboots, out the door, across the lawn past the lilac trees, down the slope of the yard to the Quonset, hose Comet, Fura-Zone, Swat, then to the farther corrals, ducking under the fence, through the grassy area that leads to where I feed Comet, the repetition of my route packing down my trail around an anthill, through the quack grass, around a wild rose bush to the hay bales.

When my children were little, we had traditions, things we did on birthdays and at Christmastime, rituals I now look back on with nostalgia and longing. As if I became who I was through the rituals I’d learned, and now, having lost those traditions, I feel lost, bewildered.

Many rituals are borne out of necessity. “What works, survives,” says Wayne. The practices that prove successful are the ones that continue on into the future. There are many habits turned ritual on the trail and nearly all of them are there to make the work efficient. When we come into camp, there is a certain sequence repeated every day, after we tie up our saddle horses. Our first task is to unpack the pack horses. We put the panniers in a row, the gear in its respective spots—bridles hung on a tree, saddles placed on their backs, stacking one on top of the other. Once the pack horses are unpacked and each one is hobbled and turned loose, we do the same with the saddle horses, each rider doing his or her own. Then the cooking gear is unpacked, someone lights a fire, someone else goes for water, and once the kettle is on the grate and the cook’s happy, then and only then do people disperse to put up their tents. This particular sequence is the most efficient way of setting up camp and getting supper started so you have time to enjoy the evening and relax without having to cook in the dark. The repetition becomes a kind of mantra, and it is comforting not only in its familiarity but because it works, it’s efficient—saddles off, people fed.

The route I take to see Comet becomes a trail because it gets me to the horse and to the hay bales the quickest. Walking the trail each morning has given rise to a kind of comfort. Wayne will say that in the mountains he likes his trails—they reassure him that he’s in the right place, give him something to follow. Most of the time he is following game routes, but sometimes he makes his own way. It’s possible that this changes the habits of moose and caribou and bears, animals that might use Wayne’s way instead. Particle physics claims that every time we are observed we are changed, and that we change others just by observing them. Perhaps a standard by which to assess the impacts of change, whatever it might be, is to determine whether or not that change alters our own routines, our own efficiencies.

I can see that my interactions with Comet are changing him. When he sees me coming, his ears perk up. He has grown used to the routine, to the treats I offer while I spray water on him, the oats I bring when we’re done. And he knows that between the end of rinsing and bringing out the oats, I have to apply ointments and fly repellent to his wound. In the beginning, after I’d finished hosing, I would tie him up to the fence and then go pick up the Fura-Zone and Swat where I’d set them on the ground. Now, when the hosing’s done, I take Comet’s halter off and leave him standing freely. He stands and waits for me to return with the ointments. Only when they’ve been applied does he head toward the Quonset and stand inside, waiting in expectation of oats.

And our interactions have changed me. I think of him when I’m not there. I think of the wound and how it feels when I place the palm of my hand against it, the way the heat transfers to my hand and sometimes, also, how it leaves a thin etching of blood. I think of Comet’s mane and tail, how it feels to brush the knots away, I think of the places where he likes to be rubbed, places he can’t easily reach, the velvet hollow where his back legs meet his belly. My perception of him has changed. I’ve learned that he can be pushy for attention and a little stubborn. I’ve learned he can be arrogant and strong, but that he is never as strong as he thinks he is. I talk to him. “Comet, did you know that at the Royal Ascot, if you want to sit in the Royal Enclosure you have to wear a headpiece big enough to qualify as a hat, not a fascinator? Which means the headpiece has to be bigger than ten centimetres. Your wound is much bigger, but ten centimetres is still pretty big for a glorified barrette. Oh, there is fascination everywhere. Rolla in the summer is a bit of a carnival, have you noticed? People arrive on their way to the mountains and people arrive on their way back down and lots of them want to look at you, and when Wayne calls, he always asks how we are.”

When people stop on their way up, I give them letters for Wayne with pictures of Comet’s wound. When the guests return, they bring notes back. Last week, in a bag of Wayne’s laundry, I found a thick curl of birch bark. With a felt marker, Wayne had drawn a heart with an arrow through it, and inside the heart, he’d written our initials.