Wrangler Dani

The air feels like it remembers snow, like it’s reciting recipes for winter under its breath. My hands are cold within a few minutes in the post-sunset darkness, and I instinctively burrow them under my horse’s mane, a solid, warm place in frosty weather. The grass is cropped, starting to take on the half-green, half-brown, tousled look of fall – there are a few patches of tall grass which apparently neither horses nor cows find enticing, I’ll have to figure out why.

Soon there won’t be any grass to speak of, and I’ll be burrowing my hands into saved, dried grass from the long summer days, tied with string and stacked neatly in our barn, gathered in armloads and tossed to appreciative nickers. I wonder if the stalks remember the sun they were born in, if that memory is what lends the sweet smell. Hay sounds so quaint when you describe it this way, to most farmers and barn-owners it’s a given, not a thing to be wondered over or marveled at, described anew.

I’ve been thinking about hope, lately. It’s caused me to think about seeing the world afresh with delight and wonder, and about persevering with pragmatic, inexhaustible belief in something more. I think that both perspectives have to do with hope, but I am recognizing that hope isn’t some fluffy sweetness and it’s not simply gritting teeth and getting through. It’s not cute, it’s not simple, it’s not the sort of thing we can put on a coffee mug and make it so (although I suppose we should question all the hashtag deep things we put on t-shirts and mugs and endeavor to convince ourselves of.)

Hope, I think, is a bit like the deep fall, the mid-October to mid-November crush of frost and wind, when the last stubborn leaves fly off the trees and you forget your ice scraper because a few weeks ago it was 70 degrees. You recall lake days and backyard bar-be-ques, but you see the film of ice form on a water trough in the wee morning hours and you know those afternoons are truly behind us. It’s a bit sad, because all the fluster and commercialism of fall was a while back, Hobby Lobby is already stocked for Christmas and Valentine’s, I assume. There’s no more school supplies to buy, your pumpkin on the porch might freeze.

But in this deep fall there is a unique beauty. We prepare to butcher beef and a pot of chili simmers on the stove. My horses snort puffs of grey steam, it’s not white yet, it’s not yet bitterly cold. My husband’s Carhartt smells like pine tar and wood smoke, he comes in and runs his rough hands over mine in a welcome caress, he brings crisp air in with him from outside. Hope hunkers down, it puts soup on and pets horses and goes for a walk before the sunlight leaves for good. Hope knows that this is only the beginning of darkness, that we are about to enter a quiet and cold season, one that crackles and whistles in contrast to the warm, soft embrace of summer sun. But hope finds beauty in the rumpled grass of autumn pastures, the long sunrises of frightfully cold October mornings. Hope doesn’t give in to cheap tricks for happiness, hope doesn’t tune out or check out, hope sees the world as it is and chooses to rejoice anyway.

Hope is the reality of choosing laughter, of knowing that for every beautiful smiling image there are thousands of hard photos never taken. But it doesn’t relish that thought – such a mean streak could never be Hope! Hope sees those undocumented melt-downs and tantrums and tearful car-rides (not counting the ones with my toddlers, these are just me, ha) and lays a hand on my back with a “oh but would you look at that!” Because I have never seen the mountains so clearly as in deep fall: fresh with new snow, strutting proudly above the clouds like sophisticated ladies baring their shoulders. The pulsing warmth of my horse’s neck is welcome in this weather, as is his friendly nicker and muscled frame, which bears me anywhere, which glories in a chance to sweat and work together in the mountains, as though he knows that time is short and snow will fly soon.

Hope believes that winter is beautiful and that summer will come again. But more than that, Hope believes that fall is good, even beyond the cute cartoon scarecrows and the pumpkin spice everything. Hope knows that it’s easy to settle for an imitation, for positivity or wishful thinking or good vibes, but that, like all momentary things, those pass away, leaving us wanting. So Hope does better than distract – it endures through frosty mornings and long nights, though my toes are cold and my lips are chapped, hope gently takes my face and says, look! see! – don’t miss the beauty of the in-between, the poetry of the mundane.