Scars and Stripes

All of these lines across my face

Tell you the story of who I am

So many stories of where I've been

And how I got to where I am

But these stories don't mean anything

When you've got no one to tell them to

It's true...I was made for you

- Brandi Carlile

Our scars are a part of who we are. We may not like them, we may think they are ugly or deforming. Or we may think they show character. Most likely we forget that we have them. They can become such a part of our makeup that we no longer remember that they are there. The scars, however, are simply the reminders of how we got them.

I realized recently that my horses have a lot of scars. But I kind of like them. It tells a story, and in many cases, the story of how they came to me. Lucy has some scars on her front shoulder from apparently “leading a wild escape” with the rest of the foals through the fence as a baby. I don’t really know if it was all her idea, but I wouldn’t doubt it. Because of her wounds, and her sweet attitude, she was brought home by a loving lady, and eventually came to me. The wounds healed, and she eventually learned about fences.

Bucky has a similar set of scars on his hind legs from getting caught up in fencing as a baby. I always wonder whether this injury caused him to become the pacer that he is (he prefers to do a lateral moving gait rather than trot). It is curious how our scars may change us, or make us who we are. Yet somehow the change doesn’t seem dramatic, rather just like the tissue growing around the wound, and then eventually fading into our skin, it just becomes a part of us that we hardly recognize where or how it came into being. Bucky also has a nice moon shaped scar on his rear that you can read about in Roll With Resistance.

Ziggy has scars on his knee from his racetrack blowout. It ended his career, but I don’t think it was his passion anyway. He much prefers to use his healing energy (which maybe he gained during his layup) to help his friends, human and equine.

My friend Zeta looks relatively scar free, apart from a band of white hair across her nose where the halter sits. This is likely from her spending many wild years as a broodmare, with little attention, and a halter plastered to her face, because she was “hard to catch”. But this little scar is a great lesson for many boys and girls where she works (as well as myself) of learning to trust, responding to body language, and how to ask politely.

I have a few scars as well, some have stuck around for many years, and some become invisible. But its what happens that causes the scars that says something. It may not even be a thing you can put your finger on. It may say something about who you are, it may mean that you do something differently next time. It may mean that there is permanent damage,  physical or emotional. Somehow, as we are building our lives, scars become part of the brick and mortar. They are tributes to our choices, ways of being, weaknesses, strengths, and our ability to heal. They are part of who we are, reminders of where we have come from, and where we are going.