Do you want a therapy-session with Padrino, asked one of my superwoman girlfriends who volunteers at Fay’s Ranch to walk the resident, retired trail horses, on the border of Arikok park.
Sure, I will try anything, I said.
Seriously, she said, he forms a strong connection with his patients, gently inhaling the bad energy and the noise from their aura and releasing it into nature to be cleansed, and refreshed. You will feel an immediate atavistic bond with his warm breath, soft muzzle, and the little brrrr sounds he makes when he lifts the invisible weight off your shoulders and hands it back to the universe.
I went.
The massage table was placed under a tree, in the shade, so I could lie down comfortably, at Padrino’s chest level. The place is a garden of Eden of the deserty kind, in need of rain, but gorgeous. Tall cactus, loud birds, the fully rested and recuperated post-covid19 national park is peaceful and alive.
Padrino, a 17-year-old therapy-horse, is elegant and muscular with a sculpted chest and a crest of long chestnut brown hair, arched eyebrows, big round eyes, a slightly indented muzzle with prickly black bristle-like hair. I know all that because he placed his head above mine, and serenely inspected my neck, my forehead, my chest.
I felt his bristles tickle. His breath came to me like intermittent streams of warm, sweet air. He extended his lips to carefully taste my tee-shirt.
Brrrr
In horse-language that means relax. Then he clacked his chicklet teeth. He was releasing the clutter in my head.
You have to let go, he said.
I opened my eyes.
He was talking to me. I heard it clearly, as the day is long.
But Padrino, I whispered, the teachers at Colegio are under immense board-pressure, where is their capable and experienced rector? Why doesn’t the universe provide them with one? Teachers aren’t supported, they are in conflict with the board.
It’s all buzzing incessantly in my head
And the doctor who lost 4,000 pap tests at the hospital‘s central lab is still a free person
And they are building illegally in Savaneta, bungalows on the water, with above ground septic tanks, cutting the mangroves down
And Sada, Simar and Spa, show zero goodwill, sticking to their traditional opposition roles instead of understanding
And there is poverty in Aruba, hundreds of unwed young mothers with babies and no resources
And we have no PG, no General Prosecutor, to investigate potential white-collar crimes… and 2,000 more rooms will be added to the mix, within the next years, we need those like a hole in our head.
I paused, the avalanche. And this is my list from just one day, I whimpered.
Brrrr…. Padrino uttered and rubbed his hind hoofs together.
He wants you to roll over, said superwoman.
I did. I couldn’t wait what he had to say.
Padrino went quiet for a while, his breath came to me like intermittent streams of warm, sweet air. Then he told me, there was just too much going on in my noodle. These are all opportunities for improvement and change, he explained, nothing is forever, it all ebbs and flows and today’s disaster is tomorrow’s vague recollection, do what you can, he said, and the universe will take care of the rest.
Faith, my child, he sighed, you need to have more faith.
Brrrr
