Tamise

As I walk along the ocean this morning, I start to think of my own steps, I expect them to calm the strange feeling—a mix of anxiety and nervousness— that has engulfed all my thoughts for the past few days. Listening to the noise my shoes make on the path reminds me of the slow walk of the old mare Tamise on the road after an afternoon of hoeing. She was a quiet, smart, stubborn mare on the farm. The recreated memory of her measured pace comforts me, and perhaps even more the fact that she accepts to be bound to me by the rope of her bridle which I hold by old reflex but which she does not need to find the trough and her stall.