Eleven years later, in the midst of pandemic and the loss of many of her beloved animals, Scully takes stock in "Horsemanship And Life: A True Story" ($21.95 in paperback at barnesandnoble.com, published by Spinning Sevens Press).
In 73 short chapters, each with a key quote and photograph, Scully has written a realistic and yet stubbornly optimistic book that will find a treasured place in a reader's heart.
She and husband Pat live on a multigenerational farm in Northern California. Scully notes that 11 is "77 in dog years … when people ask how long Pat and I've been married … it's been 196."
"I would never have imagined the journey before me," she writes; "a journey of wreck, wonder, and recovery, filled with lessons learned from horses, dogs, birds, and even cats." In getting a second chance at life, she has "learned the beauty of brokenness; of how letting go of my expectations and in embracing vulnerability, I'd find a new way to live…."
Interspersed throughout the book is the tale of Scully's new horse, True. "His head looks like it was dipped in warm milk chocolate, and his body explodes into roan and white and blue…." But True has a mind of his own.
"One of the most transformative horsemanship lessons I've (slowly) learned is work with the horse before you. Not the horse of your expectations, the horse of your imagination, not the horse in your story, but the actual one you're with, in real-time."
And when the world seems too overwhelming, Scully offers words that came to her while doing chores: "Fire drought politics hate/ They're beyond my purview and beyond anything I can change, but I can water this tree./ I can save crickets./ I can dust around spiders./ I can pray."
