I carry a photograph in my wallet of my father with a horse. It was taken on the day we went to an auction to buy a show horse for me. The day I turned ten years old. My father had bid on every horse, but sales records were made that day and most were priced out of our range. Caught up in the excitement of the auction though, my father put in the first bid on every horse. Finally he bid on one, and no one else did. Much to the horror of my Mother, and against what anyone would consider good judgment, he bought me a four year old Arabian Stallion.

Ibn Saka was a race horse with a pedigree two feet long and stamped with a gold seal beneath his name. Despite all that pageantry and tribal names spanning back to the desert he was a hard knock little horse whose true beauty was his belief in himself. He was good, and he managed to make me believe I was as good as he was.

The first time I rode him, at the track with my brand new saddle, he ran away with me. Flat took off, with my Father waving happily at me and a doubtful look on the face of the trainer. The trainer knew what was happening. My father simply believed I was the most wonderful rider in the world: “Look at her go!” sort of thinking. I managed to steer my new horse into a hurricane fence that ended my wild ride. As my father and the trainer raced toward me in a borrowed pickup, I got off, shaking, and thought ‘this is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me”. It would turn out to be just that.

My little stallion didn’t go over too well at 4-H shows and when I rode him in the senior parade, dressed as an Indian, he got in a fight with the Cowboy’s gelding and managed to get the Cowboy bucked off in front of the elementary school. The Cowboy, dumped to the ground, had the theatrics to lie there for a while, probably from shame. When the students wrote the senior class letters of thanks they all said “We loved it when the Indian shot the Cowboy”.

He went to college with me too – so to speak. His stud fees helped put me through school. This was a sacrifice for him, I’m sure, but he never complained. Saka once became smitten with a big, stout paint mare. She had a large shiny white rump and a thick swinging tail. She was twice the size of Saka.  You could always tell when she was being ridden down the road because you could hear Saka’s calls for miles around, lowering to a gentle deep nicker when she passed by him. No one knows how it happened or when, but the next year she sure had a fine looking colt that looked an awful lot like you-know-who.

Saka had a habit of throwing my would-be boyfriends. These hapless dates would watch me ride him with a halter and lead rope and puff up with self-confidence. I could not warn them away. Tacked up for these guys, Saka looked harmless enough.  I think he even tried to look a bit sheepish. A few turns around the ring later and he was bucking sky high, flopping the poor guys to the ground like so much useless cargo and snorting loudly over them as they coughed in his dust.

Despite this I did finally marry and moved to Arkansas. In the remote area where I was living an Arabian was thought of as someone in a robe. I heard a lot of disparaging remarks as I rode him and raced local cowboys. Not for long though. We trained by flying around the dirt roads in the mountains going so fast tears would stream from my eyes as I held on. There was not a horse in the county that could beat him. Once, when Saka was in his late teens, the losing cowboy came up to me and said “ I think it’s a shame the way you run that old horse” while his horse dripped with sweat and Saka pranced fresh as a daisy, looking for the next challenge.

Our shared adventures would color my life. Relationships came and went, friends moved away, I divorced. But there was always one constant I could count on. My old horse would life his head when he heard my voice, nicker, and run toward me so fast for a moment I would think he would fly right through me. It could make your heart beat fast, even if you knew he would always stop in time. Like looking dead in the eye and laughing. To ride him was to be part of the sky, and his smell was the perfume of the earth.

A father gives his daughter many things in life and I am grateful for all my father gave me: his humor, his thick head of hair and I like to think his charm. My father also gave me a horse. With that horse he gave me a lifetime of memories, a love of hard work, and the courage to do things I was afraid of. I had my horse twenty five years before he died. A few years later, I lost my father. The gifts they both gave me still live, still bring me happiness, and still shape my life. I’m not afraid of hard work. I think I understand what is really important and I know that, sometimes, what seems like the wrong decision can turn out to be the best decision of all. My horse helped me understand the things my daddy stood for. That’s why fathers buy their daughters a horse.

I attended a watercolor class with Jean Haines in New Orleans recently. From the first time I saw her work I loved it. The first time used her book to walk me through her process, I loved my own work.  In fact, I was almost giddy with the accomplishment.

But only the first time. There were many failures after that. Part of the wonder of Jean Haines' work is not using a pencil, it is the direct application of the image with watercolor, which demands not only attention to placement and the ability to plan ahead but most importantly complete self confidence. The first time I tried I didn't have any fear of making a mistake -- I'd never done it before, it was a game. After that I had to live up to my first, spontaneous work ( which was not without error but perfect to me) and the tighter I got, the worse the paintings. Sheet after sheet went directly into the bin. So much for practicing to be great in class.

The class was one of the largest I've ever been in and I had a great deal of trepidation about my ability to do anything worthwhile. I'd brought a whole file of photographs to work from, my own photographs and things that were well within my comfort zone, mainly horses. But the class was about flowers and birds. Thank you google for allowing me to find an image to work from. The hummingbird developed first from the eye-- too large I thought. I struggled to make it work. Even though I personally  did like what I had done, I was sure it was really  awful in comparison to others. When it came time from her to come around to my table I pointed out all the mistakes and exuded discouragement. Now let me say at this point that Jean Haines is one of the most positive people you will ever meet. I encourage you to pick up one of her books or watch her DVD if you need a little shot of uplifting attitude. But she didn't just make noises about my work, or point out good points to counter the mistakes I had pointed out. No. She looked at me and said " If I had done this you would be clamoring about trying to buy it. You don't like it because you did it, and you have told yourself that it can't be good if you did it."

This was a shocking insight into me, my work, and my state of mind. Not about what a great work I did -- in fact, I rather tensed up after that and struggled some and it definitely did not match her own work-- but because it was unexpected, like catching oneself in a mirror and seeing yourself as others see you, not the posed image you make for yourself in the mirror. It was a very true thing to say, and it was the very thing that was holding me back. I will never forget that class, or Jean Haines, or that insight, even if I never master watercolor the way Jean Haines does.

For some reason I could not wait to try out the things I picked up in class with Daffodils. I picked these here in Atlanta by the side of the road.When I lived in Arkansas you could often see sudden bursts of daffodils out in the middle of the pasture or somewhere totally unexpected. The daffodils marked an old homestead site, long gone, where someone lovingly planted them. All types of daffodils, old varieties, and they had multiplied and thrived long after the house had disappeared. Like flowers on a grave, but eternally springing up year after year, in remembrance of someone who loved them.