"diverging paths" -- creative nonfiction

Diverging Paths

The Saskatchewan horizon is a golden line that cuts starkly against the blue sky; you can see storms coming from miles away; you can see deer picking their way delicately through ditches in the spring dusk; you can see birds diminish into tiny specks before they disappear into the thick blue.

We are travelling across this flat expanse of gold in a rented van. It’s the eighth hour of this cross-prairie trip, and we’ve already played every car game we can think of, and asked every “would you rather...?” question conceivable.

Two are sleeping in the back. Two are staring out windows in the middle. One, in the front, is fiddling with the radio dial, working her way through the white noise, past oldies stations and western hits. One drives the van, both hands on the wheel, sunglasses still on despite the fact that the sun has already slipped past the sharp line of the horizon.

This moment: six of us inside of a rented van somewhere in southeast Saskatchewan – this moment lives inside of me; our togetherness lives inside of me. And our destination: later; we are sitting at a formica table in the farmhouse kitchen, cradling cups of coffee. Smiling, answering questions about ourselves, asking questions like
how many horses?
how many foals?
how do you do it?

And the first time I see him: a tall, large-boned chestnut gelding splashed here and there with white. A wide, white blaze down his face. Four white stockings. He is trotting around the arena, he is not the first one we’d looked at that day. He stops, walks over to us, examines us with his neck stretched out towards us, sniffing carefully. Blowing puffs of foggy breath on my hands. Cautious and curious. Outside, an unseasonably late snowfall blankets everything, coats the rented van.

The first day of years together, he and I. The first greeting. The first time he rested his soft muzzle in my hands and breathed the scent of sweet hay onto my skin.

Still, what my mind picks out of that whole trip is the six of us for hours and hours inside a rented van, cutting a path across Saskatchewan’s long, straight highways. Being together and living completely unaware of the way things would change in the future.

Even near the end, I still stubbornly refused to believe that my life would take any other course than the one I was on. It was a lost cause; I know that now. I was running headlong through a life that I enjoyed – I had goals to accomplish. It would all change, every last part of it, but I still thought that I had one path in life: to ride horses and be a writer. Nothing else mattered. Then, one day in early summer, though the sun felt strong and hopeful, my single-minded path suddenly disappeared from beneath my feet and before I knew it, I was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere I didn’t recognize. I couldn’t take any more steps forward, because it hurt, I was scared and everything around me was unfamiliar. I was stumbling over my new landscape. How did I get there?

The best summers of my life were spent at the barn on her parents’ acreage just outside of town. We spent so many long summer days there: riding, doing barn chores, sitting in her living room eating freezies and chatting until the sun slipped below the horizon behind the back pasture. We rode six days a week, never missing a riding lesson, traveling to horse shows every weekend, driving rented vans across two provinces to look at horses for sale. More important than our combined passion for the sport was our friendship. And she was the glue that connected us all. Tanya was not just our riding coach; she was a best friend, mentor and confidante. She was the driver of that van, all those years ago – sunglasses on, miles ahead of care. We talked about our lives from the backs of horses, or inside her beat-up truck, or sitting on her kitchen floor for hours. We were all so dedicated to riding, then. We were a part of a team. We were determined, on a path to accomplish our goals. We were all on that path together.

When she finally succumbed to cancer’s menacing pulls, that path disappeared and we found ourselves groping around in the dark for some direction. The last time I saw her, she was emaciated from chemotherapy, her body abused by her disease. She was just a ghost of her former self, lying thin beneath hospital sheets. When she opened her eyes and looked at me, unable to speak, I wanted to say everything she needed to hear. I didn’t know what she was trying to say. I just held her hand and fought back the burgeoning tears. I thanked her for being my friend and I told her that everything would be okay. I promised her that I would continue riding. That I would continue down the path we had been on together. This was an impossible promise to keep, but I was stubbornly grasping onto the hopes that nothing would change – that she would be there forever.

Tanya was the cornerstone of our goals. She was the common denominator for something that had previously consumed our lives – riding and showing horses was all we did. Without her, this huge part of our lives meant something different. Riding was no longer easy and was barely enjoyable. Our shared love began to fray at the edges: some quit showing, some quit riding altogether, some sold their horses. I just struggled along, trying to make things the same as they once were, but I could never find my way back onto that same path. It was like watching her disappear through the trees in front of me and suddenly realizing that I was lost. I wondered where this path suddenly branched off towards. Could I ever go back? Did the destination change without my consent?

I am not the same person that I was before she passed away; anyone can tell. I am not the same, as a person, a friend, a rider or a writer. All of these things are a part of who I am, and that was drastically changed the day one of my best friends passed away from a short and gruesome battle with cervical cancer. For a long time, I tried to pretend that my trajectory was the same as it had always been. I tried to pretend that the unfamiliar path that I traveled was the same as the path I’d been for all of those years. I ignored the tears forming behind my eyes while I swung up into the saddle, gave my horse a confident pat on the neck and rode into a future without her guidance, but it didn’t quite work. It was like riding in the dark. I tried hard to make myself fit within my new landscape, but this was an unachievable task.

Two-and-a-half years later, I still wish we were back in that rented van, oblivious to the ways in which we would change, but I can look around at the path that I’m on and start to recognize myself. This used to be impossible. I constantly wonder how far I have been flung from the original trajectory of my life, and I still grapple with the fact that I had no choice in the matter. That I would become whoever I am becoming regardless of whether or not I actually wanted to. I wonder what my life would be like if she had never been sick at all. I wonder how different I would be from the person that I am now. I wonder if I was ever—if any of us are ever—really on a particular path at all.

He and I are still together; he still puts his soft muzzle into my hands and lets me pretend for a while that we are heading somewhere planned, even though the future is a wild and terrifying place. He is willing to trot boldly onto new paths, encouraging me to come with him. It’s what she would have wanted. We have to get out of that rented van eventually.