Exile

I am far from home, attending a very useful and important training session for prosecutors. This is highly out of character for me. My white ancestors came to my part of Tidewater in 1674. We have been there ever since. I do not come from some rich, plantation owning Southern aristocratic family. It is just that we are not an adventurous lot. When the west was being settled by immigrants from all over the east my ancestors were right there--waiving goodbye to the soon to be frontiersman and then going back in to get supper and finish feeding up.

The genes that kept my ancestors in isle of Wight and Surry county seem to have thrived in my chromosomes. This trip will be the longest time that I have been away from my horses since the late nineties. This trip marks the first time in my life that I was going to be gone so long that I had to pack more than one bag of clothes. When I left the recent rains had brought green back to some of the pastures. I hope it will still be that way when I make it back home. I hope that the drought does not return in my absence.

This training session is well put together and very important, but I wonder if Sunka will still recognize me when I get home. I cannot help but wonder if I will have aged too much to mount a rough horse when I next see Persa.

Five days away from my horses! I will not get home until Friday night! Bet I will understand how Rip Van Winkle felt when he got home.