From Dementor to doll

Who's the person you can't get out of your mind? The one who broke your heart, haunted you day and night? That kind of heartache can feel like possession. Something that seems to stick around more adamantly the harder you try to make it go away. If that person's still in charge when you close your eyes; or when you see something that reminds you of them; or you hear music that clinches your gut, then I have a dream for you!

For the past few years, I've been working on a memoir about the horses I've known and loved - or feared. They carried me through pivotal times. Kept me safe, challenged my abilities as a young rider, and launched me into some of the most body-crunching wrecks imaginable. Whether they were born on our farm or came to us as traumatized starving refugees from someone's cruelty, each one shared space with my childhood trials and troubles including dating and the demise of youthful ideas about love.

Photo courtesy Katy Yoder

Katy Yoder and Topper.

The horse who shared my life from age five to 26 was my beloved Topper. Born when I was five, we grew up together. I trained him with my mother's guidance, and a vaquero who was a dear friend named Bab Verdugo. With their help, Topper and I overcame obstacles like his reluctance to canter when I was on his back. When I was eight years old, Topper was three and ready to be ridden. Because he had extensive ground training, we were ready to walk, trot, and canter. When I'd try to get him into a rocking horse lope like our older horses, Topper just trotted faster, jarring me like one of those rodeo monkeys tied to the back of an agile border collie. I'd hold on, trying to sit his trot and encourage him to finally take a lead and give me a break from his high stepping roadster gait. Nothing worked. It was time to take Topper to Bab.

Some trainers relied on spurs, whips, and brawn to get a horse to do what they wanted. Not Bab. He was an artist on horseback. His light-handed, gentle, and intuitive gifts in the saddle, were passed down through his family line traced back to the earliest California Vaquero history descending from Jose Maria Verdugo, born in 1751 in Spanish Colonial Loreto, Baja California, Mexico. Along with his Spanish heritage, Bab's mother was of Yaqui heritage. From his first job working with Morgan and part-Morgan horses, he followed his vaquero ancestral path of preferring Morgans because they resembled the horses the Conquistadors rode for their style, beauty, and ability to perform the hard work demanded of them.

I was lucky to grow up in a family that shared Bab's love for the breed known for their versatility and classical look. I could write about Bab for days and still not encompass the beauty and depth of his ability to train a finished saddle and driving horse. But back to Topper.

In a matter of minutes, Bab had Topper, and then Topper and me, loping around his indoor arena like a seasoned team. That first lesson began years of instruction and visits to his ranch and training facility on Tassajara Road in Danville, California. Bab was a man I trusted. A man who laughed with sincerity and no sign of ridicule. He sang, "K-K-K-Katy" to me at horse shows. I learned while writing this column that the song was a basis for a parody that ridiculed the Ku Klux Klan, written by Geoffrey O'Hara in 1918. I love knowing that now. Being a man of color and living in modern day California, I never saw Bab being discriminated against, but away from the Morgan horse community and the wider world, I'm sure he had to contend with it.

Bab showed me nothing but kindness. He knew the cowboy I'm writing about in my current memoir, who was the antithesis of Bab Verdugo. Bab never knew what happened to me at the hands of that man, who used force and brawn to get what he wanted. I mistook his buckaroo-mastery on a horse as a sign of good character and kindness. I learned during the time we dated, that evil can ride on a horse as easily as good.

It took years to undo the damage caused by the cowboy's deceit. After writing my first memoir, I realized it was more of a healing process than something to publish. I laid it down, using it for content in my current writing project. Only my husband read the first memoir, which gave him insights into some of the repercussions of earlier trauma.

Revisiting the years when Topper was older and I was riding wilder unschooled horses, I often ended up in a heap in some open meadow or grassy California hillside. Those wounds healed, the aches ended, and never kept me off the next troubled horse needing a second chance. Looking back, I understood physical scars lose their tenderness with time. Emotional wounds can linger, hidden and reactive to triggers that reanimate experiences I didn't fully understand. Thinking about men like Bab Verdugo and remembering they exist was balm for a broken heart.

Just recently I had a dream that affirmed the scar was healed. Here's what I dreamed: I'm with people I knew in my late teens, but I'm my age now. I see them standing there, then notice the man who almost broke me is there too. He's no longer taller than me, or stronger than me, or smarter than me. He's a doll-sized, helpless figure that I picked up and looked at like a 1960's Ken doll. He has no power. I can do with him what I want. After considering all kinds of vengeful options, I set him back down on the ground. He isn't worth my time or energy, and I know the story I'll recount in my current memoir about him won't evoke familiar anxiety or an overwhelming desire to run. In short, I'm over it!

I'm grateful for knowing men like Bab Verdugo. I'm grateful for being married to a man who shares Bab's kind countenance and lives his life authentically and compassionately. I know I'm blessed to have moved past the past. Writing about it went from being overwhelming and triggering to healing and freeing.