Despite her fybrotic myopathy, our 16-year-old horse Caprichosa is feeling good. That's what that high-octane senior citizen horse food, some MSM and a little bute (plus all that massaging) will do to you when you're trying to make a comeback.

I rode the flea bitten mare down the railroad road yesterday. I let her pick the pace. Well, for the most part, that is. We were about equal on the walk and trot selections. But the horse was so full of herself that she tried to go a little heavy on the canter, and I had to make her cool her big Andalusian jets.

I'd worked her the previous evening in the round pen. She is usually a malleable sort of creature, especially free longing or on the longe line. I can put Jessie on her with the vaulting surcingle and that eleven-year-old girl can do all kinds of crazy antics on her back, and the horse doesn't bat an eyelid. Well, only to let us know that she thinks it's all quite weird and fascinating and extremely interesting. But occasionally, when it's just me, and no kids are involved, the big mare has moments of ornery stubborness that flare up in a big big way. If she's in a certain mood.

We were free longing.

And Caprichosa was in said certain mood.

I asked her to change from the left to the right rein, and she tossed her head at me then rose up above me in a picture perfect levade, muzzle tucked to her chest.

OK. OK.

I know I shouldn't let her do that, but she's making a comeback from being physically flattened, and if she feels good enough to pull a little good-natured bullshit on me, the woman she's known for over a decade, then that's OK with me. In fact, it's more than OK.

I will revel in it.

I just laughed as the white horse loomed above me, bell shaped hooves neatly tucked into her chest where that big heart beats, eyes sparkling like the stars that were starting to come out on the mesa just above us.

We changed rein again. And I was treated to another levade.

Have you ever tried to make a comeback?

Well, it's hard.

Movie starlets (well, the ones who used to be starlets anyway) know all about that sort of thing. Sometimes they make it. Sometimes they turn into Nora Desmond.

And it can be scary.

I'll never forget being at the physical therapy center something like fifteen years ago, after I'd broken my back in a horseback riding accident, looking at my skinny, frail figure in the mirror in the ladies locker room and nearly bursting into tears. Heck, I was lucky to still be walking the neurologist said.

And you don't know if you'll make it or not.

I'd taken it all for granted, you see.

Maybe adult life is just a series of courageous comebacks. Where we are constantly reinventing ourselves.

Like me and Caprichosa. Healing the everyday wounds.