Be like Dolly.

Photographing a framed painting is challenging. Ideally, I’d take the painting out of the frame and photograph it directly from above. But this painting was done on cheap school paper. My mom painted it in high school in the very early 60s. My grandmother had it matted and framed in the early 80s, and she was told that if the picture was ever removed, it would likely crumble apart.

The painting hangs where the sun won’t reach it, and I move it only when necessary.

My mother loved horses. She even owned one for a while.

I’m thinking about this because of recent headlines.

The Black Stallion was more famous, but I especially love The Island Stallion series. In any case, I read all those horse books as a kid. And when my mom scraped together the money to take me horseback riding, I was as happy as any kid could be.

I made friends with girls who actually had their own horses! Which resulted in trips to horse shows and in moonlit horseback rides. And something I’ve written about before–a horse newsletter.

Yesterday I was standing in HEB when I checked my phone and saw the news about icon Dolly Parton. She was 80 years old and had an amazing life, a tremendous impact, and a world of people heartbroken at her loss.

I came home and re-listened to Dolly Parton’s America. And watched a ton of tribute videos: here, here, here, here, and here.

And then here:

And what will not be to everyone’s taste but I enjoyed:

No one lives forever. Terrible and good people leave this plane of existence every day. Animals are slaughtered every day. Powerful people commit a dozen horrors against humanity before breakfast every day. Where am I even going with this?

I watched another video that I wanted to share, but somehow I clicked on the wrong thing and Instagram refreshed, sending that video far far away. I can’t find it now. It was by someone I don’t follow (I thought I was clicking the ‘follow’ button but apparently not) so all attempts to find it again have been for naught and so I can’t give credit where credit is due. Nonetheless, I want to talk about something the woman in the video mentioned. Losing icons, especially 80 year old icons, is natural. Sad, but part of life. However, do we still have an environment that will create other such icons? The environment that created Prince, that created Dolly, does it exist? Will we have a world in which wild horses can exist again?

The woman in the video talked about a book, Prince’s Minneapolis, and it explains how it takes 100 years to create a Prince Rogers Nelson.

I didn’t get to hear the rest of the video.

But destruction is easy. Building is hard. What kind of world are we building?

There’s been a lot of loss. There’s always loss. It’s a shame that we add to it when we don’t need to. Why give the void a helping hand? WHY? But that’s where we are–widening the void. In goes the horses, the people, the trees, the water…

And what are we building? Data centers? Is that it?

It’s a tough day. Remember the horses. Remember Dolly. Be like Dolly.

EDITED: A friend found the Instagram video I talked about above. It’s worth a watch. Here’s the link!