Dixie

I wrote “Dixie” years ago, while I was traveling across the Smoky Mountains, in North Carolina, US. I spent a few days in a cottage near Cold Springs Creek and every day there I saw an old man walking an old horse, without riding it because it was clear that the animal wouldn’t stand the weight of the lightest load. One day I had the chance to speak with this man and he told me that he had ridden Dixie the horse every day for a very long time, and that he would keep walking along with him for as long as the horse lived, and also said that Dixie would be his last horse ever. I think I was able to understand what friendship is way better after those very few minutes of conversation with the old man.