Flash and Me

Crossing the midline in childhood brain development is when a child no longer draws with one hand to the center of the page, and then switches to the other hand to draw to the other side. It's when he or she becomes cognitively aware that our range of motion is not limited to what is visually in front of us. Essentially, he or she realizes they can do more with what they have, than they originally thought.
I am crossing the mid-line chronologically, and I begin to think.

But this has always been my problem, when I start to think about things. What I think is that I want to learn to ride a horse. I have always loved animals, and a horse is an animal. This is the beginning of my slippery slope of rationale of how I am going to get myself onto a 1500 pound animal and ride it.
I know, why not a boob job, or a trip to Europe? Expensive, painful and too much money.
Why not try and break my neck instead?

I have never been particularly fond of reason and common sense. I am the fool who always rushes in. Usually, I have an audience for these flights of fancy, which make them so much more fun.

And yet I persist.

I have a teacher friend who boards a horse at stable nearby where we work. I ask her if they give adult riding lessons. “For who?” she asks. “Me,” I say. She spits out her coffee. “Come on, Jane,” she continues to laugh.
I have always secretly known this, I am even more awkward than I imagine. Even still, I am disturbed at her response.
My friend continues to laugh. “Why?” she asks. She is now gasping for breath and says she has to sit down. I am starting to get a little offended. Okay, a lot offended.
“I’m turning fifty this month,” I say and she immediately stops laughing, her eyebrows snap together. “Ewwww,” she says. “Right,” I say. “Why not a party?” she asks. “What? So more people can make that face you just made at me? Black balloons, fifty is nifty banners, uh-uh, no thanks,” I say. She starts to laugh again. I’m beginning to regret asking her, she is really making sport of my new quest. And it is a quest.

“So you want to ride a horse,” she says. “Yes, I believe I just finished telling you that three times,” I say. “Oh!” she says. “Can Tommy come and watch—you know how down he’s been since the divorce.” “No, Tommy cannot come watch,” I say. “And, I’d prefer it if you didn’t mention this to anyone else.”

She smiles at me. I roll my eyes. I am toast now; we both know it. I am not exactly a distinguished member of the faculty. I am the art teacher, I am weird. I would want to learn to ride a horse at fifty. I am going to be crucified when this gets out. And it will get out.

She gives me the name of the people who board her horse, and tells me her daughter works there. I tell her I would be happy to pay her daughter to teach me.
We discuss details for me to go to the stable and meet her daughter and their horse Flash. “He’s really a nice horse,” she tells me.

“He?” I ask.

I have been envisioning me riding an old, old mare.

Perhaps partially lame.

Maybe lobotomized.

“Don’t worry he’s a gelding,” she says. Now, one who has a quest to ride a horse should know what a gelding is. Of course I do not. I wonder if he’s got golden hooves or something like that. “He’s an it,” she says. “We had him castrated.”
“Oh my God,” I say. “How did he handle that?” I ask like an idiot. “Jane,” she says,( dammit, she is laughing….again.) “We didn’t exactly have a family therapy session about it. Besides, you wouldn’t want to ride him, if he wasn’t gelded.”
I am beginning to become afraid. I start to have visions of me wrapped around the horse’s neck holding on for dear life as he leaps over fences. I am screaming like the biggest girl. Worse I am crying. Even worse I break a hip.

Or my neck.

But I want this and I don’t exactly know why. It’s a quest, maybe. I want to know that there are still things out there to do other than gamble and play scratch tickets. I tried knitting once; the thing came out unrecognizable.
No, this is what I want to do….I think.

I go to meet Flash a couple of days later. My friend can’t come this day, but I meet the stable owner, he takes my information. He tells me I can go down and look at Flash.

It’s an unusually warm October day and it smells, well, like horse in the barn. Not a problem. I go over to Flash’s stall. He is brown like my friend said with a white spot on his head. “Hello Flash,” I say softly. “How are you?” He is peacefully eating grass in his stall.

He does not rear up and shriek when he sees me. I take this as a good sign.

I reach out to pet his head and scratch his ears. He jerks his head to the side and my hand bats off him like a feather. This is a big, big animal. “You’re very handsome,” I say. He continues to eat lifting his head occasionally to let me pet him. Once again he jerks and my hand flies off. He is beautiful and I wish we could communicate with him somehow. I once again take in the size of him.

He is big and I am not. I weigh less than a tenth of what this animal weighs, for the first and only time in my life I am sorry I don’t weigh more.

This is not going to be just about skill—this is going to be about trust.
In Flash, and even more scary, in myself. This moment of clarity makes me even more afraid.

While I roll this thought over in my mind, I begin to feel less stupid about being here. Still crazy; but less stupid.

I pet Flash’s head again and stroke his ears. The stable owner comes down with some paperwork. “My wife arranges the lessons; she’ll call you for times,” he tells me.
I look back at Flash. He is not wagging his tail with his tongue hanging out as I leave. He continues to eat his grass, lifts his head and looks at me with eyes I can’t read.

I’m laying odds he’s not impressed. And I don’t know if he ever will be. But I know one thing.

I’m coming back. I’m just going to do it, and I’m not going to think about it.