When I was a teenager, I took riding lessons once a week for about a year. This was not one of those upscale places where young ladies wear riding habits and learn to sit very straight on a thoroughbred. I wore my oldest jeans, a plaid shirt, boots, a floppy hat and in cold weather, an ancient overcoat, and it was about saddling the horse and staying on. The stables were owned by a family we knew, and I remember it as a frayed, friendly place. It smelled of horses, hay, and, on especially hot and sunny days, the cotton field nearby. I learned to ride on a black mare who only once ran away with me, and who always came back to nudge me gently with her long, blunt nose when I fell off. One of my favorite memories is from that time, a moment of resting in late dusk, sitting on a fence near the woods at the edge of a field, stroking the mare’s head and hearing church bells in the distance.
Horses are an expensive, elaborate hobby, requiring commitment and equipment. Life went on, and I went on. But I do remember with affection that strange bump in my life where I spent a year riding that horse.
Pam Troy 
One response to “I went through a horsey phase in my teens.”
I grew up in a rural area. I’ve never ridden a horse though. It must have been fun.
LikeLiked by 2 people