When I was a child I wanted a horse so badly I built a corral in the backyard. Pieced it together with dead tree branches. Old lumber. Wire I found in the work shed. Would it have held in a horse? No. But I needed to do it.
I didn't understand then what that drive was to share space with such a majestic beast. At that age I understood that animals were sentient and sensitive, but my empathic abilities were self-oriented and undeveloped. Wanting a horse wasn't about the horse. The horse was a metaphor. The desire was about me.
I wanted to ride. I wanted the hot, scraggly, aromatic stretches of San Diego chaparral. Open spaces all around me. I wanted the sun and the wind and the wild independence. I wanted to get away. Roam, canter, gallop into the great beyond. (But not trot. Fuck trotting.)
I wanted to be free.
My parents said no to getting a horse. I never begged. I knew it would get me nowhere. They did not, however, deny me an indulgence of my horse fantasies. A few miles from home was a horse stable. They offered guided horseback riding through the local canyons. We went as often as I could convince my parents to take me. A trail guide led us through willowy woods, past streams, into dry fields of golden grass. Sometimes we would pick up the pace. A couple times I got a moment of full gallop. Most often, though, it was a quiet ride. One that skirted the perimeter of the dream of freedom.
Just enough to keep that dream alive.
I grew older and grew away from the horse fantasy. Swapped that dream out out for partying with my rebellious teenage art friends. Found freedom smoking cigarettes behind the backstop and in late night excursions to the coffee shop. In the passenger seat of my friend's car. At 18, the dream of freedom moved me into a condo with my boyfriend and his mom. A few years later freedom found me playing sax in a latin rock band with a bunch of boys. Staying up until dawn or at least until all the alcohol was gone. Those were fun times, but I got into some funky codependent relationships and fell out of touch with the dream.
A decade later I reconnected with freedom. I don't remember how. Probably through social media, like we all eventually do with people from our past. Hey, how have you been? What have you been up to? Do you still dream of me? Turns out freedom was living in the Pacific Northwest, something I'd wanted to do since the birth of the grunge era, when freedom meant secretly listening to Nirvana on the radio when my parents weren't home. Yes, freedom. I still dream of you every night. I packed two dogs, two cats, clothing, instruments, and art supplies into an old Plymouth Voyager and drove to Portland, a thousand miles away from the horse trails and the old boyfriends and the band boys and their booze.
Chasing the dream was a test of endurance. Life got hard. I floundered and struggled. Twice I nearly drowned. The people that loved me kept me afloat. The dream of freedom kept me afloat. I worked hard. Went to school. Went to therapy. Did my homework. Got a career. Earned a living. I spent time alone with the dream of freedom. Learned what it means to me, the individual. Learned that this meaning is fluid, that life is short, that the dream is NOW.
Today I have my own version of a horse. Her electric pumpkin coat glistens under the sun and the moon and the rain as we ride into the great beyond. On rubber hooves she carries me toward the infinite horizon of wild independence.
At full gallop.
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