Fruit Loop

Ashke called me a Fruit Loop a couple of times when we were communicating through the psychic. She described it as my feeling wobbly in the middle.

I am now thinking what Ashke was feeling was the movement of the saddle and my being unbalanced when we rode. The new saddle is going to help with that, but I also need to find my center of balance while on Ashke.

When I was young, I rode 95% of the time bareback on whatever horse we had. My first horse was a shetland pony with a predisposition to bite, kick and ignore the bit. I could ride him, as long as I was ready to bail off him when we got close to home, because he had no compunction about running under and into whatever he could find. He would kick with both hind feet and there was a year when I had twin hoof shaped purple bruises on my chest for most of the summer. I broke my left hand at the age of 12, playing Civil War, when I tried a flying mount and only made it about half way.

My second horse was a 3 year old green broke mare that I trained in the snow during our first winter. I rode her for years without a saddle. I rode without thought to balance or staying on. It was like we were connected at the point where my legs and her body connected. My body reacted without thought when she spun or spiked. There was one incredible afternoon when we played tag with 30 other 18 year old girls on their horses in a corral and Queenie was the last horse to be touched. Even 1 against 29 it took them a good five minutes to finally catch us and Queenie was wild-eyed, sweat soaked and still ready to evade when it finally happened. That magical moment was the most connected/without conscious thought I have ever had while on a horse.

I was an arrogant muck, but with good reason. I could ride anything. Bareback. I helped people break their horses. Bareback. I rode for hours all over the place. Bareback. I rode without holding on, even with my legs. Bareback. I had balance and could stay in the middle of my horse without thought. Especially bareback.

I want that again. I want that Centaur-like ability to stay on, to not worry about what the horse is going to do, because I will stay on. To ride with balance, to be centered and connected. But not bareback. Too old to do that again. I want Ashke to describe me as something other than a Fruit Loop.