Who doesn’t LOVE summer?

As a child, summer meant days outside: from the cool morning light to saturated sun overhead into the purple light of evening.

Summer meant long days playing – what? Horses, of course. If I wasn’t riding the horse, I was pretending to be the horse. My friend, Lisa Wilhelm, and I would set up “jumps”. We would pretend to be the horse that did or did not want to go over the jump. We would stall and buck and kick. We would run around wildly and then pull in the reigns: “whoa… easy…”, talking to ourselves, the horses, as we turned in circles. And then we took off again.

Cantering. Jumping. Running together.

I don’t ride now. When asked why, I say that I was with the horses all the time then. Not just dropping in. I don’t live on a farm now.

But the horses live on in my mind. I wake up in the early morning ready to “put the saddle on”. Somewhere deep inside there is a: “GIddyapp!” if I need to give myself a push.

And in the summer, I feel ready to ride all day.

I love summer.