Thoughts on Facing Old Fears
I know this sounds like there's an 8-year-old girl stuck inside my body controlling my every move, but I can't help it: I love ponies. I was one of those kids who begged my parents to get a horsey when I was growing up (despite the fact that we could walk the periphery of our backyard in less than 30 seconds, and that at Californian walking speeds.) When I went away to summer camp in the mountains, my favorite feature was the horse rides. We rode Western saddles and took rides up the trails to the mountaintops. It was magical. I went back to that camp throughout my childhood and into my adolescence. By the time I stopped going, I considered myself a fairly accomplished rider--not by professional standards, you understand, just by the standards of almost-everyone-else-I-know-has-never-been-on-a-horse-and-I-have-never-fallen-or-had-a-problem. Hey, it was mine. By the time I finished high school, my parents started taking us on vacations where trail riding on horseback was...