Torn Faith -- First Thoroughbred, First Irony

[image: Lisa Collins/South Brooklyn Post]

A few of us are forced, at least in the beginning, to ride horses by people who suffer the notion that children were put on Earth simply to fill another roll of film.  At a young age, we are loaded into station wagons, driven to the outskirts of Seattle, Washington and placed on the back of Old Roan.  Here we sit, wailing in youthful protest while parents and grandparents take our picture.  We are positive that we will die, that the horse will eat our small bodies, or that somehow we will be forgotten and forced to spend the rest of our lives attached to the spinal column of a large, hairy animal.  Then, quite suddenly, we discover the true value of the horse -- its speed -- and we gallop away, far from the clicking shutters, far from the angry voices.  And for a brief, incredible moment, we are free!

My first cognitive memory was of the house catching on fire -- twice in one night.  Things didn't really improve after that.