YogaBeast

You oughtta listen to The Sugar Cubes while reading this post.

Sam and I spent Tuesday evening on horseback at Madison Horse  Connection. Margie is marvelous. Sam is signed up to take regular lessons with her. . . until he’s 18. Well, every week for as long as possible anyway.  He says it’s not appropriate to blurt out, “How many brassieres do I have to wear to ride a horse? Three!” in polite company. Well, we were in a barn, man.

Omg, I love the smell of horses so much. I kept burying my face in the horse’s neck and inhaling freakishly deeply when no one was looking. I’ve never done any hard drugs, but I would if it felt like how a horse’s neck smells. Don’t judge me.  You’ve got to try it. But don’t trespass. Ask permission. If there’s anything that would drive me to trespass, it would be a horse. Just one quick sniff. I can quit anytime. Come on man, you know I’m good for the money. I’ll pay you next week, horsey.  *inhales* Ahhhh… *exhales* Dude. Now I’m hungry. Let’s get some Corn Nuts.

When I was little, we lived way out in the country in northeastern, WI, on the Menominee river. Just  down the road from us was a dairy farm, where my friend Gerry lived.  They had a handful of horses. The ones I remember are Mabel, a big gray work horse, and Mandy, a brown and white Shetland pony.

When I could get away with it at night, I’d ride my bike down to that farm and park it in the ditch beside the horse pasture. My brother told me the barbed-wire fence had an electrical charge, so I’d army crawl on my belly underneath it and lay there in the grass with those horses. If it was light enough, I’d draw pictures of them.

I know. Jeez. It was the 80s. We didn’t have iPads or Kindles.  I was the (obviously) super hip girl who brought all twenty of  ‘The Black Stallion’ series books to sleep over camp in fifth grade. Popularity FAIL. Aren’t all girls obsessed with ponies at some point?

Maybe this nostalgia is why I’m so fond of teaching horse pose in my yoga classes.  It’s playful, you get ripped if you do it often, and you can use a yoga strap as a blindfold if you want to get really frisky in your practice. I’m still talking about yoga here. Aren’t you?