1. For Easter, the year I was five, my mother gave me a cowgirl outfit, complete with fringed vest, cowboy hat, and cap gun. It was something I had deeply wanted, and I wore it every day for a good long time.
2. My favorite book when I was eight was about a kid at riding camp who was always getting picked on by the mean, better riders. Until he met a Native American boy who secretly trained him to ride barefoot and bareback. The kid then won the final big race in front of a large crowd. I read that book several times. I read it again recently. Just as good.
3. My grandparents had a farm I spent quite a bit of time on. There was a bull I did not ride, and my brother got kicked by a steer.
4. Our neighbors had a farm I spent some time on. An angry sheep attacked me.
5. I was bucked off a horse the year I was twenty one.
That's it. That's all there is. If this were a job, I wouldn't apply. But I once lived in a place where long lines of white Brahman cattle walked on narrow paths across green, green hills. After seeing that, maybe I get to be a cowgirl forever, if I want to, if only in the imaginary ranges of my east coast mind.
