A stick pony to start, with a wooden head and twine
for a mane. The tiny girl stomped unevenly, imagining
hooves at the end of her pudgy legs, her mother’s back
turned, hurrying dinner for the men. Later a spring horse
that the girl could climb on all by herself, jumping hard
up-and-down, the toy’s frame slammed and bounced
across the room, until her mother pulled her off with a
shrill scolding, worried for the linoleum. In time, the girl
went outside, found her way to soft-eyed horses who
accepted her awkwardness with grace. Each night the girl
begged off after dinner. Her mother had grown too tired
to resist. Left standing at the sink doing dishes, she worried
the girl would never learn her place. Resenting the gray mare,
shaking her head at the selfish girl riding past the kitchen
window, she watched the distance between them grow and
she worried that the girl had learned nothing from her at all.
…
Anna Blake for Relaxed & Forward
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Perhaps the girl had learned from her Mother exactly where she did not want to find herself someday. Perhaps she learned from her Mother to follow her heart instead. Valuable lessons learned from a Mother she loved for giving her the freedom to find out for herself.
How can we not learn from our mothers?? Thanks, Sueann
Brilliant and powerful!! Thank you Anna
Peggy
Thanks, Peggy. Looks like you had a great anniversary.
And the child aches for what the mother could not learn from her. Nice one, Anna.
Sigh. We are who we are. Thanks, Linda
And yet she had learned so much from her.
How can we help it? Thanks, Sharon
THIS IS SOOOO MEEEE… except that I wasn’t allowed to have anything but model horses and books (which were taken away when I “talked horse” too much). I’m sure my parents thought I learned nothing from them. That line made me laugh!!!
Perspective, huh? Thanks Kathy.
and yet, we did. with words such as these, they will. and gray mares around the world will rejoice. as do I when I read your prose. <3
Born this way, more easily recognized by those not of our species…Thanks, Sandy.
Very powerful.
Thanks, Rys
The distance between mothers and daughters. Likely we would have never become our true selves if we had failed to disappoint our forebears in one way or another. And I would like to believe it has nothing to do with love.
Oh, Kim, I’d like to believe that, too. But I don’t.
Daughters who fail to live up to their mother’s expectations may find it in the accolades of others. Comforting, but still…
Yes, mothers’ voices matter. Thanks, Lynell
I so resonate with your words here. Wonderful poem. Thank you from another woman who never quite learned her place, thank goodness !
Probably why we’re friends. Thanks Sarah.
“You can do anything you want in your life and I will help if I can and support you regardless of how I feel about your choices,” my mother told me.
I believed her and she really meant it.
She is the definition of love. Thanks, Aquila
So beautiful.
Thank you, Christine.
I have always loved horses. Collected plastic toy horses, some porceline ones, read tons of horse books and stories, and we would drive to a resort in the mountains of Puerto Rico so I could ride a horse on my birthdays, but I didn’t know how much my parents noticed until my Dad came home one day with a horse for me when I was 16. No facilities, no equipment, no knowledge. Capitán basically had the run of our neighborhood in the foothills outside of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, we left the island a year later and he went to my friend. At 23, my first husband and I bought 2 horses and rode off into the Colorado mountains. The trip was short, the adventure long, but horse fever was strong. My 2nd husband bought me a horse at 40 and the rest is history. Over the next 30 years, we have had as many as 6, now down to 4, and I am defined by my trail horse lifestyle. No one else in my known family has this addiction as I do, Hungarian Cossack genes, maybe?
What a blessed horse life. Thanks Dana
Oh Anna, reading this I heard my mother’s condescending voice say, “I always knew you’d get a horse!” (I did a thing….)
Yippee for you, and I’m glad for your horse.
Good for you, Patti! My parents did everything they could to DIScourage me and have always been very disapproving. So I just don’t share that part of my life with my family. Make horse family like here!