A Dream :: horseback and hot air ballon

i do not always speak my dreams out loud or write them for others to read, but these past few weeks have been filled with grief, trials, and long hours of work.

when i was seven years old my grandma stowell died. i remember my aunt lou had a horse sometime around then. when my family would be on road trips, i would stare out the window and imagine my grandma riding on a horse  off in the distance, with her silver hair flowing behind her. even when i flew at age sixteen to africa, i remember imagining i could see my grandma riding a horse off in the distance, galloping over a blanket of clouds. i love horseback riding. i love the power of a horse trotting up jagged hills, taking me effortlessly to new heights. there is a rush of freedom found galloping across an open range, charging forward with momentum. i want to ride horses in new mexico. my mom use to always tear up when we would be driving to farmington, new mexico to visit family. as she saw the red dirt out the window, she would always tell us it was grandma stowell's favorite dirt. i want to ride horses across the red dirt in new mexico.

in sixth grade we drew report topics out of a hat from ideas we had brainstormed as a class to write reports about. i had suggested hot air balloons as a report topic. as classmates took topics from the hat before me, i finger-crossed hoped no one picked hot air balloons. as my turn approached, i reached in the hat and i pulled out abe lincoln. jennifer had suggested abe lincoln to be funny, and clearly the joke was on me. i had seen a hot air balloon one time as a child when we were driving out to new mexico. it was big and bright and it seemed to command the sky. even the beams of sun seemed to dance around it. i want to fly high above the desert dirt of new mexico.

my dream is to slip away for a weekend with my family and some friends to a ranch house in new mexico. we can ride horses for a full day, hot tub and stare into the desert sky at night, have a picnic brunch after taking a morning hot air ballon ride, and shop it up at some of the roadside native american trading posts.

i do not always speak my dreams out loud or write them for others to read, but these past few weeks have been filled with grief, trials, and long hours of work. i turn forty in a couple of years, so who knows, maybe these dream can come true.