Learning to Ride Couldn't Fix my First Marriage -- but it made me feel better about everything else

 

I was a New Yorker who never drove. She was a Midwesterner who drove everywhere. We met because my former spouse got a job as a cantor at a synagogue and moved us out to Indiana. She was one of the first friends I had, smiling at me as she introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Diane.”

Diane was also married, and she and her husband were raising two young children. Her father ran a horse-equipment store for many years before he retired. Still, when Diane asked me if I wanted to come to a riding lesson with her, it was the last thing I expected her to say.

Growing up in New Jersey and moving to New York after college, my only experience with horses had been glimpses of those who pulled carriages in Central Park. I understood why people wanted to ride them, but wished the horses had their freedom. 

Yet, the idea of riding lessons with a friend in the Midwest seemed different than just hiring horses to take you on a ride. For one thing, it was about learning to relate to a horse you would see for months or longer. It was also far less expensive than any lessons on the east coast would have been.

I said yes to Diane--and myself.

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