I ride

There’s a serenity unparalleled in riding that clears my mind, frees my heart, and staves off my restlessness. When I ride I am liberated from responsibility, from time, from you. It’s not that you chain me, I suppose, it’s that you preoccupy me. Mostly I don’t even perceive this as an unwanted distraction. It’s more of a daydream that I enjoy during my moments of fixed gaze, those brief instants when I look away from my computer and fly out the window in a tumult of feathers and freedom.

Sometimes though, I know I want to go to you, to have things that aren’t mine for the taking, to find joy in our memories and dejection in our distance. You disrupt me, but I allow you to do this; the turmoil is my creation alone. And so I ride, not away from you but out of myself, up into that space where the sky is crystal and the only sounds are my horse’s metal shoes striking dirt and gravel and grass. Occasionally I imagine how wonderful it would be to have you riding there with me, but mostly, it’s just me and my inner peace.