workshop

50-26 – Horsing Around

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Writing Prompt – High School
I had three very close friends in high school. I am still friends with them today, seeing them daily on Facebook. Every high school class has its senior skip day and we were no exception. I don’t remember which one of them planned it but it was most definitely a conspiracy against me.

First, I should say that I grew up on Long Island. I can’t swim and I hate the beach. Maybe it’s all the water. Most of the senior classes went to Jones Beach for their skip day. The school had gotten wind of this over the years, so pretty much anyone who went to Jones Beach got detention. The assistant principal, Mr. Allen would drive down there and scour the sand for students, jotting down names, walking the beach in suit and tie and his school shoes.

We, however did not get detention. We did not go to the beach.

We got into Ds car and drove east on the LIE; the Long Island Expressway. It was forever in the car. I think I was in the backseat. It was a “surprise” but clearly I was the only one in the dark. I don’t know when I figured it out, maybe there was a road sign, but we were almost there when I realized we were going to a horse ranch – a stable. Of horses. I nearly jumped from the moving car.

Here is where I should probably mention that when I was in elementary school, I went with my cousins to a dude ranch in Peekskill. I loved it there. I loved horses. They are beautiful creatures, but I could not get on the horse. Not any of them. I cried. It was traumatizing.

I wondered if crying as a high school senior was appropriate now.

I got on with ranch hand assistance and off we went. The sky was that perfect blue, not a cloud in it, dust kicking up from the hooves as we set off from the corral into the wooded area. It became a bit darker under the trees and slightly cooler, but it was still a comfortable temperature – the shade keeping the heat of the sun from really getting to us, and our horses.

I had the gentlest horse, or so they told me. He was trained to follow the horse in front of him which was great, espeically when the horse in front of mine decided to trot along the edge of the cliff. It probably wasn’t a real cliff, this was Long Island after all, and I probably wouldn’t have died or anythihng but it was still terrifying. I fell getting off at the end, but I had still done it.

One and done.

Fall Writing Prompts

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My fall semester writing group has started up again. Our umbrella theme this season is somewhat random, taken from the pages of The Sun magazine. We’re being encouraged to submit a work to their Readers Write section and our prompts are being taken from theirs, both current and in past issues. Our class is sis weeks, so with homework, I will share twelve weekly prompts with you, beginning today. Prompts will appear on Friday, and if I have something to share from class I will post it on Monday. Feel free to share links to your own writing on either the prompt post on Friday or my completed on Monday post so we can see what you’ve chosen to write about. Have a wonderful Fall.

Today’s prompt is Houses

Hope

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I hope I can get home tonight in time for our television show. I hope the toilet doesn’t overflow before we get paid and call a plumber. I hope Glenn is alive on The Walking Dead. I hope and pray that I will, but today I am still just a bill.

Hope is the pleading in a child’s eyes when the ice cream truck goes by.

Hope is waiting outside the surgery or for the tests to come back.

Hope is the light at the end of a tunnel, and coming over the mountain top.

Hope is the line in the sand between destiny and despair.

Hope is the potential in a baby’s tiny fingers and wiggling toes.

Hope is getting on the right train, but being okay if it’s the wrong one. Nothing wrong with riding it for a couple of stops and taking in the newness of someone else’s something.

Hope is not reading ahead even if it kills you.

Hope is knowing the end of the story, but still thinking it might be different the second time.

Hope (no one’s watching) is licking the barbeque sauce off your fingers.

Hope is a rainbow at Niagara and a pink sheep defying gravity.

Hope is the smell of rain on stone and the tinkling sound of rain on water.

Hope is mist and a thin layer of fog.

Hope is an empty gas tank close enough to the gas station to not run out.

Hope is this close to the finish line and that far from the meadow.

Hope is a waterfall and a stream and a rock all apart and not.

Hope is communion and community and the sun coming up every morning.

Hope is a compass rose and a triquetra.

Hope is a butterfly wing and an endless supply of pen and paper.

Hope is the missing puzzle piece.

Life is hope.