Run Like the Horse

March Six Word Photo Story Challenge “Movement”

Run free like the horse runs

As a child, I was always pretending to be a horse or an Indian warrior. I loved the freedom of charging around on all fours and jumping over whatever I could stack up in the living room. I put feathers in my hair and imitated what I saw in films. I got quite good and could leap over stacks of cushions.

Of course, when a horse runs we call this ‘galloping’, ‘cantering’, ‘trotting’, and ‘walking’. It is just a slightly different name for the same sort of exercise.

We measure horses in hands, not feet. As you can see, I used to spend a great deal of time drawing horses and looking up horse facts too.

Later, I was good at long jump and was told I might end up in Crystal Palace, a local sports stadium in London where I went to school, but this dream was short-lived.

I come from a very large family, and there wasn’t the money to invest in children and their talents. That is why it took me so long to get to university, something I achieved in my early forties…

But, I made up for this by providing an environment whereby my own children might fulfill their aspirations and be confident that they would be supported in this, and I am happy to say they have all gone to university. I think this is an achievement.

All five children have followed their own inclinations and dreams and they are all very different. I think this is important.

My early horsey aspirations transferred to a different sort of running; the metaphorical kind. I think I should be grateful to my mother for allowing my free spirit to soar as a young child.

Later, there was plenty of time for me to be a quiet and disciplined shop manager, to run a shop, and then to raise a family and run a household. I now run two publications: ‘EDIT or’ and ‘The Diffference: Achilles Heal’.

Who would have thought that I started my life running like the horse runs?

With thanks to Mary Chang Story Writer for this prompt — also tagging Wire Editor Newman and Charlotte Ella King

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