The Wednesday That Changed Everything
I was not a horse girl. I played fieldhockey, like most of the girls in my class, and that was fine. Horses were not something I thought about, dreamed about, or particularly noticed. And then came a Wednesday that I did not see coming.
Over the previous weekend, my father had gone for coffee at Jan and Mieke’s riding school in Vorstenbosch. He never really left. There was history there, family history, the kind that does not need explaining to feel familiar. For him, walking onto those grounds again was like coming home through a side door he had forgotten existed. I was eleven. I had no idea any of that backstory existed. I just went along for the ride.
One lesson
Next week, on Wednesday, I returned for “just one lesson” Rieky was there; a powerwoman, and through the eyes of an eleven-year-old, something close to a good fairy. Long blonde hair and a smile that picked you up before you even knew you had fallen. I did one lesson and never really left.
They put me on Juweeltje (Little Jewel or Gem). Which just sounded like a beautiful unicorn. She was not!
Juweeltje had opinions, and those opinions frequently involved me ending up on the ground. Rieky kept asking if I wanted to try a different horse. I did not want a different horse. I wanted to stay on this one. The third time I came off, she laughed and said she needed to return me to my father in one piece, so they moved me to Rebekka. Who promptly bit me in the arm. Riding school horses had character back then. I absolutely loved that!
What that day was really about
Looking back, what kept me on those horses was not stubbornness, although there was plenty of that. It was Rieky, and the magic of the whole world she inhabited. Something shifted in me that Wednesday that hockey had never managed to touch. I went home a different person. And I didn’t really even look back for a long time.
