Cowgirl Dreams

I had a male friend once who was an avid duck hunter. In a confidential moment he told me sheepishly that he frequently lay in bed next to his wife closed his eyes only to see flocks of mallards swirling overhead.  I laughed. I’ve been there done that… with one big exception – my dreams weren’t full of flying ducks but fast moving horses. They varied in color, size and breed but they were always there. Sometimes I would be sitting atop a quick little Quarter Horse galloping across a wide open plain, or I’d be mounted on a high trotting Saddlebred rounding the turn at Louisville getting ready to make a pass at the rack.

I have another friend who frequently sees herself in the new truck she has been admiring for so long at the local dealers, towing a shiny new three horse slant load as she makes her way to the local rodeo. Or she might be coming back from the same rodeo with the winning checks in her pocket, trophy saddle in the tack room and a smile on her face.

Then there was my friend who has what she calls her ranch dreams, the nice 200 acre spread with the long flat grass filled meadows, each with its own shelter and pair of contented horses grazing lazily. There is a breathtaking background view of a local mountain range and smoke curling from the chimney of her log home.  More often than not a tall quiet cowboy would also make his way into the dream.  He could ride anything that came his way, was good with a rope and could handle a gun, yet never felt the need to brag about any of it. He’d laugh easily, but it would hit him hard when his old dog died.

One friend bases her dreams in a little more materialistic way. She sees herself wearing a certain pair of custom made boots with the riding heels and hand stitched red columbines on their tall tops. She has the engraved silver necklace coveted at the last cowboy poetry gathering worn casually around her neck and the matching coral and turquoise earrings dangling from her ears. Her hand tooled belt is held in place around her waist by the silver buckle won at the cutting horse finals, against some of the best in the nation. That waist would be small and the legs long and slim, the kind of legs that jeans would always fit with just the perfect level of snugness and all this without dieting or any real effort on her part. Hey… it’s a cowgirl’s dream.