Warm-up writing prompted by –– what else? A PONY!

There would be no escape this day. Sqantahonoh-neehoit (a name that roughly translates to "rhomboid-shaped fruit of the false-kola cactus")  resolved again to bide her time. The art of survival was patience. It was a thing she'd come to know, along with the feel of the saddle on her back and the tug of the lead-line. 

She'd witnessed what happened when patience ended. Her herd-mate, Gohollin-ah (meaning "Speedy wooly caterpillar" or, with a slightly different inflection "Wooly kitten"), had been lost to such an event. A day like any other until the moment of impatience. Followed by panic, a loud outcry, and a beating that ended badly. Before even the moon had a chance to rise, Gohollin-ah was taken away in a vehicle that smelled of blood and fear and death.  

A hard day and a sorrowful night it had been.

The scent of freedom came to Squantohonoh-neehoit now –– nearly masked by the carnival odors of corndogs and fry-dough, and the tang of hot pavement –– on the dusty wings of the breeze. She did not reveal the glowing coal that was her spirit. She snuffed deeply of the freedom-wind, and reminded herself: I am patient. Patient as the log that waits for water. Patiently waiting for the flood to carry me free.

She would run again, she knew it. She would run and roll in the sand. She would crop sweet green grass and drink clear water as it sparkled over rock.

She did not hear her own deep sigh of sadness and longing. 

She did not know that her patience would save her. She did not know the shape of the freedom could shift and change like snowdrift in a blizzard. But it would.

Paynes Prairie was the state's first state park. It's also the subject of one of the great early narratives about nature in the New World.

In 1773, William Bartram traveled south from Philadelphia, sketching and making extensive notes that became Bartram's Travels, first published in 1791 by James and Johnson in Philadelphia. 
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Want more Bartram's Travels? The University of North Carolina provides a nice electronic version here. 
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And the park itself? I can't recommend it enough: miles of trail for biking, hiking, picturesque wildlife. It's well worth a couple of extra days on a trip to or through Florida.

Hands down:

Meg Rosoff"s The Bride's Farewell.

Maybe the best book of my reading year.

So many stories start off with a interesting set-up, but then turn in to the same-old same-old:

An under-appreciated gal finds love and a glamorous makeover.
The unreliable narrator turns out to be hiding a truth worse than you think at first.
Square-jawed hero will decode the ages-old secret before the collapse of civilization.
Freakishly clever serial killer will do awful things and then get caught, except he will escape in the last paragraph.

Don't get me wrong, these books can be delightful.

​But we like surprises, we people do. Which might be why I have enjoyed this book so much.

The Bride's Farewell starts with a girl running away from home the morning she's to wed. It's 1850-something, and Pell takes some food, the coins meant as her dowry, her beloved horse and, then, as she starts off, finds that her silent little brother, Bean, refuses to be left behind.

Like many another character before her, Pell is different from her dirt-poor family, from other girls, from what society expects.

It's not just her unwillingness to settle down and marry the local boy she's known her whole life. It's not just her fear of ending up like her mother, exhausted and wrung-out from endless childbearing and grinding disappointment.

No, Pell is good with horses –– really good –– and she hopes to use this skill to make her own way through the world. But she does not quite reckon on the difficulties she'll face with people.

The Bride's Farewell is full of surprises and twists that make perfect sense in hindsight (like all the best fiction). Pell's insight into the thoughts of animals (matched by her lack of insight into the thoughts of humans) is utterly convincing and thought-provoking.  

At 214 pages, it's easy to down in a single sitting, but Rosoff's stylistic strengths (the writing is vivid and restrained, with only the best details filled in) bear re-reading. Now go to your local and read it.


"Chapter 2
The open road. What a trio of words. What a vision of blue sky and untouched hills and narrow trails heading God knew where and being free––free and hungry, free and cold, free and wet, free and lost. Who could mourn such conditions, faced with the alternative?"

I remember carefully inking in the item number and the size on the paper order form from Miller's. I'd been wanting them for ages, but it took a while to save up the money.  I toted up the column of price, tax, handling, and wrote the check.
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I used them at fancy-scmancy riding lessons in New Jersey's horse country (It does so have a horse country).

They moved with me to Florida, where they once carried me fleetly away from the kicking feet of a pair of mustangs who were –– as I learned –– not even remotely green-broke, no matter what the barn owner had promised.

Alas. I recently went to put them on.

Ye gods and small fishes! –– my wardrobe migrated from "funky," skipped "vintage," to whizz directly to "antique."