Glass Horse

Mom bought this hand-blown glass horse on one of her trips to Italy.  She kept it in a precious glass box in the living room (Cliff still keeps it there).  It’s a powerful reminder of her – of her love of travel and her love of art – and a reminder of my own deep love of horses.  She bought me a collection of the plastic toy kind in the 60s (hey, they were really beautiful too).  I’m the kind of person now who watches Olympic dressage on repeat, and I was one of those little girls who begged for a horse as a child.  At 10, I compiled a notebook of detailed information, drawings, and even newspaper clippings from the racetrack – anything about horses went into the notebook (I still have it because mom kept it for me).  My grandparents took me to ride the ponies in Griffith Park when small, I did get riding lessons in Rancho Santa Fe around 12, and my brother-in-law eventually did get a couple of horses for us when I was a teen – for a brief period of time it was a dream come true.  All these memories flash in an instant when I see this horse …