How Will I Survive?
As a teenage I had a few mentors. One was Oaky, my horse, who introduced me to everything I would need to figure out what I am doing here. What I mean by that is, he taught me to follow my instincts, work hard and have faith. Serious faith, just the fact that I had a horse of my own was a miracle. But there were other events that were equally challenging to explain; the sudden overwhelming feeling of tranquility that came up from deep within me; an awareness of being connected in strong and peaceful ways flowing through me; decisions I made that I felt were guided divinely.
I learned to accept and embrace all this. It was as if I had no other choice. As a teenage
catholic girl who hated church I felt very safe, very lucky and very blessed. So much so, that when it was clear to me that I could no longer live peacefully in my parent’s home, I left. With my senior year in high school still ahead of me, I found myself sleeping at friends’ homes and riding my bike or Oaky everywhere I needed to go. Finally my boyfriends’ mother insisted I live in their home until I graduated, which I did. Not that a diploma did me much good.
But my friendship with Barbara Silcox did. She took me under her proverbial wing, and if you knew Barb, it wasn’t an angel wing; it was more like a mockingbird wing. She was fast, adventurous and she liked to sing. Barb taught me to follow my bliss and certainly don’t 
look to others for approval. I gave Oaky away and became a groom at a racetrack in Florida, then a hunter-jumper stable in Clearwater. After that I lived at a Morgan horse-breeding farm in Wrightstown Pennsylvania. And then I moved to a show barn in Kettleby Ontario. I was surviving by trusting my gut and working hard. However, something was slipping away, and that was my faith in myself. I was surviving, but I was no longer feeling connected and supported. Oaky was gone and I felt absolutely alone.