Ouch.

Nothing broken or torn, just a bruised shoulder and some whiplash. I’m pretty much recovered now.

As I lay in bed the night after the fall from the horse, evaluating what hurt and what didn’t, the thought occurred to me that falls are pretty much inevitable. (As one T-shirt I’ve seen proclaims, “The hardest thing about horseback riding is the ground.”) I don’t think much about falling off, I always wear my riding helmet, and I’m a careful rider. My horse is gentle, obedient and generally quite mellow, though like most horses, he will occasionally spook. You can minimize risk, but if you ride regularly, it’s pretty much not a matter of if you will come off the horse, but a matter of when.

That’s true of life, too, isn’t it? There’s risk in everything—driving to the grocery store, riding bikes with the kids, even eating bagged salad! If you thought too long and hard about what might happen, you wouldn’t be able to leave your home.

Falls in life are inevitable, just like they are in horseback riding. All you can do is minimize risk. Buckle your seat belt, wear your helmet, thoroughly wash the greens...live your life.

(But I especially recommend wearing your helmet.)

We also have a flying pig in our foyer:


My husband purchased this one on a family trip just after we sold our business. This little piggy represents freedom. After years of working long hours in our insurance business, he finally felt free from stress, free from having to be somewhere all dressed up at eight (or earlier) in the morning, free from problems with clients or staff.

We only have two flying pigs in our home, but we have no fewer than five variations of bicycle objets d’art (including a bicycling pig). I don’t know what the bicycles stand for yet. My husband is an avid cyclist, but we started picking up the bicycles before he started riding regularly. Perhaps they also represent freedom—the ability to ride away if things get tough? Or maybe they symbolize the excitement of exploring or going on adventures? (Clearly I have too much time on my hands if I’m assigning hidden meaning to articles of household decoration. Maybe they’re just bikes.)

Is it just me, or do you have any objects in your life that are more than just decoration? Objects that speak to your heart and soul for some perhaps unaccountable reason? Maybe it’s a trinket brought back from a family vacation, or an item picked up at a flea market because it called your name.

When I see the pigs, I think of vacations (I bought Penelope while on vacation, also), freedom, playfulness, joy. My heart lifts, even if it’s just for a moment. I think we need these unexpected hits of happiness in our daily lives—little jolts from a special item or a photo of a happy occasion placed where we see it often during the day.

If you have any items that serve as symbols for you, what are they, what do they mean to you and where do you keep them?

Back to school that is. Today is the first day of school in our county, and our son dragged himself out of bed at 6 a.m. It just doesn’t seem right to go to the school bus stop when it’s still dark.

First day with the new backpack

Actually, I have mixed feelings about him going back to school. He’s nice to have around, and this was probably his last summer as a “kid.” Next summer will find him completing community service hours for a state-sponsored scholarship program and/or working at his first job. (Of course, our food bill might be smaller now that he’s back in school. Teenage boys are eating machines!)

Now that he’s back in school, I can look forward to the approach of fall. I frequently set new goals in the fall rather than in January. In Florida, summer is so hot and drags on so long that I’ve lost all ambition and energy by September. If I didn’t have to leave the house, I’d never change out of my pajamas. When we get our first cold front, hopefully sometime in October, I begin to perk up, look around me and decide on new projects and tackle the to-do list that has grown large and unwieldy during the summer. I review any goals I set earlier in the year to see if I’m on track.

It looks beautiful, but it's HOT

So much has changed since last fall: I began writing articles for SheKnows.com and for this blog, I found my new friend Laure, my son grew taller than me. And I met all of you who are kind enough to read the blog and comment on it. You’ve enriched my life by sharing your thoughts with me and each other.

Do you have a favorite time of year? What makes it your favorite? My current favorite is fall, because that’s when I start to feel human again, instead of like a giant, sweaty lump. Hopefully your reasons are a little more poetic than mine…

• Sweet, juicy watermelon
• Crunchy, slightly sour salt & vinegar potato chips
• Creamy, cold ice cream in a crisp waffle cone

Smell…

• Freshly cut grass
• Someone cooking on a charcoal grill
• Fresh basil leaves snipped from my plant
• Salt water and sand at the beach

See…

• Green grass, blue sky, puffy white clouds
• The faces of my son and his friends, flushed and sweaty from playing outdoors
• Words on a page telling me a story or teaching me something
• The four-legged miracle that is my horse, Tank

Hear…

• Frogs singing at night
• The hush before dusk
• My favorite summer feel-good song played loud in the car (currently Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music.” I dare you to sit still while listening.)
• My husband playing the piano

Feel…

• My dog's soft ears
• Silky water on hot skin
• Air conditioning after I’ve been sweating outside
• Cool cotton sheets on my bed

This weekend, take 15 minutes to come to your senses. What did you see? Hear? Feel? What surprised you? What did you enjoy? Was there anything you didn’t like? Come back here and share your discoveries.