Years ago when I was a girl, I took a handful of riding lessons from an instructor named Sue. I didn’t have my own horse yet, and was thrilled at the prospect of an hour of riding on Saturday mornings in a beautiful indoor arena at one of the nicer equestrian facilities in the area.

At lesson time, Sue stomped into the barn in steel-toed boots, stained Levis, cropped hair standing on end, cigarette dangling from one hand (I didn’t think you were supposed to smoke in barns), shouting profanities at horses and students. Not quite what I’d expected. Where was the lady in the hunt coat and shining boots? Shouldn’t she have a British accent? But I didn’t care. (Luckily my mom had just dropped me off and wasn’t there to disapprove.) I was just happy to get on the back of a horse.

As I rode the 20-year-old paint gelding Champ around the arena, trying not to get tangled up in the other little girls who were likewise plow reining their lesson horses around, I could feel Sue’s eyes on me. Scowling beneath her Cleveland Indians ball cap, she pointed at me, “Hey you!” I glanced around at the now-trotting-and-posting throng, hoping she wasn’t speaking to me. After all, I was doing the best I could. “Yes, you, in the red shirt, come here”, she said, and indicated that I was to ride to a halt in the center of the arena.

Grinding her half-smoked Marlboro into the sand with the heel of her boot, I nearly shied away as she strode towards me and Champ, mannish arms swinging from her Olympic-swimmer-sized shoulders, muscles rippling beneath her faded polo shirt like a draft horse’s, and stopped next to me, hands planted squarely on slender hips. She surveyed me from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. I felt smaller by the second, bracing myself for the onslaught of words my parents would ground me for eternity for thinking, let alone saying, until she surprised me by grasping my leg and gently placing it where she wanted it to be, working both sides, molding me to the horse, standing back like a sculptor to check out her work.

Sue asked me stand up in my stirrups, get my legs back beneath me, weight resting on the insides of my thighs and calves, until I could maintain that position with my hands straight out at my sides. And I did it! I was so proud of myself, without even thinking I found myself grinning down into the riding instructor’s face beaming up at me. It was tanned worse than the old leather saddles we were using. Laugh lines and worry lines and getting-old lines wrinkled around her eyes and mouth as she patted my thigh with her nicotine-stained hand and said, “That’s fine! Fine! Just keep your legs there, and you’ll find it much easier to maintain your seat.”

Champ and I floated around the arena.

I took three more horseback riding lessons until my mom's small horseback riding lesson fund ran out. I told her about Sue on the way back home after my final lesson. “Well, she doesn’t sound like much of a lady,” my mom said, frowning in disapproval. And that was that. I willed myself to be bold enough to say, “Well, I like her.” But instead, I gazed out the passenger side window of the avocado green Chevy Impala, hands folded neatly in my lap, ankles crossed, not smacking my gum, mute, and pondered what it means to be a lady. Whatever it meant, it seemed to be a given that I would be one too. And I wasn't so sure I liked the idea.

Years later, at a local fair, I went to a dressage exhibition on a rainy afternoon. Inside the white tent, muted classical music poured from speakers as I made my way through the noisy crowd to the rail, jostling to be in front so I could see.

And out rode Sue on a white Lipizzaner horse. I’d had no idea she would be there.

The riding instructor was dressed in white breeches, white shirt, white gloves, stock tie, gleaming dress boots, a shadbelly of midnight blue, Grand Prix top hat. Not a single hair was out of place. The jabbering onlookers immediately fell silent, as if under the spell of a mythic queen. Sue and horse danced right by me in magnificent passage. Regal. Royal. Refined. I almost expected her to wink at me from beneath her black silk hat to let me know that what I was seeing was some kind of optical illusion. But she didn’t. She didn’t look at me or anyone else beyond the confines of the small dressage arena.

She was the picture of an elegant lady.

Flickr photos: genewolf; genewolf