Before I can get my mouth open to tell her I don't think I've exchanged two whole sentences with the classical dressage trainer since I met him over a year ago (And not from lack of trying, until finally, after my friendly and way wordy overtures are met with several instances of highly uncomfortable and resounding silence, I am told by someone who knows that the man simply doesn't talk), she strides ahead, opens the arena gate, points to two folding chairs in the corner. Where we sit. Quietly.

I had hoped that today's lesson would be the exception to the rule, and steel my talkative self against what I dread as a terrifying hour of soundlessness.

I fold my hands in my lap, perched on my seat in an uncharacteristically demure attitude, intent on not speaking, thinking that I do always say thank you for the nice ride whenever The Hungarian longes the vaulting horse for me, to which he simply smiles enigmatically, grey eyes twinkiling, and bows his head as if we are standing not in a dirt arena in Northern New Mexico, but the great stone halls of Boldogkõ or Diósgyor. Each time I notice that his scalp is tanned beneath a shock of white hair as unruly as Albert Einstein's. Sometimes I think he might laughing at me because I am a beginning vaulter and in my forties and just some cowgirl who trail rides.

My coach tips her head at me, tacitly implying that the lesson to which I've been invited has begun.

When The Hungarian speaks to the horse, it is only in his native tongue, in a whisper, and even those words are rare. As over 1400 pounds of sinew, bone, and spirit canters in a light, collected circle, I find myself on the edge of my seat willing myself to understand it all by osmosis. As horse and man dance together in the deep, sandy arena, I discover that silence can be more eloquent than I've ever imagined.

I am amazed at what I learn.

And I decide that I wasn't being laughed at after all.