Amena Brown:
That time I met India Arie, that time I went on a really bad date, that time I was directed by Robert Townsend, that time I got my mono on Thanksgiving, that time I went on a really bad Christmas tour, that time I ... Hey, y'all, welcome back to this week's episode of HER with Amena Brown. I feel like every seven to 10 episodes, I say, "And I'm Amena Brown." I just do that in case there are people here who this might be your first episode, this might be your first time here, and you're like, "I don't know Amena Brown." That's me. I'm the host here.
So I'm very excited because I was talking with a friend of mine, and it reminded me of a story I wanted to tell y'all. So if you are not seated, then you might have a seat for story time. You might be seated in your vehicle. You might be in your remote work from home scenarios. You might be out running other assundry errands, so I welcome you to the story time that is today's episode. One of my friends was talking about how she had recently done an outing with her husband, and really wanted to go horseback riding. And it was as soon as she said it, it brought back all these memories as to why I will no longer participate in horseback riding, as to why I'm finished with it.
No shade to those of you that do this as an activity. This is a thing you like to do, like to be a part of. Some of y'all have been horseback riding since you were children. I wish you well. I don't want to be near a horse anymore. I feel like I have put in my time. I feel like I've had some amazing experiences. And I've had some experiences that are the reason why this is not a thing that I'm doing anymore. But I'm going to tell you my horseback riding journey. I'm going to share it with you.
So I went horseback riding for the first time when I was about 11 years old. And if you have been following the podcast, you know that one of my sisters, my sister that I grew up in the house with, my sister, Makeda, who has been a guest here on the podcast, and is my best friend. So we are actually almost 11 years apart because I was 10 when she was born in March, and then I turned 11 that May. Well, my mom had a friend who she worked with. My mom is a nurse. And at that time, my sister was born in a DC hospital, so we were living in the DMV area, shout out to my DMV people. I still have a lot of love and nostalgia about living in the DMV because my mom worked in DC, worked at a hospital there. And I went to school in Maryland. That area of the country is still one of my favorite places.
So my mom had a nurse friend, who was a very good friend of hers. And those of you who are older siblings in any regard, even if you're not the oldest, but you have siblings who are younger than you, and if you were old enough to remember when your sibling was born, you may know the vibes of what I'm about to describe. So because I was 10, my sister and I talk about this too, we were almost like two only children who had a small amount of time that we were in the house together. So I had 10 years where it was just my mom and I, and then my sister was born. So we had eight years where we were in the house together, and then by the time my sister was eight or about to be nine, I was leaving to go to college. So then my sister had the rest of her 10 years of high school without me being in the house.
And when you're an older sibling, I don't know, maybe I'm petty, or was a petty child, but I feel like this is probably a general experience that a lot of older siblings had, I was not used to sharing with a child that lived in the house with me. And it wasn't just sharing toys and things like that because my sister was so little, we couldn't play, which was really a part of what was sort of dissatisfactory to me in the experience of realizing what it's really going to be like to be a big sister. I had always wanted a sister, but I thought I was going to have a sister that I was going to be kind of equal parties with. By this time at 10, I'm still ... I feel like maybe I wasn't quite playing with Barbies as much, but I did still have a very nice Barbie house, so I feel like I did do that a little bit still. And I loved to play Monopoly, and was learning how to play different card games and stuff like that, was learning how to play tag, and freeze tag, shout out to those of you that played this outside.
So I was thinking about all the things I loved to do as a kid, and the whole purpose of having a sister was to have someone that could do those kid things with you. And when she got here, she was gorgeous, beautiful baby, and kind of useless, kind of useless for my childhood desires, really didn't do much, really took her a while to get to where she was kind of fun to be around. And when you're an older sibling and your parent has a child after you, there's this period of time that you probably hate, which is the time where everyone's coming over to the house. To what? See the baby. What are you? Chopped liver. It's like you're not interesting anymore. Everyone's interested in someone who can't talk to them, who can't really entertain them, who can't do anything but cry and go to the bathroom in a diaper that someone else has to clean up. The people really visited the house for this.
And as a 10 year old previous only child, that was really upsetting and disorienting. But I've got to give a special shout out to my mom's friend, Dara, because she came over and I am so ... I'm just remembering my shady little self. I remember I opened the door and I said, "She's over there." And Dara said, "I'm coming to see you." And I was like, "What?" She was like, "Yeah, I'm coming to see you. I'm coming to pick you up, and we're going to spend the day together." And to this day, y'all, I have to confirm with my mom because I don't remember if my mom and Dara talked about this and Dara was like, "Hey, I want to come over and do this," or what the vibes were. I really don't remember that part. I don't know that part. But know that I must've got the biggest smile on my face. That was the first time in however many weeks old or months old my sister was by then, that anyone had really talked to me about anything.
And so she was like, "Hurry up. Go get dressed." I was like, "Whoo," so I go and get dressed. And I spent the day hanging out with Miss Dara and her friends. And we went to go horseback riding. I really at that point probably didn't care what we were doing. I was just excited that somebody was paying attention to me. I want to make a little note here. If you are a person who is in community with people who have children, this is a gift that you can potentially give to your friends who have kids, or if you're a person who has children, especially if you're having a second, or third, or further child, and you have children already and you're having a baby, having people in your community that are able to think these thoughts is so good because it meant the world to me that someone was coming over to sort of give me a bit of attention that my childhood self was craving at that moment.
And maybe it helped my mom to have a little bit of time where she could just be there and focus on my sister. She didn't have to focus on the both of us. So just a little note, if you're in community with people who have kids, or community with anyone that maybe having a baby that has an older child, and you're the type of person that loves this type of thing where you could pick up a kid, even if you pick up a kid and take them while you run errands. It doesn't even have to be something super grandiose thing. Just the fact that you're like, "Hey, I see you. You are also important in this family," I feel like that's what Dara did for my jealous 10 year old self.
But the funny thing about it when I think back on that is I was so jealous of the attention my sister was getting. But then it was sort of like by the time she got to be six months old, that whole thing flipped for me, where I really got to the point where it went from, "Ugh, why's she here?" To if someone hurts her, I will hurt them type of feelings. And that feeling is the feeling is still have about my sister. There are very few reasons I hope to ever go to jail. But if I went to jail, it might be because someone harmed my sister and I then in turn feel a need to harm them. So isn't that interesting how you can go from sort of being jealous oldest kid to oh, no, I'm about to really have to hurt somebody for my sister? A little note for y'all.
I'm out with Dara, we go to this horseback riding situation. And one of Dara's friends had the whole riding outfit. She had the boots, the riding pants, everything. Baby was ready for this day we were about to have. My horse name was Chestnut. And I'm not really scared of the horse. I'm a little nervous because I've never done this. But because we were kind of all in a group of people, and it was sort of a mixed group as far as some people who had been horseback riding before and some people who hadn't, so I wasn't the only one who it was the first time. Well, I get on Chestnut, and we're supposed to go down this trail. And the trail that we were going down had poison ivy on either side of it, and Chestnut kept eating the poison ivy. And I really didn't know a whole lot about poison ivy, but I was concerned. Is my horse trying to harm himself? Is poison ivy ... I mean, it has poison in the name. Is my horse eating poison ivy going to literally poison him? And I could not get him to stop eating the poison ivy.
So the people that worked at the stable had to take a large bag of Chex Mix, cut the top of it off, and literally put ... What is that called on a horse? A snout? Or is that a pig? Anyway, they had to put the nose part of the horse, they had to put that in the Chex Mix bag and literally had to lead Chestnut back to the stable. That was my first experience horseback riding, y'all. Maybe that should've told me I should've let that be my first and last experience, but I was kind of like, "It was my first time. Who knows?" I didn't go horseback riding again for over 20 years, people. Over 20 years passed.
I'm going to cut in on Matt and I going to Botswana several years ago. Actually, I remember distinctly that it must have been 2015 because we were actually in Botswana on my 35th birthday. So the place where we were staying was a lodge. And a shout out to Dr. Una Mullally, who has also previously been a guest on this show before we actually relaunched. She was one of my first guests on HER with Amena Brown back in the day. Dr. Una Mullally is from Botswana, and I met her at a conference, and she is still doing amazing work as a doctor in her home country of Botswana. She came to the states and went to medical school, just got as much education and learning as she could because her goal was to return back to Botswana to really specifically help the field of pediatric ICU, which was almost nonexistent in Botswana at the time. So she basically asked Matt and I, "Would y'all be willing to come back with me to my home country?"
And there was an event she was going to do for medical professionals. And she was like, "We don't have a lot budget, but I can fly you there. I can get you someplace to stay." And Matt and I were like, "An opportunity to go to Botswana with you back to your home country? Yes. Sign us up for that," because a lot of the international travels that Matt and I did, as has been discussed on the podcast, we were traveling in a lot of very Christian Evangelical types of spaces, so that meant a lot of our international travel was on something that was very much like a missions trip. So to have the opportunity to go back to her home country with her as our guide felt amazing, and really was an amazing experience.
So we were staying on this lodge, like a safari lodge. So some of y'all are like, "What that mean?" Okay, what that means is the lodge was on an animal reserve, so the rooms, quote, unquote where we were staying, really weren't rooms. They were almost like their own individual kind of really good sized cabins. And then you weren't staying where you were going to walk out of your cabin and a lion was going to pass by. It wasn't that way. But you were definitely staying in a spot on the ground where you could hear a lot of the animals and birds at night and stuff like that. And one of the activities that they offered at the lodge was a horseback safari.
And we were staying on a reserve that did not have lions at all, so none of the animals were animals where you needed to be worried about your life. They were zebra and antelope and different kind of birds that were native to Botswana. So we were like, "Horseback safari sounds cool, and that sounds like something that you can't do everywhere. Sure, sign us up for that," because we had kind of gotten in a day or two I think before the event actually started, so we had a little bit of time on our hands here. Matt and I, I'm not even sure if this was Matt's first time horseback riding. Was it your first time, babe? Okay, Matt's in the room here because he's also the producer of this podcast. Yes, this was Matt's first time horseback riding and only my second time, but my second time since Chestnut at 10, 11 years old.
So Matt and I get on top of these horses, and these horses were great. The guides at the lodge were super great. But here's what's really cool, this was probably one of my bets horseback riding experiences. Here's what's really cool about this. It's really cool that you're getting to do a safari on horseback because the animals let us get a little closer to them than I think they would have if we had been on our two legs. Now I'm going to tell you the antelopes don't care. Almost anything that comes close to an antelope that's not an antelope is on the run. As soon as the antelopes see anybody, they're like, "That's all. I'm out of here." But the zebra and the giraffe, they actually let us get closer to them. Matt and I still to this day are mesmerized by how close we got to those animals.
And being people who grew up here in the states, I mean, when did I see a zebra or giraffe? Maybe a couple of times as a child at a zoo, and they were very far away then. So to get a chance to be up close to these animals that maybe you saw pictures of in a picture book, maybe you saw at the zoo once or twice in your life, amazing. That was probably one of the best horseback riding experiences I had.
Okay, fast forward a couple of years, Matt and I get an invitation to go to Costa Rica. Okay, let's talk about this. And I was actually recently talking to a friend of mine about couples trips. This might be its own episode. But a friend of mine was asking me: Do Matt and I take couples trips? And so far, we have not been people that take couples trips, I think not because we prefer not to, but I think our different friend groups that are also couples, I think we've all been experiencing different stages of life that maybe make it difficult to travel. Most of our couple friends don't live in Atlanta. I'll say a good bit, because we have a few couple friends here too. But most of our couple friends I think live out of town, or we've had some couple friends that lived out of the country. And so all of the timing of, herein, we're going to plan a couples trip didn't really do.
But we had some friends who we also worked with at events, and they took couples trips. I mean, we would see their pictures all over. They were going to Italy and Greece and all sorts of places together. Right? Well, one year came and they had all planned a trip to Costa Rica, and one of the couples at the last minute couldn't go on the trip, and they had already paid and everything on the trip, all of the lodging and everything that everybody had agreed on. And that couple knew us, and so they ... I don't know how that conversation went behind the scenes there. But I imagine how I would be if we had a couples trip, and you're like, "Oh, man, one of our normal couples that goes can't go. Who do we think we all going to get along with? Who is somebody we all already know that we don't have to deal with any wild surprises?"
So we knew three out of the four couples that were on the trip. And the couple that couldn't go said, "We will gift Amena and Matt our slot. All Amena and Matt need to do is pay for flights to Costa Rica. Y'all have never seen two people hit delta.com as fast as Matthew Owen and I when we received this message. A trip to Costa Rica where we only have to pay for a flight, yes, please. Sign us up for that. So it turned out that we had just enough miles for one of us to have a free ticket, and then we just had to pay for the other ticket. So we really got our flight to Costa Rica on a two for one.
So this was around 2017 time that we took this trip to Costa Rica. And I still look back on this like, "Oh, my gosh. This was just a wild thing." I'm actually not sure if it happened today, if I would've gone so quickly. I had just had fibroid surgery that March. I think the trip was in June, I want to say. So I was still out of my recovery time, but it was a pretty major surgery and was life changing for me on a lot of accounts. So I was feeling back to myself, but I don't know if I realized that I really wasn't 100% until we got to Costa Rica, bless our hearts. I know a little bit more about my body's recovery now, so I'm not sure if I would've had the gall to do it, but we did. And I don't regret the choice because it was fabulous. If you get a chance to go to Costa Rica two for one on the flights and you didn't have to pay for anything else, you should definitely do it.
So we get to Costa Rica, and the place where we were staying, it was really dope, it was like a house that used to be a bed and breakfast vibe. And the part that would normally be the dining room, the living room, the kitchen, was actually all outdoors, y'all. Part of it was covered, but it was still outdoors basically. It had a pool in the living room, so you could wake up and just go swimming in the pool. And then I think it had four bedrooms in it that were separated away, kind of on the outskirts of the way the house was made. And so each couple kind of had their own kind of private area. And then that was the only area of the house that was fully indoors. Once you stepped out of your room, the rest of it was outdoors, which for the most part was great. According to how mosquitoes work, maybe not so much, but everything else about it was gorgeous.
Okay, so we had an opportunity to go horseback riding. And part of the horseback riding experience that I wanted was the place where we stayed had concierge experiences that they had curated, that they knew the different families or companies that were heading up these experiences, so we had read all those. And there were a couple of things that we went and did as a group. We went and rode ATVs as a group, and got a chance to experience some of those different things. But I wanted to do this thing that they offered in the concierge, where you got to horseback ride, you got to taste Costa Rican coffee, and you got to learn how to make these Costa Rican corn tortillas. Right?
And we were obviously eating a lot of food there. And whenever we ate breakfast there, I noticed that they had this corn tortilla that really to me was thicker than what I know corn tortillas to be because I was really raised in San Antonio, Texas. So I'm having that sort of Tex Mex or Mexican cuisine idea of a tortilla, but the Costa Rican tortillas were a little bit thicker. And instead of them being used to wrap things in, like a taco or a burrito, they were put on the bottom of the dish. And then for breakfast, you might have black beans on top, some cheese, some eggs on top, and that was your breakfast. And it was as delicious as it sounds, yes.
So for one of these horseback riding trips, you could go horseback riding and also learn how they make those tortillas. And I was like, "This is the thing that I need to do before I leave here." Matt and I talked about it and we were like, "Great." So when we went into town to do the ATV, when we went to the ATV, they had a whole list of experiences there too. So I was like, "Oh." I assumed, I'm going to tell y'all something, don't ever assume like I did right here, but I assumed that this was the same company because it wasn't a large area where we were. We weren't in a major, major city in Costa Rica, so I was like, "Surely this is all the same." It wasn't. So Matt and I paid in that day to go the next day to do this, what we're thinking is the horseback riding. It's going to be a tour and blah, blah, blah.
I want to tell you right now, narrator, narrator, it was not the same tour. So we meet back at the place where we had met to go do the ATV. And somebody's son, somebody's I don't know, he looked like he could've been a teenager, somebody's son picks us up in a little hatchback, a little tow down, seen its better days hatchback, and drives us to what I'm thinking is maybe his mama house. So I know a little bit of Spanish, and so does Matt. I know enough to conversationally get by. But if you start getting in depth conversation with me, then I'm going to lose it. I'm going to be able to understand some things, but I might not be able to speak back as quickly.
Okay, so we're standing there waiting for them to get the horses together. And I'm trying to ask our guide, "Are we going to learn how to make the tortillas?" And they were looking at me like, "Hm?" But the mama went in the kitchen and started making breakfast, so we had the tortillas and breakfast. We had coffee that was delicious. And then after the mama made it, she was standing in the doorway to her kitchen. So I was asking the guide, "I thought we were going to learn how to make them. Would she teach me?" And when I tell y'all she shook her head, she stared back at me like she was blocking that kitchen like, "American, I don't care. You're not getting in my kitchen. I gave you something to eat. I gave you some coffee. Get on the horse and keep it moving."
So I was like, "Oh, man." I was disappointed because I really was signing up for the horseback riding so that I could have her show me how they make these particular tortillas, so I'm kind of disappointed. Okay, so her little son leads us out on horseback. Matt and I get on the horses, and for a while, we're just riding through, taking a slow little ride. But it's not really a view because I remember the other one said that you would also end up on your horseback riding trip, you would also end up seeing the beach and stuff. So we keep going, we keep going, and I'm looking at: How do I ask this young man how far we are from the beach in Spanish? Right? And before I could get that together, y'all, it poured down torrential rain on us while we were on horseback. And the type of road we were on, there was really hardly any place to go. We had to ride for a while to finally find someplace that this little child could pull off so that we could stand under a little awning or something until this wild rainstorm passed.
So while we're standing there, we're trying to get from him: How far are we? We ride for a little bit longer and I'm like, "Are we close to the beach?" And we finally realize he doesn't really have an idea of how far we are from anything. So at that point, Matt is like, "Hey, can you just take us back to where you dropped us off?" So he turns us around, we ride the horses back to what I'm assuming is his mama house, and another little child picked us up in that little hatchback and drove us back. And not only was I disappointed, but obviously I am drenched. I am drenched. And for the Black women listening that are asking hair questions, I had my hair in twists, and the twists were in a bun. This is the main thing that saved me from having a hair emergency in this situation.
And I had read about Costa Rica that obviously it's a very humid place, and we were there during the rainy season, so I just left my hair twisted the entire time. I know some people were concerned. I want to speak to that, thank you. So we get back and I'm just kind of disappointed because I'm kind of like, "That was my one highlight." And I think really what happened is this family that owned this here business, I don't really think they offer breakfast and coffee with their horseback rides. I don't even know if they offered full horseback rides. I think they just heard us talking about it and were like, "I bet we could do that." I feel like one of the aunties was like, "Yeah, tell those people yes. Whatever they're asking, we'll fix it for them." So boy, I was disappointed.
And we get back to the room, and I think that was the last day that all of the couples were going to be there together, so we all went and had a big dinner at one of the Costa Rican restaurants in the area, and just hung out and drank some Costa Rican wine, which was wonderful. And Matt and I get back, and we realize everyone else is leaving in the morning, but our flight wasn't until very late that night, 9:00 or something was when we were leaving. And so Matt looks at me and he's like, "We going to the original horseback ride that you wanted." He was like, "Let's reach out to the concierge people and let's go do it." He was like, "We don't know when we're going to come back to Costa Rica and that's what you wanted. I don't want you to miss out on it." And I was like, "I really did marry well."
Okay, so we do that, sign up for the actual concierge ride. And everyone leaves ahead of us, we check out. And because the family that ran this business that the concierge was connecting us with that did horseback rides, totally different family than before, and they had all the processes together. We told them we were checking out, but our flight wasn't until later. And they were like, "We're going to come pick you up." It was a more reliable car. It was a good enough sized car that our luggage fit in it. And they drove us to their office, and they were like, "We're going to store your luggage here because our team and everything stays here all day, so your luggage will be safe." And then he drove us out to his family's farm.
And he's telling us all this information about Costa Rica on our way out there. We get out there to the farm and he's showing us the different coffee plants and things like this. And my husband is very much into coffee. This was probably really between Botswana and this trip, the beginnings of my husband really getting into coffee, coffee. So some of you know what I mean when I say that, not people like me, who are like, "Yes, I love a little bit of coffee with a lot of syrup and some whipped cream." Not you, if that's you, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about people who just drink their coffee black because you love the actual taste and feel of coffee. And by this point in being married, Matt and I had not only been to Botswana, we'd been to the Dominican Republic. And now we were in Costa Rica, so we'd been in some areas where the coffee was very, very good.
I had traveled to Rwanda was well, which is another place of great coffee. So my husband is getting to have this pour over experience in Costa Rica, which was amazing. And the women who were in this man's family also showed me how they made those tortillas. I still have the video to this day. I was able to get a minute or so of footage watching them make it. And they had this really amazing kind of clay oven almost, that was over fire and was kind of shaped almost like a very large wok would be shaped, was shaped like that. And they were showing me how that's the way that they kind of grill these tortillas. It was amazing, y'all. It was amazing. And we get on our horses and the goal of the trip that we're going on, our horseback ride, is to get to a beach in Costa Rica. You take some pictures. You do those vibes. Then you ride the horses back to that original place. They're going to pick us up from there, take us back to our luggage.
And we had actually ended up having just enough points to get a hotel so that we could just have some place to chill for the few hours that we were going to be waiting until our flight. So I want to also let y'all know that the beach where we were going to end up on this horseback ride was the same beach where Beyonce and Jay-Z filmed Drunk in Love. So this beach is, instead of the beach being sand, y'all, the beach is ground seashells, which is not amazing for the feet. But if I'm in a place where Beyonce was, do I feel as if that probably makes us friends? Yes, so that part was great. We ride our horses out there, and then my horse is having a struggle once again. If horse ancestors work possibly like people ancestors work, I'm like, "Chestnut, is it you, buddy?" Because what are the vibes?
We're riding, and they're telling us different sounds to make, or commands to give, you want the horse to slow down, how to use the reins to slow down or speed up, as it were. And I'm trying all the things, and it's like the horses are trained. These particular especially group of horses that we were on, they're trained to sort of stay together. So if one horse starts going faster, the other horses are trained to kind of stay in a pack. So I couldn't get my little horse to slow down. My little horse kept speeding up and just taking me on. And there's a lot about trauma in the body that I did not understand at the time, which is why I tell you that this many months post surgery, maybe I wouldn't have done this. But there was something about the horse speeding up and me not being able to control the horse and feeling afraid that I'm riding on this very large animal who keeps going so fast, and I can't stop this horse.
I involuntarily start crying, sobbing on this horse. And our guides are freaked out, and I can hear them asking Matt, "Es tu esposa?" And so Matt is telling them, "Si, mi esposa. And so they pull all of us over because, y'all, we're not alone on this journey. There were other people. I didn't tell you that part. There were other people. There's three or four other people that we don't know them that are on this thing with us. So the guides are like, "Wow, this lady is sobbing. Let's pull over." And so they're talking to me. We're trying to kind of tell them in Spanish and explain to them what's happening. And the guides were very sweet and very kind, y'all. He was like, "You're going to ride with me," in the sense that he was on his horse and I stayed on my horse, but he took the reins of my horse. If I was into sermons or some message here, but anyways, he took the reins of my horse, and we just rode like that until we got to the next stopping place.
And once we got to the stopping place when we actually got to the beach, it was beautiful. I am hoping to share on social media with y'all the actual picture of Matt and I holding hands while being on these horses on a beach in Costa Rica, happening to be the beach where Beyonce and Jay-Z filmed Drunk in Love, wow, wow, which basically meant Matt and I were almost like our own version of what Beyonce and Jay-Z. I don't make the rules. That's just what it meant because we happened to be in a place where they had been.
So that horseback ride ended beautifully. I received all of the things that I wanted to receive and learn from the trip, but I'm going to tell y'all something. We rode them horses back over to the stable, got our little bags, went to the hotel, and I basically looked at Matt and said, "That's my last one. That's it." I'd had Chestnut eating the poison ivy. I done got rained on, on horseback. And now I have sobbed involuntarily on horseback. I'm good, I'm good. I've rode horseback in America. I rode horseback in Botswana. I rode horseback in Costa Rica. I told Matt, "I will never ask you to ride horseback again, and I don't want you to ask me. There has to be some other way to travel wherever we going that doesn't involve me getting on a horse." So I don't mess with horseback riding anymore. I feel like I put in my time. I gave it a try. I hope the horses live well.
I was just with a friend of mine downtown in Atlanta headed to a concert. And like many cities, we have the horse drawn carriages for people who feel like that's romantic. I don't. My husband don't never, never have to worry about me asking to feel like Cinderella in a horse drawn carriage. I don't want that. No, no. I would just like to be in a car. Let that be my carriage, horsepower drawn, not horse drawn carriage. And I'm going to tell y'all, the way they had the horses kind of pulled over to the side, this just happened to me this weekend, so I'm letting y'all know me and horses don't vibe. My friend and I are walking by, and the horses have blinders on, but the horse kept turning to look at us.
So we decided to what? Cross the other way. I'm not dealing with this with you. I don't care. I'm not doing that. And the man who was in charge of the horses, he said, "Why y'all scared? Y'all scared?" I said, "He looking at me. Your horse looking at me. You know?" You got blinders on so you can what? Stay faced forward, but now you turn and looking at me. I'm telling y'all right now, horseback riding's over for me. I've enjoyed it, had a great time. I'm retired. I'm retired from horseback riding.
But I had some wonderful times horseback riding, but it's over for me. So for those of you that are still horseback riding, I wish you well. I wish you well. I hope your horses stay on the trail. I hope that they stay at the speed that you would like. I hope you don't get rained on. But that's it for me. Thanks for listening, y'all. See y'all next week.
HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.