
Longeing
At parents' weekend, we gather to watch a demonstration— buttermilk dun circles the pen walking or trotting on a longe line held by the horse handler. Coconino sandstone behind us, mottled clouds pierced by hawk flight. The horse handler asks What are we doing? Why are we here? He is teaching us how horses and girls should be handled. These thirty girls—with mood disorders, addictions, suicidal ideations here, in Arizona, at Montezuma— so named because the locals believed Aztecs built the ancient cliff dwellings. Yet the girls feel as far from home as the Aztecs from the First People, and we parents feel as ignorant as the locals who named the place. We feel bewildered watching the horse handler running and running the buttermilk dun who keeps jerking away her head.