At the age of thirty-seven, Courtney Maum found herself in an indoor arena in Connecticut, moments away from stepping back into the saddle. For her, this was not just a riding lesson, but a last-ditch attempt to pull herself back from the brink even though riding is a relic from the past she walked away from. She hadn’t been on or near a horse in over thirty years.
Although Maum does know what depression looks like, she finds herself refusing to admit, at this point in her life, that it could look like her: a woman with a privileged past, a mortgage, a husband, a healthy child, and a published novel.
That she feels sadness is undeniable, but she feels no right to claim it. And when both therapy and medication fail, Courtney returns to her childhood passion of horseback riding as a way to recover the joy and fearlessness she once had access to as a young girl.
Courtney Maum will be speaking with WAMC's Sarah LaDuke about her memoir "The Year of the Horses" at The Mount in Lenox, MA on June 30 @ 5:30 p.m.
