Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Horse
A few days ago, I found a photo that was taken of me at forty-three sitting on my new horse (then fourteen). I look a little disheveled but happy; he looks thin, even emaciated, with very little tail and several scars where other horses have taken pieces out of his hide. What you can’t tell from the photo, and what I didn’t know at the time, was that the horse (whom I named Tick Tock, after the ticking of our biological clocks) was about to take me on a life-changing adventure that has been more fun, sometimes more troubling, and always more interesting than I could have possibly imagined.
I was a fearful person then, the sort who sneaks into the baby’s room during naps to make sure he’s breathing, the sort who imagines every latecomer in a traffic accident. I had always loved horses, though, had ridden as a teenager, and thought riding a horse might be a more fun way to lose the last fifteen pounds of pregnancy weight than riding a NordicTrack with my eyes glued to the Weather Channel, watching for tornado warnings. (I lived in Iowa then.)
The horse had been around—most recently he had lived in a field with a bunch of other horses, and before that, who knew? But he was kind and easy to ride, and most important, the second morning that I knew him, he nickered at me. That was flattering, like having a nice man call you darling but without any overtones of sexual harassment. I meant to ride three times a week; I had a baby and other children and a husband and a career. But there I was, four, five, six days a week, not just riding the horse but taking lessons, asking questions, hanging around the barn, buying equipment. I was right about the pounds—they were gone in a month—but I was wrong about everything else, namely that I was an established grown-up who had it all figured it out.
The first thing I had to confront was the same thing all adult riders have to confront—fear. Was he going to step on me? (Yes, if I didn’t watch where his feet were.) Was he going to run away? (Yes, if something scared him.) Might he buck me off? (Unlikely, but possible.) More embarrassingly, was I going to fall off? (Once, yes. I was unbalanced, out of my element, weak, stiff.) Beneath the fear, I soon saw, was a long-standing habit of not actually paying attention to what I was doing. I had spent years thinking about one thing while doing another. I had, in fact, prided myself on this. But if I didn’t know what I was doing and neither did the horse, he acted confused, nervous, a little scary. I had to learn, quickly but with surprising difficulty, how to pay attention.
And then there was my body. I would think Sit up straight, but not be able to sit up straight. I told my instructor that it didn’t seem as though my head was connected to the rest of me. He agreed. (How embarrassing was that?) It was as though my nerve impulses ran through Cleveland on the way from my cerebellum to my heels. This weight-loss project was turning into a challenge of my every habit, a challenge to the unconscious way I had been living.
But the horse loved me. He nickered at me every day, came when I called, paid attention, flicking his ears when I talked. And when I did everything right, even for just a moment or two, the fear, the preoccupation, and awkwardness gave way to grace and pleasure unlike any sensation I’d ever felt, a pure physical sense of rhythm and strength that the horse communicated right into my sinews. As with all positive transformations, the right moments accumulated into right minutes and subsequently into delicious stretches of time that didn’t feel like time at all.
What’s unique about riding is that the horse is always right there, and not only physically: Tick Tock’s personality, his intentions, and his willingness were always palpable. I learned why “out riding alone” is an oxymoron: An equestrian is never alone, is always sensing the other being, the mysterious but also understandable living being that is the horse. That is what gets me out every day, in weather I would never jog in.
My body is different now—I have triceps and biceps. I gallop and jump and ride with intense pleasure. I am also more patient, self-confident, ready for fun. I am more daring. My old “What if?” has become more of a “Why not?” I am readier to believe that if something comes up, I can deal with it—even backing up the horse trailer. But the greatest change is my constant sense of an unfolding relationship and growing knowledge. I used to pepper my trainers and vets with questions. Why is the horse doing that? What does that mean? At bottom, who is he? I discovered that the horse is life itself, a metaphor but also an example of life’s mystery and unpredictability, of its generosity and beauty, a worthy object of repeated and ever-changing contemplation.