spatial there, image to the right, logic the left, tears east, talk west. Male brains in general don’t court inconsistencies, while the female brain seems to be built for these. Obviously there are abundant exceptions, but let’s look for a moment at the mass. Horses, their mass, one thousand pounds on average. Horses, piebald or chestnut, stubborn or sweet, stallion or mare—either way all this bulk and its associated contradictions may fit with more ease inside the circle of female skull.
Maybe this is why—short on talent, constantly criticized—I still went back (we still went back), lesson after lesson. Possessing a brain built to perceive paradox, females, or some subset, may find a resonant focus in the horse. In my own particular case, add in the sole certainty of uncertainty that is part and parcel of every equine encounter, along with an entrenched tendency to see a universe ringed by risk, and what better way to practice my perseverance, to entertain my compulsions?
But what I was mostly chasing up there, I think, was what I’d found that first day on the Bedouin pony—a total concentration, both a focus
and
a frame for my fear. And when that happened—focus and frame—I got just what I wanted. The click came. I cantered and forgot to call it cantering. There were two beings but one beat. I started streaming.
And when the ride stopped, the horse stopped, the rhythm stopped, when I slid off the animal and slipped back into the singular, then for a little while objects appeared brighter, sounds suggestive of worlds beyond themselves, a simple sip of water—like drinking diamond. It is hard to hold such joy. Its brimming feels nearly painful, but not quite. No one else knows. The day is as ordinary as country cotton. The milk is as it always is, tinged bluish in the bottle. And yet you look here and there you see new angles in the day, every person a prism. The grass a thick impasto. Horses look different too when you are saturated with such joy, already leaving now, its life span shorter than a fruit fly’s but still enough so you can see the animal anew.
“Doesn’t it seem weird,” I said to Aggy as we stood by the pasture fence, the lesson over, the click clicked, “doesn’t it seem really weird that horses could kill us in a second if they wanted to?”
“Yeah,” said Aggy, her hard hat still on. She took it off, dangled it by its strap.
“Every single time we tack up, and ride a horse, they could trample us, or buck us off; they could kill us in a second,” I repeated. I paused. The wind made the sweat on my scalp tingle in a wonderful way. “But they don’t,” I said. “I mean, even though they have the strength to really harm us, they hardly ever do. We put on their saddles, put in their bits, tighten the girths, sit on their backs, even a two-hundred-pound man could plunk down on their backs, and in just a second any of these horses … they could decide to just throw us off and stomp us to pieces. It would be so easy for them. But for some reason, they, every time, they don’t do that…. Instead of killing us,” I said, trying again, “horses choose to …” I couldn’t find the word.
“Move us,” Aggy said.
“Yes,” I said. Precisely.
There were two babies—Jack and Jill—who, said Rose, were ready for “breaking.” I had scant knowledge of what “breaking” meant, how, for years men had believed the best way to tame a horse was to sap its spirit. In pursuit of this, men used—and many still do—methods that make one wince, the pictures preserved in books. Here is a mare with her lips sewn shut, here a stallion, hung upside down, his eyes full of terror, his hoofs pawing at air.
Humans have used great cruelty in trying to tame the horse, this despite the great gifts the animal has given. For the thousands of years since horse and human first struck up a relationship, we have been blessed with a beast that, while of nature, has enabled culture to proceed in
Maybe this is why—short on talent, constantly criticized—I still went back (we still went back), lesson after lesson. Possessing a brain built to perceive paradox, females, or some subset, may find a resonant focus in the horse. In my own particular case, add in the sole certainty of uncertainty that is part and parcel of every equine encounter, along with an entrenched tendency to see a universe ringed by risk, and what better way to practice my perseverance, to entertain my compulsions?
But what I was mostly chasing up there, I think, was what I’d found that first day on the Bedouin pony—a total concentration, both a focus
and
a frame for my fear. And when that happened—focus and frame—I got just what I wanted. The click came. I cantered and forgot to call it cantering. There were two beings but one beat. I started streaming.
And when the ride stopped, the horse stopped, the rhythm stopped, when I slid off the animal and slipped back into the singular, then for a little while objects appeared brighter, sounds suggestive of worlds beyond themselves, a simple sip of water—like drinking diamond. It is hard to hold such joy. Its brimming feels nearly painful, but not quite. No one else knows. The day is as ordinary as country cotton. The milk is as it always is, tinged bluish in the bottle. And yet you look here and there you see new angles in the day, every person a prism. The grass a thick impasto. Horses look different too when you are saturated with such joy, already leaving now, its life span shorter than a fruit fly’s but still enough so you can see the animal anew.
“Doesn’t it seem weird,” I said to Aggy as we stood by the pasture fence, the lesson over, the click clicked, “doesn’t it seem really weird that horses could kill us in a second if they wanted to?”
“Yeah,” said Aggy, her hard hat still on. She took it off, dangled it by its strap.
“Every single time we tack up, and ride a horse, they could trample us, or buck us off; they could kill us in a second,” I repeated. I paused. The wind made the sweat on my scalp tingle in a wonderful way. “But they don’t,” I said. “I mean, even though they have the strength to really harm us, they hardly ever do. We put on their saddles, put in their bits, tighten the girths, sit on their backs, even a two-hundred-pound man could plunk down on their backs, and in just a second any of these horses … they could decide to just throw us off and stomp us to pieces. It would be so easy for them. But for some reason, they, every time, they don’t do that…. Instead of killing us,” I said, trying again, “horses choose to …” I couldn’t find the word.
“Move us,” Aggy said.
“Yes,” I said. Precisely.
There were two babies—Jack and Jill—who, said Rose, were ready for “breaking.” I had scant knowledge of what “breaking” meant, how, for years men had believed the best way to tame a horse was to sap its spirit. In pursuit of this, men used—and many still do—methods that make one wince, the pictures preserved in books. Here is a mare with her lips sewn shut, here a stallion, hung upside down, his eyes full of terror, his hoofs pawing at air.
Humans have used great cruelty in trying to tame the horse, this despite the great gifts the animal has given. For the thousands of years since horse and human first struck up a relationship, we have been blessed with a beast that, while of nature, has enabled culture to proceed in
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