Back in the saddle

“There was an old horseskull in the brush and he squatted and picked it up and turned it in his hands. Frail and brittle. Bleached paper white. He squatted in the long light holding it, the comicbook teeth loose in their sockets. The joints in the cranium like a ragged welding of the bone plates. The muted run of sand in the brainbox when he turned it.

What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them. All his reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his life were for the ardenthearted and they would always be so and never be otherwise.” – Cormac McCarthy

A painted pony bucked my daughter off as they cantered around a corner yesterday. She landed on the ruddy earth with a sharp thud, one boot still in the stirrup. My wife sent me the video, along with a text: “She got right back on.”

I remember the first time I fell off a horse. I slid slowly down its neck and landed softly in front of it. I cried and stormed out of the stone paddock, refusing to climb back up. I was little, probably only a toddler, but I felt the world, my parents and one sinister barnyard animal had betrayed me in ways both profound and irredeemable. I felt wronged by a universe not devoted to my feelings. Why had I been placed in such a world, anyway? What kind of cosmic joke was this?

Eventually, I rode again, running bareback through the fields and woods of the farm where I grew up. I mucked stalls, groomed at horse shows, and later took care of the draft horses (and camels) at the Philadelphia Zoo for a season. I’m good with horses, but I’ve never been a great rider. Two severe inner ear injuries, leaving me deaf on one side and always drunkenly off-kilter, like a pirate who lost his land legs, probably don’t help.

But I do know enough about horses to know a brilliant rider when I see one. I see one teaching my daughter right now.

We found Hadley’s instructor in the pages of this newspaper. We published an article about a 12-year-old girl named Aly who was dominating at barrel racing competitions around the state and the country. In the images, she was careening around corners on a big chestnut mare named Diva, the earth of the arena parting in a violent umber wake behind her.

Hadley has usually been profoundly disinterested in the activities for which we sign her up. I’ll never forget her first soccer game, in which the opening whistle blew and she immediately, casually raised her hand to ask the coach to sub her out, so she could saunter to the sideline and chat with her friends. She asked to be subbed out immediately, every time she was put on the field. Each activity has been, to varying degrees, a chore, and I do not have enough money or foolishness in the bank to endlessly pay for things my daughter doesn’t like doing.

One more couldn’t hurt, I figured.

I contacted Aly’s mom, asking if she knew where Hadley could take a few riding lessons. I thought she would ride a couple times, lose interest, and we could move on to the next thing. The chances this would become a lifelong, bankrupting pursuit were slim enough to give it a try, at least. She said it’s hard to find western lessons in this part of Wisconsin, but her daughter was ready to start teaching younger riders. We signed her up and brought her down. A 12-year-old teaching an eight-year-old to ride a dangerous beast? What could possibly go wrong?

“It will be nice to be around horses a couple more times after all these years,” I thought to myself.

Then, something strange happened. We let Hadley watch a video compilation of Aly flying across various rings, twisting around barrels and surging along the final stretch in the most frantic, eloquent, dangerous form of art I can possibly imagine. Her mom had compiled the video, adding a pop song with the rhetorical chorus: “What’s wrong with being confident?”

“That!” said Hadley. “I want to do that!”

“What? Have you even met yourself?” I wanted to ask. “You thought interpretive dance was too scary, but you want do to this?!”

That was several months ago. Now, we head down to the ring every chance we get, often several times a week, where Hadley, now 9, and Aly, now 13, saddle up and work. They do it when it’s freezing cold, when it’s windy, when it’s damp, and when it’s dark. It is outdoors, far from the lights of town, where each night the deer slink out to feed and the coyotes yip and howl.

Sometimes, we hang around after Hadley’s lesson and watch Aly ride a towering gelding she’s currently preparing for competition. Most people, regardless of age or gender or socioeconomic status or anything else, will never be as good at anything as she is at riding a horse. She can talk back to her mom while guiding a 1,000-pound animal as it thunders over the earth, all while wearing pajama pants (apparently teenagers mostly just wear fleece these days) and worn green cowboy boots, her red hair tailing behind her just as the horse’s tail trails behind him. It is exactly Ernest Hemingway’s definition of courage: Grace under pressure.

At first, Hadley couldn’t get her pony to move at all. Stillness is pleasant, but it’s problematic when you are trying to learn to race. When the pony started walking, Hadley couldn’t steer it, so she just kind of went wherever it did. At so many points, usually after watching my daughter fall off, or after spending an inordinate amount of money on horse accessories, I stopped and asked Hadley: “Are you sure you really want to do thi-?”

I have never been able to finish the question.

“Yes,” she always cuts me off. “Dad, yes.”

Hadley is still young, and she is still inexperienced. She has walked, trotted and cantered. She has a long way to go before she’s a barrel racer. Perhaps she will never be one. But she is fundamentally different than she was a few months ago. She possesses a confidence she has never displayed before. She isn’t confident because she is good; she’s confident because she believes she can be good. She senses it is just over the horizon.

She has found her thing, which is something many of us spend our entire lives chasing. For so many people, each morning begins with the hope that this is the day you will finally find your pursuit, your job, your hobby, your person, or your passion. And once you have your thing, you must never take it for granted.

I knew from any early age that I didn’t have what it takes to be a great rider. I love horses and can spend all day working in a barn. I can move them around, care for them, I can even ride, but it’s not my thing. Greatness in that realm would never be within my reach, no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t find my thing until much later. I found it on April 3, 2014, the day Hadley was born.

“Oh,” I realized as I cradled her in my arms, my wife lying nearby as if she had just engaged in trench warfare during the Napoleonic age. “This is my thing.”

In the ensuing nine years, I have gotten to know my daughter. She has many strengths, and just as many weaknesses, as we all do. One of her traits has been a certain apathy toward most endeavors, and a slight aversion to discomfort. She’s usually the type of kid who will quit chess club because she got bitten by a mosquito.

“It’s not for me,” she’ll say.

So, imagine my surprise when I write these words: She has ridden every day for the past eight days. She has scooped manure. She has cleaned and oiled her saddle, which costs roughly the same amount as my car. She has picked clean the feet of her horse, careful to remove any pebbles. She has saddled up, again and again, and again. She has fallen off. She has cried. And she has gotten back on, spitting dirt from her mouth with a grin as she trots across the ring. This is her thing, at least for now. This might not be her thing for life, but it is hers for now. She is better because of it.

All we can ever really hope for in life is to be ardent-hearted, and to love ardent-hearted things. The word “ardent” has multiple meanings. One is “enthusiastic or passionate.” Another is “burning or glowing,” as the embers of the fires around which the very first humans huddled against the cold dark of night, and around whose warmth we huddle still. Like the blood of the deer, the coyotes, the horses, and us.

I have wasted thousands of hours telling my daughter how to live a good life. I have quoted Plato and Marcus Aurelias and Lao Tzu and so many others. I have explained everything I have learned in 43 years on this Earth. In doing so, I have violated the first rule that all writers know: Show, don’t tell.

It is pure dumb luck that Aly has shown my daughter, from the back of a running horse, all the things I have tried so many times to tell her. She’s shown her courage, and grace, and how to get up when you fall down. She often calls to her, when she sees fear in Hadley’s eyes, “You’re okay!” Aly got absolutely nailed by a kick from a massive horse this winter, not riding but standing, then landing on frozen muck and concrete. She had a huge bruise the color of a morning glory on her shoulder. She didn’t miss a beat. And when she says, “You’re okay,” Hadley believes her, because she has seen what being okay looks like.

It matters that we find our things. When they buck us off, we have to spit the earth from our mouths, climb back up, and try again. Only then will we be ardent-hearted, and only then will we really be giving thanks for the gift of being here in the first place. This world does not revolve around us. Rather, we revolve around it, only touching down briefly, then picking ourselves up and taking off again. It will always be so and never be otherwise.

 If you want to get a taste of rodeo life, feel free to come to the Little Wranglers Beginner Rodeo. No experience is necessary, and it will be a wonderful experience for the kids who attend. True beginners will have the opportunity to try an array of events, including goat tail untying, dummy roping, pony riding and much more. The event will take place May 7 at 11 a.m. at Horseman’s Paradise Ranch, 783 Drammen Valley Road. Register now at https://neartail.com/sm/CdBi8T3oF.