Portland Magazine
April 1, 2023
Story by Carla Christian
A PAIR OF silver ears frame the path, and my gloved hands grip nubbled reins. Beams of autumn sun slant through golden leaves. A click and a nudge and we are trotting.
Humans have always ached for this—to be one with the horse, to know his beauty and power. Proving what the soul knows with the rigor of scientific examination, this connection travels to the deepest level of us both. In the presence of a horse the human heart becomes synchronized with his.
I sat upon a horse before I could walk, tucked behind the horn of my granddad’s ranch saddle and wrapped by the bib of his faded Key overalls and his work-calloused hands. I knew, in some way, that I was meant to be there.
As I grew older, my short child legs pumped the thick leather fenders of the stock saddle while old Laddie grazed, oblivious, beneath a gnarled prairie tree. My gangly adolescent limbs urged him on—faster! faster!—in the old orchard behind the farmhouse, beyond sight of the stern purveyors of the “no cantering” rule.
There was the first pony, quickly outgrown, and the second pony, bigger but no match for sprouting legs. There were summer days of galloping like warrigals across tallgrass fields and through narrow wooded trails, racing home, with the wind scouring bare skin and wheaten hair blown into shreds, as the last thin crescent of sun slipped behind the horizon. And there were moonlit rides across new snow, steaming nostrils scenting the still night air.
A child’s feral abandon yielded to adult purpose. Discipline. Training. Goals. There were days of dancing, minds and bodies moving as one. There were days of never being enough—not fit enough, not brave enough, not talented enough—to be a worthy partner. There was the deepest sorrow—the final parting of a friend who gave you his all.
Now the striving grows quiet. Astride my loyal mighty generous steed, I see our path past her long fringed ears and I forget the bounds of my impermanence, my human yearnings, my imperfection. My shimmering silver unicorn and I no longer race the wind. We can just be, us two.
A content writer and journalist, CARLA CHRISTIAN is the proud parent of two UP graduates.
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