You Can't Blame a Horse for Being a Horse
A summer teaching horsemanship in the Cascade Mountains, and a lesson from an old ranch boss about patience, perspective, and understanding before responding.
When I was a teenager, I spent my summers working as a counselor at a summer camp in the Cascade Mountains. I taught horsemanship to younger campers, helping them learn to feed, groom, lead, tack, and ride. We also ran trail rides out of the ranch, and much of my summer was spent on horseback or working around the horses.
It was beautiful country, and I loved being out there. I was young, though, and still learning. I knew enough to feel confident in what I was doing, which isn't quite the same as knowing as much as you think you do. Looking back, I think I learned more about horses and people during those summers than I did at almost any other time in my life.
My boss was an older man with a crooked nose who ran the ranch like a drill sergeant. He yelled. He cussed. He expected you to pay attention and get things done. As long as he was yelling and cussing, we knew everything was fine.
When that man walked in slowly, whispering, that was when there was trouble.
He was also remarkably good with people. He knew when to push and when to pull back, when someone needed a sharp word and when they needed something else entirely. At the time, I don't think I fully appreciated how much experience it takes to know the difference.
One summer afternoon, I was in the corral getting frustrated with one of the horses. I don't remember what the horse was doing. It doesn't really matter.
The corral sat on a raised patch of ground that had once been a house foundation, surrounded by swamp. In summer, the heat and humidity settled over the place. Bot flies bit at the horses and people alike, and by afternoon, everyone could get a little ornery.
I was young, hot, and impatient. Whatever I wanted the horse to do, it wasn't doing it.
My boss saw what was happening before I really understood how frustrated I'd become. He pulled me aside, put a hand on my shoulder, and looked me in the eye.
“You can't blame a horse for being a horse,” he said.
That was it.
I don't remember what happened next in the corral. I don't remember whether the horse finally did what I wanted or whether I changed what I was asking of it. The details of the afternoon have faded.
The sentence stayed.
Over the years, I've found myself returning to it in moments of frustration. Sometimes, I've had to remind myself that what looks like stubbornness or indifference from one perspective may look entirely different from another. Understanding a horse doesn't mean letting it do whatever it pleases. It means learning to see what is happening before deciding how to respond.
My boss seemed to understand that instinctively. He saw a teenager getting frustrated with a horse and knew that correcting my handling wasn't necessarily the only lesson I needed. I suspect he understood that his words might stay with me longer than whatever was happening in that corral.
If so, he was right.
I still think about those summers: the mountain trails, the horses, the heat rising from the dusty ground, and the old man who could make a room fall silent simply by lowering his voice. I remember how much I had yet to learn, and how little I understood that I was learning it.
Travel has given me plenty of opportunities to remember that lesson, especially when I'm somewhere unfamiliar, trying to understand a place and the people who call it home.
And every so often, when frustration gets the better of me, I hear him again.
Keep up to date on RootedNomad Observations
New observations, delivered to your inbox. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.