Learning to Surrender

I grew up with horses. My dad served as a doctor in the South African army where he fell in love with riding, and after he did his residency at the Mayo Clinic, he decided he wanted to have a ranch. That was financial delusion, but he and my mom did resolve to live somewhere with land, where they could have horses. We lived up a dirt road in a valley with chickens, cats, dogs, and when I was young, two horses named Nadia and Tilly (Nadia after Nadia Comaneci, naturally). I loved those quarter horses. Tilly was round and slow; Nadia, the opposite. It became my primary “chore” to take care of them: To give them hay twice a day, to groom them, and to take them out for rides. My brother and I rode up the creek into the woods daily during the summer. I cannot imagine letting my kids joyride around on horseback in the forest, but it was a different time.

Being in charge of a massive animal—and keeping both of you safe—is a tremendous amount of responsibility for a kid, and that’s kind of the point. It was a privilege. From about 10 to 14, I started doing endurance horseback rides with my dad: These are 25, 50, 75, or even 100 mile rides that happen all over the country, though we rode throughout the Pacific Northwest. You train for months—it’s like marathoning—and there are vet checks every 10 or 12 miles with mandatory breaks for rehydration and rest. I never rode with my dad—he was too fast and competitive—only with lovely older women who wanted to dilly dally with me and baby our horses along the way.

Early in my endurance riding career, it was time for Nadia to retire, and my parents bought me a black Arabian named Ebony, maybe the most special horse I’ve ever known. I loved Ebony. Horses are energetic creatures—they feel with their whole bodies—and I knew him well, but in addition, we had our own special language. He would gently nibble on my toes when my feet were in the stirrups, an equivalent of a feathery kiss. He’d give me knowing looks, little nudges. When I wasn’t riding him, I was in the pasture, grooming him, hanging out with him, braiding ribbons into his hair.

On the last endurance ride we ever did, we were nearing the finish line at mile 49, taking our time at a slow trot, when Ebony put his hoof on a round rock and collapsed forward on his leg. Lameness in horses is usually subtle—this was not. Kay, the woman I was riding with, left me to go and find my dad at the finish line, and I waited with Ebony, in distraught tears. I knew his foot was broken. Because he told me.

Back at the base camp, the vet thought Ebony had pulled his suspensory ligament (like pulling an Achilles heel), but I knew better. And when we got back to Montana, our vet confirmed my suspicion. He had broken the equivalent of his “big toe”—it had fractured when he was a young horse and he rebroke it when I was on his back. My parents will never understand the depths of my gratitude that they paid for very expensive surgery to put pins in his foot—and he healed. But I never rode him again. We gave him back to his previous owner, Deb, and she rehabilitated him. I never went to visit him.

This was nearly 30 years ago. I went to boarding school, my dad stopped riding a few years later, and horses disappeared from our life. And then, in 2019, a friend told me she was heading to a private guest ranch near Missoula and I managed to snag a cabin for my family the same week. I thought it would be a little lame—nose-to-tail walking with some trotting—but that it would be a good chance for Max (six at the time) to get on a horse. Instead, we’ve found a new family tradition where we get to really ride—like full-on ride—through the terrain I grew up in. During our first summer there, after we lit out across a meadow at a near gallop, my husband saw me wiping my face and asked me why I was crying. 

“Tears of joy,” I explained.

“Wait, what?” He asked, as he clutched his saddle horn to keep it from driving into his stomach. Rob felt close to tears for a different reason. (He is a non-rider: “Do you know how stressful this week is for me just to not die?”)

No, but really: Getting back on horses after such a long stay away released something in me—a pocket of joy along with the invitation to begin to process my grief about Ebony, which I had stashed away as a tween.

Here’s the thing about riding horses: They give you the illusion of control—you have the reins after all—but when you’re going flat-out, or swimming a river together, or climbing a mountain, there’s really no mystery about who is in charge. And yet, faith must run in both directions, as well as trust. And broken trust—that I was responsible for Ebony and Ebony got hurt—is what I needed to address.

Last summer, I went to Sedona with some friends for a retreat. We hiked to a river and then were led through a long and powerful meditation. Maybe it was the nearby Vortex, maybe it was the crystal palaces in town, maybe it was the Divine, but as I laid on a rock heated by the midday sun, I talked to Ebony. Or actually, Ebony came to me and said: “Thank you for saving my life. Sometimes people get hurt and it’s not your fault. And it’s not always your place or job to rehabilitate them. It is not abandonment: You weren’t the only person who loved me, and you weren’t the only one who could help me. You were just a child. I can’t forgive you because there’s nothing to forgive.” Those were my notes when I came out of the meditation. There’s something about the straightforward, unemotional tone that felt true. After all, I expected to be berated, though the only thing I really wanted to hear was that he would be waiting for me on the other side. And maybe he will be.

I bought a totem for Ebony in Sedona—a carved black horse with little turquoise eyes—and I wear it when I ride. Man, I miss him. But I have so much gratitude for everything he taught me about power, control, and surrender—as well as an early and advanced education in reading energy in the body. For that, horses are our greatest teachers. And perhaps most poignantly, I’m grateful for the late-in-life lesson about responsibility: When is it appropriate, and when is it over-responsibility? It is so hard to find that line. When a creature—an animal, a child, a friend or partner in need, feels like (or is) a dependent—when is it correct to carry a burden for them, and when is it an overreach? And are we always the ones most-equipped to help? This feels like an essential and very difficult question—and I’m curious for your thoughts.