Finally, I understand what all those girls I went to school with were getting out of the horse-obsession phase. I missed the standard early adolescent horse obsession, being already fixated on books.
Last night, my dinner companions traded stories of their first times on horseback. Most of them were memories of being not yet in their teens at scout camp, being plopped onto a horse and handed the reins, and then being sent off to ride without further instruction. It's a wonder anyone who goes to scout camp lives to adulthood.
It's probably too late for me to get good at riding, but I definitely liked it enough to do it again. A horse may not have consciousness, but it certainly has a subjectivity, and the effort of communicating with that massive, alien subjectivity, without recourse to language, is really intriguing. Even my sea kayak can't give me that.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-04-13 08:03 pm (UTC)Last night, my dinner companions traded stories of their first times on horseback. Most of them were memories of being not yet in their teens at scout camp, being plopped onto a horse and handed the reins, and then being sent off to ride without further instruction. It's a wonder anyone who goes to scout camp lives to adulthood.
It's probably too late for me to get good at riding, but I definitely liked it enough to do it again. A horse may not have consciousness, but it certainly has a subjectivity, and the effort of communicating with that massive, alien subjectivity, without recourse to language, is really intriguing. Even my sea kayak can't give me that.