Permission to Want

Fulfilling deferred dreams

Last weekend, J and I headed south and a little east up over Red Mountain pass to Silverton. Though it was dry as a bone down in the valley, the mountains were calling for a wild storm. The pass was closing Thursday at 8pm and our hotel reservation was for Friday at 3pm. We packed quickly and made our way over the mountains a few hours before the closure, just as the first flakes dropped out of the moody sky.

We slept that night in a friend’s loft and woke to 17 fresh inches of cold, fluffy powder. I made a cup of tea while my friends put on backcountry ski gear in front of the wood stove. The snow kept falling as a Yellow Cat bulldozer ambled down the street plowing out parking spots.

I’d booked our trip to Silverton months ago in that early November dead time when the weather turns and summer trips officially conclude and you fear you might never leave the living room again (or is that just me?).

I wanted to watch skijoring. I wanted to see something other than the gray linoleum floors and popcorn ceilings of our rental which have a sneaky way of making it feel as though the house is swallowing itself.

But mostly, I wanted to see the horses.

A few weeks earlier, I’d tried my first canter on a big, black horse named Bella. I could barely hold my ass in place as she shifted from the diagonal two-beat gait of the trot to the three-beat gait of the canter. I reflexively grabbed the saddle horn as my instructor yelled to let go of the saddle horn. I couldn’t get my hips right. I felt that I was moments away from being catapulted into the arena.

And also, I was obsessed.

In Silverton, I walked by a small coral where a couple of horses stood wrapped in blankets, shaking the snow from the soft curves of their backs, steam rising from their nostrils. The street was lined with white horse trailers and so quiet I could hear the snow falling onto the collar of my flannel coat.

Bundled into the hotel bed that night I dreamed of white fields and the muffled clop of hooves in snow.

Saturday, we drank coffee from the velvet couches of the Wyman Hotel. We ate biscuits in the kitchen of my friend’s home. We skied Kendal Mountain (a 200-foot slope of pure silliness). And finally, we saw the horses.

The snow continued to fall in a blanket. The skiers, riders, and horses didn’t seem to care. One after another they raced several blocks down Blair Street, flying down the track in fewer than 25 seconds.

The amateur category switched to pro and they opened a large gap jump. The skiers flew through the air while the riders whooped, one hand holding down their hats, the other gripping the reins.

My toes froze in my leather boots. My hands went numb. I ran back to the hotel and stood under the scalding shower until I could feel the blood pulsing beneath my fingernails.

Sunday, the sky cleared. The race track grew icy. Skiers turned hard into their edges. The horses, however, thundered through the well-packed snow. Their boots had better grip. They flung snow clods behind them like dirt. This is what they’d been waiting for.

The riders were mostly women. I watched how they sat in the saddle with ease. No one had to shout at them to let go of the horn. The horses had names like Cocaine Bear and Hambone. I was particularly smitten with a dappled gray horse named Badger.

I texted my riding instructor and asked (half-jokingly) if we could bring the horses up and race the amateur division next year if I could find skiers. She immediately responded with a not half-joking, “Yes!” and also, “There’s a horse for sale at the barn you might want to check out.”

She sent me a photo of Tex’s beautiful white face. And in that instance, I was a woman who could own a horse—something I had never been before and never thought I would be. For the same price as a mountain bike, I could have this whole animal to explore the desert with.

We could figure out the board costs, she said. Maybe use him for riding lessons to bring the monthly bill down.

Sure, yes, anything, I thought to myself. I kept opening my phone to look at Tex’s sweet face.

“...learning how to ride is like reliving the adolescence I never had and fulfilling a dream deferred,” says Patricia Cronin in “Pony Tales,” from Horse People, Writers and Artists on the Horses They Love.

This is the life I want. Fulfilling deferred dreams one after another like a stack of permission slips finally stamped for approval.