When I was in high school, I was a pretty closed-off person, internally, and in a literal sense where I would always close the door to my room and you could find me in there on most nights. I wasn’t much of an adventurer — I always played every action safe and close to the line.
You definitely wouldn’t have found me on horseback riding out into the middle of nowhere to camp out under the stars.
On October 7th, my friend Margot Nelson and I joined the Champlain College Equestrian Club on a camping trip trail ride. The last time I had seriously ridden a horse was when I was a sophomore in high school, and even then it wasn’t like I was the best rider in the world (I’ve had a few run-ins with a wall or two in my day). Not to mention, the last time I went camping I was in a cabin with my friends and had a certified Eagle Scout making sure I wouldn’t get eaten by a bear.
Even though you’re more likely to get hit by an asteroid than suffer from death-by-bear, and even though I was surrounded by experienced riders who would know how to control a wild horse attempting to throw me into the nearest tree, you could say I was a little scared.
What got me to get on the back of a horse, what got me to open the white door of my dorm and walk out of old Whiting Hall, wasn’t the prospect of thrill seeking or enhancing my equestrian prowess, but it was the chance to spend an unforgettable and once-in-a-lifetime night in nature and with my friend.
I knew I had made the right choice when I saw my pony.
When Margot and I got to home base — the barn we would be borrowing our horses from—I was introduced to Kate: a pony that only came up to my shoulder, and I’m 5’2”.
Often mares, a female horse, can suffer from extreme temperament problems and the singular goal of biting your hand off. Kate was just the opposite. My petite pony and I got off on the right stride as I easily rode her around the ring and then off on our trail ride.
The initial ride out to our campsite was stunning. The sun was just starting to set, and the sky was starting to turn a feather orange, hugging the mountains surrounding us. The nearby fences were silhouettes against the sky, and the riders behind me became silky outlines in the face of the sun. The grass below our feet turned to a soft evergreen color as they were sun-kissed, the warm breeze hitting our faces rustling the turf below us. Everything about our ride out, from the sheep idly grazing to our sides, from the leaves turning to soft yellows and vibrant reds in front of us to the smell of freshly cut grass hitting our noses from the hay bales being formed in the distance created a sense of beauty and ease among us.
I remember walking through the grass, a patch that was just tall enough as we entered the woods to brush up against the soles of my shoes on the ever-so-small Kate, thinking how lucky I was to be here: surrounded by nature in its quiet beauty, accompanied by the manifestation of the “wild” in the horse I was riding.
I will admit Kate did give me a few troubles when she saw a bush she just had to go eat during the middle of the ride, almost launching me over her head in her sudden attempt to acquire the leaves. Nevertheless, I hadn’t been attacked by a bear or killed in some freak asteroid accident.
When the sun finally ducked behind the trees, behind the mountains, leaving us with only a sliver of purple light to guide us, that’s when I experienced the seven minutes of my life I will surely never forget.
As my fingers blistered on the old rope bridle of my horse, we rode into an old logging forest. The trees, while all unique in the way they bent towards the sky, were all spaced out evenly in perfect, symmetrical rows, a result of them being replanted like corn awaiting a fall harvest. The forest was eerie in its beauty as mist rose from the grounds, weaving its way through the trees. The mist, the dark, the trees—it looked like a scene from a movie, a perfect creation of wonder and beauty that almost looked too perfect to be natural.
It was a dream world I had just entered, a world where trees were in perfect rows, where the mist created a blanket of beauty and a perfect crescent moon peaked through the canopy above. As the breeze stirred the leaves above us, sounding off their natural music as dancing a few stray leaves upon our heads, my mind reeled. I honestly didn’t believe this could be real. Who experiences a moment like this? A moment where they’re riding on a horse through a secret garden of wonder and grace? I was in a different world.
The campsite, well, that was a different world of its own.
Once we finally got to our site, the “movie” of our lives continued. Margot and I, who honestly didn’t know how to put up a tent or how to aide people in the process of survival, ran around attempting to gather wood for our fire.
We were useful to the point of gathering a few twigs and a couple large branches we weren’t strong enough to snap by ourselves.
For the rest of the night, the entire Equestrian Club just sat around the fire, warming our feet my the flames and craning our necks to look at the all too prominent stars. We poured apple cider into cups of questionable cleanliness and started make our own tin foil meals in the fire (which took eons to cook and needed to be seasoned at least five times over for the potatoes and meat to hold their flavor). We told horse-war stories, played rhyming games and spouted fantastic lines such as: “The outdoors are stuck to my socks” and “His marshmallows are by in large tiki torches” and “Just pee behind a bush and wave yourself in the wind.”
After consuming my tin foil meal, almost falling over a rock to get a look at the shining milky way system, shoving three perfectly made s’mores in my face and after Margot saw her first shooting star, we all curled up in our tent and let the night wash over our tired forms.
(Granted, the tent did almost collapse on me twice, and I did wake up yelling both of those times. But I still managed to get an amazing night ofsleep.)
It was the morning when it really hit me how lucky I was to be having this experience. After waking up to watch the pink sunrise grace the sky (our tent door was broken so we had a circular hole showing us the world outside), Margot and I naming the spider peacefully hanging about our tent Phillip and roasting bagels over the fire with a fishing rod, I couldn’t help but be struck by a strong wave of emotion.
Who gets to just have an experience like this? Who gets to weave a perfect chapter of a book so gracefully into their lives? The whole time I was just waiting for something unfortunate to happen—the punch line to a joke where people would be laughing for days about how I was stepped on by a horse or how I choked on a marshmallow. It felt like something catastrophic should happen; my night just seemed too perfect to exist. Yet it did exist, and all of it (from garnering the perfect pony ride and trotting through an otherworldly mist, to roasting bagels over a fire on a fishing line) happened to me. I got to have this moment in my life.
If I had been just sitting in my dorm playing it safe for the night, if I had just told myself I was too inexperienced to go camping on horseback, I would have never had this experience with such a great friend. If I had acted like I usually did in high school, spending my nights hidden behind a door, I wouldn’t have this amazing memory to look back upon, to reflect upon.
It was when I woke up that morning and looked out the broken door of my tent that I realized I was giving myself one of the greatest gifts by deciding to act, by deciding to participate in life instead of watching it go by. I opened myself up to the world, and the world, in return, opened itself up to me.
I’ve done things in college I have never done before. Every day has been an adventure unlike anything I’ve experienced. I’m constantly challenging myself, constantly doing new things and constantly admiring the fact that I love the place I’m in and the people I’m with. College has pushed me to explore the dimensions of this world.
During one of my lessons, my Professional Writing professor gave me one of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard: to take “calculated risks.” I’d like to believe I’ve lived up to his challenge so far, and I’d like to believe there are many more adventures out there just waiting for me to discover them.
