Horse Girls

by Halimah Marcus

  Four years before this, three life-changing things happened in the summer of 2012: I’d had my first book accepted for publication; I’d met the person I was going to marry; and on one strange summer day that same year, I inexplicably lost my balance while visiting family in the Rio Grande Valley. I was petting my uncle’s pit bull Tiger when I felt a numbness radiate through my left extremities. Tiger, whom I’d just met, sniffed my tingling arm and whined. Less than a month later, it happened again, on Queens Boulevard in New York City, my left side fully giving out this time as I was crossing the multilane road. This was only the beginning. In the years that have followed, tingling and numbness have beset the left side of my body, along with head pain, brain fog, and spine tenderness. I never knew when these episodes would happen, and they happened erratically, in various degrees of pain and frustration.

  So, when I say I went to Iceland to ride horses, I did not know riding Icelandic horses would also return a part of me: a wilder, freer part of me. I now look back upon my years before I got sick, at my old self, my foolish, fearless self who once hiked the infamous eight-mile trek up to the summit of Old Rag in Virginia and scrambled boulders without any prior experience, who’d walked the Great Wall of China in flip-flops. A wash-and-wear self who was so witty in her unwise ways, who did not know love and peace until I married. I moved around the world, alone, went without knowing where I’d be tomorrow, not caring about tomorrow, made rash and reckless decisions based on passion and impulse that left me sleeping in strange places, sharing strange rooms with strange women I barely knew whom I’d share a couple of love-struck, lustful weeks with, only to watch them disappear just as abruptly.

  How I lived then was how I wrote: no rules, all abandon. I mistook this approach for a sort of revolutionary candor. It was the central truth on which I’d staked my life, one filled with neither long-term happiness nor unhappiness. I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it was also a matter of survival, attempting to live by my own rules. I felt that I was very much alone in the world, and that self-assurance sustained me. A life of torn sundresses, matted hair, and long bus rides that broke night, leading me, always, to a frightening elsewhere that I had to face, and did face, with a sort of optimism that I owed nobody anything. Most days, I’d wake up thinking I had made it this far, and there was always further to go. I was always, in a sense, awake and ready, open to the world, with quick, deft moves of working circuitry.

  And foolishly, I’d thought I could live that way forever.

  That is when I fell ill and that hardwired self-reliance proved not so innate after all; quite literally, my wiring had become faulty.

  Much of the poetry I began writing since my illness (and am still writing) reflects this struggle to remain that old fearless me (which I still struggle not to call the “real” me), while also acknowledging that illness had actually had a profound impact on my work. In poetry, I found I could move on the page in the ways I sometimes couldn’t in real life—new ways I hadn’t even considered before—and I could experiment with language and ways of expressing a thought that I couldn’t in everyday speech. Whereas I was uncertain that I could get from Point A to Point B without losing my balance in real life, on the page, I let myself “stumble” and meander, willingly, less afraid of what might happen.

  While I thankfully had not experienced any flare-ups for the five months leading to the trip, there were certain activities of which I’ve been told to proceed with caution—horseback riding being one of them.

  At first, I did not think much of what it meant to climb up and onto the back of a horse and surrender control. I live in New York City, after all, and though I’d occasionally seen people riding horses in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, my love and knowledge of horses remained separate from my urban life. I can count the number of times I’d actually been on horseback prior to the Iceland trip—four, all during trips to an uncle’s farm in the Rio Grande Valley as a young girl. Each time was on the same ancient, gentle Quarter Horse who moved with a timid, almost apologetic gait. Her name was Rosa; a former racing horse, she was brown with a dark mane and tail. Her previous owner had abused her, and my uncle had taken her in. He didn’t allow anyone else to ride her but me, as I was small, and would not be, as my uncle reasoned, a burden of weight on her back. Most of the time I preferred to watch her graze, or sit by her side when she lay down on the grass in the sun. I would talk to her and stroke her head. Once she laid her head in my lap, and I refused to get up, even after my legs fell asleep, even after the sun set in the sky and I hushed my uncle and my parents, shooing them to go away, to let us be.

  I remember the day that my straightforward uncle leaned over the fence and told me I had to say goodbye to Rosa because she was very sick and he knew she was tired and wanted to find peace. I remember I cried as he lifted me up so I could throw my arms around her neck. I remember she stood very still. I remember understanding, in that stillness, how broken she was, how the love and care from my uncle could not fix her, could not erase the damage done to her. And what I remember most is her milky, cloudy eye, which she was trying to communicate through—or rather, a haze that I wanted to pierce through, for her to see the unconditional love that I had for her alone.

  A caballo regalado, no se le ven los dientes, my uncle was fond of saying.

  Literally: A gifted horse, you don’t check the teeth.

  What he meant: Be grateful for your time together.

  So, many years later, I went to Iceland to ride horses, thinking of what it meant to be grateful for time.

  I went to Iceland broken, though I hid it well, though I was loved and cared for by a kind and thoughtful person who, upon learning I was ill on our second date, stayed over and took me to the hospital the next morning for my seven a.m. blood tests.

  I went to Iceland to ride horses, not knowing if I was going to be able to ride horses, uncertain if I still had it in me: that stubborn wild streak that now gave flesh to ghosts, to the ghost I’d become. To this new, phantasmal self, one who’s not always content to live on the page, who doesn’t want to proceed with much caution in my life. One who wants to break the rules given by my very well-meaning physician, because if not now, when? What if my condition got worse? What if this was my last chance to be grateful for time spent together with the horses I’d always admired from afar? Those still somewhat-wild, not completely tamed horses of Iceland for whom I longed in a strange way I didn’t completely understand myself?

  Perhaps I would arrive at our five-day trip and fail halfway through, in a place where there was nothing but miles of wasteland, where there was no one but humans who eyed me from horseback. No phone reception to call a car that couldn’t come anyway.

  Despite all my worries, it was this very uncertainty—particularly the uncertainty of my future—that propelled me to move forward with the trip. I didn’t want to waste any more time.

  Still, I had no idea what I was getting into when we arrived at the small farm and two horses ran up to greet me at the fence. They eyed me curiously, without fear, and let me rub their long faces. For a moment I was overwhelmed: I’d never seen such friendliness, such trust, in horses before. And I certainly did not know just what I was getting into when, quite suddenly, something nudged me—rather hard—from behind.

  Jolted, I turned around. There, standing in front of me, blowing air through his nostrils, was a chestnut brown stallion. He already had a bridle and saddle on, already outfitted for another rider. He turned his head slightly to the side, and his eye shone like wet earth, the same color as the patch of mud under my feet. I looked around our small group in confusion as more and more people were assigned horses. After a moment, one of the guides came over, gave a little chuckle as he ran his hands through the stallion’s mane, which was quite tangled, and asked about my level of riding.

  I wasn’t sure how to answer. I believe most people feel strongly about horses: they either love them or they don’t. They either trust them or they don’t. And while I did kno
w I loved horses, I did not know the Icelandic horse at all. My older self would say: So what? Jump in. But this new, more cautious self felt more hesitant about how to answer such a question.

  I turned to the two other horses at the fence who’d greeted me—much more docilely than the stallion who’d shoved me—but they’d sauntered off. Meanwhile, the chestnut snorted softly and rubbed his head against my hand.

  I haven’t been with horses for years, I finally said.

  Oh yeah? the guide said.

  I’ve lived in New York City for a long time, I said.

  Oh yeah, he said.

  Maybe too long, I added.

  Oh yeah, I see. So. I have the horse for you.

  Oh yeah? I said, cringing a bit, accidentally imitating him.

  Oh yeah.

  Which one?

  Excuse me, excuse me! A woman called out, approaching us. She glared at me. Excuse me. You have my horse. She had a thick German accent, and was about a head taller than me, with a muscular build. She reached for the chestnut’s reins.

  Oh yeah, said the guide to her. This one, this is not your horse.

  You just gave me this horse, the woman said.

  This horse, you don’t want, he said. He’s not gentle, and he has a mind of his own.

  But you gave me this horse already, she began.

  Some horses can change color according to season, he added. He does not.

  Why does that matter? the woman said. What are you saying?

  I’m saying, the guide went on, I have another horse for you.

  We both looked at him. Then he said to me: But you, miss, you, I feel you can trust him—

  I felt my heart pound in my chest: That’s what it was, wasn’t it? That I needed a new level of trust I hadn’t before.

  —because you’ll have to.

  At that, the woman shook her head, and muttered something in German under her breath.

  There was some nervous laughter from our group. Brian cleared his throat and gave me a look that said he’s about to intervene.

  His name is Odin, the guide added.

  This Odin looked at me with his light eyes of wet terra-cotta and nuzzled my shoulder.

  I did not know the great amount of faith I’d have to put into this seemingly affectionate horse—who also turned out to be one of the most headstrong and difficult horses of our group—when crossing steep, rocky inclines and through a winding river again and again, the latter of which left me soaked head to toe, grasping onto his neck, trusting him while steering him in the right direction. I did not know the amount of times Odin would attempt to break away from the herd, and nudge my leg as if to say all the conflicting thoughts in his head—it will be okay, believe in me, let me do what I want—the times in which I’d let him have his way, temporarily, and the times I’d have to guide him back onto the chosen path.

  That I would hold him closely all the times the temperature suddenly dropped, when I felt a sliver of my balance coming back to me as it had once been.

  That my ghost self, this new, patchwork self, perhaps, could be as protective as she was stubborn, my own unreliable and capricious guardian angel who was learning to live in limbo, unchecked, without my full gratitude that had gotten me this far, to an island country that is still very much in the midst of becoming.

  At the time, all I could think was: Okay. I think I can handle him.

  When I think about the limitless possibilities of poetry, I think of Iceland. A young island, less than twenty million years old, one that is still rising, erupting, splintering. What began as a subaqueous mountain created by volcanic activity along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the Atlantic Ocean is now an island that remains volcanic. From its numerous volcanoes to the black sand beach in the village of Vík í Mýrdal, its fields of lava and ash, its craters, pumice mountains, and columnar trap rock of basalt produced from slow-cooling magma, Iceland can appear volatile at times, and rather visibly: one can actually see the deep ridge between the two tectonic plates of Eurasia and North America, as they continue to pull apart from each other. Iceland is a continuous poem-in-progress in this way, one that shows all its drafts and revisions, a cacophony of poetry as multiverse, always moving, revealing landscapes as living things independent of our own existence. Still, our choices affect its future greatly: due to climate change, the country itself is literally rising, as its numerous glaciers might very well entirely melt away, leaving many to wonder what Iceland will become without its ice.

  According to geology and paleogeography researchers like Dr. Christopher Scotese at the Field Museum in Chicago and the marine geophysicist Roy Livermore, it is also likely that one day, in a distant future, all landmass will become a supercontinent again, resulting in hypothetical, massive formations called Pangaea Proxima or Novopangaea. I wonder how humankind will fare on these supercontinents.

  Iceland was largely uninhabitable when the first Norse settlers arrived. Without the horses, they and their subsequent generations in Iceland would not have survived; in the late ninth century, the Vikings brought over horses, mainly those of Germanic descent, and through a process of both preferred breeding and natural selection, only the strongest, most resilient horses survived the harsh Icelandic landscape. Only one percent of the country is “under arable cultivation,” and the survival of the people in Iceland depended largely on the survival of their horses. Up until 1904, there were no cars in all of the country, so the horse was both the primary means of transportation and a vital source of labor.

  Icelandic horses are tough, for sure, with their double coats and rock-star shaggy mane and tails; they have a big-boned yet sturdy build. But they are equally known to be affectionate, sure-footed, and less skittish than other breeds, since there are no predators that are a threat to them. Icelandic horses also have five different gaits: the usual walk, trot, and gallop, in addition to the tölt (running walk) and the skeið (flying pace), the latter of which requires both legs on the same side touching the ground at the same time. Not all Icelandic horses can perform the skeið, but the ones that can are very highly prized; their feet glide above the rockiest of terrain, at up to speeds of 30 mph. Perhaps it’s through the conduit of the skeið that humans can achieve the gift of flight, suspended in that very limitless state of possibility that one might call poetry.

  The Icelandic horse is one of the purest breeds in existence, yet, like the pristine nature of their home island, this is both because of, and despite, human choices and preferences. In order to protect them from diseases, even riding equipment one brings into Iceland must be new or it will be confiscated. Icelandic law also forbids the import of horses into the country—of any breed—and those Icelandic horses who leave are not allowed to return.

  Ever.

  While I’ve yet to complete it, I’ve been reading The Sagas of Icelanders on and off for years. Many of the early Norse settlers went to Iceland because they would not bend to the will of the kings, particularly Harald the Fair-Hair, who according to Egil’s Saga, revered his poets above “all his followers . . . held [them] in the highest regard, and let them sit on the bench opposite his high seat.” Of course this regard came at a price, which was personal and political freedom, and was for some of these Viking raiders the one value they would not give up.

  Iceland then began as a place of both exile and freedom, as the early settlers prospered from its waters rich in fish and seals. They built farms. They also had to contend with the large percentage of uninhabitable land, including the austere and barren Highlands where outlaws sought asylum. The country’s early governing years had no executive power and no written laws, but an outdoor assembly, attended by the most successful of farmers, gathered to settle disputes. It is said that Icelanders today value their freedom above all else. The country has never had its own national armed forces and has resisted membership in the European Union.

  So the fact that if a human chooses to take an Icelandic horse out of the country, the horse is in a sense banished from thi
s very particular homeland, which is like nowhere else in the world, and seems both fitting and impossibly cruel.

  Are there Icelandic horses right now, whether on a farm in Vermont or Norway, that are birthing their subsequent generations on foreign lands with the knowledge their foals will never see their homeland, because humans—another species who once depended on them for nearly a millennium—made a law to protect the purity of their species? Does an Icelandic horse ever think, yes, this is for the good of the species? Do they ever stop to consider us, those fragile two-legged creatures who do not, as they do, have the double coats and stamina to survive the winters, and yet are deciding their genetic fate?

  What will the future look like, when the supercontinent happens, and the Icelandic horses meet other breeds, meet relatives they lost generations back?

  What will they remember?

  And will humankind still be there, determined to uphold its laws of return and national borders? Will it be our foolish belief in human exceptionalism—in this new, united landmass that brings together all—that will keep us so far away from everything?

  The first day was the toughest. Our group headed down a steep incline into one of many rivers and streams. Riding an Icelandic horse, I never felt the rough, rocky ground or the inclines; it truly is different than riding any other breed. On foot, I most certainly would have stumbled, even at a slow pace, or had to crouch down to pull myself up, resorting to some sort of awkward four-limbed climbing. But the ride went smoothly—that is, until Odin chose to drink from the river as we were crossing. His head went down and the rein tightened, bringing me down with him. The first time this happened, I felt my feet fall out of the stirrups. I grasped onto him for dear life.