Riding Back In Time - An Excerpt From Lisa Richardson
Riding Back In Time
Posted by LISA RICHARDSON on OCTOBER 3, 2019
As we rode away from the trailhead, the guide turned back to throw a cheerful bit of advice over her shoulder. “You might as well turn your phones to Airplane Mode now. Save the batteries for the camera.” Searching for a signal would drain them dead since there’s none to be found once you ride up the Birkenhead Forest Service Road, north of Pemberton, and into Copper Cayuse Outfitters’ 4,000-hectare backcountry tenure.
That comment signaled passage through our first gateway from life as time-bound writers, into a place where the cadence of life is meted out by the crackle of a fire, the steady strike of horseshoes against the rock-littered trail, the endless roil of a wild river churning down a mountainside.
The second transition came as I tried to attune myself to the rhythms of the 1,000-pound horse between my thighs. 36 years had lapsed since I’d last been on horseback – trotting around a ring with my hands on my head for some reason I couldn’t fathom at eight years old, and still am uncertain about. I hoped some muscle memory gleaned from that peculiar exercise would return. Hoped some cellular memory attributable to the 6,000-year-old human-horse relationship might awaken.
