It is probably fortunate that I was blissfully naive when I signed up for a 1000km horse race across the steppe on semi-wild mongolian horses. It was only later that I discovered that only about 60% of riders complete the race each year, a significant number have suffered broken bones and soft tissue injuries (including some very nasty life-changing injuries - amputated thumbs, fractured vertebrae etc), and many participants are very serious and experienced riders who compete in international endurance races, train race horses or even work as professional jockeys! But by the time I’d realised all this, I was already committed and too exited by the challenge to back out.
And I’m so glad it turned out that way. I rode determined to do everything in my power to be one of the riders crossing the finish line and, most importantly, to enjoy the ride. I was fortunate enough to do both thanks to decent horses, good luck and a wonderful group of fellow riders with seemingly infinite reserves of kindness, humour and steely resilience. We supported each other through the tough times, laughed so hard we were in danger of falling off, and felt so glad to be alive and immersed in the beauty of the steppe and the wide open skies. We fell rapidly into an almost feral intimacy - jumping off the horses to quickly squat and piss with no thought of dignity or privacy, bandaging each other’s chafing and cleaning each other’s bloody cuts and grazes. There were lows (projectile vomiting off the back of a skittish horse) and highs (swerving at speed as we galloped nose-to-tail through head-high reeds, all of us weak with laughter, our safety entirely in the hands of the gods and our horses).
I have never in my life felt so caught up in the immediate present. Past and future shrank into vague oblivion. I didn’t even dare think more than one horse station ahead for fear of tempting fate. We were continuously alert to our horses, the environment - what might make the horses spook or trip disastrously? what route to take over rivers and through mountains, bogs or sand dunes? - and to each other’s wellbeing. There was no mental space for deep thoughts. This was pure being at its most basic.
I didn’t keep a diary and the days merged into a continuity of sun, sky, wind and movement. It’s a difficult experience to articulate. But as we settled our exhausted bodies to sleep one night on the hard ger floor, Barbara read us a quote by C. Jay Bell which said it well:
“I imprint myself into the sky and when the sunlight shines brightly, I can stand under the sun’s rays and everything I have imprinted of myself…I will begin to see again, remember. And when the wind begins to blow, it blows the details over my face, and I remember everything I left in the sky, and see new things being borne. I am unwritten”.