Page 70 - WTP Vol. XIII #3

Resonance (continued from preceding page) ~
Horizon Horseback Safaris sits on the edge of a small lake—tall water grasses growing at the edge of the water and everything else cut to a short carpet of green, stretching out till where the natural bushveld has been allowed to begin again. The main lodge sits in the center, with half a dozen small cabins scattered about on either side in picturesque clumps of trees, but with clear views of the lake and the rugged, much dustier plains and hills tumbling away in the distance.
I stand and gaze what seems an appropriate amount of time—well, perhaps minutes would be appropri- ate. But one of my favorite facts to tell my freshmen is that humans now have the attention spans of goldfish —or less than goldfish. Only eight seconds. It seems almost a tragedy in the face of the open, uncluttered rawness that is so much of northern South Africa. This should take more than eight seconds of focus. Eight weeks or months or lifetimes. How much time is enough to fully appreciate a landscape? How long would it take to feel at home in somewhere so com- pletely new? And that assumes home is something you can make for yourself, which I was once con- vinced of.
But then there are parts of myself that I only under- stand when I am home. When I’m on a farm in Iowa. The established rows of maples and old oaks and birches that make the acre around the farm feel
like a refuge—silent and shaded and almost sacred. Protected from the rolling vastness of the farmland that unfurls as soon as you step from the cover of
the trees. The heavy scent of corn and drying hay on summer days, the irony tang of turned earth in the spring, the permeating musk of manure fertilizing dormant fields in late fall. The constant whiff of diesel and grease. The smell of Iowa releases something that feels as though it cannot be free anywhere else. Maybe something about my mom’s fierce presence— her wiry hugs and generous, unbending personality. My dad’s consistent, stable good humor and patented dad jokes.
As many places as I’ve lived, and as little desire as I have had to go back to Iowa, I sometimes only feel like myself when I step out of the car on my parents’ driveway, with its faded, cracked, tar-patched asphalt, and the permanent scuffs of dirt and gravel from
the ribbed tractor tires. How long would it take in a place? How many loves? How many houses? What does it take to replace that feel. That hum deep in your bones, like a tuning fork hitting a matching pitch. Could South Africa feel like home, if I stayed
long enough? I never felt the resonance in Texas, or in West Virginia, or in Minnesota. And Lord knows I’ve tried. I always thought it would be “out there” somewhere—the same place I would find my inde- pendence. That was what I was supposed to want, after all.
“How long have you been in the country?”
I’d almost managed to forget about Leanne—one of the women who own and run Horizon, a family operation passed down for generations. She stands behind me, poised and observant, eyes moving, but never too quickly.
“Eh—three days?” I say. “I came here straight from the reserve I told you about.”
Late May is early in the season here and still quiet— probably the only reason I was able to book time with them last minute. Their fall, when the rains return and the heat seeps back north and the green begins to return to the sourveld grasslands.
“It may just be you and me today,” she says. “This is a light week. We’ll get more people next week—when schools start letting out everyone.”
“I like that just fine,” I say. “I’m not big on people right now.”
She gives me a slow smile of understanding and shifts two rope halters in the crook of her arm. “Let’s take a couple of horses out then.”
We walk back behind the lodge, through the maze of gravel tracks and support buildings, sheds for hay and tack, to a long, open covered hitching barn. She has already given me the basic tour, and in the time we’ve spent together this morning I feel like I know her better than I should. She checks the two saddles sitting on the hitching rail and nods—says to the tall rangy man bringing out two rubber feed tubs, “Brought, can you bring the bridles for Radar and Fidget?” Then she holds out a halter.
I feel almost guilty taking it. I haven’t earned her trust yet. “Just like that?”
She shrugs. “I wrote the rules here. Well, rewrote them. But still. I’ll know pretty quick if you have the horse background you said on your paperwork.”
Leanne angles her head for me to follow as she leaves the barn and walks towards the ramshackle fence and gate, where maybe thirty some horses mill in the shade. “Get that one,” she points to a tall black blan-
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