Riding in the Wilderness

Day 775.

I can not really explain, nor find the words for what happened to me in the wilderness because although I have searched my soul, I don’t know.

I write this a year after my return and still I have no clue.
All I can say is that I came back changed, altered and for the better.

I rode for 6 days.
I slept under the stars for 5 nights.
It was other.

Grief groups will advise you never to put yourself into any situation that you can not get out of.
Make sure you can always leave.
But PTSD research speaks of wilderness as a cure and once you are there you are there. You ain’t going nowhere without a guide.

All of Luke’s friends who had been in wilderness treatment, unanimously speak of it as the most meaningful recovery treatment they had experienced.
Luke said that it speaks to the bigger picture, not so great at the everyday stuff.

So off I went.
I drove there solo.
It’s quite a thing for an English gal to set her GPS to destinations from Elvis songs and just drive.

I rode out into over half a million acres of wilderness - almost double Greater Los Angles or Greater London.

My guide an Apache and another woman also in grief. She previously rode out at the 2-year point and she assured me I too would have an epiphany.

I was anxious. Prior to this, I could barely leave my house and now I was going to drive for 12 hours and commit myself for 6 days to the hand of strangers.
“The horses will be there for you” were Adam’s wise words of reassurance.

Once mounted, I was committed.
No way back.
I wasn’t sure I would be able to do it. Emotionally, physically or mentally.
But now I had no choice.

The wide-open spaces, the rivers, the rock formations, the forests, the silence, the nip of frost on my cheek, everything was far away from my LA life.

An experience around horses is, for me, inextricably linked to Luke.
Horses were our shared experience.
I lay at night and stared straight up to the stars. I’d pick a bright star and know it was Luke. I’d watch it, talk to it, watch it dance about in a trick of my eyes.
I felt Luke was watching over me.

We rode all day in a single file to preserve the integrity of the wilderness trail.
It’s hard to chat when you ride in single file, so we mostly rode in silence, each drinking in the landscape, lulled by the sounds of the breeze in the trees, the run of the rivers, the creak of our saddles and pony hooves. 

It’s oddly private. I could (and did) cry undetected.

Soothed by the motion of my pony’s penduluming gait, mesmerized by the nature around me, my mind drifting through my life memories and my loss of Luke.

I wanted to run to the safety of Adam’s arms but there was no way out. So I allowed the healing powers of ponies and the beauty of the overscaled landscapes in which I was emersed to wash across me.
Stay present, stay present.

At night around the fire, we spoke politics- the plight of the Apache in modern America, mental health and of course addiction.

I’d wake each morning to the sound of ponies blowing as they grazed and the smell of the fire, my sleeping bag like Christmas wrap encrusted with the wonder of the tiny frozen crystal formations, the beauty of it, the complex simplicity - the gifts of nature filling every one of my senses. 

Drinking from a stream, shitting in the woods, bear tracks, total darkness at night, the primal nature of fire to warm us and heat our food, the goodwill of the beast that carried me. Nature was allowing me to be at one with it, but make no mistake it was all on nature’s own terms.
Respecting it and receiving what it gifted us, leaving it unmarked .... a simpler life.

I can see why running away to a desert island can seem the answer.

I dismounted after 6 days in union with nature and drove away changed.

Was it the wilderness?
The ponies?
The silence?
My first dream with Luke in it, as a toddler in his striped pajamas?

I arrived home in LA.
I stepped out of my car, blackened my bath water with 6 days of sweat, earth, campfire, and pony.
I piled my hair up, still smelling of campfire despite all the shampoo and soap, nails ragged and embedded with horse sweat, leather oil and charcoal, donned my tux and stepped into a film industry awards party to watch my husband make an acceptance speech for a coveted award and speak of Luke and our loss to a standing ovation - anxiety-free, just being, proud and changed.

I barely spoke of the wilderness again,
but I suspect that the wilderness speaks to me every day,

Inviting me to 
watch the stars,
see the changing skies,
smell the rain,
hear the birds,
the rustlings of trees swaying in the wind.
To see the sun on the water.
the sunrise,
the sunset,

Sheila, nature will be there for you, waiting patiently, always, but especially in your hour of need.

And as I write, I feel the change stirring in me once more.

 

 

Sheila Scott