Just A Phase by Julie Christen

“It’s just a phase.” 

I heard this a few times growing up. 

“Lots of little girls go through a horse-crazy phase.”

For a time, I believed it must be true. But the vision of being around horses always tickled the back of my mind like an itch I couldn't scratch. The gentle motion rocking me back and forth, the warm breath on my palm after snuffling up a treat, and a shaggy forelock over soft, soulful eyes. It all stayed.

       I never grew out of my horse “phase.”

       At 53 years young, I try to remember when, exactly, my love affair began. My memory isn’t sharp enough to put a time stamp on it, but when my dad found these 1974 photos from his slide collection, I realized it started when I was very, very young.

At four years old, on a family camping trip to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, I was flung up onto a trail horse behind my mom and away we went. No helmets, signed waivers or mounting docks. Just the two of us on a gentle horse. Though the details of that particular ride have faded, I know with certainty that I was not afraid, but comfortable, like sitting on a sofa as we watched the countryside go by. I remember reaching my hand back to pat the soft rump over and over as we ambled along a winding trail. I remember not wanting to get down when it was over. And when it was over, I remember watching my horse through the fence rails until we had to drive away.

I also know that on this trip, my family marveled at a wild herd of horses roaming free. The herd clustered together, tails swishing, foraging to their heart's content on native grasses. We watched them with awe. And even though the park would eventually decide they weren’t “pretty enough” for the tourists, and plan to eliminate them in order to introduce more domesticated-looking horses, we thought they were beautiful. Maybe we were a different kind of tourist.

The Kuntz brothers would be saving those wild horses soon. I love that I hold this connection with them.

            My mother had grown up with horses. I would ask her to tell me again about those she had as a little girl growing up in tiny Sheldon, ND. How Grandpa Frank bought a pony named Patsy and a big Palomino named Sparky. How she rode to school. How the ride going out was always much slower than the ride coming home. She would tell me about riding with her cousins to a trickling spring, the perfect spot for lazy summer afternoons and tossing chokecherries to the fish.

            So many of her memories made some of my favorite scenes come to life in Nokota Voices.

            I am amazed at how life has a way of taking off down the road, and before you know it, you’re leaning hard on your knees, huffing and puffing, looking back. Then you wonder, “How did I get here?”

Now I sip my morning coffee and look out at my horses and donkey grazing in the dewy morning hours. Who would ever have guessed that three of those would be Nokota horses – possibly descendants of those same wild ones we marveled at on our family vacation so long ago.

It wasn’t “just a phase.” It’s a reality.

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