Farmhouse at Sunset. Digital Image.Yasminroohi. https://www.yasminroohi.com/farmhouse-sunset
The year was 2003, and the city of Herriman was but a small farming community. The shopping centers, neighborhoods, schools, and hotels that exist now were once wide green pastures of waist-high grass, and I’m pretty sure there was a larger population of cows than humans in the whole town. Instead of worrying about traffic while driving, you had to worry about swerving for foxes or tumbleweeds in the road. The land seemed to stretch for miles and miles of swaying grass. That’s where I grew up - living in the only home in a developing neighborhood, farmhouses and pastures as distant neighbors on the horizons.
I was an only child, and a latchkey one at that. Our much-too-large house was void of all life (except me) during the hours of the workday. The boredom of growing up alone can not be matched by any other torture - it could turn even hermit crabs into adventurers. When I would get home from school, I spent all my time scavenging the hills and paths near my house, though I never made it far into new territory. Anytime I began to veer too far away from home, wandering so far I couldn't see the house anymore, I could hear my mom's strict tone in my head, scolding me for going to far from home, putting myself in danger, "There's kidnappers and crazies out there, Hannah!", so on and so forth. But today was different - It was the first day of summer break, and the June sun was high and bright, beckoning me to explore. I had already conquered all the land close to home; I was looking for something bigger, a discovery more grand. I pointed my telescope out my bedroom window and aimed it into the horizon, looking for new lands and greener pastures. My eyes fell upon something on the horizon, and I knew I had found my heading from the rush of adrenaline that sent my stomach up in butterflies. I gathered my notebook, telescope, and other supplies into my drawstring bag and hopped on my bike, and began my journey, pedaling north on the paved road of my neighborhood.
By the time I had sweat beading on my forehead and was near struggling for breath, the pavement ended, and only a dirt path lied ahead. I continued, kicking up cumulonimbus clouds of dust. The rocks crackled under my bike wheels like stovetop popcorn as I sped along, keeping my eyes set into the target breaching closer and closer on the horizon. The dust caked into the sweat droplets on my forehead, and dust coated my throat as I huffed for air, but there was no stopping. This was the excitement I had been dreaming of, a new adventure that could be the subject of an 18th century epic. My parents weren't home, they would never find out about this little adventure, and that thought alone sent childlike rebellious excitement through all my muscles, and I pedaled harder. As I approached the target closer, hair strands became glued to my head with sweat, and I could feel my heart pulsing through my whole body, though I couldn’t tell whether that was from the bike ride, the midsummer heat, or the rush of adrenaline. One last puff of dust erupted from the ground as I dropped my bike into the dirt and started towards my destination.
It was a lone farmhouse, modest, with white paneling and a green roof, complete with a yellow door and a picket fence. I could smell the fragrant apples blossoming from the tree in the yard, and the overabundance of dandelions was already making my nose itch and run. I continued past the house, trodding through ankle-high grass, kicking up bugs and pollen in my wake, circling around to the back of the home. There, enclosed in a barbed wire fence - horses. Maybe 7 or 8 of them, grazing peacefully in an overgrown field, lilac wildflowers blooming among the grass, and the green Herriman hills resting in the horizon. As I neared closer to the fence, my eyes and jaw widened in amazement as I took in the beauty and grace of the animals in from of me. This was it - this was the adventure my 5 year-old self had been craving. I watched one black horse begin to trot in my direction while another one, colored white with brown patches, began to gallop around the enclosure, kicking up a trail of dust in the air behind him. It reminded me of the 1960's black-and-white western movies I had seen my dad watching from time to time, with the Cowboys fighting the Indians in the western deserts of America, and the image of freedom and power that the horses carried. I had never seen something more American and patriotic than the horses in front of me, though, little did I know back then - modern horses aren’t even native to America (Kirkpatrick, 2008). It wouldn’t have mattered to me, though. The black horse emerged from the dust cloud, his slate-colored coat shimmering like an obsidian arrowhead in the sun, and neared me nervously. I eagerly tore dead grass from the ground below me and held it out to him, excitement coursing through my veins, stomach churning, smiling with eyes wide, wanting to capture every second of the glory in front of me. Startled, the black horse backed off and left me coughing in the dust, grass still in hand, stomach sinking and a lump forming in my throat. In that moment, I had never wanted something so unattainable and free.
Much later, the sun was nearing the western mountain horizon and the sky began to turn molten as I returned to my ditched bike in the dirt. The suffocating heat from earlier in the day began to feel brisk, like when I would spend too long in the bath and the scalding water would start feeling nippy. My ride home was much slower than earlier, as I contemplated the different ways I could ever possibly find the money to buy a horse. I could already hear my dad scolding me, “You don’t even play with the pets we already have, you don’t need a horse!” It didn’t matter, I had my mind set. My eyes had never seen such beauty and freedom that day, and I knew I had to have it within my tiny grasp. As a 5 year-old child, I never would’ve guessed the destruction that those beautiful animals could cause.
Group of Wild Horses. Digital Image. Wild Horse Freedom Federation.http://wildhorsefreedomfederation.org/