I was obsessed with horses when I was in elementary school. Obsessed. My walls were coated with scissor-cut calendar pages of Arabian stallions and Shetland ponies, with ribbons I had won at horse camp and drawings of my future thoroughbred farm.
My high-school friends might have said, “Oh yeah, Jessica. She’s the girl infatuated with Elijah Wood.” Throughout much of my adolescence, I fell asleep with my head tilted up toward Elijah’s gaping blue eyes, eyes that gazed down lovingly upon my awkward sophomore sleeping body.
But after Elijah failed to respond to my love letters, I decided to move on to bigger and better things. Things like graduating with straight A’s, getting a real date to prom (every other year I had taken a picture of Elijah in my purse), and going away to college, but my horse love never fully dissipated. In fact, it came back to haunt me with vigor in 2006 when I decided to work as a wrangler at a horse camp near Tacoma.
To be cliché, I will go ahead and say that that summer changed my life. I did some moderately fantastic things that I never dreamed could actually be a part of my reality, activities that set me down right in the middle of
The Man From Snowy River. My first morning of training, I got up at five o’clock to herd seventy horses from one pasture to another, dew collecting on my Wrangler-clad thighs, horse bodies brushing lightly against my legs. I was on horseback in the woods, calling out to a group of animals through the mist, hearing their soft noises in the darkness, and feeling like a new person.
That was the summer I met Jessica Yankey. She changed the way I saw everything. During training, she slept in the bunk under mine and was the first to exclaim, “My name is Jessica too! Great people are named Jessica.”
Side note: Jessica Yankey brings glory to name of Jessica. She is one of the most fabulous people you will ever meet. She says things like “y’all,” and “yes ma’am,” and parades through life with her Great Dane, Barnabus, loping happily by her side. She can do fancy roping tricks on horseback, clog her way to glory, and act up a theatrical storm. Jessica is the most talented horsewoman I have ever met. She rides horses in the same way that she loves and teaches the people around her. Jessica is a strong woman. She is full of joy. I never knew what it meant to lead by example until I met this woman.
Jessica taught me to ride. She taught me to smile in the face of impossibility and to stretch myself past the point of comfort. She opened my eyes to a new way of experiencing spirituality and a new version of risk-taking.
I don’t know if anyone who reads my blog is familiar with horses, but horseback riding is dangerous, and I am not an incredibly daring person. People talk about horses as being brave creatures that risk their lives carrying army generals across battlefields, and I’m sure that’s been true in some cases; but horses are first and foremost frightened animals. When confronted with the unknown, a horse’s first instinct is to run away.
Ironic… that my first instinct is also to run away in the face of danger. Put me on a frightened horse in the middle of a field and shoot a gun ten feet away from that horse’s head, and I can guarantee you the first thing I will do is jump off while the horse runs terrified into the woods. Or put me in the middle of Portland with no job and a hefty rent payment, and I will be crying quietly in the corner.
When it comes to extreme sports, I am the least-daring person you will ever meet. I would rather choose not to attempt anything dangerous than break my leg in the process. I value the internal workings of my body, and I would strongly dislike the experience of drowning in a lake under the groping hooves of a horse while it frantically swims for the shore. That almost happened to me once.
Jessica Yankey has broken bones and been rushed to the emergency room on more than one occasion. She has weighed the risks of horses and found them to be worth the danger because they teach us something valuable about life.
Horses are more than just animals. Horses show us who we are. They teach us what it means to live in submission, to listen and respond and be willing to change. Jessica taught me that we can only experience life to the fullest when we take risks. She had no tolerance for Poppet the wrangler (me) sitting in the corner being scared. Instead, she handed me a naughty horse and told me to ride it, to work with it on the lunge line, to wave a plastic bag in its face while speaking calm words until it learns to trust instead of bolt.
Jessica showed me by example me that horses teach us about God. Horses are a living demonstration of God’s hand in our lives; they are walking, breathing examples of the relationship God seeks to have with his people. I could write a whole book about this, but I can do that later.
Those summers at camp were life-changing because I came face to face with my childhood fantasy of hoses, with a dream that I never imagined could actually come true in a thousand years. It’s true, I never got to meet Elijah Wood, but I highly doubt that he could have been the answer to any of the unanswered questions of my life.
But horses, unlike Elijah, had something very real to offer me. I still have horse dreams once a week or so. Maybe I’ll come back to them someday.
But in conclusion, Jessica Yankey is a woman whom I admire deeply. If I could be half as ambitious and joyful as Jessica, I would be well on my way. If I could have one quarter of the leadership abilities that she has, I would have half the city of Portland trailing after me into the countryside.
If you’re ever in Sisters, Oregon, look her up. You can meet her dog. Or listen to her talk about her wonderful life. She’s pretty great.
If I hadn’t gone to camp and worked with such an inspiring woman, my life would feel considerably flatter. Maybe I’d still be afraid to drive more than five miles an hour over the speed limit.
Thank you, Jessica, for the ways you’ve inspired me. My prayers are with you.
