Booth - Only pack what you can carry: my path to inner strength, confidence, and true self-knowledge

ALL I EVER WANTED WAS A HORSE. No husband, children, or white picket fence for me: While other girls were doodling their initials and imagining how their married names would look, I was drawing wild-at-heart horses with flowing manes and nostrils ringed with fire. My father hung a chalkboard in the basement where I drew equine storiesherds crossing the plains; mares and foals galloping wild; unicorns. When I was ten and there wasnt a square inch of the house that hadnt been defaced by a horse doodle, my parents relented and bought me one. His name was Rockyflatfooted, Roman-nosed, pig-eyed, and mule-eared, with epic dandruff and a bad disposition. We brought him home in my fathers work van, shoved in there like an old, overstuffed couch picked up at a flea market. My dad struck a hard bargainwe paid all of one dollar for this creature, leading me to wonder (much later, of course) whether he was actually a horse at all and not some kind of barnyard experiment gone awry: a horse crossed with a cow crossed with a donkey crossed with an emu. But young girls are easily overcome by fairy tales, and Rocky to me was nothing less than every one of the gallant steeds I had been faithfully beckoning into my life, via my drawings, since I first picked up a pencil.

I was a tiny little thingall knobby knees and elbows, skinny and straight, freckled, with long black hair and cats-eye glasses. My parents had to pinch pennies, which meant I wore my older sisters hand-me-down clothes, often until I had not only outgrown them but split the seams. Flood Pants was my middle name, and it became easier to spend all my time on horseback, exploring my little corner of the world, than to be around mean people.

I grew up just outside Vancouver before it became a metropolis. Back then the area had miles of woods, streams, mountains, and fields to ride through. Dad could afford to pay a dollar for Rocky but not the hundred or so for a saddle, which meant I rode bareback for a long time. Up until the point Rocky was delivered into my life I was shy, quiet, and compliant. But he was so disobedient and conniving, I had to learn how to be authoritative and commanding. I had to become a presence that couldnt be ignored. Until Rocky, I never swore. Until Rocky, I never felt a violent thought. Until Rocky, I was a doormat. Teaching that horse who was bossme, about as big as a golf penciltook all the determination I had. That horse bucked me off every chance he got. He found every low-hanging branch in our little corner of British Columbia and headed for it at a dead run, literally leaving me hanging while he galloped away. Hed pretend to be lame, and when Id dismount to check his hoof for stones, hed run off, tail high in the air, farting as he galloped toward home and the grain bucket.

Oh, how I cursed that horse. Oh, how I loved him. But I didnt love him for him. I loved him for the freedom and power I felt when I could gallop through a meadow, sneak up on deer or pheasants, jump big ditches, and ride down steep embankments to wade in cool, shaded streams. On horseback, I could go places and see things I couldnt on foot. I could cover miles and miles of wilderness. The whole world looked different from the back of my horse.

Rocky finally took seriously my efforts to dominate him, and our time together became a little more tranquil. He succumbed to my will and the threat of the whip, but despite the external peacefulness, some ember of determination still glowed inside me, yearning for a whiff of controversy to feed the flame. I started to speak out in class. It suddenly seemed completely ridiculous that girls were not allowed to wear pants to schooleven in winter, when we had to navigate snowdrifts in dresses and rubber boots. We werent allowed to wear panty hose either. What was this nonsense? I asked the principal, Mr. Toole.

Mr. Toole, with his big, square, black-rimmed glasses that looked like twin TV sets, said, Janice, if you can get the majority of the girls in your class to sign a petition, I will allow you and them to wear pants. He said this to me then smiled. I thought, This is too easy. You are a fool, Mr. Toole! This thing will be knocked out by the end of week . I was in fifth grade.

That night, with the help of my dad, I created a petition. It simply said, We, the undersigned, wish to be granted the right to wear pants to school. I thought there couldnt be a simpler thing. All the girls wanted to wear pants. All the girls complained about having to wear dresses. All I had to do to change that was round up a posse and have them sign their names.

I was about to get my first lesson in reality.

Mr. Toole had the benefit of wisdom and cynicism on his side. He watched with a bemused grin as I was rejected, one after another, by every girl in my class. I was at once outraged, perplexed, and crushed that no one would support what I thought was a group cause.

But dont you want to wear pants to school? I pleaded with Joan White.

Of course I do, she answered, but Ill get in trouble if I sign that thing. Girls werent supposed to assert themselves back then or get involved in any sort of controversy, which apparently my pants petition was. Some girls wouldnt speak to me at all that day. I went home defeated.