Horses are big.

That’s the main thought I took with me from our somewhat recent visit to the —— farm in western M—. Horses are really big.

Second thought: I like horses. I didn’t really know that before. For my whole life I’ve had an aversion to horse literature. Just the thought of watching Black Beauty made me sleepy and bored. I’d read about fictional heroines drawing horse pictures and wishing for a pony and I’d feel out of place, like I was spying on some bizarre cult that was obsessed with orange juice. Not for me, that was the main sentiment that seemed to keep popping into my head. Not for me.

Seeing real horses didn’t change any of that. I’m still nervous at the thought of Black Beauty invading an otherwise enjoyable Sunday evening. But real horses—that’s another matter.

Unfortunately, I can’t write much about them without falling into the terrible hypocrisy of contributing to the bloated body of horse literature already afflicting our troubled world. You’ll just have to go see a horse. Not whiz past on the highway and glance a nag half a mile away. Walk up to one and see it. You’ll agree. They’re big, powerful, and beautiful.

I was amazed at how much I liked those horses. But then, I was amazed by the whole visit. Trying to describe our suburbanite tour of a “real farm” is almost as bad as describing a horse. Everything that occurs to me has already been said, and said badly. Yes, nature is wonderful. Yes, everything was gorgeous: the rustic farmhouse with its wood stove, the old barn with its smell of fresh hay, the rolling fields with its cows, the mountain with its humble, winter-bare trees. The couple was very nice, their kids were very cute and fun. Yeah, you’ve heard it all before.

What’s so hard to describe is how different it is to be there, different from any movies you’ll watch or blogs you’ll read. I think of The Matrix, where everyone lives their whole lives without knowing what it’s like to experience anything firsthand. To be with horses and cows, to smell their sweat and manure and hear their whinnies and moos and touch their warm skin and look up at them…none of that can be experienced secondhand.

I discovered that nature isn’t a luxury or a weekend treat. It fills an ache that my current cycle of cars and computers can usually numb but never destroy. Just standing next to a horse is fundamentally different than watching, reading, or even writing the most exciting stories in the world. Nothing is in a box, nothing is edited, nothing is polished and pre-chewed for my easy digestion. Everything is simply there, and it is I who rise to meet it.

So it was a good visit. And Beth and I continue to agonize over where to spend our internship in the spring. We want to learn as much as we can as soon as we can. So, we keep looking around.

On Monday, I’m visiting the Catholic Homesteading Movement in Norwich, NY. They have no phones, no electricity, and they’ve been teaching hapless suburbanites like myself to homestead for 40 years. I’m excited.