How Hard Can It Be?
- johnauborn
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
Stray Raven Stories
I have a tendency to underestimate how complicated new hobbies can become.
It usually starts the same way:
That sounds fun!
There was a period in my life when I was beginning to discover what I actually enjoyed. I wasn’t setting out to reinvent myself.
I simply found myself saying yes whenever something sparked my curiosity.
Tennis sounded fun, so I joined a Meetup and started playing with complete strangers.
Zumba sounded fun, so I started taking classes four nights a week.
Getting back into horseback riding sounded fun and eventually, buying my own horse sounded like a perfectly reasonable idea too.
One unexpected gift of trying new things was the people I met along the way.I wasn’t looking for new friendships, but almost every time I wandered into something new because it sounded fun, I walked away with meaningful friendships I never saw coming.
Buying my horse, Henry, brought me to a boarding stable full of kindhearted, funny, like-minded women. Ellie was one of them. Her horse was stalled near mine, and because we kept similar schedules, we’d often chat while grooming, tacking up or getting ready for a ride.
One afternoon, I noticed she was rushing to leave.
“I’ve got to get home,” she said.
“I’m working out with my neighbor’s donkey.”
I looked at her.
Working out. With a donkey.
Those weren’t words I’d ever expected to hear in the same sentence.
Ellie explained that she was training for something called pack burro racing. She’d found a group of people who actually ran through the mountains with donkeys, and she’d been practicing with her neighbor’s miniature donkey.
Her stories about their training sounded like equal parts exercise, negotiation and comedy. The more she told me, the more intrigued I became.
“Oooh,” I said. “That sounds fun.”
