In 2000, U.S. author Pardis Mahdavi arrives in Tehran, determined to learn about a country she has only heard secondhand and sometimes sensational accounts of—tales of revolution and of the country as it existed during her parents’ emigration. Her scholarly interest in sexual politics and the emerging feminist movement in Iran leads her to cross paths with young women in the country’s underground who are leading a self-described “sexual revolution” in their open exploration of their bodies and intimate desires—a rebellion against the morally coded impositions and restrictions of a regime that has been in power since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Mahdavi seeks a haven in Kordan, a suburb favored by young lovers, away from the city’s “watchful eyes.” Her outing is interrupted, however, by a group of women equestrians whose larger-than-life presence and majestic steeds give her the courage to try horseback riding: “At the age of twenty-two, I had never ridden a horse, but something inside me had shifted, and I understood riding was my destiny.”
In Riding (96 pages; Duke University Press), Mahdavi’s initiation by fellow feminist Reyhan into a unique world of horseback drives her to research the legacy of the Caspian horse and to discover the camaraderie of “horsewomanship.” These women riders practice communicating with horses, rather than trying to discipline or dominate them. Through this two-way understanding, as well as by spending time in the company of these horsewomen, she comes to learn that “[t]o live is to ride. To ride is to fall. To live is to fall, and so in order to live one must not be afraid of falling.”
Mahdavi’s exploration of Iranian-American identity, mythological Persian warrior women, and the yearning to find belonging in an ancestral homeland is heartfelt. Her interest in horseback riding opens her up to a new kind of freedom, a liberation of the self that both parallels and arguably transcends that of the political uprisings she is enmeshed in. As she learns to ride, Mahdavi finds freedom in surrendering to the nature of the horses, and in turn relearning “surrender as a way of life.”
Juggling multiple identities—scholar, parent, horsewoman—Mahdavi reflects on how in a world “[she] found dangerous,” fear and pride were her defense in the face of violence and trauma, as well as informing the balancing act that is her professional life: that ongoing struggle “to prove to everyone around [her] that not only could [she] ride but [she] wouldn’t fall.” Horseback riding down riverbanks and green hills, and through aromatic dirt and sheets of rain, becomes her way of making peace with her choices, while leaving room to grow. In direct, confessional prose, Riding unfolds Mahdavi’s unforgettable relationships with her horses and the many lessons she learns from her rides across cultures and continents. As Mahdavi reminds us, “The balance of learning when to speed up, slow down, walk, trot, or canter [applies] to everything.”
Danielle Shi is a writer and photographer based in Berkeley. Her work can be found at Michigan Quarterly Review: Mixtape, The Rumpus, La Piccioletta Barca, The Margins, and Common Forms.