My friend Kurt ain't feelin too good.
I met him on Craigslist back when people still went on craigslist looking for stuff in the farm and garden section. I had put an ad up looking for guest riders to pay me to go on the rides I was going on anyway, to help me with my hay bill. Mostly I met weirdos and always it was women, but then there was Kurt, helicopter pilot, throat cancer survivor, dad, humorist, rogue.
He ended up buying a horse that I found for him, and keeping that horse, the big old Hank at our house for the last almost 6 years now.
In the last few months, the radiation scarring from the throat cancer all those years ago is starting to wreck his ability to take a deep breath, or any breath. So lately when we were riding he was wheezing and after the last ride he said um
I probly shouldn't ride anymore
But this is KURT, my trail husband, so many women he has invited on trail rides so I could check them out and see if they were Kurtworthy and we had so many laughs with the rainbow variety of women we met. There were hardly any good ones, but they were all entertaining.
So now we've spent the last few weeks getting his horse used to going to our friend Double D's ranch down the street, where he will be living. She can use his horse, and he will be good for her horses.
It is very weird after having a huge horse at your house to be walking him down the street to another house, and to be interacting with other horses there, and to be trying to make everything okay and smooth when everything feels productive, yes, but underneath, so disruptive and sad.
I am glad to be rid of the extra poop of this huge horse, it is killing me running the farm with all the hefting and lugging, and how am I still so fat? It will help to have Hank doing all his crapping down the street where my muck rake can't reach but still I am sad because is it the end of Kurt.
I don't want any endings. I thought I told all of you. You should be protecting me. Already I have Bess saying yes to UC Santa Cruz and that is five hours away where she'll be doing all her crapping starting in the fall unless she gets off the UCSB waiting list, in that case she'll be only an hour and a half away. I can handle that. I can handle it all I just don't WANT to do any handling that isn't like the handling of a fluffy baby chick or a bouquet or maybe a big pile of money. The only good ending is the one that doesn't happen.
So each morning I've been walking Hank up the secret path and over to Double D's and giving him a few hours there, to get used to it, letting him loose in the arena and he's been yelling for his friends back at my house, and his 70 foot tall frame hangs over me by the fence and he looks at me like when am I going home and I don't want to say what if you are home
His big brown eyes trusting me
I like that I will have more room in my barn and that no one will be in my way but maybe part of the good of life is that there are things in your way and personalities of people to wrestle and too much to do
I kind of like to be needed, and used in a way that makes me feel good and kind, especially to big furry lugs like Hank
You ever get to a place where you don't have any idea what you're doing. I've been living there for sure since dementia mom these five years, but really for most of my life. There's some really good movies playing though in the neighborhood theater of my reality. It's such a small place but there's definitely an old movie theater, and some leafy bridle paths
My barn is going back to just being my barn and not being a host barn for a boarder horse.
Kurt will still be my friend, we are friends til we're both choked out of life. It's just there's nothing like a Kurt ride, where he's growling out conversation in his radiation scarred voice, making jokes and talking about vaginas. It was never boring. Also it was mostly quiet and beauty, all that water and the stupid horses making everything grounded and peaceful, the dogs frolicking. The comfort.
Stupid Kurt. Stupid endings. Stupid breathing troubles.
The good news
We never wasted one ride
