My wife Connie loves to ride horses and lately she’s been taking jumping lessons. People ask me if I’m also taking horse back riding and I tell them that I like horses when they appear in poetry or the other arts but otherwise I prefer to stay far away from them. In turn these people look slightly hurt as though I’d confessed to wilfully farting in church. There are many reasons for this and they include the hope that a good horse back ride will help me as I live and learn to love my disabled life; or, they hope that I will inexplicably fall and get trampled like a tax collector in Roman times; or they wish for an agreeable conversation about the mythic powers of horses who are, after all very mythic indeed.
My problem is that I don’t have any faith in the horse upon whose flanks I find myself perched like a wobbling melon and I have even less faith in my own ability to commune with such a skittish, wind driven creature. On the whole I think I could commune better with a potato.
You see I figured out long ago that horses don’t like me. They see me as a walking version of a tumbleweed. They don’t have any respect for me because I’m just a dread nuisance disguised as a man. I’m neurologically wired to a fine pitch but its not a pitch that horses appreciate. IN short I make a horse’s skin crawl. I’m the guy who, had he lived among the Cherokee would have been named: “Secret Man Who Stands Behind Crazy Horse”.
I take no pleasure by saying so. I love horses from a distance. I love those who love horses up close. I love the ardor of horsemanship and the sounds of galloping horses. I love horses when they appear in my dreams.
But please don’t ask me to ride one. I’ll leave that to the trained professionals and those who don’t make horses turn into electrified be-hooved kamikazes.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
Horses see me coming from miles away, and are thinking up myriad ways to kill me as I approach. When I was an adolescent, I rode a horse at the farm of a friend of my grandfather. That horse tried to scrape me of his back in every way imaginable — maybe if I trot really close to this fence, or ride under this trellis that is just as high as my saddle, or, ah, here’s a thorny hedge — just the thing!
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Prof. Kuusisto,
You are such a kind, gentle, compassionate and loving person that I am sure all horses would just love you! Horses can tell when you’re a kind and loving person, and they respond to people who love animals. Horses are gentle, wise, sensitive beings and I am sure that any horse would like you. You just have to make that person-horse connection.
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Yeah, 5′ sounds more like it, and I don’t do the jumping thing (yet). I would if opportunity presented itself, though….
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Georgia, didn’t you tell him it’s only about 5′ to the ground? Unless you happen to be in the middle of a jump – but it would have to be a 5′ jump! 🙂
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My beloved and I frequently discuss which sport is riskier: horseback riding or speed skating. I point out that when he speedskates he has to wear a Kevlar suit and dickie to as to avoid getting slashed by his or someone else’s blades, and that wears a helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads to prevent being injured in a fall. He points out that when he falls it’s a distance of 5’7″, and he slides into a well-padded wall. He also points out that if I, on the other hand, fall off a horse, it’s about 10′ to the hard ground and that I’m wearing only a helmet. He’s got a point. Except for two things: I am a lousy skater and I just plain like horses better.
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