Tuesday the 19th of May. I’m lying in the back of the covered wagon, in a big empty metal barn at the Shelby County Fairgrounds in Sidney, Ohio. I’m literally trembling all over. I’m thinking “I can’t do this, I just can’t do this. I have no idea what my options are but I am done.” I am expecting visitors, helpful visitors. I am hiding. I am in no shape to deal with people but if they show up it is going to be pretty obvious where I am. I’m going to have to come out and act glad to see them. The animals have all been taken care of, I haven’t dropped the ball on that, but I’ve been hiding in here for hours. I should be writing a blog post. I can’t even read a book. I have no idea when people might show up. I need to be ready. I can’t stop shaking. “I can’t do this. I want to go home. I have nowhere safe to go. I’m not the person I thought I was. I’m not the person I need to be. I can’t do this.”

I left Lisa’s Sunday morning. It was going to be a hot day so I put the Cavallo CLBs on the ponies, the newly repaired team pole is securely bolted back onto the Mustard Seed, I’ve decided to try Theodore on the left side today, we’re heading for the Fairgrounds, 15 miles away – and it is immediately obvious that things aren’t right in pony world. They’ve had a week off, so I’m expecting them to be a little spicy, but they’re not pulling straight and my first instinct is always that I’ve gotten some adjustment wrong with the harness or lines (that’s what driving people call reins) – so I stop, call Lisa to come hold them, hop out and check everything over, make two adjustments, get ready to go again. Lisa lets me know that with her MS she can’t run up the drive any further – if I need any more help I’ll need to make a big circle through a baby cornfield or she’ll have to get in her truck. Basically, I’m on my own. Fair play. My nephew, Tobiah is driving home from Wheaton, IL where he’s just graduated and he’s coming out of his way to put the Strava app on my phone and teach me how to use it so people can follow my route.

As we drive along, things are getting worse instead of better. Repeatedly, I’m stopping, getting out, making an adjustment, trying again. Nothing is helping. The roads are blessedly flat and straight, there’s not much traffic, but it’s scary every time I ask the fractious ponies to stop and wait while I get out and try and fix something. This time I’m standing next to them (on the traffic side) and a white pickup truck pulls up – two men – “are you ok?” “No, actually, I’m having a bit of a harness adjustment problem.” I’m considering asking if they might be willing to help me swap out the ponies, put Franklin back on the left side, when they rev their engine, laugh “oops, looks like that scared your ponies!” – rev AGAIN and go roaring off down the road. The ponies spook, I get knocked down and I wind up getting dragged down the road, full length on the pavement, hanging on by one 1/2″ slippery biothane rein, desperate not to lose my team. Thank God the ponies find it in their hearts and brains to stop, Thick has stayed on the wagon (good dog!) and I pick myself up, seriously rattled, thank the ponies for stopping, get back in the wagon and drive on – because what else is there to do?

Ok. There’s one thing I can do. I can reach out for help. Chris, the facilities manager for the county, who has granted me permission to camp at the fairgrounds, has given me the number of an itinerant farrier, DB, who is 74, apparently knows everyone, might be able to help me with places to stay up the road, a good person to know. We’ve spoken on the phone once, he offered me a place to stop less than 10 miles from Lisa’s and I said I’d rather push on to the fairgrounds, but now I reach for my phone and call him “Having a bit of trouble here, any chance you do roadside calls?” And within 10 minutes he and his son and his grandson pull up in a car. It has a muffler. They don’t feel the need to rev their engine. They hop out and assess the situation, apparently the team pole isn’t as straight as it ought to be. Once I see it, it’s very obvious. Oh dear. We unhitch the ponies and they try to bend it back with brute strength, but it’s a serious piece of square tube steel. Not to worry: the son’s house is 4 miles away and he has a splitter and a blow torch and a generator and a 5′ level and they’ll get it figured out. We’ve agreed that it would be clever to put Theodore back on the right, but I’m so rattled that I forget who was where and he’s on the left again. The ponies are much easier to control at the walk, which is about 2mph, but we get there eventually. The men are waiting for us when we arrive.

We unhitch and unbridle the ponies and tie them to a trailer, unbolt the teampole and they put it in some sort of a vice. I’m not entirely clear on what’s going on, but it’s loud and active and apparently the team pole was out of true in three different planes so no wonder the ponies were struggling. I’m frustrated with the Amish man for not getting it right, with myself for not noticing, reminding myself that the Amish may do this horse and buggy stuff on the daily but they’re just as fallibly human as the rest of us. One of the guys yanks the cord on the generator to start it, it starts but the cord comes off in his hand so now it can’t be turned off until they’re done. I’m starting to feel the effects of getting dragged down the road and find a place to sit down for a minute. It’s really loud, and then they’re done and it’s time to hitch up and head for the place DB had originally offered, because it’s closer and the Fairgrounds feel like too far away on a day already too far gone. I punch the address into Google maps on my phone, the guys help me get the ponies bridled and hitched back to the wagon, Franklin on the left this time, and I say “Haw, gentlemen” and they swing left out of the driveway.

The road is straight, the ponies are finally pulling straight, they hit a strong trot and it’s all feeling good until suddenly the trot turns into a gallop and we’re barreling down the road. I pull back on the reins and realize that somehow the bit is not in Theodore’s mouth. I’m trying not to panic, Thick is barking, I’m yelling “Whoa, Gentlement!” then yelling at Thick to hush, I’m standing on the brake as hard as I can and those ponies are just running as fast as they can and I’m so glad there’s no traffic, no intersection, they’re staying in the middle of the road – counting blessings but this is So Scary and Dangerous and the brakes smell like burning rubber. Theodore outweighs Franklin by 100# and he’s just dragging us along in a panic for over a mile before they tire enough to start to listen and I manage to get them to stop. I take a deep breath, try not to curse anyone, get out of the wagon, fix Theodore’s bridle so that the bit is in his mouth where it belongs, get back in the wagon and ask them to walk on.

At the next intersection we turn left. Keeping it slow now, nothing faster than a jog, nervous systems frayed and jangled. Another mile and one of those idiots in a loud truck comes right up behind us, revving, passes too close, too fast, too loud, special circle in Hell (and funny how there are never any women in these trucks, just overcompensating men trying to impress whom?) And by now Theodore has had more than enough and then some, bolts again, dragging poor Franklin along for the ride and I do get them slowed down a little sooner this time (the bit certainly helps with that) and decide to cover the rest of the distance at our 2mph walk. The last road is a busy state road, curvy and fast, it’s rush hour and DB is behind us in his van, flashers on and it’s a stupid place to be going to slow, but stupider to risk another runaway and then suddenly DB is honking and yelling, “turn here! this is the place! turn in now!” and it’s almost too late but I think there’s room, “Gee, Gentlemen” and the ponies swing right but it’s all too much, too fast, the ponies goose and the wagon jackknifes and I bail out on the uphill side and that makes 4 times today I’m seeing the whole trip come crashing to an end. DB jumps out of his van to come help, a commuter sets his hazard lights and comes to help, the man who owns the farm is coming down the hill, I unhitch the ponies, call Thick and lead them up the drive and into the yard, abandoning the Mustard Seed to the men. By the time I have the ponies tied to a trailer the wagon is in the yard and I’m taking their harnesses off when my phone pings – it’s Tobiah – who also had the wrong address and is now in a cemetery. I feel like I’ve narrowly avoided that fate today and text him a pin on the map so he can find me, turn the ponies out into a lovely pasture with an old leopard appaloosa gelding who is glad for the company and attempt to activate “Tante Sea” mode.

Tobiah find me and rolls with the situation, gets the app on my phone and gets me oriented, we sit on hay bales in the shade and catch up for about an hour before he needs to start driving East again and then I go sit in the back of the Mustard Seed and take about 20 minutes to attempt to decompress and process the day. Basically I’m just sitting there like I’ve been poleaxed trying to figure out what’s next. I’m stiff and sore and grateful that we all got out of this alive. Gradually I come back to myself enough to start unloading the wagon so I’ll have a place to lie down. I really, really want to lie down. The moment I’m visible, DB comes over and offers a ride to the fairgrounds so I can take a shower. I look down at myself and slowly realize that this is a very good idea so I gather up my shower stuff, towel, change of clothes and Thick and I get in his van. It will be good to see where the ponies and I are headed tomorrow in any case. He asks if the ponies were pulling straight after the team pole was fixed and I said yes, but then mentioned the bit not being in Theodore’s mouth and the runaway ponies –
“I guess that was one of us? But apart from that, they were pulling straight?”
And my brain is going: “Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?” – but I keep it behind my teeth.

I feel like a grumpy cat getting into the shower – cinder blocks and no way to avoid the initial blast which is ice cold – but eventually the water warms up and I wash my hair and sluice off some of the day. I’ve got scrapes on my left arm and bruises rising on my left leg. I don’t want to keep DB and Thick waiting but I’m moving slowly, give up on brushing my hair for now, put on a skirt and tank top and I’m so ready to call it a day, unload the wagon, make my bed, lie down and go to sleep. DB has other plans. I emerge from the shower house and his lady friend is there, wanting to meet me. She’s beautiful, curvy and platinum blond and we sit on a flatbed trailer and make small talk for half an hour or more – then they want to take me out to dinner. I explain that I don’t have much of an immune system so we’d need to find a place with outdoor seating, and there are a lot of things I can no longer eat, but if there’s someplace we can sit outside and I can order a salad I’m game. This poses a problem in Sidney, Ohio but finally we settle on Mexican food at a place with a patio. I order enchiladas in corn tortillas and hope for the best. DB’s lady friend asks if I’ve tried Ivermectin for my digestion and immune system. I explain that I have stage 4 kidney disease and Ivermectin can cause kidney failure. She hasn’t heard about that and when I assure her that I’ve done the research, the conversations gets more stilted and awkward.

Back at the farm, the ponies are happy, the Mustard Seed is beckoning but now I’m being invited to join them beneath the Red Oak trees in DB’s happy place where he goes to get away from it all and feel peaceful. I’m not feeling peaceful, I’m feeling exhausted, but also obligated and so I go sit in a chair and attempt to make even more awkward small talk and act interested until 8:30 when I say that I really need to get the wagon set up before it’s dark and make my escape. DB says he’ll be there at 8:30 sharp to help me hitch the ponies up and follow me with his blinkers on until I’m off the busy part of the road.

I don’t want to be late, so I’m up by 6am, get the wagon organized for travel, catch and groom and harness the ponies, the man who owns the farm stops by for a chat but after about 10 minutes, when I move to get back to work, he takes the hint and heads back to his own work. I wouldn’t have minded if he’d stayed to chat while I harnessed up, but also very appreciative of his manners. At 8:20 the ponies are fully dressed and I’m ready to roll, there’s a crew of Hispanic guys at the bottom of the driveway replacing a guard rail with lots of loud machines and I know that’s going to be the first hurdle of the day. At 9am I finally call DB and he’s “almost there” – once he arrives I walk down and explain the situation to the road crew – and when I come down the drive to the road they shut down every machine to silence and the ponies are just fine. Blessings on them, and on the fact that they had set up a road block so people had to stop and wait their turn for the single open lane and I was able to get out and across the road in safety. Every time I try to go faster than a walk, Franklin is leaning out hard to the left, like a 30 degree angle with his whole body, leading with his shoulder and his head cranked around at a 90 degree angle to the right so he can’t see where he’s going. This isn’t good but at least he’s ok at the walk so walk is what we do. DB calls on the phone to ask why I’m going so slowly, says it seems like a few times they’ve been going 3x as fast and no problems but he’s behind the wagon and can’t see what I’m seeing so I stick to my 2mph pace – facing a 4.4 mile day to the Fairgrounds and another chance to figure things out. Except I manage to miss a turn and now it’s an 8.5 mile day which takes a very long time and my back is aching and the ponies are grumpy and Thick is bored and the town of Sidney is charming and somebody takes a picture that makes it all look sublime but I’m So Glad to finally get to the fairground – get the ponies turned out into a steer pen (like a paddock under a roof with wood chips 4″ thick underfoot) and sorted into hay and water. They roll and shake and roll and shake and I unload the wagon and eventually realize that it might feel very good to take a shower and change my clothes.

It has just occurred to me that I haven’t eaten anything yet today when Thick takes off down the hill barking. He’s supposed to be on a leash so I make haste to follow him, apologize to the two women walking their little dogs, scoop him up and carry him back up to the steer pen and pavillion where the Mustard Seed is under a roof. By the time I get back up the hill there’s an older man there looking for DB – who has told him that he should stop by the fairgrounds and meet me. DB is nowhere to be found and small talk with this man is like fishing in a swimming pool. I do my level best for about an hour, trying to be polite, appreciative of all the help DB has given me, besides, I’m in a public place – he has every right to be here. At 5pm DB and his lady friend show up, he’s invited More friends to come meet me, they’ll be here soon, and I get a text from Chris, the facilities manager, mentioning that there’s a bad storm coming and the women’s shower is a storm shelter and I should avail myself. I text back that I’m worried about my wagon blowing away and is there anywhere I could get it inside some walls – which leads to the offer of the pole barn and the 4 old men rolling the wagon into the barn while I schlep 6 or 7 loads of stuff into the barn (since I’ve already unloaded the wagon onto some available horizontal surfaces) and then DB is setting up chairs for everybody and a table and I didn’t sign on for this but it seems like I don’t have a choice. Don’t want to be rude.

One of the men is 85 and he wrote a self-help book in 1985. He really wants to give me a copy of his brilliant book, he wants to give me his full motivational speech with props and questions, he wants to sign the book over to me and he wants me to promise to read it and do what it says. He’s name dropping left and right and obviously very impressed with himself and desperate for my undivided attention. For reasons left unexplained he has a giant pacifier hanging around his neck on a string, the part that would go into a baby’s mouth as large as my fist. My dad is a management buff and in the mid-80s I read most of the books that he plagiarized for his masterpiece (the first half was plagiarized from Dr. Suess – I wish I was kidding) and I already know the “right” answers to his “gotcha!” questions – which he finds very disappointing. His initials are BP and in my head he becomes “Gas Bag” – the man is relentless – “what do you want to be when you grow up?” he asks me – I point out that I’m doing it – literally living the dream of my 6 year old self – but he can’t hear it – just needs to tell me that the correct answer is that I am never going to grow up. “What do you regret in your life?” and when I reply “Nothing” – he’s deflated, but not defeated – he rallies with his third formulaic question “If you’re on your death bed and giving one last piece of advice to your favorite child, what do you say?” and after pointing out that I have no children, I relent and play along, quoting Kurt Vonnegut – “Be Kind.” – perhaps you will appreciate the irony of that response in a moment. It’s bucketing rain outside and the wind is howling.

Gas Bag is not the type to take a hint. He’s talking and he can’t shut up, the few questions he asks are things like “how did you make money during your life?” and “who’s the most interesting character you’ve met in your travels?” but the half second pause I took to consider that question was enough to set him off on all the interesting characters he’s met during his life and how he impressed them all. A couple of the other men head off on a beer run (I can’t drink beer any more) and Gas Bag just keeps pontificating, cannot read the room, cannot be derailed, just desperate – like he’s drowning and my attention on him is his life preserver, like a person who has been coddled and kowtowed to his entire life because he’s a tall, handsome white man and it’s his due. This goes on for 2 1/2 hours and now it’s 7:30 and yesterday is still deep in my nervous system and I still haven’t had anything to eat today and finally I manage to break in just long enough to mention that I’m hungry. “We can bring food in!” No thank you, I’m on a restricted diet, it feels rude to eat in front of people but I don’t have enough to feed 6 people and I really need a bit of alone time now, it’s been a long couple of days. But now apparently he’s spent the day reading my blog and “you really need to write about me in your blog, how you met a famous author and he gave you a copy of his brilliant book!” and something inside me starts to unravel “Nobody tells me what to write in my blog.” And there must have been some edge to my voice because now everybody is looking at me. Gas Bag makes another grab at control “This young lady hasn’t eaten today and she has dietary restrictions and doesn’t have enough food here to feed 6 people so we need to give her some space.” I can feel myself starting to shake. “I can speak for myself, thank you.”

“I’m being empathetic” he explains, as though talking to a child – and that’s it – I snap. “No, you’re not, you’re being a control freak. You’ve had to be the center of attention for two and a half hours now despite what anybody else says or does. You can’t read a room and I’m tired of listening to you talk about yourself and how great you are. You wanted to know how I earned money in my life? I was a dominatrix.” Well, that got his attention, “Wait, what’s that?” (he knew damn well – and I’m thinking – right – all sorts of interesting conversations could have been had here tonight if you hadn’t been sucking every molecule of oxygen out of the universe) but instead I say, voice too loud and body shaking, “I got paid very good money to put men like you in their place – and I’ve spent the entire evening fighting the urge to shove that stupid pacifier in your mouth so you’d Just Stop Talking!”

Well, that put a damper on the party, and suddenly the men are gathering up their beers and making haste for the exit – but Gas Bag can’t just leave – can’t just leave it alone – he has to make one more attempt at being cute, using “reverse psychology” on me, twinkle, twinkle “I absolutely forbid you to write about me in your blog.” (you asked for it dude – I usually don’t flay people alive in public – but you absolutely asked for it – explicitly – I hope you enjoy your cameo!) And then he was getting into his friends’ truck and being driven away. Leaving me mortified, even more rattled than yesterday’s four near wrecks, feeling the need to apologize to DB for being rude to his friend – but DANG!? What, exactly, do I owe people? I’m too shattered to figure out how to cook, so I open a bag of blue corn chips and some walmart guacamole, crawl into the Mustard Seed and spend the night wishing I could sleep. Then sinking into a nightmare and wishing I hadn’t slept. Until eventually it was morning and the storm had passed. The ponies survived the storm and were glad to see me in the morning.