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Last Sunday, Oct. 4, was one year to the date that Kat and I finally made it to the Pacific and for the first time in five months we could turn east instead of west and seriously think about going home. It took us another three weeks to actually make it home, jumping trailers across the country, but on Oct. 4 the official journey was done.
Well Kat and I are a year older, perhaps wiser, but in so many ways we are still walking that uncertain path and putting our faith in our dreams and the unknown.
We have been 'home' for about a year, putting our lives back together, or more precisely building new ones.
For Kat that meant a crash course in show jumping in the hopes that she would prove to be gracious enough to tactfully handle the daily affronts that a school horses face at the hands of well-meaning, enthusiastic and inept kids. If she could handle it, it would mean that she would be able to earn her own keep, ((her rent otherwise is about as much as mine) while being well looked after and us still being able to spend time together.
It was touch and go to begin with. It actually got to the point where I had decided to give her one more week and if she still didn’t seem to be able to handle the situation without a some sort of meltdown then I would give up on the idea and find some way to buy her and pay her board. But she came through and managed to be a school horse through the rest of the winter, spring and right through 8 weeks of summer day camp…that I really thought would have done her in. There were even a few kids that called her their favourite and requested to ride her for their parents to see. But in the end, she proved to be a bit too opinionated to deal with ignorant kids…and she also is ridiculously lazy.
Gary, Danielle and The Pickering Horse Centre put up with her girly, outspoken ways for a full year, and made it work because she is mine, because she is the horse that crossed Canada for me, because she is my best friend and I am committed to her for life. They bought her for me, gave me the tools to make my ride possible and then went even further beyond anything that ever could have be asked and gave her a home and a job for a year, while still me letting call her mine and work with her on my own in my own way. They made everything that we have done over the past year and a half possible.
The day after she was kicked out of the school, she bucked a kid off… okay she had made her point, the riding school not so much her thing. So if she hadn’t already be fired, for being less than cooperative, she definitely would have been then. Leave it to Katrina to make an exit.
As for me it has been a year of ambiguity. I have been a bar/restaurant manager, barn staff, and a web designer, at one point I was going to apprentice with a farrier, to pay the bills, while working on my real, yet currently less bankable career as a writer and director. I finally finished one of my short films that I had been working on for two years, and the documentary is well on its way and is still scheduled to be finished in dec, and the book is over 100pages in. The doc is going so well, and my editor Dan is amazing, which is a saving grace with so many other things in need of some direction. So there has been lots to do, lots of changes and lots of decisions to be made as always.
So a year later Kat and I still have a lot of life to figure out. I have all sorts of things on the go to try and keep the ends meeting and creative drive flowing productively, but to say the least my life is pretty random. But I fumble through some how... very much like the ride, or at least that is what my dad tells me everytime I am getting sick of the uncertainty. He is usually right.
And as of Oct. 1 Kat became mine again full time, though now I have to find a way to pay her rent with mine and pay down her price…anyone interested in buying a share in a famous…albeit feisty horse? :) Of course life has just about as much uncertainty as it did last year when we turned for home, but we are definitely both stronger, happier and have some form of harmony with our worlds. And the one thing that has been a constant all the way through is that no matter what we are in this together. Kat may not have the right stuff for a schoolie, but if nothing else her antics make me laugh. So we are good, actually if I could marry a millionaire we would be about perfect, know anyone?
We'll keep you updated. xk&K
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