In the world of American horse racing, the lead pony is a big deal. The lead pony is the steady, typically older, horse — not an actual pony — that you see escorting the frisky, young racehorse to the gate.

The lead pony’s job is to keep the temperamental, inexperienced colt calm, to be a familiar presence before and after the adrenaline-charged race.

A Calming Presence

Everybody should have a lead pony.

Last month I had travel plans. Big, complicated plans. And I was nervous.

A stressful, multi-stop itinerary lay before me: A flight from San Francisco to Detroit. A freeway drive at dusk across Michigan to Jackson. Another drive from Jackson to Pentwater and then a drive to Grand Rapids to catch a plane to Minneapolis. After that, a flight from Minneapolis to San Francisco.

I was doing all this on my own. No Jon to keep me company. No Jon to keep track of the plane tickets or hoist the luggage. No Jon to figure out how to drive the rental car or find the freeway exits.

I was on my own.

Mind you, I can do all of these things. I’m not afraid to drive an unfamiliar car. I can get on a freeway as the sun is setting and get off in the dark. I can sleep alone in a strange motel room.

I can do all this. But earlier this summer as I planned this trip, I was anxious anyway. I was stressed out. Why?

Because Jon wasn’t there.

Marriage is a lot of things. There’s love. There’s sex. Sometimes there are kids. Often there are two paychecks. In my case, there was someone with arms long enough to change light bulbs in the ceiling fixtures and organized enough to put dinner on the table at seven sharp.

I was aware of all those marital perks during our forty-four years of marriage.

What I wasn’t aware of was the calming influence that Jon had been all those years. Like the lead pony riding alongside the excitable race horse, Jon had kept me calm — just by being there.

An Existential Thing

It was an existential thing. Jon was there and all was right with the world. Even when things were not right, when something went dreadfully wrong — I couldn’t get pregnant or I found a lump in my breast (benign, it turned out) or I lost a job — it was OK.  Jon was there.

Whatever it was, it was OK, because Jon was with me.

And now, just making plans for a trip to the Midwest is enough to rattle me.

Where’s my lead pony?

More about Pentwater, Michigan, at “A Small Town on a Big Lake.”  And nearby Scottville, Michigan, at “Geographic Mobility in America.”