I thought I knew how to see. 📷

In 2006, Peter Turnley showed me that my "best" photos were actually just static poses. It took ten days in Paris to realize I’d been missing the "real" my entire life.

Twenty years later, it’s happening again—this time with my sentences.

A reflection on Peter Turnley, Neal Allen, Anne Lamott, and the awe of realizing you’re still a beginner at the thing you’ve done forever.

I almost gave up on this puzzle. Twice. 🧩

First, because it looked "too hard." Then, because I realized the edge pieces were missing. My instinct was to put it back in the box—you aren't "supposed" to build a puzzle without a border.

But I stayed at the table anyway.

I’m finding that there is a specific kind of strength in the staying—even when the map is blurry and the edges are MIA.

I think it can be easy to assume, with so much of the self-help advice that goes around, that the goal of life is some perfect state of peace—a nervous system constantly regulated, never encountering a single bump in the road.

But as we say in the horse world: the only way to be 100% guaranteed you won’t fall off is to never get on.

It is the same with life.

I remember being so frazzled, so harried, and so depleted by my life that I felt like a well run dry.

I was in my late twenties, in a high-power, high-stress corporate role. I had the team, the salary, and the "ladder" under my feet. And I was miserable.

But the gift of that misery was that it forced me to stop. To consider. To examine. What did I actually want out of my life? At the time, I was so empty I didn’t even know the answer. I just knew I couldn't keep walking the path I was on. But I also couldn’t see how change was even possible.

Have you ever eaten a Tootsie Pop?

You lick, and lick, and lick—unless you are one of those people who bites them right from the get-go (and then this story maybe doesn’t work as well for you). You keep going until finally, after slow, steady effort, you come to that magical center. The part that isn't hard candy anymore, but a full-on, chewy Tootsie Roll.

I think that’s what the Deep Seat is like. Allow me to explain. 

Have you ever felt the "Tug of Mañana"?

Yesterday I had a real-world example of that familiar pull.

I had planned to ride Fortuna—I haven’t ridden her for a few weeks due to a variety of things that just kept coming up. But the day before, I had looked her in the eye and promised, “Tomorrow we will go out for a ride.”

There is a joke here that in Spanish, the word mañana doesn’t actually mean tomorrow—it just means not today.

This whole The Return experience exists because even though I had changed my life completely—swapping a frantic, corporate existence for “living the dream” in rural Baja and riding my horse along the beach at sunset—I was starting to feel a little bit like... well, a little bit like I had back in my harried, hectic, corporate days of rush and hurry.

How could that be? My time was my own. My schedule was my own. I didn’t have to sit in traffic. I didn’t have a commute. I thought I had found “the answer” to what had ailed me—only to find myself right back where I had been, just without the high-paying job that at least gave me money for therapy.

Since becoming a horsewoman, there has been something bothering me about the Palm Sunday story—and it’s probably not what you think.

Have you ever felt like you were doing all the work, but had nothing to show for it? Like you were providing the fuel, but the engine just wouldn't start?

I have three chickens. I had never had chickens before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was just excited about them being the "perfect" permaculture animal—they eat kitchen scraps so nothing goes to waste, and from those scraps, they produce eggs! I love the reality of it, but I love the metaphor, too. That which would otherwise become "waste" is not only saved but put to nourishing use. It’s a beautiful metaphor for life.

But just when I thought the metaphor was as perfect as it could be, I found out there was more.

Twenty-five years ago, I was “successful.”

I was only in my 20’s, but I had climbed the corporate ladder - from managing people to products and eventually special projects for the COO of a rising technology company. I made great money, but I had no life. No time. I was exhausted. Depleted. Something I’ve come to call ‘bad tired’ - a weariness that a bubble bath or a vacation couldn’t touch. I knew I wanted more for my life than a ‘success’ that felt empty and sucked the life out of me.

So, I decided to ‘burn it all down.’

They say it is better to give than to receive, but I’ve never been too sure of that. Until, perhaps, yesterday.

Every day is a gift, of course, but yesterday was a "Santa Claus Book."

It can be easy to think that the rest, peace, stillness, and wholeness we seek exist in some ‘other’ place or time. Just out of reach from our normal, daily lives. That we need to go to a monastery or an ashram to find it. Or that we need to get away in order to uncover it.

We often tell ourselves that the restlessness we feel is a product of our circumstances—that if we could just change the scenery, find the right vocation, or reach the next milestone, we would finally arrive at a place of peace. We imagine that "the hurry" is something happening to us, rather than something living in us. But what happens when you finally reach the destination you dreamed of, only to find that the passenger you tried to leave behind has been sitting in the backseat the whole time?

Somewhere along the way, I think I misunderstood. I assumed that to grow healthy roots, you had to sacrifice your wings. Like it was one or the other. I am beginning to realize that, to grow healthy roots, the presence of wings is not an impediment, but essential.

Allow me to explain.

It is said that the legendary investor Warren Buffett kept a "too hard" box on his desk. Any investment he was considering that he couldn’t fully understand would go straight into that box. I wonder if we don’t all have a version of the "too hard" box in our lives, whether literally or metaphorically?

About a year ago, out of nowhere, I took up puzzling. Perhaps it is simply a sign that middle age has arrived in full force, despite my best efforts to pretend otherwise. But I like to think it is something more. Puzzling is a strange contradiction: it is both addictive and therapeutic. There is a visceral sense of accomplishment when a piece clicks into place, and something in the methodical sorting of edges and colors appeals to a deep-seated desire to bring order out of chaos.

I had somewhat of a startling, though not surprising, revelation the other day. I realized that I have spent much of my life avoiding the situations that would actually help me gain a "deep seat."

A deep seat is a term used in horseback riding to mean a balanced, centered, grounded connection between horse and rider. This deep seat means the rider is not as easily thrown off balance, but also that the rider has a clearer communication with the horse. A deep seat is something to be sought and also practiced. 

A deep seat, I think, also applies to life.

When the world feels chaotic, it is easy to feel that chaos within yourself as well.

It is as if you are being tossed about in a spin cycle, unable to find solid ground. Like a game of whack-a-mole, you are constantly reacting to the next “crisis” or urgent demand, with little time to catch your breath before the next mole pops its head up. This reactive state has become so prevalent in our society that it can almost feel normal.

Except that it isn’t.

A few years ago, I happened upon a post on social media that stopped me in my (virtual) tracks. It was a post by someone I followed referencing life-pondering questions from something called Passion Planner. As one does, I went down the rabbit hole. What I encountered was as life-altering as Alice encountering the looking glass.

But first, I need to back up.

I had a conversation with a friend and colleague a number of years ago that has stayed with me. It’s interesting how, in the midst of the thousands of daily exchanges we have, certain words seem to take root.

My friend, who is Japanese American, was sharing his experience navigating the intersection of his two cultures. He explained that in Japanese etiquette, it is customary—even expected—that when you are dining with others you do not pour your own tea. To do so can be seen as rude, pushy, or overly forward. The "proper" way to move through a meal is to wait for someone else to notice your empty cup and fill it for you.

About a decade ago, a neighbor was rallying our community to help with a massive trash clean-up at the beach. In those days, there were no trash cans on the sand, and over the busy week of Semana Santa, the thousands of visitors left behind a wake that was, quite frankly, ugly.

(I should note that in the decade since, the situation has improved exponentially. The government now empties bins, local vendors do weekly sweeps, and the shoreline is nothing like it once was.)

In fact, the situation has changed so dramatically that I might have forgotten it entirely, if not for a comment another neighbor made at the time: “This is the trash you see—but what about the trash you don’t see?”