The day after the ride that had been a catalyst for annoyance rather than delight, I had an immediate opportunity to revisit all those uncomfortable feelings.

Yesterday, I was annoyed.

I shouldn’t have been—or so I told myself. I was on a late afternoon ride with David on Deseo, and Jose on Cappuccino. It was another training ride for David (9) and Deseo (2), who have begun to find their stride together. I was riding Luna, Deseo’s mom. The sun was out, the temperature was perfect. It should have been amazing.

Except that it wasn’t.

Do you ever have one of those days where you are feeling a bit low energy? Not depleted, exactly. Just tired. Without a lot of "forward." What do you do when you feel that sense of inertia?

It is interesting—the moment we give up trying, whatever it was we were seeking often finally makes itself known.

Take me, for example.

I remember training for my first marathon - it was 2003, I was living in Scotland. Though I had been a runner most of my life I had never run anything nearly as long as a marathon. A friend suggested that we run the Rome marathon. I figured, why not -  when in Rome…? (Sorry, I couldn’t pass it up.)

So, we found a marathon training plan and began to follow it. 

Yesterday I had to go to Primo Tapia for a few errands and it was late enough in the day that my favorite taco stand was open. So, without even thinking about it, I sat down and ordered two carne asada tacos - con todo - and my favorite agua fresca - guyaba. My taste buds were already anticipating. 

I have to go to Primo Tapia pretty much weekly - to get gas, to buy dog food, to get pesos out of the ATM at Calimax. I'm almost never late in the day enough to have tacos, so it had felt like a treat. 

The tacos came and I dove in. But, something strange happened. After eating just one I had the distinct feeling, "I'm full." 

I thought I had the chicken coop completely figured out. I thought I had patched every hole, outsmarted the local squirrel syndicate, and secured the perimeter.

I was wrong.

Standing there in the dirt with a roll of wire mesh, a hammer, and a missing saw, my fiercely independent nature hit a brick wall. Every time I tried to patch one hole, another one appeared. It felt like an endless game of whack-a-mole.

That was the exact moment I realized: I needed help.

Awhile back, I wrote a piece called “Coco at the Gate.” It was about one of our dogs, a Belgian Malinois, who has a beautiful garden to inhabit but chooses, instead, to spend his time watching the gate—ready to bark the moment anything comes near. Instead of enjoying the expansiveness of his territory, he remains hyper-vigilant, staring at the barrier.

The other day, I realized the same thing is true with Pacas.

What do you do when things go pear-shaped? Do you panic? Do you resist? Do you give in?

I’m not talking about the monumental, life-altering shifts. I’m talking about the mildly frustrating, day to day,  that’s-not-what-my-plan-was kind of way.

Yesterday afternoon, that’s exactly what happened. 

Late last year, friends began forwarding me beautiful videos about the upcoming Year of the Horse. At first, I just watched them. But then, a “niggle” started in the back of my mind.

What if you did something to celebrate this? the voice asked.

Me? Why? What would that look like?

Maybe it looks like sharing what you’ve learned from horses and how it applies to life.

Softness is not fragile. It is not weak.

Softness is the ability to move with the spooky horses of life—unexpected arguments, sudden stresses, shifts in the path—rather than being thrown by them.

Yesterday, I let the chickens out of their coop. After realizing the other day that the reason there had been no eggs was likely due to clandestine tunnels that had allowed the local squirrel family a daily breakfast buffet, everything seemed in order. No new holes, no new gaps in the chicken wire floor. Even the patch midway up the back wall was still in place: a pair of old sweatpants lodged exactly where I had left them.

But, once again, there were no eggs.

I have never been able to tell you what I want to be when I grow up. I still can’t.

In the sixth grade, part of our yearbook entry was the question: What do you want to be when you grow up? You couldn’t leave it blank. You couldn’t say you didn’t know. So, I said a lawyer. I’m not sure how I picked that—I just pulled it out of the thin air. Never in my life did I actually think I would become a lawyer, but they needed an answer, so I gave them one.

I have also never been able to follow the exercises that ask you to imagine yourself in five, ten, or twenty years. How could I know? Who could possibly know? The future has always seemed elusive to me. Cloudy. Who knows how life will unfold? Who knows what will be encountered along the path?

A few weeks ago, one of my chickens, Lone Ranger, died. Ever since, the other two (Thelma and Louise) haven’t laid any eggs. Or so I thought.

I figured maybe they were in mourning. Or that the change in their environment had caused them to stop laying for a spell. "Chickens don’t lay all the time," I was told. They probably just aren’t laying right now.

I even had to resort to buying eggs on Monday at the local farmers market. I said to the chickens, "Why am I buying eggs if I have the two of you?"

But I had a suspicion there was something else in the mix.

This morning at the gym, I realized something uncomfortable: I have gotten weaker, not stronger.

After a bout of illness a month ago, I still haven’t recovered the strength I had before. It feels like a setback—to suddenly be lifting less weight rather than more. But the reality is, I am also lifting more than I was just last week.

It was then I realized—I’ve been living under the assumption that life is a straight line.

Have you noticed how much of our lives we spend being quietly pulled off course? Once you begin to see it, it is hard not to see.

It is a bold claim—The Solution to What Ails Us—as though there were a single answer to the weight of the world. But I am becoming convinced of this: The antidote for much of what ails us is creativity.

This morning I thought I’d sit down and “get some work done.” I have a few projects I’m working on that I’m excited about, and I really wanted the chance to dive in. So, I tore myself away from my current puzzle and sat down to “accomplish” something.

But I wasn’t more than five minutes in before I began to get the signals. My enthusiasm was there, but it was as though my mind was putting up a smoke screen to keep the “work” from actually getting done. It wasn’t a loud protest; it was a subtle shift of energy. But because I have been practicing being more sensitive to such things, thankfully, I noticed it.

"Why is it so hard for creators to talk about what they make?

Most of us are terrified of being 'slimy salespeople' or 'paternalistic helpers.' But there is a middle path that changes everything.

A reflection on Thin Mints, Diego Rivera, and why you don't light a lamp just to hide it under a basket. 💡✨"

I remember when I was first learning to ride and asked, “How do I get better, faster?” The response was quick and simple: time in the saddle.

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

I wanted a plan. I wanted a 12-step hack. I wanted a list I could check off so I could boom— go galloping down the beach without all the unnecessary mileage.