There is a specific something, like a frequency or an energy, that I seem to find only when I have been gone and finally return home. It doesn’t happen every time, but lately, I find it happening more and more.

It is like the sensation of stagnant water beginning to move. It is a sense of new life flowing—a sudden, sharp awareness of possibility.

For some time, I have been pondering the idea of "soft eyes." I first came upon the concept in the world of horsemanship, via Sally Swift’s Centered Riding. When I first encountered the idea nearly a decade ago, I thought it was simply a technique for riding. But, as with most lessons found around horses, it turns out it is actually about life as well. 

What are soft eyes? I have come to think of them as a way of being rather than a task to perform.

I am sitting here with a desire to write, but I find that I am not sure what to write.

I love the practice of my daily writing. The connection. That specific feeling of tapping into something that is both deeper and more expansive than my own self. It doesn't feel like "thinking it up." It feels like something is desiring to be made known through me, and I am just the one sitting at the keyboard.

And, really, it has become a sacred time, this morning writing. Not an obligation. Not a checkbox on a list. It’s a treat. A delight. It’s the thing I miss when the world gets too loud or the schedule gets too tight.

But I wonder—why?

Nearly a decade ago, I listened to a podcast by Rob Bell titled “We Are the Committee.” In it, he referenced a scene from the film Chariots of Fire where a decision had to be made about whether the runner Eric Liddell could compete on the Sabbath. There was a flurry of discussion, followed by the familiar, stalling suggestion: This is something for the committee.

One of the members looked up and responded simply: “We are the committee.”

I’ve been thinking lately about safety, about being safe. And I wonder if we don’t have a habit of confusing survival with living? It’s as though we think that if the body is intact, the being is secure. The problem is, we often build our own prisons and call them "security," not realizing that a life without risk is often a life without breath.

A few years ago, I came across an essay by one of my ‘horse people’—a loose term I use for the amazing humans I follow because of their connection with horses, but who offer far more than just ‘horse sense’ to the world. The author was Kelly Wendorf, and the essay was titled “The Surprising Antidote to Your Exhaustion.” At the time, we were deep into the pandemic—in those long, slogging, "will-this-ever-end" stages. I found myself personally mired in an extended period of exhaustion as well, so the title felt like a life raft in a storm. What I read both surprised and intrigued me.

I’ve been thinking lately about the gift of a good editor. At first glance, that might sound like a dusty, academic idea—something associated with musty bookshelves in a forgotten corner of a library. Old-fashioned. Analog.

But let me explain.

Often, books on writing advise us to leave the "editor" behind while we create. They say it is impossible to be the creator when an editor is sitting there kibitzing while you work. The theory is that the editor gets in the way of the creator—that the creator functions from the right side of the brain while the editor looms over the left.

It’s been raining. The power is out, which means the internet is out. 

Without the digital noise, a question emerges: Do I have the same excitement about writing if I feel like I’m doing it entirely on my own? If I don’t have my editor by my side?

That is the thing, isn’t it? Each morning when I sit down to write, I don’t feel alone. I feel like I have a companion—but more than that, I feel like I have a champion. Someone cheering me on, coming alongside me.

Saturday was the annual Cabalgata de la Amistad (Friendship) in La Misión. It falls every February on the Saturday closest to Valentine’s Day; this year, it landed exactly on the day of hearts.

I remember when I first moved to Baja, long before Luna entered my life and before I could truly call myself a horsewoman. I was just beginning to navigate the local horse culture when I first heard the word cabalgata. I remember butchering the spelling, trying to sound it out—it wasn't a word I’d ever encountered in a Spanish textbook.

One day I woke up with a feeling like I had finally returned to myself. That’s odd, I thought. I didn’t know I had gone missing. For a long time, I didn’t realize I was living most of my life "outside" of my body—jumping up and out, running off ahead to scout the territory, worrying, planning, and anticipating. I thought that flighty, upward-and-outward sense of always heading out to scout the territory of the future was just who I was. I thought it was normal. Until I realized it wasn’t.

They say that what you focus on grows. Or, put another way: where your heart is, there your treasure will be. We are often told to invest in what we want to see flourish—to "put our money where our mouth is."

I remember learning this first as a consumer—the idea that how we spend can be a conscious act of doing good. We choose Company A over Company B because we believe in their values. Later, I learned this applied to investing, too; we don't just consume what we want to see in the world, we invest in it to provide the capital for it to grow.

But lately, I’ve been thinking about this on a much more "local" level.

This morning, while sitting on the new patio (Thank you Antonio!) listening to the birds—ever since I got the chickens I have a whole host of birds that love to sit in the bougainvillea and sing to their heart’s content—and drinking my lemon water (I know, it makes me sound like an old lady, but the thing is, I really am enjoying it!), I found that my ’15 minutes of nothing’ stretched itself out into more like a half hour.

It felt so luxurious to simply be.

I am beginning to realize that this practice of writing—this sitting down to ponder, process, and consider—is not a luxury, not an extra. It is also not a task, a chore, or another item on a checklist. This writing practice has become the fuel for the rest of my day.

It was years ago when I first realized that perhaps ‘bad tired’ was actually a signal. By ‘bad tired,’ I mean that specific feeling of being depleted, of being run ragged, of having absolutely nothing left in the tank.

A signal? Yes. It’s strange, but whenever I think about this, I picture myself in a CVS parking lot in the late afternoon. Perhaps that is where the realization first landed. I was in the thick of ‘bad tired’—cranky, depleted, and frustrated. “I wonder,” I thought to myself, “if this is trying to tell me something?”

Have you noticed it? There are two kinds of tired.

There is the tired that comes from doing something hard, challenging, and self-chosen. This is the exhaustion of the gym, of learning to invest when the concepts feel like they are swimming in your brain, or of galloping down a beach when, on your first ride, you were nearly crying with fear. I call this Good Tired. It is the result of stretching yourself—physically, mentally, or psychologically. It is the fatigue that follows a change you initiated, or the conquering of something that once seemed insurmountable.

Then there is the other kind.

The thing with agency is, it’s not necessarily a straight line. It isn’t so much a smooth, paved path or a one-time destination. It is more like a muscle. And like any muscle, if you haven't used it for heavy lifting in a while, the first time you put it to work, it’s going to feel awkward, shaky, and perhaps a bit exhausting.

The other thing is, when you start to reclaim your agency, the road often gets bumpier before it gets smoother. In those moments, it can be incredibly tempting to backpedal. Your internal monologue—and sometimes the people around you—might whisper, “Let’s just go back to the way things were. It was easier then. Let’s just forget about this shift.”

But the problem is that when we "forget about it" to keep the peace, we aren't just pausing our progress; we are actually training ourselves to stay small.

I love the adrenaline of galloping down the beach—the wind in your hair, the pounding hooves, the rush of pure possibility. It’s exhilarating. And fun.

But with horseback riding, and also with life, the reality is that most of our time is lived between the gallops. Life can’t be lived at a full-out run; eventually, the horse or the rider will collapse.

I’ve been thinking—the New Year often feels like that galloping energy: new beginnings, new opportunities, new possibilities. Especially with it being the Year of the Horse! But by the end of January? The energy can feel like it has run its course. The "New Year, New You" sparkle seems to have faded into "New Year, Same You."

"Raise your energy."

It’s a phrase you might have heard before, but for me, it is a concept I have found deeply rooted in the horse world. Like so many lessons I have learned with the horses, it applies to life as well.

I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I distinctly remember how it felt.

It was a few years back, on a particularly warm early spring day. The sun was out, and I was walking the dogs in the estuary. I decided to shed my long sleeves to let the sun hit my skin. As I walked, something caught my eye—something large, pale, and swinging in rhythm with my stride.

It was my own arm.