There are parts of ourselves we can ignore for a long time when life is busy. Work gets done. People get cared for. The calendar stays full. We keep moving.
Then a little space opens up. Time to ourselves, maybe a long drive, grabbing a bite to eat at a new restaurant for the first time. A book or podcast you can’t put down. Whatever it is, it breaks through the busy and opens a window to something fresh.
You can’t always put your finger on it. It pulls you to drift out of the norm. You’re hungry, but you can’t quite decide what for.
There’s just something... missing.
Moments like that deserve a little attention. Not because you have to inspect every feeling under a microscope or turn it into an action plan. Because curiosity feeds the soul. It gets us off the usual track, out of the rut. Even if we don’t choose to dive in headfirst, it’s worth looking for a sec, isn’t it?
Decades ago, in another life, I saw a documentary about Morocco and it just grabbed me. The colors, the fabrics, the spices, the souks, the people. I wanted to live in that vibe for a while and soak up all that texture and richness.
Of course that led to cooking shows, and I discovered the work of Paula Wolfert, first through Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco and then The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Back then I was a working chef, and her books opened up new ways of feeling about food. One recipe led to another, and pretty soon those flavors found their way into my menus in Oregon, where they felt fresh and different. I still taste some of those dishes in my mind.
I wasn’t trying to become an expert on Morocco. I was following a thread. You know, you can travel a long way without getting on a plane. Food can do that, and so can books, music, film, art, gardens, language, stories, conversations. They let us borrow another perspective for a while.
We don’t always know how this works, and that’s the fun of it. We’re drawn to a place because it has something we want more of. More color. More texture. More life. A different rhythm. Something we can’t quite name, but it calls us.
You don’t have to go somewhere to begin exploring what it might wake up in you.
Curiosity can pull us toward something we’ve never known. It can also pull us back toward something we know deeply and have forgotten to make room for.
That second kind of curiosity is where horses came back into my life.
When I dove into the tech world, I loved the potential I felt. I believed technology could hold the sense of community and help people connect in ways that hadn’t been possible before.
Over time, what started as connection turned into marketing. Community became audience. Relationships became part of the job. I still felt the connection happening, but the speed of that world slowly distanced me from parts of myself I’d forgotten.
The chef who could wander through a bookstore touching the books and imagining the stories from their titles.
The me who felt most at home, not in the sprawling freeways and buzz, but around animals, in the trees and the dirt and open space. None of those parts disappeared, but they didn’t get a lot of room.
My best friend told me about a horse who needed some love, and 5 minutes on the ranch felt familiar in a way my usual world didn’t. The people around horses did too. Conversation was less about technology and what everyone was building next and more about the trail, the weather, the animals, what needed fixing, where we were going riding.
This wasn’t some romantic return to nature. Ranch life has plenty of mud, hard work, chores and poop to scoop. It was really real, just in a different way.
Then there was my Bess. Bess was a mare with a big personality and a very effective way of reminding me when I wasn’t paying attention. If I showed up tense, she showed it to me. Something she usually walked past without a second glance could suddenly become verrrry suspicious.
Whatever it was, it hadn’t changed. I had. She’d reflect my emotions right back at me. That was usually my cue to breathe, soften, pay attention or else. Maybe I’d just get off and walk for a while.
Miss Bess also knew exactly when she could take advantage. Look away for a second and suddenly she was innocently grazing or going wherever she pleased. If you’re not paying attention with a horse, they’ll show you.
Having Bess wasn’t about work-life balance. She filled a gaping hole in my life. She brought back a version of me that hadn’t gone away, I’d just stopped giving that part of me any space.
For all of us there are parts of ourselves that are granular to who we are. We may not live them every day, or even ever again, but we remember the impression they made.
These versions of us are not something we outgrow. They become the ground we stand on.
Even if nobody knows all the parts that make us up, that doesn’t make them any less real.
It’s funny how the world gets really good at reflecting some of those granular bits back at us. The capable one. The expert. The parent. The nurturer. The creative. The partner. The responsible one. The person who gets things done.
We can get so practiced at being the person our life requires that we start mistaking that version for the whole picture. Then the rest of it can start feeling unimportant. It isn’t.
Like:
· The part of you fascinated by a place you may never visit.
· The person who misses wandering bookstores.
· The one who wants dirt under their fingernails.
· The part that lights up around animals, music, food, old cars, strange little museums, a language you don’t speak yet.
Some of those things may never become anything, and they don’t have to.
Resonance matters, even when it never turns into action. We can still remember, even treasure those bits of who we are.
A little pull can be all you need.
You see someone doing something and think, Oh, I used to love that.
You hear about a place and wonder what it would feel like to be there.
You drive by a coffee shop with a different style and think, I should stop in and see what might be interesting.
You take a different road and realize you’ve forgotten how good it feels to explore what’s around the next corner.
A stirring can become a pull. A pull can become a hunger. Ignore the hunger long enough, and it’s gonna get insistent.
That doesn’t mean you need to blow up your life. Maybe you just need to make a few shifts.
· Have coffee somewhere new.
· Take a drive outside your usual loop.
· Go to a garden, a market, a museum, a bookstore.
· Cook something from a place you’ve never been with spices you’ve never used.
· Sit in the backyard and watch the hummingbirds.
· Walk through the neighborhood with your phone firmly in your pocket and look at the gardens.
· Really look at the person you love and listen without an agenda.
· A small change in the view changes how we see the scenery.
You don’t need something that takes over your life. You need something that reminds you that you have one.
The richness of life is closer than we think.
The pull may be toward something that opens up your world. It may be toward something old because it restores a part of you that has been missing.
Maybe it’s simply asking you to get out of the box that built itself around you.
Not tear it apart. Not move to Morocco. Not buy a horse.
Just step outside for a while and see what happens.
What part of you has gone unfed?
What have you seen lately that made something in you stir?
What are you curious about that you keep walking past?
Who are you when there are no expectations outside of yourself?
Where can you go, even for ten minutes, where work cannot follow?
What moves you, even just a little?
Trust your heart and step out of the box for a minit and see what moves you.