Breaking; trusting; thinking; writing

Breaking is the best thing that can happen to a smart, strong horse. It gives purpose and partnership to his strength, it offers context to his freedom.

I used to break colts when I was younger. The word “break” has a bad connotation - folks imagine a surly cowboy beating on a terrified animal until it gives up. But that’s not what breaking means. Most cowboys I’ve known understand that a good horse is a trusting horse, one who doesn’t fear people but wants to partner with us. Breaking is simply another word for discipline. Breaking is a method of funneling energy, fear and instinct into a powerful ally instead of a dangerous foe.

For more than a decade, I have written every day. I scribble scattered thoughts in notebooks or on the back of the water bill, I gather quotes and ideas on my grocery list - but to write, to really compose - I have to sit at my laptop. Without the discipline of a fresh white page, the knowledge that I can actually take these questions and follow them to a point, if not an answer, I struggle to do more than make a dust-storm in the prairie of my mind. Like a bad horse-trainer or unfair debater, my mind asks i…