Letting Curiosity Guide Us When Things Fall Apart

Last week I lost my neighbor and riding coach, a friend I’d known for thirty years. Hearing the news of her death felt like being bucked out of the saddle—and hitting the ground hard. I am still hobbling a week later.

Our complicated relationship stretched across decades. Without her presence, the present feels emptier—I look down at her property from mine and see her sitting in her chair. Only she is not there.

Decades of memories tumble forth from the past, including life-transforming moments and some difficult ones.

The future, though, holds my greatest pain, for the future I had a week ago is gone.

The illusion of controlling the future

It’s always been comforting to me to think I can plan, envision, and shape the future, and it’s been an illusion.

For even as we may influence it, the future is unlikely to unfold in the ways we expected.

Across the globe, as things fall apart and the challenges of change emerge, many people yearn for futures they thought they once had, futures that mirror the past. Some seek predictability in a world where rich, white men still rule the earth and nature exists to be exploited.

While I abhor any prospect of returning to such a past, I have compassion for the past-seekers and their lament, “I signed up for another future, and I don’t like what I see rolling out before me.”

My future, too, is uncertain, particularly regarding my equestrian life. I, too, would love to roll back the clock and ride again with a younger body, horse, and teacher. Yet wishing that only leaves me depressed.

Better to summon my curiosity and become interested in what will come next.

Curiosity can light the path forward

Curiosity offers me a way to hold my uncertainty lightly.

Curiosity opens the door to learning—my happy place—without asking me to stop mourning. Curiosity does not deny current reality, yet it opens a door to what lies beyond.

It carries possibility within it, yet promises nothing.

Curiosity allows me to see the conga line of thatching ants parading through the gravel as I walk toward the paddock. It invites me to experiment with focusing on my elbows when I ride. Curiosity helps me listen to the swallows and attempt to decode the secret language of horse whinnies, squeals, and snorts.

Curiosity asks me to be present in the now, while imagining possibilities for the time ahead. 

Curiosity allows me to consider a new teacher coming into my life.

I don’t pretend that letting go of a longed-for future is easy. Grief is a brutal teacher who can shut down most of the lights around us.

But curiosity offers a small beam to guide us back to the path of interest, put us on the trail of imagination, and lead us to beauty.

Even in times of darkness, curiosity can spark our creativity.

To those who would wish for a future-different, I say, I get it—life hurts. To those who are grieving, I would say the same.

Moving ahead, I don’t know what my relationship with riding will be. Is it time to pack up my spurs, retire my horse, and declare that chapter of life to be over? Or is there an unexpected new chapter?

I hope I can stay open to not knowing, as the hold of the past fades a little, and new scenarios appear. 

Through it all, I hope curiosity can be my guide, opening the door to wonder, ideas, and inspiration and making the future feel a little more possible.

 

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