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The Day of Liberation · Relatively Stable

0:05
SPEAKER_00: The Day of Liberation.
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SPEAKER_00: What breaks, what holds, and why it still matters.
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SPEAKER_00: I celebrate March 4th as my Day of Liberation.
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This year marks 15 years since my ex-husband dumped me in an
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Istanbul apartment.
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It's the anniversary of the day I had to choose between whether
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I was going to
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continue waiting for a savior or march forward and learn how to
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lead and guide and
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SPEAKER_00: grow on my own.
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SPEAKER_00: In many ways,
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SPEAKER_00: I'm still learning how to do this life thing,
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but I know that March 4th marks the day my paradigm shifted and
0:44
how I could live
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SPEAKER_00: and work alongside horses.
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SPEAKER_00: Being left alone to lead a busy horse farm felt impossible at the time.
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SPEAKER_00: But once the haze of anger and regret subsided,
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SPEAKER_00: a multi-year,
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SPEAKER_00: decades,
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SPEAKER_00: still ongoing process,
1:01
SPEAKER_00: I realized that the path I railed against was my path.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: In honor of my personal rite of passage,
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I'm posting a piece I wrote in 2019 that hasn't seen the light
1:12
of day until now.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: It's an homage to March being Women's History Month,
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SPEAKER_00: and also a visit with Matilda,
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SPEAKER_00: the big draft mare I wrote about a few weeks ago,
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SPEAKER_00: and a study in how far I've come and how far I have to go.
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I hope you find a piece of yourself within these words and know
1:32
that you are enough.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Let's get started.
1:39
What Breaks November 2019 Awake to a text from the morning crew
1:49
who arrived at the
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SPEAKER_00: barn at 8 a.m.
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SPEAKER_00: to start the morning chores.
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SPEAKER_00: Matilda broke out of her stall during the night.
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SPEAKER_00: The text says,
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SPEAKER_00: My body aches.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm bleeding a half ounce per hour.
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SPEAKER_00: I am nauseous.
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SPEAKER_00: I am emotionally fragile and heartbroken.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm sick in body, mind, and spirit.
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My aura might be the only thing intact,
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but I wouldn't know because I can't see it.
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I have a doctor's appointment mid-morning with a specialist
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that's taken me a decade to find.
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So much has changed in these 10 years,
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but two things have remained constant,
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me and the farm.
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My watchdog obsessions ensure all gates and stall doors are
2:35
triple-checked each
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night so I don't wake to the news that a loose horse is
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wandering the barn aisle.
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SPEAKER_00: My fears are grounded.
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SPEAKER_00: Matilda got out.
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This is an urban farm,
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an oasis of sheltered woods,
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but the perimeter isn't fenced.
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A loose horse could easily find its way into a neighborhood or
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a busy street.
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SPEAKER_00: The loss of any horse would be devastating for business and for my heart,
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but the thought of a car colliding with a massive flight animal
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in the dark?
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SPEAKER_00: The potential loss of human life?
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SPEAKER_00: I don't know how I could live with that.
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This is why I check and double check and why my bedroom is
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placed with my head
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SPEAKER_00: toward the barn,
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SPEAKER_00: a hillside between us,
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SPEAKER_00: so I can wake to any irregular disturbance in the quiet,
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SPEAKER_00: routine noises of the farm.
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SPEAKER_00: But this morning, I heard nothing while Matilda went on her solo journey.
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Before leaving for the doctor,
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I walk to the barn,
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exhausted despite the earliness of the day.
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SPEAKER_00: Near tears,
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I assess the damage and make plans to house Matilda elsewhere
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until we can fix her stall.
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SPEAKER_00: I am drained.
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SPEAKER_00: If I cough, I'll start gagging because my stomach is empty.
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i watch matilda walk in her paddock after she is rounded up and
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contained her body
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mimics my own as she moves something is off her energy is
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subdued she looks drained
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and gaunt i see the dull shadows of ribs against her side as
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she moves she pauses
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SPEAKER_00: and regards me i see you sister i say
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SPEAKER_00: Matilda didn't finish her breakfast grain or hay.
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SPEAKER_00: I chalk it up to her being out for untold hours during the night,
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SPEAKER_00: her unlimited scavenging of grass and clover around the barn.
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SPEAKER_00: Mostly, I'm mad.
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SPEAKER_00: I want to focus on myself, on my own misery.
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SPEAKER_00: Walking up the hill to the house, my legs are heavy, my body anemic.
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SPEAKER_00: I want to sleep for three days,
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SPEAKER_00: but Matilda breaking her door down,
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SPEAKER_00: ostensibly by rubbing the giant muscles of her rear against it,
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SPEAKER_00: there is hair caught in the wood,
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SPEAKER_00: cracks and in the hinges,
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SPEAKER_00: has added more hours of work to an already long day.
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I'm resentful that the barn keeps me from a normal life,
5:00
whatever that means.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a theme that has followed me since my ex-husband hit the road.
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The only people who truly understand the work of a farm are
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those who have done it.
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The relationships that strolled through my life after the
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divorce were with people
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SPEAKER_00: enamored with the idea of farm life,
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SPEAKER_00: guys who sensed there was medicine in the call of keeping horses,
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SPEAKER_00: but once immersed in the work realized its relentless demands.
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On call every day and night,
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no guaranteed weekends,
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no paid holidays,
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no sick days.
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SPEAKER_00: It takes someone willing to make a deep commitment,
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SPEAKER_00: not just to me,
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SPEAKER_00: but to the 20 horses and the scores of people who call this farm home.
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SPEAKER_00: You have to care for something more than you care for yourself.
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SPEAKER_00: I found that you can fake that with humans,
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SPEAKER_00: all those cycles of abuse and trauma that keep going.
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SPEAKER_00: But you can't fake that resolve with horses.
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SPEAKER_00: They won't let you,
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even with the luxury of closing their gates and stalls for the
6:00
night and walking away.
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SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they break the door down to get your attention.
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I doubt my choice to do this with my life as I gather my things
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for the specialist appointment.
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My mother's going to drive me and she shoes me out the door to
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wait in the car
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SPEAKER_00: while she checks the dogs,
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SPEAKER_00: the doors,
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SPEAKER_00: the stove knobs.
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SPEAKER_00: I joke about how people should want their barn manager to have OCD.
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SPEAKER_00: But cautious care became pathological for me long ago.
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The rituals and double checking that mark my life add an extra
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hour to anything
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SPEAKER_00: that takes me away from the farm.
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SPEAKER_00: And yet, still, despite my checking, a door has broken.
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SPEAKER_00: A horse got loose.
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SPEAKER_00: Almost to the car, my phone buzzes.
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SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Kim.
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I hope today you and the doctors resolve this problem for good
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and put things behind you.
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SPEAKER_00: Talk to you soon.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: A text from my ex-husband, Mirhan.
7:01
At any other time since the divorce,
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his message would have filled me with regret and anger.
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The story that fueled me for so long was that he left me alone
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with this place,
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SPEAKER_00: with the farm,
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that the careful plans I had drawn for our success and future
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had to be blueprinted
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again across the skeleton of a horse business designed to be
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ran by two people.
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A few months before,
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Maran asked me to call him as I was pulling into the driveway.
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My truck weighed down with the last of my things from a
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boyfriend's house.
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SPEAKER_00: Another relationship ending, another heartbreak.
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SPEAKER_00: The timing was uncanny.
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SPEAKER_00: Maran and I hadn't spoken on the phone since the divorce.
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But that day we talked for hours and he asked for my help
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restarting his horse business.
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SPEAKER_00: Not long after that, Mehran stopped by the farm for tea and advice.
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SPEAKER_00: He traced the trajectory of his life since we parted,
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SPEAKER_00: the years he'd lost,
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SPEAKER_00: never settling on a path,
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SPEAKER_00: unable to find a foothold or the motivation to create anything lasting.
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As Mehran left my farm,
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he mentioned he was going to meet his accountant for lunch.
8:15
Soon after,
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my phone buzzed again,
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and this was a message from the now ex-boyfriend.
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SPEAKER_00: Is this your ex-husband?
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SPEAKER_00: He asked.
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SPEAKER_00: Miran didn't know what restaurant he was going to as he left the farm,
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SPEAKER_00: but he found himself,
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SPEAKER_00: or rather the ex-boyfriend found him,
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in the same tiny dining room of a Middle Eastern restaurant a
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half hour away from
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SPEAKER_00: the farm.
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The ex-boyfriend put together what he heard Miran saying in
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conversation with the accountant,
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SPEAKER_00: snapped a photo on the sly,
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SPEAKER_00: and sent it to me for confirmation.
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SPEAKER_00: That's him, I messaged back.
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SPEAKER_00: Coincidence is like God's compass.
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SPEAKER_00: Tom Dorrance,
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a founder of the method of horse training that the world now
9:03
calls natural horsemanship,
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SPEAKER_00: spoke about how most horse training comes down to three things.
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SPEAKER_00: Feel, timing, and balance.
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Feel is one of those vaporous words that doesn't make sense
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until you felt it.
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SPEAKER_00: The closest we come to it in daily life is a gut feeling, intuition.
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SPEAKER_00: On the horse,
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SPEAKER_00: it's a sense of the whole creature you're working with,
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SPEAKER_00: a mind-body-spirit connection.
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SPEAKER_00: Feel,
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SPEAKER_00: timing,
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SPEAKER_00: and balance are the root of communication with horses,
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SPEAKER_00: but they are also the root of life,
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like if the tree of life was a sensation or a scent that could
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not be described
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SPEAKER_00: with words.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't ignore timing, feel, or rhythm near the horses or with people.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm careful to honor convergences.
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My friends who trust science more than magic can argue with me
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all day long.
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SPEAKER_00: I understand their math,
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but too many things of importance in my life have beaten me
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over the head for
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SPEAKER_00: attention until the lesson gets through by blatant chance.
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I didn't know what the two people from my past coming together
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in a restaurant
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SPEAKER_00: meant or why it mattered,
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SPEAKER_00: but I later said to a friend as I related what occurred,
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SPEAKER_00: I'll know what it means when it all comes together.
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SPEAKER_00: At first,
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seeing my ex-husband and ex-boyfriend collide in a random
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restaurant felt like an
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SPEAKER_00: eerie loop of regret and longing,
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the kind of thing that for most of my life would have spun me
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into a spiral of self-doubt.
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SPEAKER_00: But the more I thought about it,
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SPEAKER_00: the more it became something else,
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SPEAKER_00: like a reminder of how life pushes forward whether I like it or not.
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SPEAKER_00: I will write myself back into faith.
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SPEAKER_00: For as much as I wail against the trials the barn continually brings me,
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SPEAKER_00: the truth is that I know that the other side of that is grace and faith.
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SPEAKER_00: There is a power larger than me in control.
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SPEAKER_00: When I finally give up control, the greater magic starts to happen.
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But it's so hard for me to remember this when my body hurts and
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my heart is broken
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SPEAKER_00: and I feel absolutely alone.
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SPEAKER_00: On paper,
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SPEAKER_00: the thing I crave most is a partner,
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SPEAKER_00: and weirdly,
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the separate threads of that longing have always brought me
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closer to the barn and
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SPEAKER_00: the horses.
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My search for a partner,
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a husband,
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in many myriad ways,
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has created our community in my life.
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It's like the famous Arthur Ashe quote that's been memed so
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many times I want to
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SPEAKER_00: punch its self-help tyranny in the face.
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SPEAKER_00: Success is a journey, not a destination.
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SPEAKER_00: The thing is often more important than the outcome.
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SPEAKER_00: It galls me to admit this premise is true.
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SPEAKER_00: What I received was a relationship with the farm.
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SPEAKER_00: Horses speak plain language.
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SPEAKER_00: They don't muck it up with complexities.
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SPEAKER_00: It either is or it isn't.
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SPEAKER_00: There is no middle ground, no in between.
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SPEAKER_00: That murky place that humans go into with their endless thinking.
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SPEAKER_00: As for Matilda this day,
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SPEAKER_00: I go to the doctor's appointment and come back with no real answers,
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SPEAKER_00: but my mind has shifted into a different resolve.
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SPEAKER_00: I'll change my diet.
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I'll cultivate what true relaxation feels like without another
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person's needs
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SPEAKER_00: clawing for attention in my heart.
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SPEAKER_00: I will focus on me and on the horses.
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SPEAKER_00: It's 10 years since Mirhan walked away in Istanbul,
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SPEAKER_00: and I'm just beginning to see that I have survived just fine by myself.
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It's when I go searching for another person to complete me that
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things become unbearable.
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SPEAKER_00: I spend some time after my visit with the doctor staring at Matilda.
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She eats lunch slowly,
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her warm mouth pushing the food around in her bowl.
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SPEAKER_00: Her head hangs low, her ears droop to the side.
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I lift her tail to take her temperature and find that the
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squamous cell tumor
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SPEAKER_00: that's grown on her vulva for years is red and inflamed.
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The hairs along the door in her stall she had broken out of
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tell a story I'd been
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SPEAKER_00: too self-involved to hear that morning.
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SPEAKER_00: Matilda is battling a massive infection.
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The vet prescribes antibiotics and I begin what will become
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eight months of daily care,
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SPEAKER_00: cleaning the wound,
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SPEAKER_00: managing the bleeding,
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SPEAKER_00: monitoring her health.
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SPEAKER_00: One summer afternoon in the future,
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SPEAKER_00: I will stand for six hours in the heat,
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SPEAKER_00: washing the endless stream of blood from her body,
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SPEAKER_00: my arms stained copper with her life force.
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SPEAKER_00: Matilda will baptize me into a new sense of purpose.
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SPEAKER_00: It is then I will realize I am married to this barn.
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SPEAKER_00: And I'm okay with that.
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SPEAKER_00: I welcome it.
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The children I didn't have are multiplied into legions of
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children who need me.
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The hurting adults,
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the kindred spirits,
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the fractured enemies,
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they are my family.
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SPEAKER_00: Their stories feed me.
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SPEAKER_00: For so long,
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SPEAKER_00: I dreamed of something else,
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SPEAKER_00: but I'm starting to see that surrendering isn't about giving up.
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It's about giving in and learning to savor the beauty of what
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is already in front of me.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't have to live in a fantasy anymore because my reality is enough.
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SPEAKER_00: Years ago,
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a horse trainer told me that marriage was about showing up and
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trudging along together.
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SPEAKER_00: It didn't seem very glamorous at the time,
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SPEAKER_00: trudging,
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SPEAKER_00: but in the horse herd,
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SPEAKER_00: togetherness is glued by shared trust,
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SPEAKER_00: by mutual awareness and watchfulness.
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SPEAKER_00: The horses show love for each other by showing up.
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I'm learning their ways,
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but first I have to learn how to show up for myself.
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SPEAKER_00: Stable Roots is where I share stories about horses,
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SPEAKER_00: resilience,
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SPEAKER_00: and the life I've built from both.
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SPEAKER_00: Subscribing helps keep these stories going.
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And a paid subscription goes even further by directly
15:24
supporting the farm,
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SPEAKER_00: the horses,
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SPEAKER_00: and the work we do here daily.
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However you choose to be a part of this community,
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I'm just grateful you're here.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: What holds?
15:37
SPEAKER_00: March, 2025.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: In 1972,
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SPEAKER_00: two years before I was born,
15:44
it became illegal to deny a woman a bank account or credit card
15:48
without a man's signature.
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In the great wheels of time,
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it's been pretty recent since women were given the right to vote.
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SPEAKER_00: My grandmother tried to save money to leave my grandfather.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: The bank informed my grandfather and closed her savings account,
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SPEAKER_00: transferring the balance to his checking account.
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SPEAKER_00: Cellular memories, like generational trauma, run deep.
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My mother has an ongoing theory that people change the moment a
16:26
marriage certificate is signed.
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SPEAKER_00: It happened to her and she's watched it happen to me in the past.
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SPEAKER_00: This phenomenon that no amount of vetting prepared me for.
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SPEAKER_00: This insidious belief that marriage grants ownership and not partnership.
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Now,
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standing on the other side of it all,
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I see the weight I carried wasn't just mine.
16:47
It was inherited,
16:48
reinforced,
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and passed down like an heirloom I never asked for.
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But the thing about old stories is that they only define you if
16:55
you keep telling
16:56
SPEAKER_00: them the same way.
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I spent years believing my strength would be measured by
17:01
whether I could hold
17:02
SPEAKER_00: everything together,
17:03
SPEAKER_00: by whether I could make love last,
17:06
SPEAKER_00: by whether I could be enough to keep someone from leaving.
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SPEAKER_00: But I don't believe that anymore.
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SPEAKER_00: Strength isn't about holding.
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SPEAKER_00: It's about knowing what's worth holding and what's better left to break.
17:19
Fifteen years after being left in that Istanbul apartment,
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I see what that moment gave me.
17:26
I've learned how to lead and how to build a life that doesn't
17:29
hinge on someone
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SPEAKER_00: else's presence or permission.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: I've learned that commitment doesn't come from clinging,
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SPEAKER_00: but from showing up day after day for what actually matters.
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SPEAKER_00: More often than not, what matters equals hard, unglamorous work.
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SPEAKER_00: The horses taught me well.
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SPEAKER_00: They don't care about promises.
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SPEAKER_00: They just want presence.
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SPEAKER_00: Horses don't need declarations, but they, like us, just need consistency.
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SPEAKER_00: They continually show me that true leadership isn't about control,
18:04
SPEAKER_00: but it's about trust,
18:06
SPEAKER_00: timing,
18:06
SPEAKER_00: feel,
18:08
SPEAKER_00: and the willingness to face uncertainty,
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SPEAKER_00: to soften into my resistance.
18:14
I wrote a thousand different musings in 10 times I said no to
18:18
love about the ways I
18:19
SPEAKER_00: talked myself out of making the leap into partnership with a human again.
18:23
I thought I was better off alone,
18:26
and I braced against my history repeating itself.
18:30
What I didn't get until Christopher came along was how true
18:33
partnership isn't about
18:35
SPEAKER_00: surrendering yourself to someone else's needs,
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SPEAKER_00: but standing beside them,
18:40
SPEAKER_00: fully seen and moving,
18:42
SPEAKER_00: trudging through the trenches together.
18:45
Christopher was raised by a woman and had a vantage that showed
18:49
him equality wasn't
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SPEAKER_00: an ideal,
18:51
SPEAKER_00: but a fact.
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SPEAKER_00: He was also born with no use for preconceived ideas.
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SPEAKER_00: He observes and makes his own choices about right and wrong,
19:02
like a horse standing just out of reach of the halter before he
19:05
allows himself to
19:06
SPEAKER_00: be caught.
19:08
And like the horses that came before him and that he inherited
19:11
when we merged our lives,
19:13
SPEAKER_00: he doesn't ask for control or demand submission.
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SPEAKER_00: He meets me where I am, steady and unshaken.
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SPEAKER_00: He doesn't need to prove himself,
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SPEAKER_00: and by exchange,
19:24
SPEAKER_00: neither do I.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't need a signature to show I belong here,
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SPEAKER_00: but it was easy to sign the marriage certificate with him.
19:34
First,
19:34
I had to build my life with my own hands and trust that it
19:38
would hold.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: I am grateful for the women who came before me,
19:43
SPEAKER_00: bound and unbound,
19:45
SPEAKER_00: who fought,
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SPEAKER_00: endured,
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SPEAKER_00: and carved out a path so that I could stand here,
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SPEAKER_00: unshackled,
19:51
SPEAKER_00: shaping a life of my own making.
19:54
And I'm grateful for the mayors who made me in an industry that
19:58
is biased toward
19:59
SPEAKER_00: pliable geldings over those who refuse to be tamed.
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SPEAKER_00: Happy Women's History Month to you all.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: And may each of us find in our own way our personal day of liberation.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Love, Kim.