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Why Not Me? · Relatively Stable

0:12
SPEAKER_00: Why not me?
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Holding the scales of justice.
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SPEAKER_00: Sin eating.
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SPEAKER_00: I look forward to the slower pace around the farm over the holidays.
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Christmas is notoriously quiet as visitors and staff numbers
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dwindle and my work
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SPEAKER_00: turns from outward to inward.
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SPEAKER_00: feeding horses,
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SPEAKER_00: cleaning the barns and fields,
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SPEAKER_00: catching up on tasks I've overlooked in the metronome of appointments,
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When my father passed a few days before Christmas,
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I craved downtime even more.
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I was exhausted,
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hungry,
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and having trouble ordering my thoughts or remembering simple
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words.
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SPEAKER_00: I paused in conversation,
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staring up at the sky and leaning into blind trust that I'd
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remember what I was
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SPEAKER_00: supposed to say with minimal effort on my part.
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My business is all about helping people notice their thoughts
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and emotions,
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but I'm still wholly shocked when I can't power through my
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mental and physical
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SPEAKER_00: responses to real crises.
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SPEAKER_00: The lingering taste of early conditioning is hard to shake off.
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SPEAKER_00: Horses are good at shaking things off, unless they're sick.
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SPEAKER_00: Christmas Eve was my first normal day,
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hypothetically off work and ready to putter around the house
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since our move and my
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SPEAKER_00: father's passing.
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SPEAKER_00: I woke up unrested and my body and my mind struggled to keep up.
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SPEAKER_00: Christopher and I explored the farm's bottle cemetery,
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an old trash heap mostly buried and filled with colorful
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mid-century glass,
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working its way to the surface with each new rainfall and the
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course of the
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SPEAKER_00: seasons.
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SPEAKER_00: We worked silently like dedicated volunteer archaeologists,
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SPEAKER_00: sifting through the soil with our tools,
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SPEAKER_00: We took our basket,
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SPEAKER_00: loaded with bottles and shards,
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SPEAKER_00: to the front porch,
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SPEAKER_00: where I washed the treasures with care befitting the British Museum.
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SPEAKER_00: I was exhausted and I couldn't form coherent thoughts.
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SPEAKER_00: So I lost myself in the tactile joy of exploration until the evening when
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Christopher and I strolled down the hill to do evening chores
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in the barn.
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SPEAKER_00: Its own tactile joy, tucking the horses in for the night.
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There's this old custom from rural Europe that survived through
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the 19th century
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SPEAKER_00: called sin eating.
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SPEAKER_00: When someone died,
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a designated outsider was hired to consume food and drink that
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had been placed on
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SPEAKER_00: or near the corpse,
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symbolically absorbing the moral and spiritual burdens of the
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dead so the soul
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SPEAKER_00: could pass unencumbered into the afterlife.
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SPEAKER_00: Bread,
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SPEAKER_00: salt,
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SPEAKER_00: and ale were common meals,
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SPEAKER_00: and the act was often accompanied by a brief incantation,
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SPEAKER_00: transferring the sins from the deceased to the eater,
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SPEAKER_00: The role existed at the margins of society.
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SPEAKER_00: Sin eaters were simultaneously needed and feared.
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SPEAKER_00: They were paid for their service,
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SPEAKER_00: yet shunned afterward,
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because it was believed they carried the accumulated sins of a
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community within
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SPEAKER_00: their bodies.
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SPEAKER_00: The work was spiritually dangerous,
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SPEAKER_00: sometimes irreversible,
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SPEAKER_00: and deeply stigmatized,
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with sin-eaters existing outside both church doctrine and
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social belonging.
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SPEAKER_00: Christian authorities generally condemned the practice as superstition,
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SPEAKER_00: seeing it as a challenge to confession,
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SPEAKER_00: absolution,
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SPEAKER_00: and Christ's redemptive role,
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SPEAKER_00: which helped drive it underground and eventually toward extinction.
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What makes sin eating endure in cultural memory is how
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precisely it names something
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SPEAKER_00: humans still struggle to articulate.
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SPEAKER_00: The desire to transfer the unbearable weight of life,
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letting someone else hold what the dead can no longer carry and
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what the living
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SPEAKER_00: cannot yet see.
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SPEAKER_00: Long before psychology or grief science,
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SPEAKER_00: sin eating acknowledged that death leaves a moral,
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SPEAKER_00: emotional,
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SPEAKER_00: and communal residue,
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SPEAKER_00: and ritualizing consumption was a way to restore balance.
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SPEAKER_00: In that sense,
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SPEAKER_00: sin-eaters weren't only dealing with sin as wrongdoing,
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SPEAKER_00: but with unfinished business,
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SPEAKER_00: regret,
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SPEAKER_00: guilt,
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SPEAKER_00: and grief.
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All the things that left unfinished are believed to trap the
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dead and haunt the living.
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SPEAKER_00: Today,
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SPEAKER_00: sin-eating survives mostly in literature,
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SPEAKER_00: folklore studies,
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SPEAKER_00: and metaphor,
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but the title continues to resonate because it frames grief as
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a bodily transaction
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SPEAKER_00: rather than a purely internal experience.
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sin eating reminds us that for much of human history to the
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present day people shy
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away from processing emotions they'd rather pass the burden to
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the witness of a
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single person sealing the feelings and casting them aside
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forgotten and out of mind
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SPEAKER_00: christmas eve
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SPEAKER_00: Closing the farm for the night was simple and orderly.
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SPEAKER_00: Christopher walked the fields and counted the boys in the dark.
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Michelle Higdon's contribution of reflective necklaces for the
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horses made the job much easier.
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I separated flakes of green,
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rich hay for the horses in the barn and topped off their
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waters.
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SPEAKER_00: As we walked through the hallway of the barn together one last time,
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SPEAKER_00: checking lights and latches,
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SPEAKER_00: something about one of our mares seemed off.
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SPEAKER_00: She'd walked away from her pile of hay and stood in an awkward stance.
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SPEAKER_00: I stared at her through the stall door.
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I know I said that the transition to Lavender Hill meant most
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of our horses live
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SPEAKER_00: outside 24-7,
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but the weather this winter has been hard and there are still
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so many repairs to
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SPEAKER_00: make to the fields and fences.
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A select few horses come inside for the night and join their
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buddies in the field
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SPEAKER_00: in the mornings.
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The mare in question resided inside during the night because
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she eats her free
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SPEAKER_00: choice hay like water.
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SPEAKER_00: A few hours in the barn slows her down.
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SPEAKER_00: So watching her choose not to eat her hay was alarming.
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SPEAKER_00: I'll check on her again before we sleep, I said.
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SPEAKER_00: Jesus was born in a barn.
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SPEAKER_00: We joke about what would happen if Jesus were placed in our manger.
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I'm certain the horses would eat around him and be annoyed that
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someone had
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SPEAKER_00: forgotten a baby in the middle of their dinner plate.
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SPEAKER_00: They'd nudge him gently to get to the hay beneath him.
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SPEAKER_00: The mangers at Lavender Hill are well designed and numerous.
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There are hay rings complete with woven nets to slow waste and
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consumption in the
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SPEAKER_00: fields,
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and the stalls have hinged doors with hay feeders and easy
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access for feeding.
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SPEAKER_00: As I slouched toward the barn at midnight to check on the mare,
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my first sense was disappointment that none of the horses
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greeted me in English
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because there is a long-held belief that the animals speak at
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midnight on Christmas
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SPEAKER_00: Eve.
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SPEAKER_00: And then I discovered that the mare had not eaten,
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SPEAKER_00: and even worse,
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SPEAKER_00: she had been lying down and rolling.
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SPEAKER_00: My heart sank into my stomach.
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SPEAKER_00: I considered texting our amazing vet,
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SPEAKER_00: Dr.
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SPEAKER_00: Kate,
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SPEAKER_00: but it was Christmas Eve and our horses are not surgical cases.
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We make the decision from the moment a horse enters our care
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that we will not be
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SPEAKER_00: transporting them to a clinic for fluids or surgery.
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SPEAKER_00: I learned my lesson the hard way,
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spending tens of thousands out of hope and urgency when the
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funds would have been
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SPEAKER_00: better,
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SPEAKER_00: caring for the next horse heading our way,
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that needs a safe home to spend their final days,
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even when those days turn into decades.
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Our vet is one of those rapidly declining clinicians who runs a
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rural practice all by herself.
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SPEAKER_00: She takes a personal interest in every animal under her care.
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I didn't want to intrude on her holiday when there was a chance
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the mare would
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SPEAKER_00: improve by morning.
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SPEAKER_00: I drew a syringe of banamine,
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SPEAKER_00: the frontline treatment and farm first aid kits for intestinal distress,
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SPEAKER_00: and dosed the mare orally.
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SPEAKER_00: After half an hour, she showed signs of improvement.
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I locked up the barn and slouched back to the house with the
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prayer that the mare
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would continue to improve until my next check-in and that she
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would fully resolve
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SPEAKER_00: through the night.
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SPEAKER_00: Merry and bright.
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At first light,
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my walk down to the barn was filled with a lot of bargaining
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with Jesus.
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SPEAKER_00: I presented my case.
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SPEAKER_00: Dad died this weekend.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm still grieving the old farm.
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I can count on two hands the number of people present at my
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wedding who no longer
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SPEAKER_00: appear in the credits of the movie of my life.
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SPEAKER_00: My great grandmother's house, which I rented out to friends, is trashed.
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I'm terrified of not being able to make the farm mortgage
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payments after all the
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SPEAKER_00: clients we lost in the transition.
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Tinker Moffat,
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someone I once trusted with my heart and to haul the horses to
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the new barn,
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Didn't take the time to inspect his trailer floor and Sheba
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fell through and died.
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SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be the steward, the leader, or the one in charge anymore.
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SPEAKER_00: Can someone else take the lead?
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SPEAKER_00: I'm fucking tired.
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SPEAKER_00: This mayor cannot die.
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SPEAKER_00: Not now.
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SPEAKER_00: I need a minute.
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SPEAKER_00: I opened the doors to the barn.
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Like a good sin eater,
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I took responsibility for the already perceived loss of the
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mayor.
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SPEAKER_00: I'd been researching composting deceased horses rather than burying them,
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reaching out to experts and purchasing the requisite three-foot
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thermometer to do
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SPEAKER_00: the work just hours before I discovered the mare was sick.
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SPEAKER_00: Clearly, I was responsible.
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I crept down the hallway of the barn holding two outcomes in my
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proverbial hands
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SPEAKER_00: like a sleep-deprived statue of justice.
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SPEAKER_00: One, the mare would be bright and fine.
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SPEAKER_00: Two, the mare would be sick or worse.
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SPEAKER_00: I peered over the wall to her stall.
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SPEAKER_00: She was standing but covered in shavings and she hadn't touched her hay.
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SPEAKER_00: I texted Dr. Kate.
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SPEAKER_00: Why not me?
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I know that every single week I share a mic drop line from
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Tamar Reno's wisdom,
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SPEAKER_00: but my sister being just nails it all the time.
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SPEAKER_00: That's why I love her.
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SPEAKER_00: Tamar,
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SPEAKER_00: after my father's decline and death,
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relayed more knowledge from her first horse as I whined about
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how hard 2025 had
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SPEAKER_00: been.
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SPEAKER_00: She said, instead of asking why me, what if you asked why not me?
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SPEAKER_00: Why not me?
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SPEAKER_00: Oddly, that thought was freeing.
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SPEAKER_00: I wasn't being singled out.
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SPEAKER_00: I was taking what was in front of me and running with it.
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Dr.
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Kate stood ready to drive back from Christmas to tube and treat
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the sick mare.
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SPEAKER_00: I went into action,
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grabbing paste electrolytes and moving the mare to the arena
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where she could wander
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SPEAKER_00: and I could monitor water intake and piles of manure.
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SPEAKER_00: I prayed for poop.
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The house was still asleep and our first Christmas at Lavender
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Hill was dawning.
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SPEAKER_00: I wondered if it was appropriate or too early to start drinking.
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I wanted someone else to be in charge,
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to take over,
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to make this whole thing go away.
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SPEAKER_00: At that point,
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as I sat on the sagging picnic table beside the arena trying to
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will the mare into
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SPEAKER_00: pooping because poop is vague proof that an illness is not the result of
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SPEAKER_00: obstructions or twists in the horse's intestines,
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SPEAKER_00: and then I realized that from evening until dawn,
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SPEAKER_00: I had been obsessing over how the mare's illness affected me.
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SPEAKER_00: Me, not her.
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SPEAKER_00: Brandon, our barn manager, arrived and started feeding the other horses.
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I urged him to take the mare on a little walk to her pasture
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where she could rest
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SPEAKER_00: her head over the water troughs.
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The mare loved Brandon and also loved the taste of the water in
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her pasture.
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SPEAKER_00: I racked my brain.
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SPEAKER_00: The whole thing, the whole year felt like my fault.
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SPEAKER_00: Every superstition,
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SPEAKER_00: every evil eye,
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every wrong step I had ever considered or taken in my life
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converged like a toxic
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SPEAKER_00: fog rising up from the fields.
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SPEAKER_00: I did this.
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SPEAKER_00: Someone had to take responsibility.
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SPEAKER_00: So why not let it be me if there was a universal ledger book?
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SPEAKER_00: I truly believe that if I could totally take the fall for this,
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SPEAKER_00: for all of it,
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SPEAKER_00: we could find a solution.
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SPEAKER_00: The third time's the charm.
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SPEAKER_00: Tamar texted back while I sat there,
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SPEAKER_00: hunched over myself,
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watching the mare breathe and willing her body to remember how
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to do the most basic
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SPEAKER_00: thing it had forgotten.
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SPEAKER_00: What Tamar offered was practical in the way old knowledge often is,
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SPEAKER_00: simple,
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SPEAKER_00: specific,
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SPEAKER_00: and unconcerned with whether it could be explained.
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She gave me a short set of words gifted to her by Sherry Barker
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while she tended to
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SPEAKER_00: her own sick horse.
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The words were a way of placing my attention and intention into
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a healing outcome for the mayor.
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SPEAKER_00: It gave my hands something to do,
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SPEAKER_00: brushing along the smooth hair of the mare's sides.
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SPEAKER_00: I read it once and again and again,
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SPEAKER_00: three times,
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and then I chanted the same pattern and touched along the
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mare's opposite side,
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SPEAKER_00: I had run out of levers to pull.
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I had given banamine and placed the mare in a space where she
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could be monitored
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SPEAKER_00: while also being able to move around.
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SPEAKER_00: The vet was on standby.
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SPEAKER_00: The only thing I had left was time, and time felt hostile.
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So I followed Tamar's instructions the way you follow
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directions when you're lost,
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SPEAKER_00: not because you're confident they're right,
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SPEAKER_00: but because standing still isn't an option.
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SPEAKER_00: I stepped away from the fence line and the mayor lowered her head.
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The temperature was unusually warm for Christmas Day,
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the sun blinding me.
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I had to shield my eyes and squint to make out the mountain
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ridge of the mare's top line.
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The weather contributed to this madness with sharp rises and
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falls in temperature
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SPEAKER_00: throughout the month.
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Fluctuations hinder horses from drinking enough water to
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support their systems.
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As I traced the mare's outline with my gaze,
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I heard an unmistakable plop.
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A small,
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unremarkable pile of manure appeared in the sand,
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like a note passed under the door.
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That small act was proof that her body was still in
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conversation with itself.
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I just sat down on the bench and let my shoulders drop for the
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first time in hours,
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SPEAKER_00: days,
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SPEAKER_00: weeks,
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SPEAKER_00: years.
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SPEAKER_00: Dr.
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SPEAKER_00: Kate was still on call and we weren't out of the woods,
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SPEAKER_00: but the panic inside of me loosened its grip.
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SPEAKER_00: The ledger tipped back towards neutral.
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Later,
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when my rational brain tried to make sense of it,
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I realized it didn't need to.
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SPEAKER_00: What Tamar offered through Sherry's gifts was a container,
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a way to hold my attention long enough for the mayor's system
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to do what it was
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SPEAKER_00: already trying to do.
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In the same way sin eaters once took bread into their bodies so
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grief could move
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SPEAKER_00: on,
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SPEAKER_00: I took those words into mine so waiting didn't turn into collapse.
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SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the question isn't why something works,
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SPEAKER_00: but that in the thick of confusion and grief,
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SPEAKER_00: something ancient meets you where you are and reminds a body,
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SPEAKER_00: my body,
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SPEAKER_00: the mare's,
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SPEAKER_00: your body,
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SPEAKER_00: that it knows how to let things move again.
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The mare continued to poop with gusto throughout the day and by
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evening had made a
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SPEAKER_00: full recovery.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a Christmas miracle, said Dr. Cate.
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SPEAKER_00: This too shall pass.
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SPEAKER_00: Sin eaters agreed to take on unimaginable loads of grief.
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They stood at the edge of a family's worst moment and consumed
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the collective
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SPEAKER_00: regret so others could move forward.
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By doing so,
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they existed on the fringes of the community,
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corrupted,
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tainted,
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and raw.
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SPEAKER_00: How often these days do we take on this role without thinking?
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SPEAKER_00: As I watched the sick mare,
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SPEAKER_00: I tried to account for everything,
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SPEAKER_00: balancing a ledger that included my father's death,
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SPEAKER_00: the farm we lost,
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SPEAKER_00: the one we're still trying to keep,
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SPEAKER_00: the mare standing in front of me,
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SPEAKER_00: and the belief that if I could just take enough responsibility,
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SPEAKER_00: something else might be spared.
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SPEAKER_00: The math didn't math.
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SPEAKER_00: Grief makes accountants out of us.
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SPEAKER_00: It convinces us there must be a reason,
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SPEAKER_00: a cause,
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SPEAKER_00: a debt that can be settled if we're thorough enough.
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SPEAKER_00: Caregiving and stewardship do the same.
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SPEAKER_00: And so does loving something huge and fragile like a horse.
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SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to stay trapped, not in the mayor's body or my own.
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SPEAKER_00: Something moved on Christmas morning.
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It didn't happen cleanly and without fear,
18:58
but it went into motion and that was enough.
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I don't know if sin eaters believed they were saving souls or
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if they simply
19:06
SPEAKER_00: understood that grief needs somewhere to go.
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SPEAKER_00: I only know that on Christmas morning,
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sitting on a sagging bench beside a horse who finally
19:15
remembered how to poop,
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SPEAKER_00: I felt movement begin again.
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SPEAKER_00: The heavy weight of responsibility didn't disappear inside of me,
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but it redistributed the burden until I didn't feel
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single-handedly responsible for
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SPEAKER_00: holding the world up.
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SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's the real work.
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SPEAKER_00: We can't erase loss,
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but we can let it move through our bodies and hands and breath
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and shared attention
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SPEAKER_00: until it no longer has to live entirely inside one person alone.
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SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that feel so much better?
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Love, Kim
19:57
SPEAKER_00: If this way of working makes sense to you,
19:59
SPEAKER_00: the pacing,
20:00
SPEAKER_00: the boundaries,
20:00
SPEAKER_00: the attention to what can and can't be held all at once,
20:04
SPEAKER_00: Stable Roots is where I write through these questions in real time.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: It's where I unpack how the farm actually runs,
20:11
SPEAKER_00: why certain structures exist,
20:14
and what it means to build something humane with living beings
20:17
at the center.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Some weeks it's about horses and scheduling,
20:21
SPEAKER_00: other weeks it's about grief,
20:22
SPEAKER_00: land,
20:23
SPEAKER_00: leadership,
20:24
SPEAKER_00: or the work of choosing what gets protected.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Subscribing isn't about more content,
20:31
but it's about staying close to the thinking behind my work and
20:35
being part of a
20:36
SPEAKER_00: community that values continuity over urgency.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome to join us.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad to see you here.