A love letter, to a life left behind
post by Jill
Most of my mornings for the last several years began with an everything bagel. I make mine with the whipped cream cheese from Trader Joe’s, and a few slices of calabrese salami; portable enough for the car, enjoyable enough for a sit-down.
One weekend a month for about 7 months of the year—theoretically, the warmest, driest months, but that’s not always how it plays out—the crisp morning air hit my face a while before the most appropriate time to eat my bagel. I would be greeted first by the warm nickers of more than half a dozen of my barn’s regularly competing horses, who tracked me eagerly with their eyes as I made the short trek from my friend’s trailer in the campground to the stalls to throw hay for their breakfast. Most recently, I’d do this task wearing custom pajama bottoms with Cupcake’s face all over them, to match those that my teenage students have had for camping and barn sleepovers this year. I’d put my boots on later, preferring the slip-on Croc knockoffs (with my best friend’s husband’s band logo printed on them) for just puttering around camp.
These ranch sorting and team penning competitions are put on by my local Westside Team Penning Club, which I have now been a member of for four years. I had no clue where that silly sport would lead when I said, “Oh, sure!” to attending a beginner sorting practice in the dead of winter in 2023, just for fun. Even though I’m pretty sure we didn’t actually have a clean run at practice that day, Leanna and I confidently assured each other we’d totally be able to handle competing at Westside if we wanted; our barn friend Katie was about to start her second year with the club. (Leanna and I were only partially correct… We could of course “handle” competing, in that we are good sports, and had plenty of experience in competitions of other disciplines, but we had no clue what we were doing in terms of ranch sorting, whatsoever.)
What ended up happening for me, totally organically but very rapidly, is that the world of working cattle started to consume my horsey life. My summer weekends filled up with competitions or casual cuttings, and winter Saturdays were for sorting or penning practices at the local spots. I rode with random draw teams, meeting countless new people, and eventually got to build teams with my friends, allowing for the luxury of practicing and learning together; getting familiar with each others’ strengths and weaknesses for those wild 60 seconds in the pen.
On top of learning the intricate skills necessary for the game, similar to any other team sport in which you are applying—as Roger Braa puts it—calculated “options and angles” to a fast-paced arena of moving variables, working cows at speed gave me direction for focusing my riding goals at home. Cupcake, the bold little mare I’ve had the privilege of partnering with, has been my favorite teammate of all, and is the most game to “lock in” of probably any horse I’ve met. (Cupcake’s outward presentation of “locking in” is sometimes more chaotic and unnecessarily dramatic than other horses can pull off, but I kinda love her for that, too.) She started out as available to me simply because Laura didn’t have the time to focus on her, but turned out to be my natural equine soulmate. (Maybe Laura secretly knew this going in; she’s been teaching me to ride on her horses since I was in the 8th grade…)
If I didn’t have the gift of my beautiful, priceless horse community—in which I have complete trust that Cupcake has a supportive forever home with Laura and an excited young student to take her through the next few seasons—our “moving to France” checklist would have included purchasing and then importing a horse. Specifically, Cupcake.
And so I’d been savoring those crisp mornings, with the fixings for my everything bagels tucked in the trailer fridge for after settling the cattle. My travel mug of hot coffee fit neatly in a little sack on my saddle. The still-pink sky looks extra picturesque when viewed from between the ears of a horse. (Especially with the sound of bad jokes and wheezing laughter from one’s most insane friends in the background, too.)
Later, we’d transition from the quiet, pre-competition routine into the full swing of the day—which features loud buzzers every 30 seconds, clanging of metal gate panels, a steady stream of announcements over the speakers, and no shortage of screaming and hollering. We’d put on our shiny belt buckles and cowgirl hats, adjust our spurs, and chat with our friends and teammates in between the flash of our 60-second runs, enjoying the buzz of competition and connection with our fellow club members. We’d talk strategy and positions, and wait behind the foul line to be told, “Your flag is up!” Our throats would be sore by the end of the day, either from screaming at a cow to save the run or from excitedly cheering on our friends.
But first, a bagel.
On weekday mornings all year round, I’d eat my bagel sitting on the floor at my living room coffee table. Sometimes I had my work laptop open, catching up on emails or progress notes before my first session of the day; other times I might be reading something on my phone or chatting with Andrew as he procrastinated starting his work-from-home day. Emmett would come over and nuzzle my elbow, because mornings are his most sociable time. I’d leave everything bagel seeds and crumbs in my wake absolutely everywhere I went.
I made the bold move of starting a private practice straight out of grad school as an associate-level therapist, and I’ve never had any regrets. I lucked out with my incredible supervisors, who not only made me feel seen and supported in our individual consultations, but facilitated groups that made it easy to stay connected with my peers in the field. I contracted with a business support service company that specializes in private practice therapists, which not only simplified the process of billing insurance as an associate, but provided me access to an in-person office space in downtown Tacoma. I also stayed on with Horses Guiding Humans—a non-profit that offers equine-assisted psychotherapy services in Pierce County—following my successful internship with them. (No one is shocked that involving horses with the therapeutic process was a natural fit for me.)
When I wasn’t seeing clients in-person at the office or out at the farm, I would refill my coffee mug, tuck my laptop under my arm, and push my feet into a pair of slippers to make the short journey out my back door. Just around the corner and down the back steps, in our separate basement, is where my (HIPAA-compliant) telehealth therapy “office” was nestled. Though our little 1926 house in Tacoma is small, the feature of the basement made it possible to support both Andrew and I working from home most weekdays, even with my need to have total privacy when seeing therapy clients.
We bought our house in 2021, and while yes, it was technically “turn-key” the day we signed, we immediately made sure we made our own lives more difficult by ripping up the lightly damaged LVP the second we stepped inside as new owners. (To reveal the original hardwood flooring underneath, obviously.) In the first month—those precious weeks in which we still had an overlapping apartment lease—we learned how to DIY refinishing hardwood floors, re-tiled the kitchen floor, painted the kitchen cabinets and the walls of every upstairs room in the house, and put up wallpaper in the kitchen and the office. After moving in, the projects over the years included everything from tiling a backsplash behind the stove with the tiles we bought in Mexico, putting in floor-to-ceiling “built in” closet storage in the bedroom (which involved picking up a Facebook Marketplace IKEA set from a lady in West Seattle…with the horse trailer), to converting the basement laundry room into a bathroom (that everyone said was impossible, being below ground-level). Nearly every project (I suppose apart from the Mexican tiles) involved some kind of OfferUp or Facebook Marketplace deal, and an amount of insanity-meets-creativity, all facilitated by Andrew. For example, the Saniflo macerating “upflush” toilet he paid $100 for from some guy in Covington is the reason our basement bathroom works.
With a working toilet downstairs, and my office tucked into a pretty out-of-the-way spot, the basement became the hosting and entertainment hub of the house. We put two queen bedframes and mattresses down there, plus a queen-size pull-out bed, and enjoyed being the house that hosted all our friends from Seattle or Olympia any time the friend group had a Tacoma-based party. Dance parties with the surround-sound and Melodi’s disco lights were regular. It has been one of my absolute favorite things, to cram as many of our favorite people into my house at a time as we can, and to laugh and dance with them into the night. I’ve loved the staycations and the hungover morning coffees in the living room.
This spring, we finally ripped off the bandaid—AKA, the walls, floors, and ceiling—and started our upstairs bathroom remodel in anticipation of renting out the house. We’d been putting that one off for a full 5 years, and we were reminded exactly why, when it was the biggest pain-in-the-ass project of them all. There were profuse tears (most, but not all, mine). The new shower got installed twice. We made mistake after mistake. I can only describe the entire process as “suffering.”
But it was the final frontier: the last piece of the house that we hadn’t touched with our own specific flair, and in the end, it was worth it.
As I write this, our house is hosting its first short-term renters. We are using Furnished Finder as the platform facilitating mini-leases, with a minimum of one month, so that our house can provide the kind of comfortable landing place for others that we are benefitting from here in Paris. Our house isn’t a generic rental, by any means. We weren’t interested in removing the layers of self-expression and personality we put so much care into during our time there, and are pleased that the initial feedback we’ve received has been glowing.
Every corner of that house has some specific representation of us. The kitchen wallpaper that reminds us of the orange trees all over Italy. The details in the bathroom, loosely inspired by my hyperfixation on Greek mythology at the time. The tiles from Mexico. Almost every knob and drawer pull in the house was picked out by one of us, on purpose.
We’re currently in a short-term apartment in the 20th arrondissement, building our dossier for (hopefully) a furnished rental that might suit us for a full year or two. We chose to start our France adventure in Paris for a number of reasons, but a Parisian home base (in our price range) means we’re no longer in the season of hosting 7-8 adults on full beds with proper linens. It also means I’m not a 20-minute drive from the barn that’s full of horses I’ve known for half my life, friends I haul out with every other weekend, and students I’ve watched grow up into admirable horsewomen.
But we do have one guest bed, a pull-out couch, and an already growing list of restaurants and hidden gems we can’t wait to show our favorite people when they come to visit Paris (even if they book a hotel nearby). We have plans for family to come at Christmas, and group chats with friends for possible European adventures in the new year. I cornered Roger Braa at the end of the last clinic I rode in at Silver Wings (because of course I rode in a sorting clinic two weeks before I moved to France), and only a couple of days ago, Roger connected his friend Danny and I over the phone; Danny is French, but lives in Germany now, and is involved in the sorting and penning community in Europe. I’ll call Danny again when he’s back from his visit with Roger (and I have a European phone number).
I get sent photos and videos of riding lessons and sorting practices from my friends and students at the barn on a near-daily basis, so far. Lila promises she tells Cupcake how much I love and miss her.
I haven’t found any everything bagels yet, but it’s only been a week. I have been enjoying an almond croissant every morning, and those do leave enough crumbs and powdered sugar behind to be comparable in mess. I’d say it’s a strong start.
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