Seeing Isn’t Always Seeing

Tuesday, January 20, 2025

At first glance, I was certain I knew what I was seeing.

Two pale strands hung straight down from the branches of a juniper, each coated in frost. They were white, linear, and unmistakably rope-like. Our minds are quick that way. They reach for the nearest familiar explanation and settle in. We just go with it.

Like me, then—not questioning whether the frosty objects were rope, only wondering how they had gotten there. I reached up to pull one strand free from its branch, and in that instant, the scale shifted.

In my fingers, what had looked sturdy immediately shrank into something improbably delicate. I expected resistance. Instead, frost slipped away, and I found myself trying to grip emptiness. I paused and looked more closely.

You’ll never guess what I discovered. The “rope” I was trying to hold was a single hair from one of my horses’ tails. Looking up again, I noticed several similar strands—long, pale, impossibly fine—each thickened by frost and hanging, rope-like, from the branches.

The experience startled me. These fine hairs had likely been carried aloft by nest-building birds, caught by chance in the tree, and layered again and again with ice. The moment felt slightly dramatic and, at the same time, utterly ordinary. I had misread the evidence—and it had been astonishingly easy to do so.

I’ve been thinking about deciding and misassuming. These happen more often than we realize. We believe we’re seeing what’s there, when instead we’re seeing what our experience tells us ought to be there. Our brains—efficient and decisive—are always working to help us make sense of things quickly.

But efficiency may also be a kind of blindness. When we label something too fast and move on—without lingering long enough to reconsider—we miss the chance to see it differently.

The object I mistook for rope wasn’t merely a variation of what I expected; it belonged to an entirely different category of reality. It was something once living—shed, carried, and repurposed by chance.

Only later did my mind begin to imagine a quiet collaboration among animals, weather, and time—a whole story I had nearly missed before I paused, looked again, and wondered.

This experience reinforces something I’ve been learning: that deciding well often requires more than one look. Not because first looks are careless, but because they are incomplete. The longer I live, the more I understand wisdom as less about sharp eyesight and more about patience. Wisdom is staying a little longer with what we think we understand, allowing ourselves to be surprised by what else might be there.

Here’s today’s small example. A single strand of horse tail hair is usually barely visible. Yet here were several, transformed—fluffed with frost and suspended in front of me. I mistook them for rope. I tried to pull one down. Instead, I learned again that what appears solid may, upon re-examination, be lighter, finer, and less obvious than we first believed.

Seeing—really seeing—asks us to pause, reconsider, and sometimes admit that our first understanding was wrong. That lesson, offered by a few horse hairs, humbled me. And because of what it taught, it was also comforting.

If something as slight as a single horse tail hair can—against all odds—hold its place in the world, suspended and briefly transformed, then perhaps our own uncertainties deserve a little more time in the light as well.

Taking more time means looking again. Reflecting longer. It’s a practice that can help move our perceptions closer to what actually may be there.

— Diana

Enduring Lights & Shadows

Tuesday, January 12, 2025

The ancient volcano in today’s header photo is Broken Top—my favorite among the Cascade Mountain profiles—and easily visible from my house. I love the whole range, but Broken Top feels extra special. I think that’s well deserved. Its peaks practically explode with personality. And many times, I’ve ridden horseback there. Broken Top is an old friend, even if it’s a mountain.

It’s also a teacher.

Broken Top is an ancient, spent volcano—its fire was gone long before any of us arrived. And yet, on a clear winter day like this, it feels alive to me, especially for the precision of its contrasts.

I’m fascinated by how the mountain holds light and dark at once. Snow burns bright along its slopes, while shattered rock catches shadows in every crevice and angle. The contrasts don’t compete—they belong to each other. One reveals the other. Without shadows, Broken Top’s lights would flatten; without lights, its darks would disappear.

Seeing Broken Top—whether in person or in my photographs—always pulls at something in me.

Maybe because I’m noticing similar interplays inside my own days. Aging has brightnesses—clarity, spaciousness. I’m surprised to find myself more patient, more observant, more willing to look twice. But aging also brings shadows—losses, changes, old urgencies cooling, and quiet reckonings with time.

Like Broken Top, I’m a terrain. And like that mountain, I’m shaped by experience.

It feels natural to accept vivid contrasts on a mountain. Yet I’m struck by how reluctant I am to accept unexpected contrasts within myself. Maybe because early in life, we’re taught to sort our experiences into clean categories: “good years” and “hard years,” “growing seasons” and “declining seasons.”

In contrast, Broken Top does no such sorting. On the mountain, erosion lives beside endurance. Sharp ridges beside soft snow. Light beside dark. Everything adds up to the shape of the thing.

From where I stand, Broken Top’s contrasts feel honest—less dramatic than simply true. They reflect what happens when something stops trying to be anything other than what time has made of it.

Staring at the mountain, I can catch meaning. It adds up to a life that, viewed from far enough away, doesn’t need smoothing. Its irregularities—fallen rocks, jagged silhouettes, deep cuts—are precisely what’s letting the light in.

Looking longer increasingly matters to me. My first look gathers an outline—giving certainty. My second, longer look gathers depth. It shows me light gathering on one slope while darkness settles on another. Staying with the view lets its “true story” come through. And I’m touched by a mountain long past its fire and entirely at peace with that.

Broken Top never tries to impress. It simply stands there—weathered and luminous—letting the day draw its shadows where it will.

And in its very quiet way, Broken Top reassures that: we don’t lose our shape as we age; we reveal it.

— Diana

Pimmy’s New Beginning

Sunday, November 30, 2025

My middle-aged donkey, Pimmy, may soon be living in a new home. It’s bittersweet to even write that, because the past year with her has been so intense, so emotional, and so full of learning.

Pimmy’s health crisis last year took me completely by surprise. I was unfamiliar with Cushing’s disease in equines, let alone equine Type II diabetes. By the time I understood how sick she truly was, she needed to be hospitalized in an equine ICU—days of specialized care, IVs, monitoring, and the kind of worry that settles in your bones.

When she finally came home, it was with lifelong medical needs: daily medication, careful feeding, and the responsibility of helping her lose nearly 100 pounds. At first her treatment routine was twice a day, and eventually it shifted to once daily, but the vigilance and devotion never lessened.

Through it all, Pimmy remained sweet and willing—devoted to “her horses,” Rosie and Sunny, even when I had to separate her from them so she wouldn’t overeat. They stayed close, calling to each other over the fence, a small reminder of their bond. I became unexpectedly proficient at mixing medications and administering them to a donkey who had her own opinions about anything that didn’t involve hay. And each time I walked toward the barn, she greeted me with hopeful, hungry brays—touching, funny, and a bit heartbreaking.

But she adapted, and so did I. Over the year, Pimmy lost the weight she needed to lose. She looks wonderful—bright-eyed, balanced, and healthy. Somewhere along the way, this stubborn little donkey transformed into “my big puppy,” easy to handle, affectionate, and smart as all get-out.

Through her recovery, my biggest worry remained her future. Donkeys, when well cared for, can live forty years or more. At my age, I know I won’t be here for the whole arc of her life. Rehoming her has weighed heavily on me. Anyone responsible for Pimmy would need to understand the realities of a “special-needs” donkey—the monitoring, the daily medication, the vigilance around weight. Not everyone can take that on. But for the right person, the reward would be immense. Pimmy, in my fully biased opinion, is one of the sweetest donkeys on the planet.

And then, early in Thanksgiving week, something unexpected happened.

A nearby neighbor, Alison—someone I only vaguely knew, though I knew she was a horseperson—texted me out of the blue asking if she and her husband could come talk. After so many years living near each other, I had no idea what she might want.

They arrived and told me their old horse had recently died, leaving their remaining elderly gelding lonely and unsettled. Softly, and very respectfully, they asked whether they might “borrow” my donkey for a few weeks as a companion until they found another horse.

Because they’re experienced with horses, they already understood the essentials of Pimmy’s care. They played with her, scratched her in all her favorite places, and fell for her immediately. And without much hesitation, we made an agreement: Pimmy would go to their place as a companion. If they loved her—and if they could manage her medical needs—she could stay permanently.

A remarkable part of this is that Alison, besides being a lifelong horsewoman, is a recently retired nurse. She understands chronic conditions; she’s comfortable with medications and observant about details. She asked the right questions, noticed everything, and handled Pimmy with a calm confidence that reassured me instantly.

Yesterday, Alison returned with several friends who were excited to meet Pimmy.

We all escorted Pimmy, who wore a grazing muzzle, as we had to walk across a pasture, to meet the elderly gelding. Those two hit it off right away. And, everyone adored Pimmy—her sweetness, her curiosity, her gentleness. I watched her step into this new circle of people and animals and felt the full bittersweetness of those moments.

Letting go of a beloved companion is never easy. She has been part of my daily rhythm, part of my barnyard family. But alongside the ache, I could feel something else—relief, gratitude, and a genuine joy. I could see clearly that Pimmy was stepping into a home where she would be appreciated, understood, and deeply cared for.

It felt like the universe whispering, Here. This is the right place. This is the right time.

That it’s Thanksgiving season, too, has me feeling a special mixture of gratitude and humility. Gratitude that Pimmy is healthy and happy, that the right people appeared at precisely the right moment, and that she will be cherished in her new home. And, humility in realizing that letting go—when it’s done with love—is also an act of giving care.

Pimmy will always be an essential part of my story. But now she belongs to a new one, and that’s bringing me a quiet, hopeful peace.

(Note: The photos, “moments of transition,” were captured by our friend, Susie.)

— Diana

Grumbles

Friday, December 06, 2024

In our hemisphere, the annual day of least daylight is the winter solstice, which occurs every December 21 or 22. This year, the 21st will bring our shortest daylight. I am already feeding my horses in darkness, around 4:30 p.m., and soon will in earlier darkness, around 4:00 p.m. We who must care for large animals feel stressed in these darkest days of the year.

Aside from having to work in too little light, December’s freezing cold also affects my fingers. Although gloved, my fingers can start feeling frozen and too painful to cooperate. There’s an infrared heater in my barn for thawing fingers, but rapid thawing pains, too.

I’m accustomed to wintertime discomforts, which helps me cope. I am wrapping my head around being in darkness with frozen fingers until the 21st. Then, darkness and freezing will continue, but daylight will increase gradually and noticeably.

January brings lighter days but might introduce very stressful weather. Last year, Central Oregon enjoyed relatively mild weather until the New Year, when everything changed dramatically and brought great cold, blasting winds, snow, and freezing temperatures. None of those eased until just before the Summer Solstice arrived.

Dear Friends: Today’s header image is the hoar frost at my barn. Diana