The Kind of Peace You Don’t Plan For

There’s something about walking into a barn early in the morning.

The girls had just gotten on the bus, and it was one of those barely-October mornings where the air is finally cold enough to feel crisp. Not winter cold. Just enough to wake you up a little when you step outside.

The horses were already turned out, so the barn was empty. The lights were off except for little glimmers of sunlight coming through the windows and skylights. The goats were somewhere outside, their bells jingling every so often, the dogs were milling around, and that old FM radio was doing what it always does.

Playing.

I honestly don’t know the last time that thing was shut off. It is covered in dust, hay and enough cobwebs that I’m pretty sure the spiders have acquired broadcasting rights.

And it was playing classic country.

Which, apparently, now includes the 90s.

Excuse me?

Those are not classics. Those are modern songs.

At least they are in my brain.

So apparently I have reached the age where the music of my childhood is considered classic, which feels unnecessary and slightly aggressive, but whatever.

Anyway, I had about ten minutes before I needed to get moving with the rest of my day, and there were nine stalls to pick.

Nine stalls in ten minutes?

Doable.

So I grabbed the pitchfork and started.

And somewhere around a barely half-full wheelbarrow of horse shit, I realized how peaceful I felt.

Which is a sentence that probably tells you everything you need to know about me.

It wasn’t quiet, really. The radio was playing. The goats were jingling around outside. I could hear horses moving, dogs walking through the barn, wind through the trees.

But it was a different kind of noise.

None of it wanted anything from me.

Nobody was asking a question. Nobody needed a decision. Nothing was beeping at me. There wasn’t an email waiting for an answer or a conversation I needed to figure out how to word correctly.

For those few minutes, the biggest problem in my immediate world was a pile of manure.

And manure is refreshingly uncomplicated.

You scoop it up.

You dump it in the wheelbarrow.

Problem solved.

Maybe that’s part of why I love cleaning stalls so much.

I’ve always loved a clean barn. There’s just something satisfying about walking back down the aisle when everything is picked, the bedding is fluffy again and it looks ready for the horses to come back in.

My brain likes it.

Maybe because there are so many things in life that don’t work that way.

You can’t always clean up a problem and stand back ten minutes later to admire your work. You can’t control what somebody else does, what happens tomorrow, what bill shows up, what changes, what breaks, what someone thinks of you or how something turns out.

But I can pick a stall.

I can make that little space clean again.

And maybe sometimes our brains need a win that simple.

There’s another part of a clean stall that means something to me, too.

Most mornings when I walk in, I holler, “GOOD MORNING, Y’ALL!” down the aisle, and more often than not I hear somebody start shuffling around because I have, apparently, interrupted their sleep.

Then a horse gets up with sawdust tangled through its mane and bedding stuck to its side, looking at me like I have some nerve showing up at this hour.

I love that.

I love the sawdust-covered horses.

I love when there’s still hay left in the net beside them.

And yes, I’m one of those crunchy horse people who tries to keep forage in front of them all the time. Pasture or hay, whichever makes sense. I don’t accomplish it perfectly because I am a human being with a budget and not a magical hay-producing woodland creature, but that’s always the goal.

Because the half-eaten hay and the sawdust in their manes tell me something.

They rested.

They felt comfortable enough to lay down.

They felt safe.

And that matters here because not every horse that has come through our lives has always known what that feels like.

Some have come from great homes and people who loved them deeply. Others have arrived malnourished, traumatized, painfully thin or carrying pieces of a story we will never completely know.

Horses don’t get much control over their own lives.

They don’t choose who buys them. They don’t choose where the trailer takes them. They don’t choose their stall, their pasture or the hands that reach for their halter.

We just get the responsibility of doing the best we can by them while they are ours.

And maybe that’s why I notice the resting.

Because there is something beautiful about a creature that has every instinct telling it to stay ready to run deciding, instead, that it is safe enough to sleep.

I think maybe humans need our own version of sawdust in our manes.

Some little sign that we let ourselves put everything down for a minute.

Because somewhere along the way, I think a lot of us started believing peace has to be this big thing.

A vacation.

A weekend away.

A perfectly clean house.

All the bills paid.

The kids behaving.

The job going well.

Everybody healthy.

Every problem solved.

Then, surely, we’ll relax.

Except there is always going to be something.

Life is incredibly good at generating another thing.

Another responsibility. Another decision. Another problem to solve. Another person who needs us. Another load of laundry sitting in the dryer that we will absolutely restart three more times before actually folding it.

Maybe peace isn’t waiting somewhere on the other side of all of that.

Maybe it sneaks in while we’re still right in the middle of it.

That’s what happened to me that morning.

I didn’t go looking for some meaningful moment. I wasn’t journaling or meditating or intentionally practicing mindfulness.

I was picking horse shit.

The radio was playing old Alan Jackson or George Strait or something else that apparently qualifies for an AARP card now.

There were goat bells outside.

My hands were cold.

There was dirt under my boots.

And for ten minutes, my brain stopped trying to be everywhere else.

I was just there.

Nothing in my life was magically solved when I pushed the wheelbarrow out of the barn. Everything waiting for me before I walked in was still waiting when I walked back out.

But I felt different.

Lighter, maybe.

More settled.

Like I had found one tiny piece of ground underneath my feet again.

And I think maybe that’s what I’m learning.

Peace doesn’t always announce itself.

Sometimes you have to notice it while it’s happening.

It might be drinking your coffee before the rest of the house wakes up. Sitting in your car for a few extra minutes. Cooking dinner with music playing. Walking outside when the air finally feels like fall. Folding laundry while everyone is occupied somewhere else.

Or standing in an old barn on an October morning with a pitchfork in your hand.

Maybe we don’t need our whole lives to become peaceful.

Maybe we just need to stop overlooking the little pieces of peace that are already tucked inside them.

Mine just happens to smell a whole lot like sawdust and horse poo.