The List

Javier nodded sympathetically. "You said you like horses, didn't you?"

"Yeah," I smiled.

"Have you ever been bucked off a horse before?"

"Yeah. There was this one chestnut thoroughbred who wasn't trained very well, the poor thing. I was riding him around an arena, and he bucked me off."

"And what did you do?"

"I got back on. And then he bucked me off again, and I got back on. And then he bucked me off again, and I got back on. And then he tried to buck me off, but I stayed on, so he bolted towards the fence and threw me over it. I lost all my confidence after that. I was scared to even ride out in the open without someone leading me. I was only about nine or so."

"How did you get your confidence back?" he asked.

"I met my horse, Frenchie. He seemed to come into my life out of nowhere. He taught me how to trust again. If love is patient and love is kind, then he was love in its purest form."

"Maybe you can learn something from him?" Javier suggested. "Just be patient and be kind to yourself. And then finish your book, if that's what you want to do."

"Well, look at you," I said, nuzzling his shoulder. "Aren't you just full of profound insights."

"Yeah, I'm pretty deep. Sometimes I even surprise myself."

I laughed. "I actually haven't ridden a horse since Frenchie died. I was sixteen when that happened, and it just ripped me apart. I couldn't function at school. The head boarding mistress told me to stop crying and get over it, so my mom gave her hell over the phone, then drove up to Sydney and pulled me out of school for a week. It was like losing a member of our family. Mom was having a hard time processing it too. I never went back to riding after that. When I was younger, my parents thought I'd end up on a big country property with plenty of horses, just spending my days painting and hanging out with animals."

Javier raised his eyebrows and gestured to the Colombian city that stretched out before us. "They were pretty off, weren't they?"

"Yeah," I giggled. "You should have seen me as a kid, though. I was very shy and quiet and invisible. I just kept to myself at school."

"I can't imagine you as shy and quiet and invisible. I like who you've become."

"I guess I reinvented myself," I said. "Sometimes, I feel like water, flowing around the world, wanting to explore so many different crevices. And I just get stuck by these rigid barriers and boxes and labels and concepts of myself. Charles Bukowski has this beautiful poem, where he says: 'invent yourself and then reinvent yourself, change your tone and shape so often that they can never categorize you.' I'm still trying to figure out how to do that in a world that demands structure and order and excellence if you want to survive. This world loves low-variance disciplined box-ticking specialists, not chaotic high-variance generalists or polymaths.

I dunno. Maybe one day I'll come full circle and live that life on a big property with lots of animals. I once wrote a list of everything that excites me or lights me up. Horses are still on that list. I've always wanted a big, black Friesian horse with a long mane."

"What else is on your list?" he asked.

"There are hundreds of big and little things — activities, and stories, and ideas, and objects, and places, and people, and sunflowers. I have a thing for sunflowers."

"I've noticed," he laughed.

"There are just so many things I want to be and do and have and explore in this life! There are so many ideas to dive into, and projects to create, and adventures to go on, and stories to tell. That list is like a blueprint for my soul. It's who I am. I'm trying to get closer to that blueprint by incorporating more of those components into my life."

"And setting up a home base in Colombia ties into that?"

"I'm not attached to Colombia, per se. I just value pure, uninterrupted creative time, and I get that in abundance here. It's amazing how much you can get done in a day when you don't have to cook or clean or shop or commute. It's easy to eat healthily and workout, the people are friendly, I'm surrounded by nature so beautiful it takes my breath away, the strawberries here are sweet as candy, and my living expenses are a fraction of what I'd pay for a similar quality of life elsewhere. I just have more freedom here."

"And is your book on your list?" he asked. "Is that what excites you?"

"Yeah," I said. "It's at the top of my list. I need to do something about it, but it's just so vulnerable and raw. I feel like I'm naked-"

"I like that visual," he grinned.

"Hey!" I waved a disapproving finger at him. "I was being metaphorical."

He held his hands up in surrender. "Carry on."

"As I was saying, I feel like I'm metaphorically naked, and the thought of being naked in front of the whole world makes me want to throw up. Oh God, it's just so terrifying! This book is just all me, on a page. It contains all my secrets, all my shame, all my shadow, all my crazy. The story doesn't make sense unless I put all of myself into it, and I'm so scared that the world will just laugh at me."

"Why would they laugh at you?"

"Because it's such a cliché! A complete nobody with a diagnosed mental illness writes a book on a topic she has no formal education in — a topic that the brightest minds in the world have spent their lives trying to understand. She writes the book while manic — which is a cliché in itself — and then has the audacity to tell the entire physics community that Einstein is wrong, and they're all acting like a bunch of authoritarian hypocrites. I mean, what the hell? I just sound mad!"

Javier stroked my hair. "But you're not mad. You're right, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm right. Or at least, I can't figure out how I'm wrong. That's the frustrating part. I keep thinking, 'No, I've missed something. It's too simple and obvious. Surely these scientists have thought of this before.' But I just can't figure out how I could be wrong. The logic's simplicity gives it structural integrity. It does not allow me to be wrong unless a very well-respected neuroscientist is wrong, and I don't think he is."

"Who's the neuroscientist?" Javier asked.

"Karl Friston. He holds the answer to this whole riddle."