Letter from the Editor: The Reluctant Rider

Confession time. Everybody talked about how relieved they were to leave the Year of the Snake behind, with all its literal and figurative shedding—like it was something to wave off with a polite smile. Thanks for everything, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

But me? I loved the Year of the Snake. It was good to me. I thrived with that slithery kind of energy (so much so, I have our reptilian friend down my spine).

So staring down the barrel not only of a new calendar year but a new lunar one, I find myself feeling oddly unprepared. I’m told this year is supposed to inject the spirit of the ‘Fire Horse’ into our veins - movement, boldness, momentum - but it feels, if I’m honest, like someone else is holding the reins.

The last ‘Year of the Horse’ was, I believe, 2014, and thinking back that far makes me feel ancient. I’d just moved into my first apartment with my then-boyfriend. I was working in a law firm, convincing myself that my dislike of fluorescent lighting could be offset by my love of expensive, vaguely 90s-style corporate attire. I remember feeling restless. Like I was standing on the edge of a life change, though I don’t think I had the language for it yet.

It’s easy to welcome a year of galloping energy when you’re already poised for the jump. But what about when you’re feeling quieter? More internal. When the urge is, uncharacteristically, not to sprint forward but to sit with things a little longer.

In horsemanship, they say the horse can be a mirror. It senses fear, of course - but it also senses hesitation, doubt, a lack of trust. If you don’t trust your seat, the horse won’t trust your lead.

Perhaps for some of us this season isn’t about the outward gallop at all. Perhaps it’s about the internal grit. The kind of gut instinct that lets you make an argument for entrails, finding beauty and sustenance in the parts of life - and dinner - that others might instinctively discard.

Inside this Edition you’ll find plenty of motion, but not always the obvious kind. There’s the steady, rhythmic breath of running into a new year; the strange tenderness of revisiting old haunts in Paris with the people who took you the very first time; the sort of dinner where passion is served on a plate while Jorge Ben Jor plays softly in the background.

Elsewhere, someone is admitting they’re absolutely shitting bricks (quintessential Aussie slang) about the future - which, frankly, feels like an honest way to enter any new year.

There are postcards arriving from distant shores, from Argentina to the Great Wall, reminding us that movement doesn’t always have to be frantic to be meaningful. Sometimes the act of going, slowly, curiously, with open eyes, is enough.

Which brings me back to horses.

A Mexican cowboy once told me that as the rider, when with a new horse, the most powerful thing you can do is not let it move.

Not yet.

You sit. You breathe. You wait until the moment is right. Until you understand each other’s languages.

Only then do you loosen the reins.

So if the Fire Horse has arrived at your door and you’re not quite ready to bolt across the plains? Don’t Worry.

Trust your seat.
Trust your gut.
Wait for the signal.

We’ll ride when we’re ready. It’ll come back

Con amore,

Lex Duff
Editor in Chief