what pushes back.

thoughts on reframing resistance.

Often, when I travel the dirt path that runs behind where I live on St. Croix, she is there.

Sometimes, the cow that lives next door stands off to the side of the road where it’s shady. More often, however, she is right in the middle of it—placidly chewing her cud, blinking her brown eyes, and staunchly refusing to move.

If I’m on foot, I pick my way around her. I avoid the rope that ties her to a tree, just in case she decides to use it as a trip wire on me. I watch her flick her tail—maybe a sign of annoyance. Maybe just a way to chase away the flies. And I move on.

But the day I met her while in a car was a different story. There she was, right in the middle of my path. There was no way around.

I put my beat up Toyota into park and unbuckled my seatbelt. She swung her head to look at me, her body positioned left to right, a silent sentry refusing my request to proceed.

I got out of the car. The mid-afternoon sun filtered through the trees that lined the steep hillside, dappling the dirt with patches of light and dark. I asked her to move. Politely, because I still believe animals understand us more than we think.

She flared her nostrils slightly, snorting her displeasure. I sighed in return. I would have to move her.

As a child, I read a lot of stories about animals. Horses, mainly, but I guess there remains a part of me that believes in my ability to get animals to trust me, just like every female lead in the paperbacks I devoured in the ‘90s.

I also thought this redirection would be simple: pick up the rope, give it a tug, and she’d amble off with nothing more than the cow equivalent to a shoulder shrug.

As you can probably guess, that’s not exactly what happened.

I did the first part: the picking up of the rope, the tugging. But what I didn’t account for was the fact that she would tug back. Hard. Cows, in case you were unaware, are strong.

She began kicking her feet up, almost like a bucking horse (another thing I thought my books had prepared me for), causing the rope I was holding to jerk right and left. It slid through my hands painfully, but my Taurean stubbornness kicked in, and I refused to let go.

The rope grew taut as she resisted me, nearly clotheslining me to my own car, and for a moment, I had the clarity to think, maybe I should have just turned around. After all, there was another way down the hill.

But eventually, through no effort of my own, the cow catapulted herself over to the side of the road. I dusted myself off and got back into my car.

The way was finally clear. But I didn’t feel like I had won.

I posted the below image on Instagram a few days ago.

I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

To be honest, this past year has felt anything like silk. It’s been more like a rough, twine rope sliding through my hands as I try desperately to move obstacle after obstacle out of the way.

Some days, the path is clear: I feel like I’m finally starting to fit in on St. Croix. I don’t have to use my GPS to get to where I’m going. I remember to slow down for the speed bump near my house that is the exact same color as the road. Someone remembers my name.

But other days, all I feel is resistance.

Things that felt easy in St. Louis—writing, yoga, making friends—are not easy for me here. Writing has felt rough, painful even. In 2022, I published 92 pieces on my Substack. In 2023, I’ve written just 8.

I have all but stopped reading tarot. The last few readings I wrote up took me weeks to complete, simply because I could not see around whatever was blocking my path forward.

And yoga—something I’ve leaned on for years to balance and hold me—is shifting sand beneath my feet. I wonder constantly if I should offer these parts of myself anymore. I wonder if I ever was meant to do so.

I stand on the dirt path of my life, trying desperately to peer over these faceless, silent blocks that stand in my way. I realize that, even if I could see past them, it wouldn’t matter.

The resistance isn’t external at all. It is coming from within me.

I’m learning how to play chess.

Hilly and I sit across from each other, a green-and-white checkered board spread between us. I line up my pawns, one after another. They stand at attention, ready for my clumsy direction. Behind us, the waning sun winks between the leaves of a baobab tree.

I am not good at chess.

I play too quickly. I launch my knights almost immediately. I skitter my bishops across the board carelessly. I start to develop pieces and get distracted, leaving my king vulnerable.

Hilly, who has played for years, wins every game. Today is no exception. He leans forward on his elbows, one hand catching his chin as he considers the board.

Chess brings out a meditative, zen-like side of him. Just when I think I have made a clever move, he presses back from another angle, resisting, forcing me to pay attention to what stands in my way.

Eventually, my king is alone, desperately trying to see his way around what prevents him from moving forward: a rook, a knight, a queen. His kingdom is reduced to an island of three squares. There’s nowhere else to go, so I take my index finger and topple my last piece, ending the game.

The sun slips behind the hill as we dismantle the game, and I find myself thinking about resistance. The things that push back against us, the parts of life that are anything but silken and easy and sure.

I close my eyes and think of Missouri, of the muddy river that ran near where I grew up. In my mind, I hear the water rushing over fallen branches and partially submerged logs. I feel the slick, moss-covered rocks beneath my feet, worn smooth by years of resistance.

I think of the beauty that exists in allowing resistance to shape and shift us. Of standing still in the face of a raging river, a contrarian cow, a bend in the path of life that beckons us to consider another route.

Maybe resistance can co-exist with the things that are for me. Maybe discomfort is part of the story, part of the change.

It’s getting dark now. Hilly and I get back into the car. We drive up the dirt path back home, the chess pieces rattling against each other as we navigate the dips in the road. We round the final corner in the path that leads home.

The cow is nowhere to be found. For now, the way forward is clear.