June 5, late afternoon, Ometepe

It was my favorite type of sun - heavy, close enough to touch, lazily preparing to snuggle up into the sky and throw on a sunset robe before the night. We didn't make it to Santa Domingo beach until around that time in the late afternoon. It was a bunch of sleepy bodies ambling through the sand, finding a good spot for a nap or a comfy chair to read in. We were tired from the early morning, the long micro ride, the ferry out to Ometepe island, the bumpy taxi, the big meal we ate at the restaurant a few steps away from the spot we chose for lounging. The afternoon was the type you want to catch and keep; I went for a walk to get to know it a little better.

Maybe only a few minutes out, once I was beyond the sound of my friends chatting and the music from the restaurant and the sight of beach chairs, they found me. Out from a trail to my right, six horses entered the beach. The sound of them came first, actually. I heard their hoofs softly hitting the sand, the air exhaling from their noses, the snorting noise as they lifted their necks to smell the breeze. And then, to see them...to see them was a miracle. It was like Majesty just trotted out in front of me. Most other horses I'd seen on my trip were sad, with ribs poking out and hair covered in knots, their eyes looking lost. But these horses, they were beautiful. They had shiny coats and walked in a pattern, synchronized steps. Two walked in front of me and four behind, and I was totally enclosed by them and their quietness. I watched, stuck in the most frozen type of stillness and awe, as they walked slowly to the lake. At the same time, they lowered their necks and drank. How could something be so together the way their movements were? These wild beasts, all together. Maybe biology. Or maybe magic.

And when they were full with lake water, they turned one by one. They walked around me, oblivious to my presence and my eyes wide. And what they did next made me laugh right there in my frozen-ness, right there where no one was around to hear or see. They dropped slowly to their knees and laid their backs on the sand. And then, all at the same time, they started rolling around, throwing their legs into the air. It looked like little kids rolling down a hill, or someone scratching their back, or just a picture of pure joy. And one by one, they finished rolling on the warm beach and walked back to the trail. They made a straight line, all in order, and the sound of them vanished. I was left with my stillness. Quiet.

It was a full surprise and gift, that moment.

Today, it strikes me as funny, how you can miss a moment with your body. In the depths of my stomach I feel antsy for it sometimes. It makes me think that I must have turned my back that afternoon. Maybe a horse dove into the water and dissolved into glitter and became the sunlight sparkle on the top of the lake when I wasn't looking. And then, when I was taking a swim after they left me there on the beach, all the little pieces of glitter dissolved right into my pores. And now some work of magic is going on deep in my soul, like in hidden-away places there is a horse running along a beach on an island in Nicaragua, and I will never be able to separate it from myself.

But it's another realization too...

...it's when I reach out of my dreams and stop my alarm. It's when I turn the engine off in my Saab and the radio dies. It's when I close the front door after coming home. The silence - that's the familiar thing that does it. It's the silence that wraps me up inside itself; it's the very thing that makes me feel missing. Where is the next step of your life when you come to the understanding that silence itself is a mirror?

There are times when my heart starts racing as I'm walking in a store or down the narrow streets of my town, and I wonder when someone will see that I'm not who I am. I think about the glitter inside my pores and what it's done to me. People might get wise eventually. "Look, right there!" they'll say and point. "Why, isn't that a horse walking down the sidewalk?"