Make Your Move: The Story Behind a Horse, a Chessboard, and a Life Lesson.

Make Your Move hanging in my family home in Ibiza.

I created this piece in two different moments of my life.

The horse came first.

The message came later.

When I was nineteen, I signed up for a few charcoal drawing classes . For one assignment, my teacher asked me to completely cover a sheet of paper in black charcoal and then create the drawing by erasing.

I was convinced I couldn't do it.

She insisted.

Thankfully, I did it and I was so happy afterwards!

As the horse emerged from the darkness, I had no idea that I was also creating a time capsule.

At the time, someone I loved deeply was struggling with addiction and moving in and out of rehab. I spent many days worried, scared, and wondering where he was and whether he was safe.

Before I finished it, I realized that some of those emotions had found their way into the horse's eyes.

I know because I tried to change them.

I couldn't.

Every attempt brought me back to the same expression.

Eventually, I stopped trying to correct the horse and started listening to what he had to say.

Seven years later, I framed the drawing.

I chose a white frame because the horse stood out more against it, but something still felt unfinished.

The horse reminded me of a chess pawn.

Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it.

So I painted black squares around the frame, turning it into a chessboard.

Then, without altering the original drawing, I added one final layer.

On the glass itself, I painted the words:

MAKE YOUR MOVE.

Not on the paper.

Not on the horse.

On the glass.

A separate voice.

A separate moment.

A conversation between two versions of myself.

Or perhaps several versions.

For years, I believed the message was from my older self to my younger self.

Now I'm not so sure.

The nineteen-year-old who created this horse was afraid, but she kept moving.

The twenty-six-year-old who framed it was still grieving after 6 years and trying to remember how.

Maybe the advice was traveling in the opposite direction all along.

Maybe the horse had already learned the lesson before I did.

Make your move.

Not because life is easy.

Not because loss doesn't hurt.

Not because there are guarantees.

But because life continues to ask us to participate.

My horses have taught me that.

My cats taught me that.

And, in his own way, so did the person whose loss nearly stopped me in my tracks.

"What someone does with their life shouldn't determine what you do with yours" is what that person told me before he left this life.

Years later, I realized that sentence and this horse were saying the same thing.

Keep going.

Make your move.