It was Clara’s fourth time on the motorcycle. As my husband strapped his North Face backpack to me and grabbed Clara to put her in, I didn’t sense hesitation. But she could’ve felt it. I mean, she did fall off the motorcycle during the ride before. 

The ride was two hours before, when we arrived at our land here in Oaxaca, Mexico. We packed Clara into our backpack then and she was a little too eager to be on the bike. Her last experience with it was positive and it seemed like she was growing in excitement around it—she has started to understand that the backpack and bike whisk her away to far off, new places. This time, she immediately stuck her head and two front legs out of the backpack, and my wild girl didn’t show any fear as we hopped on our lime-pistachio green 250 Italika bike. 

I would’ve preferred she show more fear, but Carlos, my husband, told me to leave her. She pushed herself out of the backpack more and more, presumably to get a better and better view. I admit, on the bumpier parts of the ride I held her by her flea collar, since she ruined her leather Mexican collar a few days ago when she unbridledly ran into the ocean, seeing it for the first time in her life. I love Clara’s wild girl nature, I do. It reminds me of myself. But fear is a useful feeling sometimes. It makes us cautious, and sometimes we need caution.

As we neared our plot of land, she got more and more ecstatic and sought to stand higher and higher in the backpack. I don’t know if she jumped out or fell out, but luckily we had slowed down. Carlos knew this would happen. And felt like it was better she understood the ramifications of her choice rather than us keeping her from it. 

When I was a girl living in Richmond, California, my family’s closest friends were a Fijian family. Zahia and Faeza, sisters, were my two closest friends at the end of elementary school and through middle school, until we moved. The family had a baby around the time we met them, Musa (Arabic for Moses). 

In a story relayed to me by my mom, one day, Musa wanted to touch the stove. I’m not sure if it was the first time trying or what, but his mom, Khala (auntie) Nazira, just let him. She just left him to touch it. That day, Musa learned his lesson, on his own, that the stove was hot, and not to be touched. No one ever had to drag Musa from the stove again. Clara would learn about the dangers and the excitement of the backpack and bike together, wrapped as a lesson in one.

I wasn’t sure how Clara would feel getting back on the motorcycle after her third ride, the ride when she fell out of the motorcycle. But she didn’t have a choice. No one was there to defend her right to her trauma when we came to leave, so we immediately put her back in the backpack and she just had to deal. She had to face her fear, quickly. Deep in the recesses of the backpack, you could make out Clara’s little white face. It was fine. She did not refuse to get in the backpack. A wild girl has to be a brave girl.

Clara has had the full experience of what it is to be a dog. She was a street dog for a while and on the streets of Naucalpan, in the State of Mexico, and she learned to survive. She dislikes traffic and cars, she learned that. This morning, off leash, she dashed into a restaurant and I established where she was based on the cries of excitement and glee from a group of people—Mexicans love dogs in a way that Americans from the United States never will understand. Surely, this is how she survived too. 

Sometimes she probably got fed. Other times she got the boot. Life is a constant balancing act—you learn that when you go out into the real world—and for every time you win, you have to also be okay with losing. You experience loss. You experience hardship. You learn that good and bad exist in duality—together—so both must exist in order for the other to exist. So when life presents itself with a lesson and a cozy backpack with two humans who love you, you know that this is not actual hardship, it’s a chance to learn. That’s another thing about tough things. You don’t choose them. But you can choose what you see as tough and what’s just another experience.

Most of the ride, Clara stayed in the backpack, nearing the opening to breathe but I think also to gather the fresh air of the Oaxacan forest. Maybe 60 percent into the ride though, suddenly, Clara’s head and what I call “doggy arms” came gushing out like a geyser. I was surprised. In just a touch over half way home, Clara conquered her fear. And she wanted to enjoy the ride.

I did hold Clara tightly at times and we’re still learning how to ride as a family. But I tried to let her have this experience, and let her learn again, if need be. This is going to be our life soon, these dirt roads, motorcycles, ATVs, and all the other things that come along with living on a lot of land in the forest of Oaxaca. 

We passed a Mexican family on the road who were walking with their young children and puppies, and as we slowed for them Carlos yelled out “buenas tardes!” The family delighted at the small white dog in the backpack, and our green motorcycle zipped past them into the countryside, surrounded by trees of all types and greens, such that the bike almost looks natural in this habitat. Clara, meanwhile, was just enjoying the view. Who could tell her that she shouldn’t? I’m constantly amazed by how brave she is.  

Clara will have more rides and more learnings, and maybe we need a dog harness for our bike, but as she sat in front of me, cautiously in the backpack, yet still leaning her head and paw onto Carlos’ shoulder to better see, Carlos laughing at this, and me smiling my sunscreen-less, crows-feet-clad face into the sun, I did have this feeling of the faith. One must have faith to be brave. What if our faith really could be bigger than our fear?

What could be possible if we face situations with bravery, the kind of bravery you find in faith, instead of succumbing to our fear?

We’re setting the intention to move to this town this year. We are not sure how or when, but that is the plan—or rather, the intention. Plans are different than intentions. Right now we have no plans. We would like to build our home on our land, using a bottom-up mentality as opposed to the more American, top-down mentality. We’re going to see what happens. Perhaps we will make mistakes. Perhaps we will fall. Perhaps we will fail.

“El que no cae no sube. It means, ‘the one who didn’t fall, didn’t get on,’” Marina, a Mexican-American friend once told me while I was hanging out at the reception of a previous job. I was in the very beginning of my career. She was our receptionist, and over the counter, she pointed out—and I liked this a lot—that unlike English sayings, like “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” instead of telling you to try again, this saying in Spanish just acknowledges that falling is an integral part of doing anything. The only way to not fall, is to not get on. You will fall if you get on, it’s a guarantee. Clara taught me that. 

I don’t know how this move is going to transpire or when. Carlos, my husband, and I, are both really excited about it, but neither of us have ever been the kind of people who planned a great deal before moving. For both of us, our moves in our lives have come sporadically and without a lot of planning. Both of us have accidentally lived places for three years just because we decided to visit. This wanting to move to a small beach town and trying to figure out how, is new for us.

Most likely, it won’t be easy and we will fall on the way, though for now I don’t know how. I like the idea of knowing that that will have to be part of the process, no matter what, and that I can also always just get back on—I can always be brave and have faith, again, and again, no matter how many times I fall. That means an infinite amount of chances, doesn’t it? I like the sound of that. It’s something I have never really considered.

What could happen if we faced life with brave faith instead of succumbing to fear? I am guessing a life beyond my wildest dreams. Beyond the most wild dreams I have had is already where I am living—I never expected a life like this, here in Mexico, with Carlos, Clara, the green motorcycle, and the land. But here I am. 

What lies further beyond this brave, perhaps blind, faith? I am not sure. But I am sure I am going to find out. And I’ll tell you all about it, as I discover it.