Between Uncertainty & Surrender: Softness at High Altitudes
What happens when three friends land in Peru with no plans, open hearts, and just enough room for something sacred to unfold...
Incantation in a Cup
Wherever I land, I begin with this quiet spell: a single sip of coffee to mark that I’ve arrived—not just in place, but in spirit.
Warmth touches my lips, and something in me exhales. The unfamiliar softens. The in-between hums. I’m no longer who I was in New York, and not yet who I’ll become here. But in this moment, held between stories I am present. And I am so happy to be here.
The Solitude That Met Ｍe
I arrived in Peru a day before my friends, and I stayed a day longer after they had left. Those bookends of solitude gave me a rhythm I didn’t expect—beginning and ending alone, with the middle wrapped in beautiful intimacy and stirring adventure.
We didn’t have a plan. No packed itinerary, a minimal must-see list—three exquisite humans craving presence and adventure, landing with a willingness to figure it out together.
In another season of life, this might’ve felt aimless. But this time, it felt like permission.
With nothing to chase or prove, we moved through the city slowly—following what felt good, what pulled at our attention, what made us pause. And in that looseness, something unexpected emerged: connections that didn’t require performance. Conversations that weren’t squeezed between schedule blocks. Moments of emotional honesty that would’ve never fit on an agenda.
What I didn’t know then was that this trip wouldn’t be just about the places we visited. It would be about the people we got to be—with each other, and with ourselves—when certainty and structure gave way to presence.
Two Men and the Safety of Being Seen
I came to Cusco with two male friends—both tender, thoughtful, and wildly different from one another. Our days were filled with the usual: markets, laughter, nature, shared meals, and moments of awe. But it was in the in between—the late-night talks, the unguarded check-ins—that something shifted in me.
One night, in a moment I didn’t plan, I found myself naming a vulnerable truth I don’t always share out loud: that I’m afraid of men—not because I am anti-men, but because I’ve been hurt by the way some men move through the world unaware of their power, unchecked in the entitlement patriarchy grants them. It wasn’t easy to say, but it felt necessary given the context of our conversation.
Neither of them batted an eye. They didn’t get defensive. They didn’t try to logic it away. They listened—really listened. One even said, “Thank you for trusting us with this.” And in that moment, I realized how rare it is—for anyone, really—to be met with steady, non-defensive presence when speaking about the harm they’ve experienced.
With one of them, a quiet but layered intimacy unfolded. One evening, he shared something that caught me off guard in its honesty: his discomfort and disappointment with being desired for things he didn’t want to be desired for. As a performer—a singer, artist, someone often in the spotlight—he spoke about how easily people conflate performance with availability, or charisma with consent.
The way his body, his presence, his perceived confidence became a projection screen for other people’s fantasies—leaving little room for the full, complex person behind the stage. He wasn’t asking to be pitied. He was naming something tender and often unspoken: that objectification doesn’t only happen to women, and that desirability, when misaligned with one’s truth and values, can feel like a slow erasure.
There was no bravado in his voice. Just a quiet, human truth.
I remember thinking: We don’t give men enough space to talk about this. And what a privilege it is when they trust us enough to be that unguarded. What an honor it is when we get to hold them in their vulnerability.
Hearing him speak his truth helped me realize how often we overlook the way men, especially those in the public eye, are also subject to projections that flatten their humanity. We talk a lot, rightfully, about how women are objectified. But we rarely make room for how men, too, can feel unseen beneath the expectations they’re “supposed” to fulfill.
In that moment, I saw him not just as my “good-looking friend” or a performer, but as a person reckoning with the tension between visibility and vulnerability. And I felt something soften in me. A reminder that healing across gender lines doesn’t come from calling each other out, but from calling each other in, and witnessing each other in the complexity of what it means to be desired, misunderstood, and still daring to show up anyway.
With the other friend, a more inward tenderness surfaced. One morning, I opened up about something I’ve been processing for nearly a year—how the anniversary of my dog Bella’s passing was approaching, and how guilt still clung to me in timing, about the choices I made, and about the unshakable ache of her absence.
I worried that it would feel silly to bring up. That grief this tender, this unresolvable, would be too much. But he didn’t flinch. He didn’t try to talk me out of it. He stayed with me in that space of complex grief, and reassured me that what I felt was valid.
When I admitted that I often feel like too much and not enough in the same breath, especially in loss—he nodded with the kind of knowing that only comes from having walked with grief, too. His presence didn’t “fix” anything, per se. But it made space—and sometimes, that’s the most healing thing of all.
What both of these friendships offered me—each in their own way—was a container for truth-telling. A space where authentic grief, fear, and tenderness weren’t just permitted, but respected and appreciated. In a world that so often reduces us to roles or reactions, that kind of presence felt like a rare and sacred gift.
After the Spell
The incantation began with coffee. But the magic didn’t end there.
Looking back, it was the lack of structure—not despite it, but because of it—that allowed something special to grow. We weren’t following a map; we were tuning in. To each other. To ourselves. To the kind of rhythm that only emerges when no one is performing.
We “problem-solved” our way through plans, meals, moments of friction, and stretches of stillness and silence. With that, what we were really doing—quietly, steadily—was making space for each others’ humanity. For the kinds of conversations that don’t happen on cue, but arrive when there’s room.
There was one moment I will never forget.
We were standing at Machu Picchu at sunset—just the three of us, wrapped in silence as golden light poured over the ancient stone. Without a word, we put our arms around each other. No pose. No performance. Just simple yet profound presence.
In that stillness, I felt it:
We were held.
By each other. By the sacred land we stood on. By something larger than any of us.
In Cusco, I learned that safety doesn’t have to come from certainty. Sometimes, it’s born in the in-between. In the pauses between plans. In the unspoken trust that says: “You don’t have to know what comes next to be held in this moment.”
I didn’t leave this trip with earth-shattering breakthroughs. I left with something softer: a deeper relationship with my own emotional rhythm. A sense of being able to show up without a script—and still feel met.
I came to Cusco as one version of myself—worn, wondering, yearning, and quietly bracing.
I’m leaving just a little more whole.
Not because everything made sense or went smoothly. But because I allowed myself to be seen, and was met with respect and acceptance instead of punishment and emotional withholding.
And maybe, just maybe, THAT was the most powerful and magical spell of all.