Building La Cuna: On Anxiety
In my twenties, I spent nearly a decade backpacking, climbing mountains, and living in remote places. Life was often physically demanding and uncomfortable, but I carried very little anxiety. When things felt hard or risky, they usually were—and I knew how to respond. There was a clear relationship between cause and consequence, effort and outcome.
After moving to the city in my early thirties my life became safer, more controlled, and far more comfortable. Somewhere in that shift, anxiety crept in. I found myself spiraling over things that weren’t dangerous at all: traffic delays, missed connections, minor disruptions. My body reacted as if something was wrong, even when nothing truly was. I hadn’t lost the ability to take care of myself—but I had lost the context that helped me tell the difference between inconvenience and threat.
Building La Cuna has been a return to that context. Physical work, heat, uncertainty, and real constraints have brought my sense of proportion back into focus. When discomfort is honest and earned, it doesn’t linger in the same way. You move through it, adjust, and keep going. The feedback is immediate, and the stakes are clear.
Living and working on the land has reminded me how to regulate importance. Water matters. Weather matters. Timing matters. Many of the things that once triggered anxiety no longer carry the same weight. It has also changed how I listen. When people who live and work out here name a concern—about water, land, or change—I pay attention. Those worries are usually rooted in experience, not imagination. The work here isn’t about only toughness—it’s about remembering what is real, and letting the rest fall away.