When I pet down the back and the head and the legs of my old-dog, she lets her hairs go. Just lets them go like petals in the wind. Are dog hairs all held in the body by tiny little locks and when we pet them, the tiny little keys release the hairs from their little hair enclosures?
As I pet down her black and white cow fur nuzzling my nose into the soft spot next to her spine that always smells a little bit like a dog in the summer drying off from the hose water in the sun, equal amounts of black hairs and white hairs release and I use the red tips of my little fingers to collect them into a small pile. The pile blends into grey, especially if you squint your eyes.
On tables, on rugs, on the arm rests of the sofa, I collect little piles of fur. Little memorials to the bits that were once on her, once a part of her, and now are not.
Before I take them to the trash can, I hold them in my hand for a while, these hair piles, and feel what it’s like to hold a bit of what was in a bit of the now.
The bits of what were are always a tid tad freaky. Like all those facts about how many times our skin turns over, old skin cells dying, sloughing off, showing off the regenerated new ones. There are parts of us that will never be the same again, always changing, like skin cells. And then there are other parts of us that stay the same. How do we know what parts will change and what parts will remain steady?
Things are always changing. When I was little I couldn’t stand pickles, olives, anything overly briny, salty, or vinegary. I’d leave my sandwich pickle untouched, intentionally moved to the far side of the plate of the cheeseburger I hounded.
Then I changed.
I couldn’t get enough of anything that felt like eating the sea. Capers. Blue cheese olives. Olive brine. Anchovies. Old pickles. New pickles. Beet pickles. This weekend I went to a pickling class and happily sipped on different vinegars to decide what I’d soak my onion slices in (shout out to ume plum vinegar).
And then, some things are always staying the same. I’ve always had a little weird fixation with numbers. When I was little, I’d need to find a way to make all numbers even in my head. Our house address growing up was 5023. That was easy. Five plus two plus three is ten. Even. All set. I’d find myself doing quick mental math about people’s phone numbers, the total price at the gas pump, working my brain in small puzzles to find ease in digits.
Then I stayed the same.
Recently I’ve become fixated with the number 69. It’s a number that makes people laugh and feel joy, it’s visually satisfying with the six and the nine nestling into each other all sweet-like, it sounds nice to say in a loud and extended Borat-esque voice. Seeeeeeeeeeexxttyyyyy niiiiiiiiiine.
Anyways, I find myself discovering 69 everywhere. On the nightly rate of the American Inn blinking in digital alarm-clock still integers above I-29. On the flippable baseball score card in the front yard of the house on our dog walk. On the “how many water bottles you’ve saved” counter at the water filling station at the airport. When I get dealt a 6 and a 9 of any suit when I pretend to know what I’m doing when playing poker.
And this week I was overjoyed to find it on my sobriety tracker app. 669 days of figuring out how to be an awkward little guy moving through the world without the mask of getting too drunk and sleepy.
Not drinking is still serving me as I do this one act on Earth. Will this change or will this stay the same? I sit around wondering if one day I’ll find a way to have a “healthy” relationship with alcohol and if my sobriety counter app will get turned off. It makes me wonder about my goals. Will my goals of maintaining healthy relationships with myself and the people I love continue to only be achievable without alcohol? Will my sobriety continue to be a strange invisible thread between me and all the people who made me, their own relationships with alcohol informing and responding to and building community with mine?
Who is to say? I am to say. Every day I wake up and get through another weird day on this weird planet without using the flammable nature of alcohol on my squiggly soul, and those days work. They wrap up with a little sleepy bow, soft and sweet. Do I still do things I regret? Sure. But way less frequently.
Time will only tell whether sobriety will fall under the category of things that change or things that stay the same. In the meantime, I’ll keep making small piles of hairs. Threadlike reminders stacked into firewood ready to be lit of all the pieces we leave behind. On tables. On rugs. On the arm rests of sofas.
Happy Friday fam. My sister is visiting this weekend which is the sweetest gift to just coexist with someone who really gets it (it being all the ways we are the way we are, the uniquely us parts).
Iman and I are embarking on making lacto-fermented hot sauce after eating some of the best hot sauce of our life at Nixta in Austin. There’s a lot of ingredient collection and patience involved with letting things age and bubble and get rotten in a good way.
We’re in the quiet before the spring/summer storm of travel and I’m doing some nesting while I can. I have a new desk set up that I actually enjoy sitting at. I’m organizing small nooks and crannies of the house.
How is your April treating you? What is bringing you a sense of solidness that reminds you that your feet are on the earth?