Nudges from Nature

A friend of mine is superhuman. He's up every day at God knows what time. But whatever time that is, he is able to run through his morning routine of meditating, reading, and writing before driving to the next town over to run a fitness class. Not just a fitness class, but a high-intensity workout class. The kind that leaves you feeling like you've got nothing left in the tank. So, he's depleted his body of all of its available glycogen and carbohydrates before the sun has come up. Then, he goes to his job (I believe he teleports) teaching things like grammar and math and history to middle schoolers. He doesn't just teach them about equations, verbs, and the Ottoman Empire -- he teaches them life skills and how to show up in the world. This is not a teacher that phones it in. He's into it.  He's athletic director of the sports program and oversees every single sport the school has to offer. Boys and girls, on-field and on-court, on campus and off. He coaches his

Well, it finally happened and with all the confidence in the world, I casually walked into the local brewery and ordered a beer. It was non-consequential. I had a pilsner and enjoyed it.  In fact, over the past couple months, I've had several beer days. Not a lot. Maybe seven beer days out of the past sixty-five.   I can't say I'm necessary glad that I did, but I do think in the larger scheme of things, they were helpful. It's broken logic to say that because of them, I think I'll drink less. But, somehow it seems like accurate and truthful. Here's what I learned: I don't like drinking as much as I used to. A preference for non-alcoholic beer can develop quickly. Hangovers are coy and have retractable claws. First beer day, no hangover. Seventh beer day...just enough to feel the hankering for a "hair of the dog." The temptation was strong to turn one beer day into two. Alcohol is seductive, at least for me. I didn't immediately fall into a mont

I'm 73 days sober when.... I sit at a table with powerful people. It is a privilege to be here and will undoubtedly be good for my business. We are celebrating. Bottles of wine are being opened. A *really* nice bottle is opened first. I don't know how much it costs, but somewhere above the buzz of vibrant conversation, the phrase "a thousand dollars" stands out. Glasses are poured, celebratory cheers offered all around. Before I know it, a glass is in my hand. My sister throws me a surprise party. Friends are there that I haven't seen in a long time. Colleagues I worked with years ago are here. Friendly, familiar faces of the long past. I don't know how my sister even knew to invite them. I'm guided to my seat at the table. An ice cold beer in a tall glass is poured for me. Everyone makes eye contact and smiles at me. I'm known for my love of beer.  A good family friend has just passed. I attend her wake. It is all a fog. I hate funerals. I don't w

I nearly started drinking again this past weekend. It was almost by chance, and showed me how much socializing is tied to alcohol.  Or rather, how it doesn't have to be. I'm two months into an  experiment with sobriety . I'm quite lax about the whole thing. I'm not so much quitting alcohol as following my curiosity to know what a year without alcohol would be like. But I realized this past weekend, it's actually becoming quite important to me.  Saturday was an absolute gorgeous coastal California day.  Clear blue skies. 70 degrees. A respite from the generally cloudy and rainy winter season we've been having. It was the perfect day to get out. Take the kid to baseball practice. And...maybe...hang out with my wife and chance running into some other parents at the brewery nearby. My dilemma is this: I don't want to confine myself to the house and drop my social life because I'm not drinking. My social life is light as it is. Without alcohol, it's been

Somewhere toward the end of the 1980s and on the heels of a surprise rise up the Billboard charts, a hippie band from the '60s was finding a new generation of fans. I attended my first concert of theirs at an open air ampitheatre apparently designed just for them -- a time capsule back to the days of peace, love, and rock and roll. Intermingled with the requisite psychedelic-inspired tie-dyes and flower-power daisies was pervasive and instantly recognizable skull-and-roses symbolism that had become synonymous with the band. As a recently former English major, I had brushed upon the intertwined symbols before, but never in such concentrated numbers on blatant display.  The band held quite a bit of mystique for me that resulted in an expectation for a certain level of complexity in unraveling and interpreting the ever-present contradiction between the skulls and bones, roses and ribbons. There was none.  It was all right there on the surface. Skulls and roses. Death and mortality. Be

I managed the first temptation to abandon my experiment with sobriety by opting out of the situation all together. I was invited to a live concert at a favorite nearby music venue, and though the draw was considerable, I simply chose not to go and instead spend a quiet night at home. The second temptation afforded me no such option. The 49ers were facing the Chiefs in the Super Bowl and we had a small family gathering planned. Opportunities to get together with my mom and my sister, brother-in-law, and nieces are harder and harder to come by, and the passings of my dad and older sister in the past few years bring an increased appreciation and humility for their genuine rarity. I was committed to going. I was looking forward to it.  However, beer and football tend to go hand-in-hand, of course, and that wasn't lost on me.  But, I was surprisingly unencumbered by the thought of it. The absence of even the mildest of after-effects from alcohol have been overwhelmingly relieving and i