How to bake a layer cake

One step at a time.

“And we go doot.” - Karl Hyde

I woke up this morning, and trimmed my nails, top and bottom.

Last year, I would have high-fived my mother and called it a day. Good job!

That was the rhythm of this recovering addict’s life. Just do one thing a day and write on the mirror with a big blue marker: Three days clean. Then four days… five…

At first, that one daily activity was making my bed. It brought a small, but not insignificant sense of accomplishment. Look at that tightly pressed blanket. Brilliant pillow arrangement!

Six days… seven days…

Then I layered a new activity into my day. Exercise.

40 days…

Then swimming and boxing. Harmonica practice. Talking to the plants. Going back to school.

333 days…

“Imagine if I had told you that you’d be doing all those things,” my mother laughs. “You would have said, ‘I don’t want to do all that shit.’”

She rightly concluded that I would have never given up the pipe.

What a drag, this business of living. And yet, after clipping all those unruly nails this morning, I exercised. Then I went to class for three hours. And read school texts for a couple more. I have an exam this Saturday night; an essay due Monday.

How did I get here again? Oh yeah. Just do one thing a day. Then one other thing. This is what a layered life looks like.

We don’t write numbers on the mirror any more. We don’t count all the tiny rituals that make up each day. All the imagined frictions of waking life fade fast when you’re actually awake for them.

And every breath becomes its own quiet congratulation.