Squirrels, Patterns and the Anti Fridge Cigarette

What I'm wondering about wine and human (also sciuridae) behavior.

There were two squirrels. I named them Grey and Waggles. Grey was… grey… he was bigger, less twitchy, wiser it seemed. When Grey went up the redwood, Waggles came down. She swooshed her tail around constantly, and every movement she made appeared as if she was suddenly hearing a loud crashing sound — jittery, even for a squirrel. The urgency with which she buried that nut (But was it a nut? Where would they find nuts in my backyard? It must have been a seed, or a dried bean retrieved from the garden? What else do squirrels even eat?!) with her tiny frantic paws was remarkable. Soon, as if Grey were calling from above (even though I heard nothing), Waggles’ would stand up on her hind legs, cock her head a notch, and scamper back up the redwood. Down comes Grey. Grey scopes the scene, takes a brief tour of the yard, and goes back up. Waggles comes down! And so on.

I must have watched the squirrels for half an hour, so enraptured I was by their mundane trading-places performance. What on Earth was captivating me as if I’d micro-dosed? I kept watching, contemplating. There was an almost perfect pattern of routine behavior, but dimpled just so with surprise: On this turn, Grey confronts a blue jay. Who will concede?! On that one, Waggles does what appear to be tiny push-ups on a wide, low-lying agave leaf. She loses her balance and jerks her head around to check if anyone might have seen. I laugh out loud.

It lit up a part of my brain I didn’t know craved such stimulation.

Pretty sure there’s no psilocybin present in my system, I think about patterns. Up goes Grey; down comes Waggles. And vice versa. Again. Again! I enjoy watching. I am struck by the way our brains look for patterns everywhere, feel strangely soothed when we recognize them, when we register familiarity. Patterns make us feel seen; they make us feel safe.

And yet… we also need just the right amount of surprise and unpredictability to feel excited and alive, to keep us watching and engaged. Getting stuck in old patterns is a recipe for boredom, languishing, inevitable destruction (just look at that marriage over there). We need Waggles to slip off the maguey to keep us interested in her show.

Resilience
noun

1. the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

   “the remarkable resilience of so many institutions”

2. the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.

   “nylon is excellent in wearability and resilience” (nb Is it windbreaker tracksuits’ time to shine again, yet? Asking for a friend.)

3. the ability to be happy, successful, etc. again after something difficult or bad has happened.
   “trauma researchers emphasize the resilience of the human psyche”

I wondered as I watched those squirrels and hoped very much that Grey came down again: What is “something difficult or bad” other than shit that doesn’t follow an expected pattern like we want it to?

Could resiliency, then, be defined also as “our ability to re-engage after a pattern is broken”? Or, better yet: “One’s ability to zoom out and hone in on broader patterns even when the smaller ones seem to have been broken.”

I know you’re really wondering if I didn’t drink the wrong tea this morning and why you’ve already wasted four minutes reading this story about squirrels and patterns in a Substack purportedly dedicated to wine. This wine writer sucks.

Here’s the thing: I think almost nonstop about the resiliency of the wine industry and this beverage I love so very dearly. I think about why I love it and about why others “don’t” (goddamn New Puritanical Virtue-to-Overcome-Our-Fear-Over-the-Annhilation-of-Everything-Else Culture!). There’s so much wrapped up in there, but at the end of the day, I am wondering if there’s something to do with patterns. A lesson wine lovers can learn from Grey and Waggles.

When our world is so very seemingly chaotic, when so many of our established patterns have been tossed into a dumpster fire (cough, democracy), we double down on two things: 1) control of anything we can control to establish routine for our pattern-craving brains, and 2) familiarity and old, well-worn comfy-cozy patterns. Today, we gravitate to self-optimization and to consistency and reliability in our attempt to be resilient.

I wonder if this is a flawed approach. I am fascinated by: Diet Coke as Fridge Cigarette. It tells me that we want a “treat” and a “break” but we feel the need to keep those indulgences in check so we can finish our work and make it to our workout, controlling our bodies in a desperate stab at controlling the chaos of the world. It tells me that we want comfort and familiarity and routine within that indulgence — the mass-manufactured sameness of that identical pop, fizz and sweetness every time in a tidy individual serving that doesn’t risk the intrusion of anyone else’s feelings or desires.

Wine does all the opposite. It is an indulgence that is imperfect and inefficient and can coax those same qualities out of us. Yikes! And it is never the same beverage time in and time out. It’s ephemeral and ever-evolving — like us and all our institutions, even when we don’t want to believe it. Maybe this is why wine is… not having a moment.

But, I ask you this: What if wine is the antidote???? What if wine is the solution to resiliency, the perfect pattern as salve for all our out-of-control human lives? (You’re right; this tea must have mushrooms in it.)

Eventually, those patterns of our human behavior (control and reliability) breed burnout, not to mention boredom, and without reinvigoration or a new element of surprise, they’ll lead to our inevitable demise. (I mean, call me crazy, but to me nothing signals looming burnout and impending collapse like a whole generation sipping aspartame solo at their desks. Woof.)

Maybe this is why I drink wine every night. I never know exactly what I’m going to get from this particular bottle — which is a perfectly manageable (for me) element of delightful surprise that always awaits — but I know that I do have at least a routine that’s familiar: I’m going to pour, swirl, sniff, savor. For at least a moment, I’m going to be present. Contemplating these new sensations and my very human sensuality. Often in community. Always giving thanks.

Instead of a Fridge Cigarette, here’s a WILD IDEA for the kids: How about a Chardonnay Lunch? I am borderline convinced this might be healthier literally for your physical body (Alcohol v. Aspartame, coming next in the World Health Organization Cage Fight) and — maybe more importantly — unless you’re struggling with addiction, your mental health and your spiritual soul.

Maybe that’s what I’ll write about next: Recipe for a Chardonnay Lunch. Let me know what you think. For now, I’ve wasted enough of your time talking squirrels and human behavior. I have to go see what Waggles is up to. And pour myself another cup of this weirdly delicious tea.