Burrowing

going against our nature (+ dog pictures)

At just about 2 AM every morning, Delilah jumps into bed with me. She creeps up my right side to where the covers are pulled back and my head is slightly peaking out. That’s when she takes her paw and begins slapping everything within her reach. That’s my cue: she needs to burrow. In a haze, I reach out and lift the covers. She disappears under the white cotton and I feel her curl herself into a tight ball like a snake. (Yes, I let her in bed with me - no regrets. I obsessively wash my sheets.)

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I paid a $100 “donation” for Delilah. A local shelter set up an adoption event right outside Trader Joe’s and I fell victim. I saw her weird little nub and pleading puppy eyes and couldn’t say no. That was over seven years ago - a lifetime.

Delilah spent her formative years (before I dragged her to the East Coast) alongside our family dogs: chocolate, mini dachshunds - Penny and Tallulah (Bankhead).

Dachshunds have two skills: hunting and burrowing. They were first bred in Germany to hunt badgers. And if you’re going to follow a badger down a hole and come out the winner, you need confidence and a biting personality. Dachshunds think they are lions and I envy them.

These stumpy creatures had quite an impact on Delilah and her sense of self. Firstly, she thinks she is a dachshund - a petite baby who can squeeze through any opening - but this leaves her feeling defeated and embarrassed. Secondly, she knows that burrowing is essential. Penny and Tallulah never just got into bed. No, she watched them take their noses, lift up the blankets, and wiggle their bodies under. Sounds easy enough. But not for Delilah. She doesn't have that long slender nose and compact body. Her head is big, her nose short, and her legs too long and lanky which keeps her movements far from graceful. She’s never able to cover herself. The activity that comes naturally to her dearest companions is frustrating for her. Yet, burrow she must. So, with the help of me, she enjoys something that goes against her nature, something that she will always need help with.

I read often about how we force ourselves into places and situations that go against our grain and that this is a bad thing. And I tend to agree. I’ve spent far too many years folding and molding myself to fit in spaces that never felt safe, never felt like home. And I’ve paid a steep price for this behavior.

But the other morning, as I lifted the comforter for Delilah, I started to think about the possibility of doing “unnatural” things and them having a positive impact. Burrowing is unnatural to her but she keeps doing it because it’s safe and warm and cozy - it feels fucking good!

In turn, I believe that everyone has an artist inside them, but I struggle to believe that about myself. I guess I’ve let the critics live far too long in my head (they are currently being evicted). Writing and being here feels foreign and deeply scary. But like that burrow, it also feels safe and warm and cozy and really fucking good. And despite my “nature” saying “stop, you don’t have what it takes” or “who even cares,” I keep coming back. And I’ve started asking myself what if nothing really feels all the way right in the beginning, only because nothing is completely familiar in the beginning? What if I’ve been turning myself off to things because they felt unnatural when they were simply unfamiliar? What if I haven’t been taking into account that my need for comfort and correctness is rooted in familiarity and not protection? What if the question is not whether something makes me feel immediately as though I was fated for it, but whether or not it grows with me? Does it give me the opportunity to unbend, to change, to release, to become better?

Maybe that’s the true test of what is “right” - not what uniformly falls into place, but what entwines its roots with mine. Not what is instant, but what stays and remains, much like Delilah’s persistent need to burrow.

And if that’s the case, then maybe burrowing has become natural to Delilah, and writing can become natural to me. It’s just that “natural” isn’t exactly how I imagined it would look and I’m having to adjust my perspective.

And maybe one day it will be the writing and not just this community that makes me feel as comfortable as Delilah does when she forces her body into a too-small bed.