Tonight I’m afraid to write. I can’t say why. I’ve been sitting here for forty-five minutes browsing the internet, the whole time thinking, I have nothing to say. I didn’t do shit this afternoon. I read a book and drank a cup of coffee. How am I supposed to blog about that? This isn’t the first time I’ve thought something like this. Tonight’s blog is #415 (in a row), and I honestly have no idea how I’ve managed to “fill the page” time and time again, since the details of my day-to-day life aren’t that exciting. Like I said, today I read a book and drank a cup of coffee.

Woo-who.

The book I’m currently reading is called I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong and is about all the Little Critters that live on, in, and around us. I’m a hundred pages into the book and am riveted. According to the author, there are more germs living in and on one human body than there are stars in the galaxy, although “germs” is apparently not the best term to use, since it implies bad and nasty. As it turns out, the vast majority of bacteria in the world are either harmless or beneficial. Many help break down our foods and fight off disease. Quite literally forming communities in our mouths, guts, and private areas, these bacteria can influence our moods, weight, and even our personalities. (There’s a bacteria that, in order to survive, turns some insects into lesbians! Well, at least it allows female wasps to clone themselves and therefore have no need for males, which is sort of like being a lesbian.)

Since each of us is home to so many different species of microbes, Yong contends that any one of us, rather than being “an I,” is really “a we.” Here’s how he says it: “When we eat, so do they. When we travel, they come along. When we die, they consume us. Every one of us is a zoo in our own right–a colony enclosed in a single body. A multi-species collective. An entire world.”

Isn’t that beautiful?

Since being introduced to this book recently (it was a gift), I’ve started thinking of myself as a collective, an ecosystem, a rainforest, if you will. Granted, I’ve never been to a rainforest (other than Rainforest Cafe), but I can imagine–tigers feed off their prey just as lush trees feed off decaying plants, all in a complex system of give and take, life and death. Likewise, I’m teeming with a whole universe of lifeforms, and together we’re engaged in a great balancing act. For years I’ve struggled with sinus infections but have recently seen improvements by introducing a single strand of bacteria (l. sakei) into my nostrils. (This apparently works because l. sakei keeps other bacteria “in check.”) It sounds weird, I know, but now it makes more sense than ever. It’s like the scales were tipped in the wrong direction “up there,” and I just needed one heavy hitter to help even things out.

Way to go, fellas.

What’s amazing to me is that one little bacteria (the one that started the infections) has been able to cause me so much misery and that one little bacteria (the one that ended the infections) has been able to cause me so much joy. L. sakei isn’t a panacea for all my health problems, but it truly has changed the landscape of this rainforest. So often we think of ourselves as powerless or without influence, but my God, if one little bacteria can do that–wreak havoc or bring joy–how much more can I do? How much more can you do? I think about my therapist, how knowing her has completely transformed me for the better. Four years into our work together, there’s not a relationship in my life that hasn’t improved because of her, even the relationship I have with myself (and all my microbes). It’s funny, right? I had no idea the day I met her just how much my world would change.

Earlier I said, “Nothing happened today. I read a book and drank a cup of coffee.” What I meant to say was, “Everything happened today. This morning my entire rainforest came to life, and this afternoon we drank a cup of coffee, and a million microbial and chemical reactions made it possible. At the same time we read a book and may never see ourselves the same again because of it. Now our world is more magical, a mysterious place where everything somehow works together, where nothing and no one is without influence, where all things great and small can make a difference.”