You can’t tell from the photograph above (or below). It was taken on a melancholic, overcast spring day. This caused the picture to blur. The picture is of my empty kombucha bottle before its burial. It was a very sad moment in time. It makes me sad to even write about this here. Maybe I should just let it rest. Maybe this would be better for everyone. But I am writer and this is what writers do. We write about the things that everyone else would much rather ignore.
This is the fourth empty kombucha bottle that I have buried in two days. I guess that I have been drinking a lot of kombucha the past few days. Whatever the case, it is still just as sad every time I bury an empty kombucha bottle. I really do love kombucha so much. I first discovered kombucha almost ten years ago when a local health food store that I went to starting carrying it in their cold drinks section. From the moment I took my first sip of kombucha I was in love. I felt my upset stomach begin to settle (I did not realize then how many gut health promoting enzymes and Lactobacillus a bottle of kombucha contains), my mind begin to lift (because of all the b-vitamins and amino acids) and I felt a slight buzz by the time I finished the bottle (because of the low levels of alcohol that the fermentation process creates).
The moment I finished my first bottle I want more. Over the course of the next year or two I was with kombucha every day. I had a kombucha with me wherever I went and drank two to three bottles a day. I loved the way the stuff made me feel. It was the health elixir I had been waiting for. Not only did it make me feel better but it was eradicating long term health issues.
Like most love affairs, the intensity of my kombucha consumption mellowed out over time. Because of the cost and the lengths that I would have to go to to get kombucha (especially once it was taken off the market because of the trace amounts of alcohol in it)- my desire towards it decreased.
Our relationship endured. Now because I can find kombucha wherever, I am back to drinking it each day. My relationship with kombucha is better than before. There are now a variety of kombucha brands that I can chose from. Kombucha has become so popular that I am able to try different brands. No longer do I have to stick with just one brand. And it is all ok.
Yet every time I finish a bottle of kombucha, I get sad. It is the ending of something that was once so good. Because of what kombucha does for me (its plethora of b vitamins, amino acids, high amount of lactobacillus bacterium: 1 billion organisms, S. Boulardii: 1 billion organisms and the nice relaxing buzz that I get from the fermentation), I want to do for it. What I do is provide the empty bottle with a proper burial.
Even though my wife is getting upset by all the digging in the backyard, I know that deep down she understands that this is a very small price to pay for everything that kombucha gives to her husband. She would rather me be planting various vegetable plants that we could turn into food- rather than empty glass bottles which turn into nothing.
I don’t think it is nothing though. I know that kombucha is not in the glass bottle anymore. But the bottle carried the kombucha for so long. By respecting the bottle, I am showing my respect for the essence of what was once inside.
ABSURdISTRY. 