You Never Only Have One Mouse: Rule Number One

 

Bluebottles & Dustbunnies

I learned a rule the hard way, living in an historic house in Franklin called "Sweet Home." And that was, You never have only one mouse.

At first, the appearance of a mouse feels small. Manageable. You see one dart across the floor and think, "Cute. I'll handle it. But the truth is, the moment you see one, you’re already late. That's because the mouse isn’t the problem.

It’s the evidence.

Field mice hunkering down under a house

By the time you see one mouse, there are already paths in the walls, patterns in place, a system quietly operating beneath your awareness. You’re not seeing the beginning—you’re seeing what finally surfaced.

It was that realization that changed how I saw everything.

When my family first brought Wesson into the house, we thought we were solving a problem. Clean, simple, controlled. But what we didn’t understand was that he wasn’t stepping into an empty space. He was stepping into something already established. Something we didn’t fully see.

And that stressed Wesson out. He was only a juvenile in a 3500+ square-foot home that had been around for the better part of 200 years. So, what we thought was one mouse (maybe two or three), we didn't understand was the cumulation of generations of mice (for the better part of 200 years).

"Sweet Home" from the hedges

One afternoon during winter when I was in the music room playing the piano, I kept hearing tiny squeaks. I kept playing. The squeaks persisted. For some reason, I lifted up one of the ivory keys where I was surprised to see a litter of five mice, all curled up on top of each other. Poor things probably had a splitting headache.

In other words, they were everywhere. We just couldn't see them.

And that’s the part that stayed with me, toying with my thoughts. Because it isn’t just about mice. It’s about how life works.

• One argument is rarely just one argument.
• One bad habit is rarely isolated.
• One moment of anxiety is rarely random.

They’re signals.

Trying to figure out the mouse problem...

We tell ourselves, “It’s just one,” because it’s easier. Easier than asking what else is there. Easier than pulling back the surface and realizing something deeper has been there all along.

But once you see it, you can’t unsee it. You start to understand that most of what shapes your life is quiet, patterned, and just out of view.

And that’s the real shift.

• Not reacting to what you see.
• But learning to question what you don’t.

Because you never only have one mouse. That's one of the reasons I wrote Bluebottles & Dustbunnies: to memorialize how ignorance of natural wisdom like "You never only have one house" can cause frustration that spills over into so much of our lives that we find it hard to sleep.

You only ever have your first glimpse of something bigger.

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