Our Daily Breather is a series where we ask writers and artists to recommend one thing that's helping them get through the days of isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.
Who: Ashley McBryde
Where: Nashville, Tenn.
Recommendation: Finding comfort in the love of your pet
His name is Optimus Prime. But it's just Opie for short. Eighty pounds of pure joy. He's a handsome, 1 1/2-year-old old Goldie and he's been my rock since all this started. When I'm playing guitar on the couch, he's lying next to me. When I'm cooking he's adorably in the way in the kitchen.
When I first self-isolated, I had a tendency to just want to lay on the couch all day. Opie would bring me toys and ask to go outside for walks, which has kept me moving and inevitably kept my spirits high. He's also a comedian. Still in his awkward stage, he trips over stuff a lot, and like a slap-stick professional, he recovers and waits for the laughter to erupt. We've had the opportunity to really work on "wait" and "stay" along with his other tricks that needed to be refreshed.
As hard as it is being home when you're used to being gone 80 percent of the time, I'm so thankful to have this quality time with him. And in such uncertain times, he is something I can count on. The sun is going to come up each day and around 7:20 a.m. a big cold nose is going to find my face and wait patiently for me to rise and start our "new normal" routine.
Ashley McBryde's new album, Never Will, is out now.
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