Get Another Day ...

Spirit Warrior
Originally uploaded by ༺lifemage༻
Many wise folks in the rooms of recovery tout that "Time means shit."
The only thing that we have to be concerned about is that we "get another day". This is what the guys in my Tuesday night meeting often shout across the room after someone announces their anniversary.

I received news in a Big Book meeting last night about a member of our AA community who will not get another day. He had 17 years up until Sunday. He then decided to take his own life by putting a bullet through his head. Just 2 months ago, this very man shared in a Saturday morning meeting that he needed to tell the room that he was so angry and frustrated on his job that he bought a gun and that he didn't want to hurt anyone. As I shared this with a beloved person and fellow traveler of the rooms last evening, she validated how I and the rest of the meeting members that day had our first exposure to the violence that he would eventually turn on himself. It was startling for me and it reminded me about all of the time I was accumulating not drinking yet not going to meetings and wondering what I would have been capable of. All it takes is the flip of a switch in one's mind.

Each day is different than the one before or the one to follow. It is a reminder about truly living moment to moment, with an intention to be physically, mentally, and spiritually sober.

Yesterday, I had deeply connected conversations with several people in my life. I was moved by the meeting I attended. Today began completely differently. After a fitful, restless sleep, I was awokened by noisy machinery in the basement underneath me -- men beginning some kind of work at 7am. I was completely irritated. I decided to just "go with it" and get up to start my day. I forgot to pray or read my daily reflection and went straight into the shower. I got online to see my paystub from teaching the summer course I just finished and the difference between my gross and net pay is a thousand-fuckin dollars ! More irritation escalating to agitation. I paused. I stopped to have a chat with God while sitting on the toilet stewing. I felt better afterwards and it brought me into a place of gratitude and acceptance about "what is". Taxes are a necessary evil that, in this case, I cannot take my will back and try to maneuver or manipulate.

My mission going forward into the rest of this balmy Tuesday is to simply get another day ...

Certain about Uncertainty

The Eiffel Tower
Originally uploaded by Ben Heine

It is an unfamiliar and strangely calm feeling that I have had all week. Like having a lower half made of the most sturdy material and feeling the imprint of my soles with each step I take.

It involves being quite certain about uncertainty. An absolute solid centeredness in the middle of the absolute unknown. The gravitational pull downward and inward in the vortex of life swirling all around me.

I have asked myself several times: "Are you making this up and just trying not to shatter?" to which I reply very assuredly: "Nope. This is what it feels like to be in life in a real, honest, way."

My head is not filled with things like making plans or worry or wondering about what the future holds. I can feel the denseness of my inside, like a wood pole through my core. I am not shaky or trembly or otherwise unsteady.

My God-voice is whispering: "You are ok no matter what."

I trust this. I believe what my interior is telling me. It's very fucking cool.

What I know for sure is this: I do not know anything past this moment. I have never lived here in this way. It's very free-ing to not be concerned about anything beyond what is right here in front of me.

This is what it feels like to be certain about uncertainty. I can, without a shadow of a doubt, not tell you about what will be here for me this evening. Or tomorrow morning. Or 2 weeks from now. Or a month. It is a deep deep trust and surrender to the unfolding of my life aligned with God's plan.

I want to meet each moment of it ... I don't want to miss a thing !

Sunlit Roads Woven within the Dark Places ...

We Are Blind, the Sky Is Not
Originally uploaded by Ben Heine

One of the lines in a problem-solving practice developed by our teacher Jason is this: "There are sunlit roads woven within the dark places." Followed by: "Both are needed."

The sharing of 2 people in my AA women's meeting tonight illuminated these statements.

One woman had left the rooms for a year. She picked up after being laid off. A DUI followed by an overdose attempt and a subsequent psychiatric hospitalization brought her to a place of calm and peace for a week now that she had not known before.

Another woman just found out that a family friend died of alcoholic-related complications. The friend's passing brought her into connection with the father and a sister with whom she had lost contact. The news brought her into a deep realization of how lucky she is to be alive, to not have been the one taken by the bottle.

The path of self destruction is dimly lit, sometimes pitch black. Some people, like the first woman who shared, are able to get "plugged in" and the bulb shines brighter. Others, like the 2nd woman's friend, will see a different kind of light on another plane, perhaps getting the opportunity to see the "life in review" slideshow and take notes for the next trip back to earth.

I, for one, am glad to have found the light switch in my darkest hours. Not once, not twice, but at least 3 times. Dropped the bottle. Then the girl. Then my pride.

I would not have been able to see the light that was present in the distance without the contrast of the black all around me. I really get this today. I also understand that when the view is barely visible, it has to do with my forgetting that God is right here with me. Every time I have lost my way and believed that God is "out there" and I'm "way over here", that there are miles of separation between us, I have God in my blindspot. Sometimes God is totally out of the picture.

To me, God's presence is each sunlit road that Jason speaks of. It is God's beacon of luminescence, like that on a lighthouse, that calls to us when we forget, when we believe we're alone and small and separate. Some of us, sometimes, can only take in the beckoning of God's light when we're cowered in our own murky shadows.

The room that holds our secrets ...

circle of friends
Originally uploaded by Jenser (Clasix-Design)

I was inspired in the telling of my story at an AA meeting tonight by a friend who spoke for me at a meeting last night. She shared, free of shame, the dangerous places that alcohol took her to. As we spoke afterwards, I was aware of how I have cut out the "ugly parts" of my story when I am asked to share and how critical it is for me to remember the unsafe, high-risk, near-death experiences that alcohol found me in, because these are the very memories that will keep me sober.

In my sharing tonight, I spoke about the fact that when I was 21 years old, a senior in college, I was raped. I was very very drunk. The part that I played in this was that I put myself directly in a situation in which I could not discern right from wrong, good from bad, safe from unsafe. When I wanted "out" of the scenario, it was too late; it had already gone beyond the point that I could be respected or taken seriously. Here's the kicker: I got pregnant. Having an abortion at that time was a no-brainer. Ain't no way I was gonna be a momma -- I had too much partying to do. Walking through the picket lines of pro-lifers who were telling me what a sinner I was did not have one iota of influence on my behavior or my drinking. I would down a bottle of Jack Daniels that day just to make the point.

I had scrapes with the law. I put countless strangers in danger each time that I got behind the wheel while bombed out of my gourd. I peed on myself more times than I'd care to count. I arrived as the maid of honor of my best friend's wedding drunk, having fallen on my face into a concrete floor just 5 days before and made a feeble attempt to camoflauge the stitches and busted lip with a cover-up product. Alcohol made me forget I had any sense of dignity or regard for others. This is the selfishness that is plastered all over the passages of the Big Book.

A key piece of my story that is most important for me to share is my self-hatred and internalized homophobia regarding the awareness of my sexual orientation and how I drank in an attempt to wipe it out of my memory banks and my being. I could not bear to live the truth of who I was because of what others thought, what society thought.
My coming out was a very pivotal action directly associated with putting down the bottle; they happened within 1 month of each other.

This particular telling of my drunk tale was on the heels of a profound healing weekend, centered around being in reality, in truth, in life fully and completely as it is. The way in which I was seated to share at the meeting tonight, I understood and felt the importance of speaking my truth, without care or concern for what anyone thought of me. This is such a contrast to the 4-plus decades of saying only what would be pleasing to others, that would put me in a favorable light, that was only a smidge of truth and sometimes just an outright lie. It is liberating and such a relief when you know it's "just the truth" -- there is no more to explain, to qualify, to defend.

The greatest gift from tonight was that several others were able to attain that same freedom as they too had similar experiences as mine to acknowledge and share. This is what bonds us to one another, even if nothing about us outside of our alcoholism does.
And we never have to fear being judged or condemned or shamed.
The fellowship of AA is the room that holds our secrets.

No Choice But to Love ...

Have a little faith in me
Originally uploaded by Igor Alecsander

I posed a question yesterday in my non-dual healing school to our teacher Jason, who spent the afternoon with all of us as our 4th year class came to a close. The question was about the relationship to being in Malchut -- being in the place of meeting life as it is -- AND our kavanah -- the trustworthy intention to be in integrity in our actions and interactions with the world. The bottom line of his exploration aloud with us boiled down to this profound statement:
"I have no choice but to love".

My sponsor in AA often shares that her primary reason to not pick up a drink and stay sober, even after the love of her life died nearly 2 years ago, is because she has no choice but to be here and to love what is here -- be it an alcoholic who is struggling, her sponsees, or the stray cats who find their way to her home. This is what gets her out of bed each morning, amid the bouts of unbearable missing and longing for her husband to re-appear and to hold her hand once more.

"I have no choice but to love" is a mantra that I shall adopt as I meet each moment, each day in the unknowns of my life, such as my significant relationship with a woman I love who doesn't know if she can or wants to make the choice to be in a partnership with me.

My choiceless choice to love brings me fully into relationship with life as it presents itself before me. This is more likely to happen when I am able to meet life with fresh eyes and not clouded with old stories of woundedness and history. This will allow me to see people and situations for exactly who and what they are, instead of some idealized, fantasized or otherwise distorted view.

I've often thought that having an exciting relationship with the unknown sounded fantastic in theory, yet it still terrified me on some level to have this be actualized as a real lived experience. The funny thing is: I AM living it ! Right now, in this moment. I may not be in another moment in time and then I'll need to re-commit to a "do-over" and try, try again.

As I left the healing retreat weekend, I spent last night and a good portion of today by the sea. I have never gone to a bed and breakfast by myself and for myself. In the past, I would have fallen into a well of self-pity over the fact that I would be spending my actual birthday alone and no plans would have been even considered. This paradigm shift opened me up to explore and play with "I have no choice but to love" . Strolling amid the shells and sand and water, I looked at every person I passed. I smiled and said "Hello" or commented about something that struck me about them. I noticed myself, in my newly 48 year old body, and made the choice to love the aesthetically pleasing parts, like my tattoos, along with the cellulite jiggling on my thighs and my belly roll protruding subtly over my bikini bottom. I sighed aloud at the exquisiteness of the spaces in between the cirrus-like clouds above me and how necessary those gaps are so that the puffy white matter can exist. Even the tattered seagulls noisily pleading to have a piece of people's lunches were worthy of loving.

Resistance, denial, suppression, and projection have all failed me miserably as ways of being in the world. I have no choice but to love.

48 years and 1 day on earth ...

Sunset surfing
Originally uploaded by Alec Rain

The entry to my 48th birthday took place at my non-dual healing school. An intimate, laughter-filled celebration the night before with these souls I've traveled with for four years took place in my hotel room, followed by a beautiful chorus of "Happy Birthday" sung by my entire class on the actual morning of my birthday.

The essence of the healing retreat was about a particular territory on the Tree of Life, Malchut, and our descent there ... wanting to enter life and meet life fully, as it is. It is about meeting our humanity and the true compassion in doing that in every, single moment.

I felt the embodiment of this descent into my life as it is on this very birthday. Part of this was about speaking my truth with the woman I love and she with me while on this retreat. We had the bravest dialogues we've ever engaged in for the entire time we've known one another. Our process of negotiating our relationship has entered into a place of "I don't know" ... not of ambivalence but of the honest fact of it. That we each do not come with a guarantee. Much of this has to do with the willingness to really be in life with one another, with the knowledge that each of us will die. This reality of life and death is also what the descent into Malchut entails. I want to take this leap into the unknown with this woman I love.

Another aspect of this reality is that I am still traveling solo in this journey. For now. For this moment. In honoring myself in the process, particularly on my birthday, I traveled to a quaint bed and breakfast last evening. After settling my few things into my room, I strolled the beach at sunset. I deeply took in the wafts of sea spray and beach air into my nostrils and my being. I loved the feel of the soft sand between my toes. I walked the tiny boardwalk to a dinner spot recommended by a few folks. I got an oceanview table on the restaurant's huge balcony. As I sat awaiting my meal, I thanked God for this wild, glorious, turbulent, exciting 48 year ride. It was a miracle that I should sit here in this moment. I felt the celebration of where I've traveled from and I felt the bittersweetness of loss and longing. I welcomed all of these things to join me for my birthday dinner. The greatest surprise of the night was a not-so-chance meeting of a Turkish family seated next to me. We chatted like long lost family. When they found out it was my birthday, they had a cake and ice cream brought out and sang to me. They invited me to sit with them as they gathered for their Father's Day celebration. This is the blessing and gift, I believe, of wanting to meet life right where it is.

I walked home along the ocean with the bright moon at my back. I slept with a beaming smile around my heart.

I will walk downstairs momentarily to enjoy a hot breakfast on the sun porch and then bask in the light of the Universe as I spend my day on the beach, with no plans and no expectations.

48 years and 1 day on earth is exactly where I am supposed to be ...

Breakable Girls and Boys ...

Looking to the future!
Originally uploaded by Haggis Chick

There is a song by Ingrid Michaelson that touches me in a place where I feel the remnants of my broken places deep inside ... a very small place. A video of her song is below.

This arose after a couple of tender encounters with some friends in my AA community last evening who shared about their own struggles, from these very small places inside of them too. One friend, whose birthday is today, contemplated getting completely wasted on his 52nd birthday because he had not yet accomplished what he thought he should have by now. In his 18 plus years of sobriety,  it was deeply painful to look at how he has measured himself up to societal standards of success. Sharing this in the fellowship helped him recognize the living miracle and success that he is, just as he is. Another friend shared how sleeping alone in her parents' home still brings terror and that she would be doing so over the next few days while her parents were on vacation. A horrific event happened while she was alone in this very house and it still haunts her as an adult. She does not want to drink over this anymore.

As Divinely timed as always, I open my teacher Jason's book today. His opening passage is as follows: "The hard work of truly awakening involves getting a clear idea of just how much of reality we cannot hold, of how much of life we cannot bear. We need to see how liimited we really are. Then we will have the chance to meet God in reality and not in the fateful fantasy of saving or punishing ourselves."

This passage brings an interesting perspective for me: remaining in my "Woe is me" identity found me believing I was very limited in terms of how much I could truly bear of my life; stepping out of this victimized personality has actually found me being able to hold much more reality and bear much more in my life than I ever imagined possible. What I am taking away, however, from this passage is the fact that I do not have to always have an ever-expansive container or be able to meet all of reality all of the time; to stay in this idealized place would be saving myself from feeling my fragility and my limitations. This recognition of the crossroads where I "break" is the very place I meet God in too.    As I learned a number of months back: Quan Yin gets angry. I would now venture to speculate: and she feels where she cannot hold and bear suffering. This is perhaps what makes her that much more compassionate.

As I really let this work through me I realize that some of the most precious conversations I have had with God in prayer start something like this: "God, I need you to hold ______. I am struggling and I don't feel like I can do this right now..." It is this kind of admission to God that really does bring me in closer relationship -- an awareness that I am not able to bear something and that I need help to have it held. In this moment, I am actually feeling what "surrendering" really is ... lot of tears coming right now ...



We are just breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys ...