Coming to the Table

February 23

COMING TO THE TABLE

For many years, decades even, I stacked the table against myself and others. I piled the sacred next to trifles; I deposited item after item and built towers to confusion. After years of sobriety, I sorted the piles in earnest. I made a place for myself at the table. It is amazing what I can accomplish with a seat and a surface. Over months, tediously separating the needed from the useless, I made a place for others at the table. There is a whole world of life I had missed while trying to keep myself safe from unrealistic expectations---expectations of who I am and what I can do, what I should do and who I should do it for.

Having strong boundaries and a clean table is like a homecoming. I am coming home to me. The good games and happy meals had at this table are unexpected and surely welcome. The wall I built held good times at bay because I could not keep the flood of trash from spilling in from every direction. I had to learn to hold my head up before I could look around.

Invent a new language to talk to yourself in.

*

Ace

Like an ace in my pocket

step one is the beginning

and end of my step work.

This step carries the high and low count;

its rise is so near to the ground

I didn’t have to lift my chin to clear it

as I crawled my way in here,

Its appeal so exalted that it is all I hear

when I finish the twelfth

and am on my way back around.

the high and low of any hand.

Plus the card I keep up my sleeve for emergencies.

The greatest blessing is I don’t need four of a kind,

not even a pair; as long as I have step one.

I am guaranteed a full house, full heart and full life

between you and me that’s just how I like it.