Detail Days

November 7

DETAIL DAYS

Detail days seem like lost, soulless days.  I sort the piles of endless junk mail; catch up on bills, letters, laundry.  I don’t leave the house, but in some way I feel like I’m not in my home.  It’s like a day of pulling out all the needles, splinters and thorns that accumulate under my skin from rough weeks and road rash.  I steel myself to the pain of relief and rescue.  Cleared counters, emptied baskets, finished worry lists leave me with that newly moved in feel.  Piles overwhelm me, but sometimes, details define me.

Can-can in your head.

*

Thief in the Night

The moon ran off the night you left.

Instead of west it headed south with you,

but I doubt it will stay.

You are learning to play a new part,

another ill-suited role

which I don’t believe you will carry off

with much aplomb,

Bad actors have no leg to stand on for critique

You may have found yourself

a kinder critic or a more likened mind.

What you have taken I can’t expect to return,

but what I have gained I will never give up.

I don’t think you ever intended me any harm,

but protection is something you never provided;

something which I was sorely in need of.

I was fortunate to return to the house of my father

for that is the shelter in which I can breathe.

You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane and More Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

http://www.amazon.com/Sober-On-The-Way-Sane/dp/1440417342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576888&sr=8-1&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/More-Lines-From-My-Life/dp/1448677203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576956&sr=8-1&keywords=More+Lines+From+My+Life

Box-a-week Tao

May 12

Box-a-week Tao

I am going through so many changes surrounding the cleaning out and getting rid of process.  The flat sided panic that I experience while even attempting the smallest disposal seems impossible.  I would deny it if I didn't have the repetition of this experiment to prove it as fact.  I have now moved into the part of the illness where I compulsively clean the things that I have emptied in order to avoid facing the next step, the next box, the next mess.  This is a two part trap: part 1. If cleaning can absorb all the time I will not be able to do anything else.  Part 2.  If I can't keep it clean enough then I have an excuse to give up and not empty the next space.  I am trying to keep moving without being mean to myself.  Because mean is worse than mess.

Try not to lose things you never had

*

CHOICE

Growth is my decision

I don’t need conflict or catastrophe to bring me to change

I choose each day, come what may, to roll out the refuse

I am not tempted to leave it in to rot just because the sun is shining

Good days are good times to improve

How could integrity be retarded by joy?

I am not punished into recovery

I will never accept a Higher Power who set up a system like that

And give wide birth to people who claim their Higher Power did

My bottom may have been an inducement to start

But choice keeps me coming back.

One

February 14

ONE

One skin

One mind

One spirit

One day

If I live in more than my own skin, I am a body snatcher and ghoul.  If I live in a duality of thought I am ejected, ostensively out of my mind.  If I redouble my spirit the increase takes a dark cold turn and I am lost.  If I try to live two days at a time the sand shifts in the glass and I am worse off in that hour than Dorothy.

This skin is all I can be in, as many times as I walk in someone else’s shoes it’s the skin I’m in.  This mind is my only bequest, treasure enough to earn my keep. Free as this spirit is it is still tied at the heel and like my shadow it remains.  And today is the only day where the magic works, witches melt and clicking my heels gets my attention even if it doesn’t always take me home.

Create competition-free zones in your life

*

COMING TO THE TABLE

For many years, decades even,
I stacked the table against myself and others.
I piles the sacred next to the 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's 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 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.

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.

Make Use of Brown Soap

August 26

Make Use of Brown Soap

When I have death in my pocket it makes it easy to cross the street without a glance. A little arsenic in my in my veins allows me to swallow the rest with no thought beyond want. Twist the screws tight enough in my brain and no other pressure seems problematic. All of the trouble in the world can beat a path to my door when I carry within me the seeds of destruction. I have to check myself for stow-away devastation. Ruin begins in tiny droplets but will wash me down the drain if not wiped immediately from my skin. Vigilant acknowledgement of the power of small burdens protects me from the mind blown ravages of the ensuing cyclone. Microbes cause mayhem, so I must watch where I touch and wash before I eat.

Don’t keep your windows shuttered; don’t keep your eyes closed

*

UNIFIED THEORY

When I build the circuit correctly the light comes on.

When I heal the shards together the bell rings.

If I am meticulous and attentive, if the world is gracious

And bares herself to my mind I will see how everything fits.

I know the reflexive nature of things

And the way life folds one thing inside the other.

Whale song is a long slow underwater birdcall.

Moon rise, sun rise, then the moon again.

The universe works without my interference

But also without complete understanding.

I am learning how to be a part of a beautiful maze

I long to comprehend it.

The weeds are trying to take back the city

If I lay down maybe they will take me back too.

If I keep my eyes open I might see it all unfold.

Conception without is my desire within.