a duck trying to teach a fish to swim

March 4

A Duck Trying to Teach a Fish to Swim

Just because you’ve been in the water doesn’t mean you know how to swim.  Just because you swim in the water doesn’t mean you can teach me how.   Floating on top and plunging your head under the surface occasionally, doesn’t qualify you to safe guard me. Poaching is unpleasant to those of us caught, we that were foolish enough to believe that birds of a feather can teach school are picked off and swallowed by the benevolence of so much quack.

Stand up to extend your reach

*

AND I BELIEVE YOU

"This will be easy." Says my sponsor.
"Oh yes, simplicity itself I'm sure." I respond
"I've participated in these plans before."
"We get good results." She retorts

I love how you pick goals.
They seem like intellectual straight lines
And turn into roller coasters.
You do it with an open face, not a modicum of guilt.

Why should I feel guilty?
You keep getting better.
I keep staying sober.
What is there to feel bad about?

The guileless look on your face,
I fall for it every time but no more,
I know you're cunning.
You know this will be hard.

I remember when we worked on Honesty.
What could be simpler?
Or Hope, how sweet a concept.
Or the thirty rounds on the floor with Setting Limits.

I've begun to realize you're like,
The bean seller that Jack met.
You say they are magic beans
And I believe you.

You say they'll grow to the sky
I know they will
And I will climb them
Just don't tell me it will be easy

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

http://www.amazon.com/More-Sober-The-Way-Sane/dp/144141231X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1374072329&sr=8-3&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/Lines-My-Life-Sherrie-Theriault/dp/1448652820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374072576&sr=1-1&keywords=Lines+from+my+life%2C+Sherrie+theriault

Sponsorship

January 28

Sponsorship

Right now, as I think of sponsorship, I think of all the things I have done wrong.  Times when I was not understanding enough and times when I was too understanding and enabling.  Sponsors I chose for ulterior motives and the ones I didn't challenge when they wandered away.  I search my mind for the ingredients that were in the mix when things went well and the dominant component was willingness, mine and theirs.  Whether I was sponsor or sponsee, willingness overrode ability, determination and love.  We had to come to the table willing, this was never something we were able to cook up or construct.  Nor is it something I can always hold onto, sometimes willingness evaporates or slips away like sand in a clenched fist.  The permanence and impermanence of sponsorship awes and frightens me.  Like a guidewire twisted from many strands none of which reaches from end to end I worry about the unraveling but depend on the strength.

Expectations are incubating resentments

*

THREE TOYS FLOATING

I bat the ducks across the surface of my bath.
Soaking is supposed to calm me,
I'm waiting.       
I assure you, my impatience is no help to this process.

These yellow, tub-bound misfits, grinning at me
Don't fill me with the joy of living either.
I have blown bubbles until I'm blue
I smell like a French elevator from the bath oil.

My hair is stiff with conditioner
My face packed with mud.
"Do the right thing." Said my sponsor
She is such a pain.

Here I am, bubble bath to my arm pits
And not a hint of peace
Her question rings,
"What do you want?"

But isn't it obvious, if I knew that
What would I be doing
Wrinkling in this swilling vat?
I wouldn't.

I would be out doing my thing.
Whatever, that thing is.
How I'm going to figure myself out I don't know
And, She, is no help (you know who She is, She is the sponsor lady)

So what do I want?
World peace, a clue, maybe just a hint
But I know part of it
I know more than I admit.

I want Sobriety and Happiness,
Dignity and Respect
Enough time to do these things
And Love.

"Well" says she, those things are easy
Work the steps, then the traditions,
Practice them, do service
And take the advice you give your own sponsees"

I stick out my tongue in her general direction.

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

http://www.amazon.com/More-Sober-The-Way-Sane/dp/144141231X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1374072329&sr=8-3&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/Lines-My-Life-Sherrie-Theriault/dp/1448652820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374072576&sr=1-1&keywords=Lines+from+my+life%2C+Sherrie+theriault

Battleship

October 13

BATTLESHIP

If the first is a guess, what is the second?  Paranoia? Or worse?  Action is a blessing, reaction a debilitation, and to twist from reaction to self-doubt sinks the battle and the battleship.  When I can’t make sense, the gift is stepping back.  Better to put my hand down than to lose the farm.  When I find myself in a minefield, I can walk gingerly or wait for aide from above, air rescue or other.  The option of rethinking every step sets me dancing; the tune, which begins this hurky jerky polka of death, stems from the metronome of criticism playing in my ear.  When I am overwhelmed with critique I give up acceptance of chance or the joy of spontaneity, throwing myself into a pit of apprehension.  I am safer being wrong occasionally than unsure forever.

Study an old map and find a new way.

*

Message with no Bottle

I found a note while I was cleaning the art cupboard.

It was written in my hand.

I don’t remember writing it, or thinking it for that matter.

The note said,

“Total disregard for the survival of your soul”

and I have no idea if it was a warning or a suggestion;

a place to start or a destination at which not to arrive.

If it was written during one of those dark days

it could be the former,

I hope it is the latter;

a sign post on my recovery road.

I bring it out here to write to you about it,

share it and take me to a place

where I am no longer alone with this flyer.

I sit down to the keyboard

lift the note to read it again with care.

I scan the edges for clues

and see that it is a memo sheet torn in half.

When I flip it, on the back I see,

“2 loaves & 5 fishes to feed a multitude”

and though I may not believe in that miracle

I do believe in this one.

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

No Gold Stars

June 3

NO GOLD STARS

I look at my chart, then my chest; there are no gold stars.  I long for the affirmation of my great and seemingly endless struggle.  I watch the movements of those with shiny shoes and hope to be awarded with the gummed insignia.  When I hang by a thread, I desire the corroboration of foil cutouts to assure me I have done right; I have stayed alive.  Punishment I fear less than lack of consolation.  But, no one truly knows my bravery and if I want these paper emblems, I can just go and buy my own.

Count unhatched chickens but don’t place them on the menu.

*

The Hope Diamond

My guess is

the same god that wants me stupid

also wants me to suffer.

I ask myself what could be all powerful about that?

I wonder is God like a friend or a lover?

I carefully chose my friends

whereas my lover found me

against my greatest plans and well thought rules.

And if this is to be like marriage,

may I file for divorce if things go astray?

Or am I stuck with this match,

like I am stuck with my deformed ear

there underneath hat or fringe of hair?

I never thought of my relationship with God

like a necklace I could take on and off at will,

though the more I study it seems this beautiful thing

enhances my beauty if all is right

and will strangle me if it gets hung up.

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

Mud Pies

March 7

MUD PIES

Mud pies and retro-childhood are for the hurt ones, small and angry inside me.  They require care and special attention, but I can’t stop with them.  Saving the children to starve the adolescents is a sad fate, and abandoning adults after bringing them all this long way would be indescribably cruel.  I cannot work on healing all the while waiting for some ice floe to shove myself off on.  There is never a time when I am not the responsible party for the people who inhabit my interior life.  I live their reflection every day; there is no one-way mirror with which to hide unresolved issues, no rug to sweep them under; they flow through me like a river.  I must return to them to breed new health as a salmon swims back to the waters of its birth to bring new life.  I must brave the complexities of maturity; I cannot just sit in the mud.

Make a truce with your fears.

*

The Price of Today’s Ride

Much of my spiritual awakening has been spent

separating myself from the nightmare of the past,

reassuring myself that in fact, it, the horror, is over.

As my present has improved my reactions

are still invested with the hide or fly coping

of a child dealing with terror.

Things get better yet barricades are erected,

departing flights secured.

Disengaging the clutch of fingers wrapped so tightly

around the escape hatch takes a great deal of my

short supply of faith and confidence.

Laying down my anticipatory reluctance

in favor of optimism has had the breathtaking feel of pain,

though in fact it was only the separation

from a poisonous crutch and the vacuum it creates.

Allowing myself to see beauty

at the same time as I deal with the truth of the past;

standing in the full light of morning

and not blocking out the brilliant pain of night

is the outstanding gift my spiritual path affords me.

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