The Fruit Bowl

September 7

THE FRUIT BOWL

Meetings are living and precious fruit.  I must squeeze every drop from them, even the lemons.  I am privileged to be among the succulent growth and pungent fragrance of determined hearts and minds.  The infusion of strength, the vitality received from the essence of truth gives and gives to me.  I am refreshed by exposure to raw talent, revived by action and growth.  The diversity of shape and flavor cheer and inspire me.  The contrast from bowl to chalice is dramatic, ever a reminder to stay where it’s fresh.

An offer is better than a gift.

*

Genius

I am often bonded to a self which thinks I know everything

and when in doubt believes I should know even if I don’t.

Freeing me of this requires the constant support

of friends and neighbors’ assuring me that in a capricious world

willingness is a more practical resource;

it packs neatly and handles most jobs with aplomb.

Staying consistently free from the bondage of self

requires truckloads of willingness

and the spirit of humility and sometimes even forgiveness.

I am freer when I like myself,

for the true bondage of self is the hatred of self.

Funk and Wagnall's Back Porch

September 6

FUNK AND WAGNALL’S BACK PORCH

Bottoms come sealed in envelopes from unknown accountants. Amazing how many nominees and how few winners!  The audience, filled with past recipients, holds its collective breath and prays for this year's finalists, and prays a bigger prayer of thanks to this year's donors, the ones who prove with their lives that it hasn’t gotten better out there.  The speeches are the same, a gratitude list and maybe a punch line, the smiles and tears fresh but familiar.  And when the lights go out on this night, the days of diligence begin once again so no one need lose their seat and we can all celebrate here, next year, together.

Open even though the hinges are hidden.

*

Nightcrawlers and Nightingales

I wriggle blind eyed through the dirt;

friction, my friend giving me something to push against,

resistance aiding my travels.

I worm my way through life

and believed that was all there was; having never seen the sky.

I traveled far and wide once I had taken to the air.

Open eyed I push against a thing I cannot see

and peer down on the dirt I left behind.

I soar rather than struggle

and go the distance leaving my mind open to the next frontier.

Don't Be a Fraud

September 5

DO NOT BE A FRAUD

“Fake it ‘til you make it" is like saying "keep drinking ‘til you get sober,” complains my sponsor.

“But what about the things I can’t do yet?"  I ask.

“You work on them; that’s all.  You work.  You adjust your attitude, practice the steps, carry your behind to meetings and talk with me and the other people in your network.”

"Yeah, that sounds like a breeze."

“Easier than staying sober while lying.  In this program we try to stay in the moment and be honest.  Pretending to feel differently than you do at any given time defeats your ability to be present and makes it hard for people to trust you.”

“But it’s so awkward,” I grumble.

“Which is why we of the alcoholic persuasion try to find short cuts, but don’t get sucked into them.  Tell the truth and do the hard work of sobriety, and stay away from the persons who try to sell you a softer way.”

Let people give advice to you, never take it from them.

*

No Reason

Reason falls through,

where it lands is a place of unknown

seascape and unrelenting tides.

The roar in my ears furthers the disorienting effect of relocation.

At first it seems easier to let go of reason

but when I descend into madness I scramble for purchase;

looking for sanity like a cleft in a cliff.

Loss of skin and blood is nothing to compare to the loss of my mind.

I believe I could be more easily separated from a limb or two

than to lose rein on my brain.

Reason falls through;

I must follow even though the terrain is arduous

and my heart is sometimes faint,

for without reason there is no reason

and without reason there is no life.

Waterline

September 4

WATERLINE

The interface of water and land is compelling.  Soothing but dramatic; I’m drawn to this transition.  I stand and watch the lap, lap, lapping of the liquid to the land.  The gift of one place to another calls me.  Change and transition exhilarate my senses.  Whether it is rock or sand, river or sea I feel the pull to watch life in response.  Boundaries are beautiful.  Borders allow safety and recreation, not just risk.  When I embrace this in life I embrace it in me.

Do it twice, once with the pattern and once without.

*

The Naked Not the Dead

Because comfort is sometimes no comfort

I can shave my hair and walk bare in the naked world.

Removing pretense helps in unexpected ways.

Foolish action becomes formulaic

when you are scared or hurt.

I lived through the summers of blood;

the winter is not enough to stem the tide or heal the wound.

I have no want to raise the dead,

but how to save the living?

Poverty is the inheritance of so much misguided lethargy

and I must shear off the illusion of maturity

and let the children speak.

Hard Time

September 3

HARD TIME

Sometimes I pack the earth down so hard that weeds can’t even grow up through. I try to make nature inert.  I try to kill my alcoholism.  I confine my disease to this tiny path of compacted dirt and wear blinders as to warn off distractions.  I forget there is a garden to be grown in the fertile ground of my recovering mind.  Losing the compulsion to drink is a gift; stopping my mind from thinking is soul murder.  I can sink my toes in the good brown soil and look to the lilies and the Queen Anne’s lace for inspiration.  I can stop giving myself such a hard time.

Let art talk.

*

FIVE FINGERS THAT GOBBLE

It only takes five crayons

to turn a tracing of my hand into a turkey

and it only takes a few things to change

my drunken life into my sober life.

Looking back I am amazed

how little it has actually taken to transform my life.

My drunkenness looks about as much like my sobriety

as my hand looks like a turkey

but the transformation has taken place.

The red, the yellow, the brown,

the meetings, the steps, the sponsor, these basics are the bulk.

Sometimes it’s the small extras

that help push this work of art into the realm of believability.

Accents of green, up and down the fingers,

or a few bonus phone calls to women outside my network.

Anything can be the thing that kicks it over

into a plausible and convincing reality.

I can never be more than I am, a drunk is always a drunk

and a hand is still just a hand,

but within each of these things are unimagined

possibilities waiting to be explored.

Michelangelo believed that sculptures lurked in chunks of stone.

I have come to see that a sober woman

prowled inside this drunk

and every Thanksgiving my hand yearns to put on feathers once again.

Promise Broken

September 2

PROMISE BROKEN

If promise shatters without anyone touching it, if it pops like a floating soap bubble that lost its cohesion, what do I do?  Name names?  I can’t even take fingerprints.  Sometimes dreams just end.  No fault or blame is attached.  The ice breaks under its own weight and nothing can be done.  I am more than just holding on.  I am alive even if all the promises melt away.  I can accept the unexpected and the unasked for and still know this doesn’t affect my worth.  My value is intact regardless of disappointment or discontent.  I have learned that anticipation is mere amusement; promises are pleasantries. I am made of stronger stuff. I am not broken by words, ideas or hope.  Promise can be broken but it doesn’t break me.

Open the mental crayon box.

*

Where’s Your Chair?

Is the ring more unnatural for the tamer or the lion?

One the trapped, the other the trapper.

Who is the more in danger;

the one with loss of freedom

or the one with possible loss of life?

And while this question is still in play

the next question is begged.  Why is there a ring?

What is worth the price paid

by the whip holder or the whipped?

Spectacle is a thing whose cost

reaches from the forest to the trees;

can take you from the highest rung

down to your knees.

All this lost for some Owwe’s and Ah’s

from people needing diversion

from the ring they turn tricks in.

Origami

September 1

ORIGAMI

I fold my reality like origami, each day a shape to suit my whim.  A dog when I feel like begging.  A horse when I want to trot away.  A pot to brew up some potion.  A penguin when I feel cold and I stand on my egg all day.  I can bend and flex, change my image, but in the end I am truly flat and lifeless, a construct of imagination, but soulless and boring.  Reality cannot be my creation made in the accordion of my mind.  Truth and breath come like the wind and I need to let them change direction and change me, too.

Turn right both ways.

*

Here Kitty kitty

Litter training the lynx seems like a good idea

until it is accomplished

and all concerned are less for the accomplishment.

Domesticity is a transparent cage,

which has a presence felt by all

whether loved or hated.

The air is changed and the cat stifles,

everyone is safer, so it is said,

but what are we safer from?

And what is a broken lynx,

certainly not a house cat?