Good as Gold

January 2

GOOD AS GOLD

Just because I’m as good as gold doesn’t mean that I win the prize.  Doesn’t mean I get my way.  Doesn’t mean I gain your heart.  Being ‘extra special sweetness and light girl’ doesn’t secure my future.  It does prevent me from living my life as someone I don’t like.  It contents me to keep my own company.  It is a huge improvement over living as the raging fury I once was.  Any destination I desire is more readily assessable from this amiable posture; in spite of inexpert yearning.  I can breathe past you if must be, walk down the road holding my own hand instead of holding a lung full of air. But I am the treasure.  You must earn me never capture me.  Appreciate me not devalue me. I’m good as gold. And please know that I am the prize.

Remember yourself as you would an old friend

~

THERE ARE ONLY 23 MORE SHOPPING DAYS LEFT TILL MY NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

Shoppers beware: I have a careful plan
I can juggle these thirty things and keep these twenty people happy
Dig around in the dirt at these three excavation sites
And hold onto my sanity for twenty-three more days.

My sponsor says "Having a plan like that
Means I'm already crazy."
My sponsor says "I don't have to please anyone
But myself, my Higher Power and her."

That can't be right.
What is the point of sobriety if I can't do it all?
She says "I don't even have to please her or myself."
What does that mean?

How can I tell if I'm pleasing my Higher Power?
She says "Shut up and you'll find out."
Great! What a plan, I like my countdown better
Of course I do, It's mine, my countdown, my life, mine, mine, mine.

Maybe my sponsor isn't all wrong.
OK, quiet....da, da, da, ...da, da, OK quiet for real
Hmmmm, I don't, don't know
This isn't working, I can't do this.

Why would I need to stop being me in order to get better?
"Who are you?" she asks, she thinks she's so smart.
I'M THE ONE IN THE MIDDLE.
She says "The eye of the storm is empty and I need to get a life of my own.

Lie

January 1

Lie

Yes, a lie is just a lie, but the truth also has problems.  I relay the facts and the words take on a life of their own, leave out the backdoor and walk on down the road. They move to another town and never find time to come back for a visit even though, I am their mother.  And woe to the woman who grows attached to credit or recognition for her ideas.  These kidnapped prodigies are never ransomed but sold outright and their DNA not questioned or tested.

So, my advice is to love your words in secret and raise your notions behind high walls.  If you are ever called upon to share your wisdom, lie.  For even if you’re caught the risk is tolerable.  Exposure is awkward but then again no one is looking, so, what is there to lose.  A lie is just a lie but it stays home with you at night.

Tie a string to the moon

~

THE COWS ARE HIGHER THAN THE HOUSE

I got sober only to end up living in a house
where the cows are higher than the house.
I mean next to my house there is a hill
The hill is surrounded by a fence
The cows are pastured inside the fence
Standing on the hill the cows are taller than the house.

I didn't expect to live in a house where the cows were higher.
I expected normal
I didn't expect the cows at all.
I expected the house but not this house
It's at the end of the lane
It's the one with the rose colored shutters.

My sponsor wants to know why rose colored shutters
Are OK but cows overlooking the house aren't?
I can't answer her
It's just wrong - that's all!
I don't know why she can't understand this
It seems perfectly clear to me.

My sponsor says I am powerless over the cows
And my life is not unmanageable but my thinking is.
She tells me to paint purple cows.
To write stories about worse places for the cows to be
I tell her the tub.
She says write it down.
She's no fun.

I heard in a meeting I should pray for the people
And things I am upset about.
I pray for the cows
My sponsor says the cows see how I live my life
And she is sure the cows pray for me.

Failed Soup and Distrust of Burgundy

December 31

FAILED SOUP AND DISTRUST OF BURGUNDY

What keeps me coming back to meetings and step work is an abiding mistrust of booze.  Despite promises and advertisement, hopes and folklore, I couldn’t rely on drinking to take me where I wanted to go and I surely couldn’t depend on it to keep me there.  The struggle is great; the attempt to cling to salvation through decanter is mighty but in the end this joining of my chemistry to other chemistry failed miserably.  No matter how I held my mouth, held my head, held my liquor, satisfaction escaped without me and I was left here in the soup of my disillusion and disappointment.  Failure to cooperate fully with alcohol lead me to try sobriety as an alternative.  I may not always succeed in my recovery, but I can draw dividends on every deposit and use this to build a path to my desires.

Make a private heaven with plenty of windows and doors.

*

Failure of Imagination

The failure of imagination feels worse than it looks; it’s that rancid oily coating on the skin that I abhor.  The sweat that appears when sloth becomes a burden, the confusion of an unused intellect, the mumbled acquiescence of a weak will, creep me out of the permission that I wished to offer myself but can not accept.   The languishing mind that I left to wither in the confines of my skull requires my perseverance.  Falling down, giving up, throwing in terry cloth objects is impermissible, I must pluck up my willingness and apply whatever drops of genius I possess to every muscle fiber I can find.  So much has been made available to me and I must return that favor.  You see imagination only fails me if I have failed it first.

Cargo Lost, Cargo Found

December 30

CARGO LOST, CARGO FOUND

I fill the pallet of a new year's sobriety and, when it has been accomplished, make a manifest and strap this pallet with the others on the flatbed of my life.  The cargo is secure and weighty; there is ample pressure where the rubber meets the road.  I maneuver my rig carefully.  I feel assured as I stream with the traffic on the byways.  The power and magnitude of my transport prompts in me overconfidence.  I fail to realize variation in weather or road conditions can jeopardize my journey. Eighteen wheels make for a poor cantilever when traction is lost and top-heavy wins out.  In losing the battle of gravity, inertia and control I realize the past is not a weight I need to haul; all that is necessary is the inventory.  I slip the pages into my pocket and walk the rest of the way.  I am my only freight.

Medicate with laughter and tears.

*

Can’t Walk Back

I chase my reading list, lose my place, fall down, can’t find my page; suddenly there is a whole library beyond my grasp.  I write as fast as I can and so do my fellows the result is more than I can read in three lifetimes.  The glory and pain of freedom is the constriction of time.  I claw at the minutes but the days slip quickly out of reach.  How can I get the great work poured into my mind while still allowing original thought to flow from me? I ask God if I can be reincarnated with my backlist intact but there is no reply.  I know in my heart this life is like hang-gliding on the beach; my shoes and socks are left behind and I fly off over open sea.  So if we are friends now that is surely grand, but if you want to be my friend later, just take a walk in my shoes. 

Relapse is Not Required

December 29

RELAPSE IS NOT REQUIRED

“Relapse is not required,” said my sponsor, “though at some meetings they make it seem appealing, all that prodigal drunk treatment.”

“Well, so far, I’m living in the blessing of being convinced the first time,” I told her, “plus what could possibly be out there that’s better than what’s in here?”

“That is the point.  There is so much out there that is faster and bigger, more dramatic and extreme, but I sure have never seen anything better,” she patted my head and I grinned.

“Since I am winning the first time why would I want to lose?” I add just to overstate her point.

“This is the perfect place for those who want it, and all the rest get drunk, but drinking is not required any more than Santa has to come on Christmas.”

Save pretty words in a jar like candy.

*

Step 3

Remember that this is a surrender to a friend, a thing filled with humor and humility not a thing filled with shame or humiliation.  As for regret the only one I’ve ever had about step 3 is that I didn’t surrender earlier.  Trying to pull a moose by its antlers across the desert was always a ridiculous endeavor, but a friend will stay close and let you try, always ready to lend a hand if asked, though never stealing the opportunity for me to recognize on my own how foolish I have been.  Hilarity ensues as I explain my thinking and turn the project over to a brighter mind and more able hand realizing then; there is no good reason to pull that big thing across that vast wasteland.  On the way back we chat about platypus and rhinoceros and laugh at how many strange things seem like bright ideas in the quiet space of even a great brain.  I have avoided surrendering fearing the loneliness and defeat.  Struggling alone with my torment was lonely; turning myself over to my best friend keeps me in the very best company.

Don't Bite

December 28

DON’T BITE

Desperation jumps up, runs around, then drops.  If I don’t feed it, desperation burns out fast.  I used to buy the advertising, the Horror, the Humanity.  The acorn falling on my head convinced me easily.  I grew this nut into terrifying despair never realizing if I had left it alone how quickly it would pass.  When tragedy comes there is no time for a performance.  The whirling splendor itself proves the farce.  If I learn to recognize these triggers I might keep from shooting myself in the foot.  If I let desperation wear itself out I can stay with the pack.  Despondence splinters me and separates me from anything rational but quiet resolve lets me watch the wind twist while I keep my feet on the ground.

Pay your friends in consideration and truth.

*

Winter is upon Us

Spending time away from my clothes reminds me how much I love and hate something which only serves to protect and decorate me.  Struggle with necessity, mad opinions about requirements, these are things I lost months and years to in my past and now only find as a sad footnote to the strangeness that is me.  I have so much control over how hard I make things and no control over how hard things are.  I can not set the weather but I can easily don my hat.  Putting on a big pout over needing a hat, ah, well here is where acceptance plays a major role.  I do however find comfort in the fact that I am not alone in this, I watch my poodle fret when her hair grows too long and shiver when it is shorn too short on cold crisp days.  It’s good to have a fellow quibbler as I pull a blanket over her and slip on my hat.

Sizing God Up

December 27

SIZING GOD UP

God doesn’t need to be big.  I only look for a big God when I feel very small.  I turn to God as compensation for my feelings, as some sort of bolster to brace myself with.  I have found when I am diminished in any way, God is tucked in a corner or pocket or drawer.  I flee to the great out of doors and find earth, nature and wind but the God of my understanding is proportionate to my mental state.  My partner is with me, near enough to hear the fear pour off my skin.  God doesn’t run from me to adventures in the wild.  I want to escape myself regularly but this is not my Higher Power's defect.  I come back to God when I stop running from me.  I face my reflection and recognize I am not towered over by a giant God; I am yoked with a power to share the load.

Enjoy the shape of things.

*

Disambiguation

This is what happens when you are stupid,

the same thing which happens

when you are smart yet afraid.

It doesn’t matter what dulls your sword,

your edge is gone.

Due diligence is required to hone it to first gleam,

what will it take to do it again

I don’t know and I rather not know.

If I can do the thing,

the thing which stands in front of me,

do it with whatever will I have

I am better off and stronger for it.

Better than to be the soft hearted genius

sitting in the corner or the soft headed idiot

standing in the street.

Mess is what comes from

retarded abilities or delayed action.

I can smell the problem and yet the lure

of staying is still so strong.

The pull-the push may not do the trick

to get me into a brighter head or willing body,

what works is what mostly always works; hunger.

I have to stop swallowing what is fed me

and go find the truth out for myself.