Full Moon 11/11/11

Today is the anniversary of the day I was given the gift of recovery. At least I think it was the 11^th. Or close to it. Can’t really remember the exact day I picked up total abstinence and didn’t pick up anything else, but it was right before November 11, 1987.

Oh my, that day is a miserable memory. I said goodbye to my four year old son at daycare and my mother drove me to a treatment place. I call it a place because it wasn’t a ‘center’ or a hospital or cold and whitewashed. It  happened to be in the woods, up in the hills of western Sonoma county.  Looked like an old lodge in the redwoods, not fancy, just human and funky.  Which wasn’t what I was feeling in the least.

The way I ended up there is a story in itself. Let’s just say a recovering alcoholic of the old-timer variety was sitting across from me while I told my sad sack story. He was the Employee Assistance program person for the postal service at the time. This is when actual recovering addicts and alcoholics were running programs like this. Soon after, a masters degree was required. Don’t get me going on this subject or I’ll regress. As I tend to do. Anyway he cut me off while I was whining crying, and said he had a plan for me. Blessings to this man. But not what I was feeling about him at the time.

This was two days after being kicked out of my home by a husband who was angry, betrayed, and at his wits end. With good reason.  We talk about having the disease of addiction, but it doesn’t let us off the hook for the actions we take while in it. His denial enabled me to keep up my own, but once his was broken through, all hell broke loose, and I knew in my heart the bottom had come up to bite me in the ass. I felt my whole world had ended. And in many respects it had, and although many insights have come in the last 24 years, that day I knew only one thing. I was fucked.

As I write now, I see the slight dark humor in all our stories, our perceptions, the person we were compared to where we have come. It doesn’t erase the fact that addiction is a killer. Of our physical  selves, our bodies, some of us fatally. Never to see the smile of a child, the touch of a friend, the intimacy of love, the nature of our magnificent earth.

The disease increases the insanity of our minds that tell us we are separate, as we continue to live in that bubble of isolation and fear.  But, worst of all, it kills our spirits. The part of us which dreams, aspires, takes risks, guides us to courageous acts internally and externally. The spiritual nature of the disease and respect for what that feels like, to be spiritually bankrupt,  is what keeps me coming back for  human connection, for earthly connection,  the reminder that there is whole big magnificent world out there, keeping me in the loop of humanity. And that opens the door for so many other miracles. Too many to mention here, but miracles of mind exploration, body exploration, earthly traveling exploration….all of it.

Ok, so I got a little carried away there. Life is serious and joyful depending my thinking in the moment. Today I feel gratitude and so much love. Wish I could bottle it and give it away. Giving is receiving and I have received so much love. Today I will try to remember to smile every moment. And give that away.

Thank you…..xo

Hudson Fall

Pink orange pastel red
Lingering shades of green
Colors of the sun setting
On a misty day

The clouds floating with purpose
Somewhere to go somewhere to be
The airs coldness belying the coming season
No time for summer plans
All is over in this time and place

Cold winter snow wind
Coming to cover the world
Homes with steep roofs
Creeks flowing muddy already
No way to hide the seasons change

10 Years Ago Today

For the generations who remembered where they were, what was happening on the day JFK was shot; this same experience is shared with the 9/11 tragedy. We were all somewhere living our lives, and although our experiences are different, and how can I possibly compare my experience to someone who lost a loved one that day?…..We were all affected.

On September 10, 2011 a mothers 17 year old sons’ lung collapsed. She was called at work and hurried to the high school, and after being checked at the small local hospital, they said taking him to a medical facility 30 miles away would be a better idea and since using an ambulance might take longer than driving him herself; she raced there. In emergency the doctor poked a hole in his chest with an instrument as big as quarter, no anesthesia, hoping to inflate his lung……….this is my story.

I spent the night in the hospital room with my son, waiting for his lung to right itself, to inflate, and hopefully avoid surgery. I’ve learned since that the pain in growing boys’ chests with this kind of trauma is one of the most extreme kinds of pain.  After a sleepless night his face was white, he was crying out……and the planes were hitting the World Trade Center. In retrospect of course I see the confusion, the grief, the fear in the nurses faces. But in that moment I saw people distracted, my son suffering in agony, and me powerless running around looking for doctor to give my son morphine or some kind of painkiller to ease him. The only thing on the small television in the hospital room was the Manhattan skyline…….

So much has been written of this event, of our feelings, of anger, fear, and grief. All of it expressed through the years in the most poignant ways.  I cannot come close to conveying all the event, and peoples experiences of 9/11 entails. Today on the 10 year anniversary, I do know what I have learned through this. More about our human capacity for compassion and empathy for one another.  More about hate and fear and how that destroys our hearts and the hearts of others.  More about how one event can rip a country apart, and bring it back together. I have learned so much about New York City and its people and love them as if I was one of them. That is unity in the midst of pain.

My son had the emergency surgery that day, and was in intensive care for a week.  I basically lived at the hospital for two weeks and missed much of the initial fallout of the tragedy because of caring for him. Being a postal employee I missed that we were called into Civil Service emergency, with no planes meant no mail moved. The country was in crisis and so were we, in a different way. The TV in the hospital kept us informed and there was nothing else on, just as when I was ten years old, and John Kennedy was assassinated. 

I remember a night in the ICU. Two of my son’s friends had snuck in to visit him. One, a young girl, was curled up on the bed with Casey. I recall that feeling of caring and sharing pain, and loving each other and how I hoped his friends would carry on in their lives with that. Life’s moments are made up of these small instances that bring to our hearts what really matters.

In honor of those who died on this day ten years ago, for those who suffered in any way because of this violent action; I send hope and a heart full of thanks for the resilience and love of the human spirit.

Glen Ellen

Glen Ellen

In Northern California  now, the scent of sage, dry grasses, the  fragrance of the late

summers of my youth, of my life. Absolutely incredible how our sense of smell

stirs the brain organ in as sundry  ways (geez always have trouble with the

spelling of that word! Another brain block)

Anyway to get back to where I am. Sitting up in bed in the most beautiful renovated

barn you will ever witness, feeling like a little princess with my tea, early in

the morn, friends stirring in the house, wild California oaks under foggy skies

out my window.....and the freedom to do whatever my heart desires (ok, within

reason) all day today.

There was a time I lived up this road a piece, on a hill overlooking Sonoma

Valley. It was a small redwood cabin with a wood stove on the edge of a

vineyard. So amazing what passing time, recollection and retrospect will do

to our memories. It was one of the most difficult times of my life, but the

smell of the morning air with that hint of wild sage this morning, blankets my

memory with a sweetness and longing. Wondering where that time went, where I went,

where  my dead friends have gone……

I am not sad at all, just nostalgic, even hopeful, sentimental.

Looking at my age and the passing years.

Gee, I hope there is some new wisdom inside me, or do we keep relearning the same

old lessons? Not that I feel old, in fact my heart has the same stance, the never aging quality

of curiosity hope love awareness,  awake to the future……..oh the air and coolness of this morning,

and the strong scent of summer dried grasses carries me.

World Suffering

How many Navy Seals went down in that helicopter in Afghanistan?

Their families, their daughter sons wives mothers fathers

The grief of this time on their shoulders

No more sitting at the dinner table

Walking in the woods

Playing with the dog

Swimming in the ocean

But there is much more suffering than we can fathom

The face of famine in the children in Somalia

The young people being massacred in Syria

The prisons around the world filled with suffering spirits

The misfortune and distress caused by men against men

How does our psyche hold all this pain?

Of the world, our earth, without bending over

In a fetal position of utmost surrender

How do we keep any semblance of hope alive

In our Spirits?

Poetry is Good

Poetry is good. Good therapy. Good for the soul.

Good for the heart.

Poetry is a release. An exercise.

Makes you feel you’re doing something to help yourself.

Nothing to do with thinking others may read it.

An exercise of desperation.

Maybe healing a slight wound.

Or a major one.

Writing helps me to go on.

Just one more minute. One more day.

All of it doesn’t really matter.

Life begins with birth. It ends with death.

All in between is extra.

Gifts and burdens.

Love joy pain awake in life.

And so many feelings.

Often confusing; sometimes tingles, sometimes tickles.

Sometimes a knife.

Poetry is good.

The Search

My goodness there is so much information on the internet. Take for instance, bettering your life; either through yoga, healthy eating, prayer, learning to love yourself, taking charge of your life, that manifestation thing……..you get the drift (I love the word drift used like that). Anyway these entries on blogs, columns, in Huffington and a million places actually do have answers. I am making fun slightly, but there is some great advice, solutions, insights, all at the end of a clicking mouse. People have stuff to say about their lives, how they cope, their inspirations, what works, self love blah blah blah. There I go again.

And so many great quotes from down the ages………..it’s all at the end of our fingertips, in books, so many books. Don’t even get me going on books. My mind is a sponge for the answers to happiness within, acceptance, love in all its forms, the Sweet Spirit we are all a part of………..But I am lost in all of it. I soak up everything and nothing clings. The next day I start over with what simple thoughts I can remember to apply to my horrendously painful mind.  Yes, I’m in a quandary (another word to like) a darkness of the soul, pains of spiritual growth, depression of mind and spirit, or the shit…….whatever you would like to call it. And there are incredible helpful stupendous answers out there. But the awakening will happen within, not out there.

I have some very clear short sentences that help me remember I am a lovable spirit in this human body. And that a whole lot doesn’t even matter in this life we live, as centers of our own universes. Phrases that save me from myself. Sayings, affirmations that help change my thinking. I will not repeat them here, as they are that personal.  I am not a blogger/writer/theorist with the answers for anyone, but someone reaching out in the ethereal cyberspace ozone (while practicing my writing too) attempting  to become visible. Possibly seen, possibly felt. Maybe even a joint empathy in our crazy trials and tribulations.

In my search for answers, helpful solutions, or the set of words that will awaken the light, kick out my monster, and have me live happily ever after………I learn about you, myself, the world. And as far as feeling on top of the world? Well, it just ain’t happening today. Maybe tomorrow. I promise my next blog will be funnier.