Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

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.


Vlog: http://youtu.be/PXkPJ3kAF5g


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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.

Vlog: http://youtu.be/0VICoQBksyo

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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.

Vlog: http://youtu.be/24UpEacsxX4

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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.

Vlog: http://youtu.be/2xIyrdB516I


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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.


Vlog: http://youtu.be/mvzU3AmU2J4

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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


Vlog: http://youtu.be/cW3KCDxy0EA

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

[girlin2une]

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


Vlog: http://youtu.be/cW3KCDxy0EA

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

Another one that has touched me!! (f)

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 3

Maniacs on Pogo Sticks


I fear maniacs on pogo sticks peeping through my rural second story windows as the smoke of paranoia curls between my ears. Overestimating my interest to others causes me as much harm as the underestimation. Attributing super powers to onlookers is a parlor trick my ego plays to keep me occupied while my life passes by. I sacrifice all my possibilities for fear of what could be stolen through my keyhole. I cut off my face to spite my poor lonely nose. I must move forward in spite of my disquietude for the future lay ahead, yet I do console myself that it is harder to hit a moving target.



Use honey to get the peas to stick to your knife


~


DIDN'T KNOW I WAS GOING TO THE CIRCUS

I show up at a meeting
I didn't know the circus was in town
I expected calm, demure, sober behavior
My expectations were dashed, my bubble burst.

There were people streaming back and forth in front of the speaker
There were kids playing among the chairs
Smokers worked the meeting in shifts
Hustling out the back door and smoldering back in.

The side conversations rivaled the main attraction
People dressed for the street not the meeting, the bibby shirt, tights and no skirt
Was more of a high-wire act then I had ever seen before
Shock cannot even begin to describe the state of my mind.

"But for the grace of God" said my sponsor
"No" I said "It's a choice, they're sober now."
"Oh yes" she remarked "Weren't you sober when you took on
Every man with time, looking for a fight with each of them?"

"I was cutting my chops. They understood."
"Some of them didn't." said she
"Weren't you sober when you dyed your hair red - but only half?"
" I was afraid I'd dye my scalp, so I started lower."

"Yes, but aren't you the one who says sudden hair color change
Is a sign of instability in sobriety?"
"Yes, I do." I replied
"I think you would have fit in well with the circus.
You and your two tone hair but you didn't hear it from me."
"You're mean."
"And what are you being?"
"Judgmental."

"That's my girl, what are we going to do about it?"
"Be grateful, grateful I got in quick enough
Grateful people let me work things out in these rooms.
Grateful I still have something to learn from everyone. GRATEFUL."


Vlog: http://youtu.be/WLX_uTL2hao

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 4

One Singular Crowd


Isolation among the isolators is replete with metaphor and theme. Expectation blithers loudly but is drown by the palpable inevitability of the outcome. I pirouette in a room filled with dancers but we do not touch, we just spin near one another full view but little contact. Yet I hear my heart beating in my ear and know that I am alive. The flush of neighboring cheeks attests to duplicate conditions there. We are moving together sometimes in harmony but other times in antipathy, dependant all the same. We are the army of independent meanings. Individual cases sharing one slender goal but that’s all that we need.



If you can’t find the grape try some jelly.




~

THE BOAT

On my ride home from work there's a boat stuck between two trees
In the middle of a horse pasture
Next to a riverbed so dry it's filled with grass.
I think the boat is me.

I feel for the boat every time I see it.
Turned on edge, waiting for a river which doesn't exist anymore
And may never exist again
Placed on edge for protection, not comfort.

Although having my bottom rot out
Well, let's just say, might be more uncomfortable
What good will I be even if the river runs again
Since I'm fenced in?

If my Higher Power has a plan
If it includes a river and a fence
If I'm in this plan, me, the row boat
I just don't see it.

Not seeing my purpose in life is a theme in my life
Truth is, I don't want to face the fact, I might float away
Even though I'm supported by two big trees
Even though there is a tall fence around me.

Completely in spite of the fact
THERE IS NO WATER
My Higher Power loves me.
I AM THE BOAT


Vlog: http://youtu.be/BXqTSzIuod4

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 5


Time’s Temperament



Bubbling tides of white water, time roils past me and my protests go unheard. Psychic feedback loops revisit raw moments to me with inopportune exactitude. The beautiful droplets of dawn rain down then evaporate leaving another day’s timeline to fan out before me. The alternating fury and jubilation of passing intervals leaves a challenge, first a question of bend or break, second a call to forecast. Can I flex or will I live in pieces? Shall I look at patterns and strive for harmonious waltz or turn my face from the calendar dreading each trice? Bully or benefactor time rolls. I can go with it or be under it that choice is mine.



Orbit order



~

THE FLOCK

Today I came to a place in the road covered with birds
The nearby field - covered in birds - the trees covered.
As I approached the birds took wing
The flock responded to my presence
Each bird flew - the sky darkened with their flight.

Wave upon wave, boundaries intact
Taking action in the face of obstacle.
The gift of instinct displayed for me as I fly to my meeting
My instinct rehab, I am learning my intuition
My sponsor spoons it to me from the steps.

I suck it down never knowing what it is about the process
That makes me better
Anymore then I know how grain and bugs make birds fly.
I have theories, things I roll in my fingers when I'm nervous.
I get glimmers.

Things my Higher Power sparkles in my eyes for a treat.
In truth, I don't know how, I don't need to know
Anymore than birds need to know lift to weight ratios.
When I respond to life events
When I spend less time self-concerned I am closer to self.

"Aren't we spiritually centered?" Quips my sponsor
"Yes" I reply "One day in a row."
"I'm going for the record."
"That's all the birds have."
"You're doing as well as they." she smiles and pats my back

Vlog: http://youtu.be/27HKnEZb1Z4

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 6


Hand Me Down Pain


You have sent a cold thing into my heart it causes my feet to move me away from you. It need not be spoken of this is a thing of ice and lead. Words are no help here, action is the only cure. Eternity can be spent with a soul bisected by slivers. Stepping the willing way to joy and freedom seems so unlikely from this frosty local. Make my mind up I must. Close my eyes and move forward. I will leave your pain behind me I hope not to have to leave you.

Kiss tiny pebbles and roll them away



~

HELP FROM STRANGE SOURCES

I cannot get my mind wrapped around the places I find help.
I struggle with believing I have been helped.
I struggle with disbelief at my own resistance.
I am helped daily by many tiny things seen and unseen.
I realize now I was injured by the same tiny things.
When I was misaligned with my Higher Power
The sun rising, the tiny star I circle in this great nothingness
It makes my whole day.
The air hanging around just in case I need it,
Which I often do.
The people who live with me, a mean feat.
The people who work with me.
Those who exist here with me keep my ship on course,
How sweet of them to do mostly right everyday of their lives,
What a help that is.
The whole ecosystem and all the weather
What would I do without it?
But this is on a good day,
On a bad day, the sun is in my eyes and scorching my skin,
The air is too still, or well, the wind is always a problem.
And people, people are an endless plight,
People do things to hurt, annoy and irritate me,
Full intent, targeted to me, my life, my wants destroyed.
Bugs seek me and I am followed by the darkest cloud,
Everyday, all day, lurking.

I AM SO THANKFUL FOR A SPONSOR AND A TENTH STEP


Vlog: http://youtu.be/475YWS01jBM

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 7


Dion


Everything in the world happened before I was born and the cinders sift through my fingers. Accomplishing cohesion of the ashes is a goal I have not yet achieved. Cremains precious but meager are a difficult building material, shifting due to emotions and wind, I find they stick too well to my lungs and not well enough to anything else. Tears help, but I will not cry forever. I must draw from a fresh water source and wet the powdery scratch I have inherited and form the world anew.


Use caution when interacting with the crème de la crème this may trigger intolerance



*


OLD GOLDFISH

I got them when my sobriety was new.
They were tiny little guys, ten cent feeders.
I wanted my stepson to sleep soundly
In our strange jumble of a home, fresh from purchase.

The tank sat on a dresser under his elevated bed
Space to fit my hand to feed them
No space for baby boy to climb in
I loved my goldfish.

There is never a NO with goldfish
Feed them as often as you want
Let the water get cold
Put them in a big space, small place, plants, no plants.

NO was so hard, I hate and fear No.
I am hard, fish are easy.
Tears and mesmerizing aquarium
Meetings and steps.

I could not keep myself alive
I don't know how I kept the fish fed.
The program kept me going,
Kept hope flowing and the fish swam.

In this century when we are finally outliving wild goldfish
We are sober together,
By the grace of a Higher Power, in this century.
It's been a wonderful time.

I am grateful to be here with the goldfish.
I am grateful the goldfish are here for me.
Expecting so little
Maybe I could return the favor

Vlog: http://youtu.be/BVWOAXsGMBI

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 8


Lathe


Turning into a spin, the edge cuts into my misconceptions, the point sharp and accurate to a fault digs into the excess I carry around, keeping me from my useful purpose. A good eye and steady hand are needed lest breakthrough ruin me. Not that all is ever lost for a spoon with a hole in the bowl will stir a soup smooth. Relinquishing my burdens and trusting the carver’s tools and methods takes great commitment. I am carved commitment or no, but things turn out better when I don’t flinch.

If you can’t make hay then mow the lawn

*

IN A BACKWATER

There is a place so removed, uninspired, ignorance flourishes
I hate to go there.
I avoid it when I can
Today I could not avoid it.
Today I saw the gable end of a small barn
Half hidden in the scrub trees.
On the face of the gable end are two plywood cutouts
They are large, taking up the major portion of the space.
The first is a budgie, a bright blue parakeet, 7 or 8 feet tall.
It is tilted to its side, it looks dyslexic but intriguing
Above it is a cutout of a black guitar, similar in length.
Hanging long ways across the top, almost from eve to eve.
I don't know what it means.
Why they are there.
Who could have placed them.
A story is there,
Just sticking its tongue out at me.
I can hardly bear it.
I think of God and laugh.
If my God has nothing better to do then tease me,
I need a better God.
I think of my Higher Power and wonder if the power is curious too.
Am I overlapping a layer of consciousness I have no part in?
Is this subliminal previews of my future?
Am I too nosey for my own good?
I just don't know
It could be something all together different
I have only time.
Time will tell in the end it always does.
I hate to wait


Vlog: http://youtu.be/noWs8WCwREk

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 9


Crestfallen


“Whoa is me, I have crested the rise only to slide down the other side. Hard work and determination culminated in victory but alas it was short lived. Success is barely meaningful if it is permanent. Poor, poor dear, I will have to strive once more at the face of a new challenge or even worse might have to make another run at this one. How shall I ever bear it?” I lament, my sponsor smiles.
“Are you learning to be amused at yourself or hoping to bring back melodrama to the everyman?” She queries.
“A little of both I think, whining is a consolation to me,” I reply.
“It’s nice that you’re not doing it at me, but even nicer that you have let your achievements teach you to laugh at your mishaps,” says my sponsor with a kiss to my forehead.

Butter both sides of your intentions

*

BREAKING MY OWN GLASS

The police of a small town caught a serial glass breaker today.
The man who owned a plate glass repair shop
Was breaking store front windows.
I break my own.
I go through my life, I slash my own tires
And break my own glass.
I fear continuity, stability, success.
I love damage control, making arts and craft from my slivers and shards
"Think what you could do with undamaged goods." Says my sponsor
I don't know how to do anything with undamaged goods
Except damage them or give them to others.
"Saddest thing I've ever heard." she counters
I can make a quilt from discarded clothes, mosaics from shattered dishes
A collage from junk mail and rescue every stray on the block,
See the potential in every person in a crowded hall
And hold your hand and cheer you on.
"What have you done for you lately?" my sponsor taunts
She is making my point, what can I do for me?
Search and destroy?
Live outside myself?
I have to be sober to be me, I can't go around making a mess
Just so I have something familiar to wallow in.
What if I can't do anything fresh?
"Learn to market the retreads.' she says


Vlog: http://youtu.be/Sy58821vXp4

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 10

Hoarfrost


On balmy evenings dew forms in my life and moistens my extremities. This friendly act requires the maintenance of temperature. If I become suddenly cool the landscape changes and the once welcoming vapor is now a show of crystalline rigidity. Cold to the morning light I am brittle and snap at even a tentative touch. For want of passion I have replaced it with definition and structure I can not absorb. I am outlined clearly but no longer myself. I am frozen, formally changed within and without. Warmth is necessary, but how to start my own fire? Learn, I must and quickly lest frostbite set in.

Wear your mantle don’t leave it to the fireplace


*

LONELINESS EATS MY LUNCH


There are days loneliness eats my lunch
And I can't fight back.
How can I stand it,
How can it still be this bad?

I pull out the old chestnuts.
If I'm not happy with what I have
How could I be happier with more?
Even tickets on the 50 yard line don't interest me, I came to play.

I think of other slogans, the tidbits, the smiles and hugs.
I roll them around.
Still, there are days my lunch is gulped down
And I sit with my plate empty.

Pickle juice, coleslaw drool is small comfort
Actually, it's a jeer.
I stare at my empty plate
I turn and twist it, stick my tongue out at it.

"Your good company," says my sponsor
Then why am I alone, if I'm so good
If my company is worthwhile
Why do I sit here hungry and desperate?

"Are you sure you are?"
It sure feels that way.
"Well, it might be true and it might not."

I get it.
I am unhooked from myself
I am ignoring the multitude at my elbow
While looking for someone in my lap
I'm holding out for old terms from a new contract

I am loved by people
Who aren't trying to consume me
And I am letting my expectations
Dine for free.


Vlog: http://youtu.be/drAZwaQK31A

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 11

Pepo

My father used to destroy a perfectly good watermelon by cutting a triangle in the top and pouring a bottle of vodka into it. I used to destroy my perfectly good melon the same way. Emulating bad ideas in new ways was a onetime pastime of mine. Giving it up was harder than I had expected. Flawed thinking blends so freely with my mental landscape I have trouble distinguishing it. Condemning the action and not the man is not usually my preferred method. I would rather condemn the man, but this leaves me with the actions in place and him long gone. And though I prefer him gone I will recreate him within myself if I don’t flush his actions as well. I have a good pumpkin on my shoulders but it is my job to keep it intact.

No need to wait for joy, jump when you please



*

LIFE IS TOO GOOD


I know it sounds crazy, is crazy
But I hate having the fear, the gnawing gut, of WHAT IF
WHAT IF I can't maintain this, the sober life I live.
WHAT IF I get struck, unable to connect to my Higher Power?

I had a spiritual awaking
WHAT IF I get spiritual narcolepsy?
My spiritual cord was cut when I was young, not by my choosing
WHAT IF it gets cut again?

"WHAT IF this line of thinking cuts it?" Asks my sponsor
I hate when she's right.
WHAT IF this is a test?
Be like them or not.

Follow the path of the twelve steps
When there is no weight of need pushing me
When everything is going in my direction
I have to keep my eye on the ball for myself.

I am still not God
This is the lesson
The abusers never learned
The one I have to.

What went wrong was not bad people
Making bad choices, in bad circumstances
It was disconnected people
Making decisions without help.

I have to stay in your pocket
Never be a free bird
I have to remember what true freedom is
It's not being cut loose.

I have had that
And it never felt free
Keep your eye on the ball
And hold onto my hand.

Vlog: http://youtu.be/zq1kwGdS8dI

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 12

Live Bait


Is being a taunt to others really a life? Dangling as the cover for a hook, luring intended and unintended to their deaths, is that living? Or if I draw you with my attack rather than my appeal is that a worthwhile existence? If I carry myself filled with poison praying for a strike is that anything other than a march to an unhappy grave for two, or more? Hidden under an avalanche of harassment strips me of my vital quality and my soul loses its true nature. I am allowed to transcend the setup of competition and social strife. It’s alright to be tempting with no agenda. I could be an appetizer if only I removed the barbs or better yet I could be dessert.

Tuck tiny wishes between your toes.



*

JOY IS NOT ENOUGH

I was driving around in my car
Eating a meltingly ripe persimmon
On the radio came a fiddle playing band
Performing their rendition of In The White Room

I was traveling with the three drafts of my first step
Version one consisted of 690-some words
And the final had only four, JOY IS NOT ENOUGH
That's it, the whole thing.

Today my life is unmanageable
Due to the fact that having a balanced life
Feeling my wide range of feelings, including joy,
Is not sufficient to eliminate the pain and damage of the past.
My horrific childhood has not healed
Has not mended seamlessly
I have joy today, everyday, at some point
In proportion to my sober choices.

I fail to realize the promise doesn't say, Heal the past
It says, I will not regret the past.
I don't, at least not any of the choices I made,
Other peoples choices are not mine to regret.

I will not wish to shut the door on the past
And I don't wish to.
I want it Healed
I may not get my wish

Just because I am doing my part to heal the past
Doesn't make anyone else do it
I can't strong-arm the perpetrators into recovery
The way they strong-armed me into the abuse

JOY IS NOT ENOUGH but it's a hell of a start.

Vlog: http://youtu.be/qnr7COwlqqU

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 13


Offset


I often feel out of round and unmatched to my counterparts. Awkwardly I sit unable to strike a plausible pose. I want my asymmetry to seem chic. I feel a victim of universal ugliness and gracelessly plod through my days. Luckily offset thinking, the partner of my offset soul, saves me. I see that I am uniquely useful, like a screwdriver set at right angles for use where a straight one could not reach. I am counterbalance and compensation. I may be lateral but I am also collateral. I am an embellisher, beneficial in unexpected ways and shouldn’t seek to be inline with the multitude. I am the new growth, the spur to the future.

Romance the noodles in your soup


*

GRAVITY WORKS ALL THE TIME

Limits and boundaries are a drag
I hate feeling tied to the ground
I know I could fly
If not for unseen forces

I sense myself lightening, smoothing
I drop my burdens, I pick up speed
Fourth dimension
Hell, I'm proverbial vapor trails

I should explain, when I get moving this fast
I inevitably wind myself into a position
Where my head is up my nether regions
A place it does not belong

I have slowly grown to love my limits
No restraint holds me back
In reality, I am supported, rooted as it were
I am not hydroponic, I can live in the real world

I am me
Encouraged by the wind and the rain
I am not a hothouse flower
I am truly free

I can walk where I was born to walk
I forget life has not been found outside my little world
And when it is
I am still better off being me

Vlog: http://youtu.be/GX2RHrKvmT0


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 14

Specks


Spectacles are for specks; tiny things that must be watched. Commotion is nothing but a congregation of minutia with an audience. How many small things do I strain my eyes to see; then seek help to pursue further? Some of these are put on display fishing for voyeurs. Others are secreted away only to be ferreted out through magnification. Whether curiosity or contempt drives me to these pinpoints I must search my motives before I scan the plain. For truly if I am not careful I, myself will end up either speck or spectacle.

Let old wood and old women inhabit the shoreline of your mind.

*

NO MAPS

Maps have existed longer than I have
By the time of my birth there was aerial photography
Which had made pinpoint accuracy the norm.

I can be tracked by satellite on my daily commute
I can get a trip tic
And travel to the far reaches of this continent

"So what is your problem?" Asks my sponsor
There is no map for where we've been going
There are only the twelve steps, but after that-

It is all uncharted territory except of course-
For my families warnings about dragons
'Those critters stay to home mostly." She says

"You have bigger things to worry about."
So where's the map
I need to know where to go.

No Map, we go through this together
The pitfalls are similar, sex and money
There are a few others

What each of us finds on this journey is uncharted
Plus if you spend your time looking down
You will miss the view.

We prop each other up as we step off into the unknown
And reel each other back
If we start falling off the beam.

How do I know if I'm doing it right
"Are you still sober?"
Yes, but I'm unsure.

Lots of people are sober
Right up until the time they're drunk
"So true, it's all about motive."

It's difficult to chart a heart
"Do you have willingness?"
Yes, you know I do.

I have found that is the vehicle
To everywhere, So.,
Learn to enjoy the ride.


Vlog: http://youtu.be/dBXCKvL5f-Q

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 15


Comparison Shopping


Cost analysis of the yeas and nays requires a savvy consumer. Every word has a variable price dependant on whom it is spoken to and when it is said. Some words charge compound interest and others pay dividends. Timing and delivery is of the utmost importance. Knowledge of the markets requires constant assessment. The risk to benefit ratio varies widely and the short term verses the long term price can flip the market from profit to loss. Hold my tongue, speak my mind, these must be weighed; the clock consulted and inventories taken. What I say and when can be less a matter of bull or bear than whether or not I can afford to be a sheep.

Tap the wellspring of your heart.

*

FEEDING SQUIRRELS ON A ONE LANE BRIDGE

Cattle-corn spread on a single lane bridge
The Trap,
Food or Safety
There are plenty of other choices
My disease sees none of them.
Gluttony and danger
the perfect combination
How can I resist?
Why would I resist?
I have to have More.
I cannot depend on my nature
The ability God gave me to survive in my environs
Help must come from outside
And must be wild and dramatic.
Inward help is boring
Too subtle, too tiresome
Where is my image?
Where is my excitement?
How am I going to prove my God worthy?
Without too much
Without perilous risk and rescue
I can't.
I can't prove my God
My God doesn't need to prove anything to me.
I can find my way off the beaten path
Away from the prying eyes of rubberneckers.
No cheers from the crowd are necessary
I have the equipment, it comes standard
When I take the controls
And follow the twelve step tutorial.
I should be able to manage just fine
No Mack truck in my face
As I stuff myself
With ill gotten grain.

Vlog: http://youtu.be/uXu2Cp6YYt8

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 16


Bon

Comfort or motivation these are the two major reasons for building a fire. Sometimes I set it before me other times under me. The warmth can be soothing and the light dazzling, but licking flames move me off the spot like nothing else. Fuel and surrounds contribute to the effect. Mental state and personal company provide dampening or air. How high the flames rise or how long they burn varies widely. Inspiring my passions, my thoughts, my fears the conflagration is an apt tool as long as I don’t go up in smoke.

Try to go sometimes with the grain and others against it.


*

IN THE COMFORT OF MY ROOM

I sit and panic concerning the future.
I have come through Hell
Built a safe and satisfying life
But it will all end soon, I can feel it.

The tide rises in my soul.
The blood red tide of self-doubt and degradation.
I fail to see my strength or intelligence
Hell, I can't even remember the sheer willingness which has carried me this far.

All I see is shreds.
Tattered little bits of my hopes and dreams
Scattered by the breeze of fate.

What is the point of me being in this sweet space
If I'm going to intellectually turn it into a dungeon?
Why set out fluffy pillows
Only to frighten myself daily
With thoughts of their removal?

How can I pray for safety and practice personal terrorism?
My mind is closed to the double-side of life.
I know the destruction but forget the glory.

I have washed ashore in the land of love and support
I need not drag my mind and spirit to the nether world of hopelessness
I've been to the dark places
My task is to warm in the sunlight today.

Vlog: http://youtu.be/ax9CRi0Zgac

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 17


Hades

There is a strangeness to the dark. A velvety comfort when my paranoia is not alive with ice crystals and contempt. Cocoons of light create hives of life in an otherwise isolating phenomena. Pressing to my skin I can wear the night out as a jewel, a talisman for the hope I dare not share. Pixies and faeries inhabit dawn’s wee hours but the black blank stretch of space is home to things quite different. Unspeakable in their face I allow them to pass. Should I be carried off my return is eminent for half the seeds remain. Not wholly ransomed I live only part time in the sun. When the shadows fall there is the oddness of home I can neither embrace nor deny.

Load the scale in your favor.


*

THERE IS A TREE

There is a tree in the woods
I've seen it.
It was cut off from any visible source of
Strength or sustenance.
Carried aloft by surrounding trees
The splintered trunk dangles in the air
It makes no connection to the forest floor.
I know the feeling
I have been cut off too.
Violently separated from my God, as it were.
I probe the fractured stump at the bottom of my soul.
I explore the crevices
Seeking tendrils of hope.
My anxiety bonds to my frustrations
But faith eludes me.
I look down to the broken place
The view unrealized by me.
I have a vista of unimagined beauty
Provided to me by the growth of others.
I am eye to eye with my peers,
Held in their loving embrace.
I bloom and flower with them.
I endure the winters the same as they
And come spring am stronger for it.
I don't know why I was damaged.
I don't know why I was saved.
I am grateful it is done.

My sponsor says "It's for our sobriety
And the pleasure of your company."


Vlog: http://youtu.be/PiW66zH2pg4


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 18


Between Two Chains

The curving movement half seen sweeps forward and catches me squarely on the chin. Realization glimmers that next time it will strike me in the mouth and I take a step back. I estimate the returning arc, raise my arms, push the board back from whence it came. As it hurtles toward me once more I reposition. Force returns force; fury comes vigorously my way and I thrust with strength and enthusiasm. And this is fine for what it is. I have learned how not to get hit. I can push when I get shoved. How much better will it be when I can get on and swing?


Tie your lose ends into bows.


*

IN THE PRAIRIE

In the prairie there are small fenced cemeteries
Family plots.
The flat expanse of land opens to the eye
Hand carved monuments stand in testimony
To love and service.

In these places grow wild flowers
These places cordoned off
From mechanization and agribusiness
Held in trust are the bones of loved ones
And the soul of nature.

Blue bells, paint brush, lupines
And all manner of reedy grasses.
Deep inside me is a place like this.
The place I have buried my young.
The little ones who died of shame, neglect and hurt.

And I must return, not to exhume the dead
But to pay tribute.
To return with honor and love
Harvest the daisies and buttercups.
Grow them in the garden of my heart.

I can tend the flowers
Which spring from destruction
I can mingle them with the growth of my sober life.
Restore my prairie
To a splendor it has never known.

I can enjoy the bounty
Of saving seeds worth saving
And planting my Higher Powers will for me.


Vlog: http://youtu.be/IjV0_1qsOT8

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

[Tommi]

I think it's time to get a whale of a goldfish Lighthouse Keeper! Rereading your Jan 7th post, I have decided I need an aquarium. Maybe you do too!
Or, one of those little battery operated with fake fish will do, as long as we keep them healthy, as we must for ourselves,

Jan 7, 1977 was my last drink, drug, elective toxic substance, inhaling gasoline fumes and well, those other intoxicating dangerous, exciting things of the addictive mind.

The Lighthouse Keeper (LeftWriteFemmes) post on my AA Anniversary , quoted below, seems somehow prophetic. We have talked about our chaotic pasts, and our two long lived goldfish, Whale and Ick. Where we came from in the darkness , into the light , and how reaching out had been hard, but lifesaving.

As I celebrate this year, I remember those along the way, the smiles, the tears, the life and the deaths of those we know. Taking care of business, reach out when you need to, because we need to keep the light on.

If you have followed this thread, and those of another time and .com
You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane, and More Sober on the Way to Sane and Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

From LeftWriteFemmes Book and daily posts for her service of so many


LeftWriteFemme
OLD GOLDFISH

I got them when my sobriety was new.
They were tiny little guys, ten cent feeders.
I wanted my stepson to sleep soundly
In our strange jumble of a home, fresh from purchase.

The tank sat on a dresser under his elevated bed
Space to fit my hand to feed them
No space for baby boy to climb in
I loved my goldfish.

There is never a NO with goldfish
Feed them as often as you want
Let the water get cold
Put them in a big space, small place, plants, no plants.

NO was so hard, I hate and fear No.
I am hard, fish are easy.
Tears and mesmerizing aquarium
Meetings and steps.

I could not keep myself alive
I don't know how I kept the fish fed.
The program kept me going,
Kept hope flowing and the fish swam.

In this century when we are finally outliving wild goldfish
We are sober together,
By the grace of a Higher Power, in this century.
It's been a wonderful time.

I am grateful to be here with the goldfish.
I am grateful the goldfish are here for me.
Expecting so little
Maybe I could return the favor.


****
If you have followed this thread, and those of another time and .com
You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane, and More Sober on the Way to Sane and Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault


Thank you Sherrie T. , wishing you well, and Please keep the light on, we need it , ad the storms may come and go, but the sober light will always guide you home.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 19

What Is A Sheep To Do?

Things are bad out there. I see the trouble as I circle within the flock. Many of us whisper to each other as we pass. How can I create lasting change? Is there something helpful that will not separate me from my precious life, something that will not make me prey to the vultures before I even realize that I’m dead? How can I live and strive while the wolves hold the hilltops? Is the choice merely, one death or the other? Is there an as yet unseen path? Can I find it while maintaining my place in this congregation? What is a sheep to do?

Topple the toys from their bins and play

.
Tea or Sympathy

Tears pouring into the teacup growing cold on the table create a sea of emotions uncharted. If I can not offer sympathy to the contents, the soulless heel that I am, how then do I expect to have a future? If I will tender only meager tolerance toward the spindled thing valiantly trying to beat within me why do I even show my face to the mirror? If shoulders are cold and turned inward then I will collapse into the inexpressive, dismal thing that has been misshapen through misuse and I might as well drink the chilly tea for that’s all the comfort I’ll get. I must do better by myself in order to brew a better world.

Smooth one hand with the other.

*

SOD

Green and black
Pinwheels of rolled grass
Speed by me on a flat bed.

Sod
Headed for home
That is how it is for me.

I grew up in a place of impermanence
A place clearly not my destination
Uprooted and prepared for relocation I am in transition.

My future surroundings unknown
Will be a perfect fit.
I have been anticipated
Grown for a purpose of which I am uninformed.


I have done my part, I am ready to lay down my roots
And become a lawn of seamless expanse
Somewhere my Higher Power is grading a hill
Smoothing the way.

I am ready to take my place
In the landscape
Of sober living and right thinking.

Vlog: http://youtu.be/lX7ce5VY4tc

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 20


Saurian or Dalliance


I love to be mystical, but the only dragon in my life is when I drag on and on. Procrastination is the winged beast in my world. I armor plate the thing, shiny and gleaming, my loitering delay is mightily impressive and you might think it would take flight from the way it postures but departure has been adjourned in favor of misgiving and postponement. I wander through the forest attempting to appear brave and feeling it occasionally while my tale grows longer. I need the fierce face and sharp claws; I can beat the mythology if I will just continue to take action.

Never confuse signposts for guideposts.


*

THE FROG

Stretched in the water
Still
The frog hangs.

The pond is barely a tea cup
Sufficient for communion
Of God and frog.

I watch the frog
Unblinking
Savoring respiration.

In a pond in Maine, I bore the posture
Center-stage
A quarter mile of water all around.

I hold my head above the surface
And feel I am in the eye of Gods creation
Face to face with benevolence.

Peace spars with uneasy smallness
I am a tiny speck, floating in the soup.
I am one organism in a sea teaming with life.

I am a part of
Not protected
But equal to the rest.

Can I bare this reality
The struggle of living
On a web?

Can I live a humble life
Knowing
I am favored no more then the rest?

Can I set aside my need
For preferential treatment
A God given Band-Aid for my multitude of hurt?

"If you can't, you will drink." Says my sponsor
"If I have to live this way I will cry." I respond.
"That is your God given right."


Vlog: http://youtu.be/n7AtS2CzGX4

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 21


Guest Flag


The polite thing to do is fly the silly blue rectangle with its equally silly white diagonal stripe. That would be the polite thing, for sure but that would peek my disease’s hold card. If anyone knew that my illness was sailing my ship instead of me the effect would be ruined. Or so says the canker that grips me and steers me to disaster. Announcing this day-tripper as an unentitled accessory to whatever wrong I am about to commit might warn my friends or enlist my sponsor, but no I leave my colors fly and endanger the surrounding water. For in truth my flag is just as fraudulent as this vessel and is only on loan to me as well.

Panoramic inventory shows the landscape in a better light.

*

THE MUSIC

I hear a tinkling noise and look around the room.
No, it's coming from my head.
It's the sound of the music of my life.

The bells, a horn or two
The strings,
Always the strings.

The sharp clear cry of the vixen
Calling from the hedgerow
The lonely voice of resolve.

The melody shifts
Tomorrow's tune warming up
In the wee hours of the night.


I don't try to part my lips
Replication is not a possibility
I am only just learning to move with the rhythm.

Keep the beat in my heart
And draw it down
For my toe to tap.

I cannot sing my song
I must let it live in me awhile longer.
I can't share things of which I haven't had my fill.

Giving too much
Too often
Makes the anthem run thin.

I have to be fully me, to be full voiced.
I need to stew in the juice
Of overflowing harmony.

The pounding of my feet on the steps unite the accord
Wild things and practiced plans
Put forward the waves of life on earth.

I follow
Placing my feet in well worn trends
The dance school reopened for sober living.

Passion plays and calls my response
For today, I pass
I leave the song inside

Vlog: http://youtu.be/jTBmHZkNh3U

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 22


Lathhouse

I want to face the sun. I want to stand and the wind to blow. I want the rain uninterrupted on my head. I want to remain upright and unburnt, to prevail amidst it all. Tender stalks and verdant leaves frustrate my anti-social streak. I want to bear the worst without cover or assistance but here I am in the slanted shade of this dynasty. As I grow so does the awareness that even when I am strong enough to leave this sheltered abode I will be relocated to a row where I am never alone.

Dream of a way to paddle a round boat.


*
THE PRIVILEGE OF SUN RISE

I awake happily at 5:30.
I will again see the show beyond compare
In stark contrast to the mornings
I filled with moping or sober angst,
Shades of the same dark color.
I shuck my covers
Bathing and dressing with purpose
And propel myself forward.
I hate to miss the first act.
Dawn
The tint of clouds dusky and sweet
I'm on my route
I start my open eyed prayer.
For all those living at the hands of an addict
Be with them---Please
For the addicts
Help us all to fail----Fast
I scan the horizon
Checking all the views
I reflect on the striking change,
Earth bound green and gold
Sky held pink, orange and blue.
The silhouettes of trees exquisitely lit from behind.
The sweet moon sharing the sunrise with me
Add to the pleasure of my drive.
I start my gratitude list.
Beginning with my sobriety
Each moment.
The people, The life,
The thinking, The feeling
And my ability
To share it all
With You

Vlog: http://youtu.be/00eiIsaotPc

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 23

Frankie



“Why do I expect new leaves to grow on dead sticks?” I pleaded to my sponsor.
“Is that a ‘why do fools fall in love’, question?” she retorted.
“Oh, I suppose it is. I was doing so well having a ‘listen only’ relationship with someone then she asked why I don’t tell her my opinion and I like a ‘fool’ I told her. The ensuing pile of rationalizing and justifying she gave stank up my whole day.”
“I bet your steady stream of self reproach didn’t help either,” my sponsor added.
“But, I know better!” I cried. “I mean this is why I stopped my speaking role with this girl. I know she is a reactor NOT a listener. How could I fall apart at her first recognition that I am wordless in the face of her diatribes?”
“You were hopeful. Is that such a crime? You think better of people than they really are. I think that helps you stay willing to help them,” she soothed.
“Yes, but this snapped my willingness to work with her in half. How do I put it back together?”
“Maybe you needed to learn that it’s okay to leave the dead sticks behind.”


Why do turnips look like tops and turnip tops look like greens?


*

COMPOST

Looking at the bins
The stages of decomposition
Remind me of my disease
The stinking garbage I came in with.

I have learned to work my program
the same way I learned to tend my pile
Personal experience, advice, watching
and smelling, the mistakes of myself and others.

I learned covering thoroughly with meetings
And steps works like leaves and hay
to eliminate the immediate stench.
Circulation is important to prevent me from becoming stale.

In the end, the secret is turning it over.
If I don't turn it over I become putrid.
I rot and ferment instead of decomposing,
breaking down in a way which restores me to usefulness.

When I work the process
my higher Power turns me into a medium of growth.
A renewed source of life and depth.
I become rich in all things that matter.

I am sought after by all the people involved
In planting seeds of hope.
My sponsor says, “It’s a sign of humility
that I aspire to be like dirt."

Encouraging sprouts
from the remnants
of my past.
She might be right

Vlog: http://youtu.be/C_f750_kBCo

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 24

The Max Factor

I apply foundation and rouge to make up the difference between reality and expectation. My composition is unexamined by onlookers; appearance is the subliminal standard bearer. My brave face is plaster cast as an estimation and a singularity. Powder gives and takes power; builds a glass ceiling then a glass floor. What I owe my mind is more than what I allow its representation to be. I am made up to a spot on the wall from which I can not move, all because I wanted to put my best face forward.

Cuddle up to curiosity

*

LIFE AS AN ELM



I stand tall
My bark sloughing elongated rectangles
Great bunions of wood protruding
Giant bubbles of tight grain grown in reactionary curls.

These tumors born of abuse and endured in maturation
Are harvested in recovery
The burden of them severed from me
By the sharp teeth of truth.

Sectioning these masses
For purposes of inventory
Allows the twisted and deformed wood
To become dry and constructive.


I inlay the contorted sheets of history
Into the panels of the doors AA built for me.
The doors built to exit hell
Which gave me access to the world beyond.

I stand in the woods
Reaching the sky
Sinking deeply in the underlying spring
Surrounded by the joys of reality.

Things unseen in my pain
Consumed
Blister covered life of addiction
Life was a forest of one.

The wind hit me
The snow fell on me
The drought
Affected only me.

Today, lightened by the loss
Of my inappropriate growth
I grow together with my sponsor,
My group and the We.

I can accept shade and shelter
Also offer it.
The bugs and parasites meet
With the resistance of communal health.


My disease
Has no harbor,
Not in my bark,
Not in my heart.

Today
My program
Strips me of my disabilities
And makes me strong in camaraderie

Vlog: http://youtu.be/CRray19GOwA


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 25

Responding to Response

Thankfully I’m not in charge of what is so freely given in this program. I want it to be available, but I want gratitude to be the universal response. At first I thought I couldn’t understand how anyone could hold this gift in their hands and not feel grateful, truth is I know exactly how that’s done and I don’t want to look at that ugly thing. “Cunning, Baffling, Powerful” But they left out how repulsive it is, maybe they didn’t want to see it either, or thought it was self-explanatory.
No matter which, I’m glad I am not the arbiter of the flowing fount that is recovery, I might have been tempted to cap and meter it, killing all the beauty and wild randomness that makes it real and true. I despair that others don’t recover as I recover and yet I am relieved that I didn’t have to drink as they drank.
I have to see those around me well enough to stay out of their traps or follow their leads, whichever is appropriate, but I don’t have to adjudicate their reply.

Pick up sticks and put downs stones

*

THE BUTTON BOX

I go to my button box
To sort out my life.
I lay out the matching sets
The various sizes, shapes and colors.

Coat buttons are commanding
But unsuitable for delicate places.
The tiny pearl buttons with shanks pull my attention
But work well only on silks.

The metal, shell and horn buttons
Come from such far off places
And all end up crossing my table
As I try to see clearly how to stick with the winners.

I know the people represented in this box.
The strong, the loud, the beautiful.
I know the weak and the unique,
The ones of special circumstances and occasions.

I come to the realization the simple ones,
The buttons sewn on the inside,
The ones who silently give strength
And support to the large and the small alike.

The ones which come in every shade and size,
Who match their ability
To service they render others,
These are my favorites.

They make secure all the things I love and trust
Flat and unobtrusive these buttons
Hold fast the fabric of my life.


Vlog: http://youtu.be/wtyMBLUK_vw

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 26


A Living Love


What I love about the program is that it is a living thing, like me.
It is not perfect, it is growing and changing, adapting and correcting for each experience and need. AA is a life into life process and saves me because life begets life, no matter what I was told. The answer to life is living and I get to see that being done by everyone from newcomer to old-timer each at his or her personal ability. I am allowed to dangle my feet, wade, tread-water and swim, all under the watchful eye of loving support and critical pretender. Difficulty is not removed nor is the way made smooth, but I am no longer without a thread to hold. I love the web I help weave myself into and feel protected from the spider of my addiction because together we are living proof.


Bear Grace
*

DEEP IN THE SEA

Under the mirror
There is life
Under what I reflect to the world
I am a world apart.


I smile sweetly, political in my response
to confrontation and conflict
Deep, deep in the sea, is a current of sadness
I can't always shake.

Pain is the past
But it's there like a moray
Lurking to strike aimlessly, pointlessly
At the passersby.

The ripping teeth
And the cold stare
My terror
No way to escape it.

I focus on the topside
The reflective part of me.
I keep as clean
And free as can be.

I stick to my business
List my goals and make plans
The water runs cold
Then hot beneath.

I carry the steps to this underwater grave
Trying to inflate the rubber skin of god
But No
There is no life in the god of my understanding

Or maybe there is no life.
For the character the drowned balloon represents
The sea is bigger than me.
The life stronger and more abundant.

The sky it reflects as vast as the liquid
I swim
There is a Power
and it doesn't need that comic book face.

Safety is not the requirement
that can be granted.
Lack of safety does not end my life
It does not end God

Vlog: http://youtu.be/52qY3TwWOxo

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 27


Simplicity Itself

My life runs at a Gilbert and Sullivan pace, with about as much sense and comic relief. You say 'keep it simple' and my disease says 'why ruin a good play?’ The truth is this is not play at all but a work that consumes my life from me and doesn't thank me for my time. Simplicity for me requires respect, a gift I selectively give myself; a gift that I often use only as a shield during battle. My past method of increased self-respect is life in a war zone. This is no solution. Release of grief, this is the onerous path I avoid taking. Purging the wrong thinking and action of others from my blood, my eyes, my skin, allows me to lift my chin and square my soul to plumb and level living, don self-respect as a birth right and set a calendar fit for plausible life, a simple life.



If you are not a hero in your own home you are not a hero


*

HIDE AND SEEK

I have sought You
High and Low
But like the rain
You have always found me.

I like a cold, wet cat on a winters day
Peer into warm lit windows
Hoping
You will be home.

I seek to keep moving
You find me for some unknown reason.
I have given up
Naming You.

I trust You know who you are
In spite of the fact I do not.
You are places I don't know
Doing things I think better of.

Citing the list of errands I daily make for You,
Not to beleaguer You
But the unfinished list of history
Trails out of my pocket.

I worry I may possess
Your only copy
Of this Injustice List.

There have been days of peace
Days I don't think too much.
Days I turn away from
My history lessons and future projections.

My ultimate problem is with the equal sign
I run the numbers and it figures inequity.
I check my calculations and shake
The calculator of my mind.

Deeply, I fear
You're a one god
And do not comprehend
The implications of zero.

If you multiply with only things above naught
You may be unaware of nothingness.
The empty things I feel
When I can't seem to find you.

Self-possessed - insensitive of the cipher
Your dimensions stay positive.
Bring me into Your realm or join me in the void.

I seek You
But You have found me.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 29


Inertia

in•er•tia
n.
1. Physics. The tendency of a body to resist acceleration; the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in straight line motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force.
2. Resistance or disinclination to motion, action, or change
This force is real; the laws that govern it act on me for well and ill. When I’m on a roll it’s hard to guide me and like the girl with the curl; when I’m stuck, I’m very, very stuck and it’s awful.
I am bound by this reality and go or stay according to what is set in motion or stopped, but what about ‘the outside force’? Am I in charge of summoning ‘it’ or is ‘it’ summonable at all? Will ‘it’ obey like the dog, or obey like the cat? Or is ‘it’ more random than the rain? Can ‘it’ be lured or tempted or does ‘it lure and tempt me? And the biggest questions on my mind: Is ‘the outside force’ also subject to inertia? Are we in this together? What is ‘its’ outside force? Might it have something to do with me?



Wash one pain at a time


*

NURSE

What if the word God is like the word nurse?
What if the person is only the simple meaning?
The actor doing the service
The plain act, uncontrollable from my end.

What if my active part of God,
Is the same as my active part of nurse?
What I draw down, how I schedule myself
To be ready when the milk arrives.

How I pull and am satisfied
Digest and draw again.
Like the sea laps at the shore,
The moon tugging it all the while.

What if God is about my hunger,
Satisfaction dependent on finding a suitable teat?
Maybe this is why, when it comes to God
Much of what I do, is cry.

When faced with my need, I open my mouth
Finding only two possible responses,
Suck or Scream.
My aching consumes me and I don't know how to calm myself.

I look for the caretaker, the person, the deed.
I need sucker but never look for the breast.
I am the child of God.
I must learn to draw God in



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 30


The Was and the Is


The Silent Scream that existed as a placeholder for my G-d was incomprehensible to me. I entered AA and was informed that understanding my Higher Power was required not just some far distant goal. In true alcoholic form my first move was to shun G-d. This made room for my rage which was in much need of the space. After a few fine years of dissipation I lost interest in incendiary devices no matter how large their detonation capacity. Having cleared the room I brought in G-d as potted plant. I talked to it occasionally, watered and fed it, mostly ignored it. Growing in spite of lacking ministrations G-d was an unobtrusive force living in the corner changing gas into air and demanding nothing. As I quelled my apprehension and lived with the Presence I looked, listened, probed and questioned the subtle Force sharing the room. “Add it up,” chanted the children in my ear, “run the numbers, settle the accounts.” I calculated proofs and discarded the faulty and inaccurate. What was left, the whole, not the remainder was mine to keep, but it was not everything. I haven’t an everything G-d, because I am not a nothing person. I am something and G-d is something too. We are complimentary, like pairs of angles who come full circle.



Show the sun the souls of your feet


*

TRUST

You can trust people to be who they are.
I am a different being in relationship to different people.
To some I am the center of their constellation,
The sun burning bright, I 'm all they can see.

To others I am the moon,
Orbiting them, silent and dedicated.
With another group, I am a comet streaking through the sky,
Seldom seen but well remembered.

For many I am a distant star.
One among the multitude, blending in the night with the other signs.
Then there are the folks who see me in a more down to earth way,
I am the dirt beneath their feet.

The farmer sees me as a plant to be tended.
The cowboys view me as a horse to be broken.
To fisherman I'm a catch.
I am what people want to see.

So what can I trust them to be?
Wrapped in their own worlds
Yes, mostly I guess,
None of my business in the end.

I watch them and learn what I want to do, who I want to be.
In large part by avoiding what I see them do.
I do trust people to serve as bad examples, often
And good ones infrequently.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 31

Principles before Personalities............and gratitude!


As with everything I have to be careful of how I infer meaning. You say ‘Principles before Personalities’ and I hear, Their principles and Their personalities, immediately I’m on a tear. How different if I think of ‘my’ principles and ‘my’ personality. When I face it this way it is reflexive; I embrace my principles and my personality falls into step. I am safe and sane therefore gratitude follows just as the topic suggests. Good orderly direction is elegant when I don’t reverse direction. There is an obvious way to pet the cat when I accept that we get along fine, when I don’t………well, need I say more?




Books open minds, music opens hearts


*

WHEN I WAS YOUNG

I'm sure it will come soon
A time I can be carefree, innocent.
Worn and weary, I slog through the painful
Over awareness of what was considered my childhood.
What can I do but hope things will get simpler as I age.

My sobriety takes years from my face.
Lines slip from me and I feel the weight lift from my shoulders.
My tender branches twisted with the constant force of wind
Bud and flower in the shelter of recovery
Holding them in their own embrace.

Colors seep to the windows of my mind
Forming pictures and carrying me to a new world.
Limpid pools, a place I dive, as I look to the mirror.
Serenity a rebounding of life fills me
And I am the gentle girl I missed so long.

Longing for my loveliness, I cry at the sight of my baby one.
I have not yet taken my place on the swing
But I have been down to the edge of the playground
And run barefoot in the sand.
I will be who I was to be, it's late but it's better.

I know well enough
To enjoy it as it comes
Treasure it for every sweetness.
I will come into my youth

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 1


Know Enough to Clap




If I know I’m happy I can clap my hands, but if I’m happy and I don’t know it, what then? Will my face display tell tale signs without whispering a word of it to my mind? Will I whistle a happy tune therefore revealing my inner state? If I can’t demonstrate my reality does it cease to exist? Does my retarded ability to reflect my emotion condemn me to remedial society? Is there any other society? If I become well enough to reflexively feel and exhibit my mood will I graduate to the advanced class or be forever alone no longer having a place amid the emotional head bangers, hair twirlers and cobweb pickers? Is it a choice of knowing happiness in isolation or confusion with a crowd? Could I know? Should I know? Would I know? Who knows?


Iron your will



*


THE DIFFERENCE

Falling and flying are the same, save the landing.
No matter what you do in the air, how well or how poorly
In the end, if you don't land, it's a fall
And if you do, a flight.

How we begin seems of ultimate importance
But is seen as a farce in the face of ruin.
The most promising of starts can be sucked ground ward,
Compass and instrumentation rendered useless, through lack of humility.

Piteous starts, starts without plan or goal
Are viewed as triumphs when safety has been captured from defeat.
Willingness is my aileron
It contributes to my lift in ways I cannot explain.

It smoothes the gusts of life which forever blow in my face
And willingness brings the ground up to meet me.
All I have to do is be willing
And stick out my feet.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 2


The Inside Half

I have drunk deeply from the glass set before me. I’m not entirely sure that I am half way through, but I am into it a goodly bit. I would be happy to have another 19 years; nineteen more hours would be a gift, too. That glass might be half empty but I am at least half full and I am amazed! I am regularly stunned by the prodigies this half trek has born to term; equally dazzled by how quickly the generations compound in this painstaking construction. Development both internal and assembled surpasses my wildest imaginings. Amazement is my most constant companion, more than gratitude and as of late even outstripping willingness my most trusted ally. Shock has been replace by wonder, bewilderment with surprise, I am fortified with these feeling realities and look happily to finishing the rest of what is in that glass.


Turn left into your right mind

*

DUCK TONGUE

Trying to get out of myself, I travel to an Asian fish market and grocery
I had heard has very fresh fish.
Greeted at the door by thirty large and lively tilapia
Swimming in their tank,
I felt my mood lift.

The captured beauty gave me pause.
Shiny and silvery, the faces banged at the glass
As they tried to get a better look at my entrance.
Like passengers packed on a subway car,
The fish jockeyed for position near the glass.

Further inside, I see the wonders we have extracted from the sea,
Cuttlefish, conch, squid, mussels, clams,
Whole fish of every stripe.
My belief in a power of diversity strengthens
And I smile.

Leaving the seafood section, I head forward,
To the refrigerated cases of other types of meat.
Frozen pigs tail, fowl with feet on, the novel variety pleasing.
When I approach the trays neatly filled with rows of chicken feet
I break out in a grin.

Thoughts of soup and days gone by flutter through my mind.
Finding formed foam piled with layer after layer
Of ducks tongues was my limit
Spinning in my mind,
Who? Why? Oh no!

But in the end I came to care
About how these minuscule flaps of leather
Were placed.
The person whose job is done well
And to the fact people are just people.

We do what we do.
For reasons unimagined to the rest
And we do it,
With full faith
And hopeful breath.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 3


Today’s Math


Today is 12/06/06 this is an equation to me, 12 = 6 + 6, simple; not everything is, but math always works for me. My Higher Power is math based and one of my major decision making tools is to run the equation of the presenting situation. There are many constants in my life and those numbers are easier to calculate the variables often prove more difficult. Scalable problems allow for my Geometry. Proofs are a comfort when I can get them. Set Theory is what I settle for when I can’t. I try to show all my work and have others check my calculations. I can’t tell you how often a simple error in addition or subtraction has fouled my whole equation not to mention my equilibrium. In conclusion I would like to say it is now 12= 9 + 6 and somehow I’ve lost three days, or did I gain them? See how tricky the signs are.



Put misconception up for sale


*

HOW LIKE THE MOON

I show the shining bright face to the world
But cannot enumerate the dark.
I change and turn for all to see
Glowing sliver, to full fledged smile.

I inventory all phases
Can tell you from wax to wane
But the darkness, the anchor to my lonely life
I can only guess.

I feel my way across the unknown topography
Searching with fingers and faith
To find the secrets
Of this magic nightmare.

And What? What is the thing to break it?
Hope, Reverence, A detailed map
Or is the darkness just a fact,
Part of the big equation, the equalizer of the light?

If this is so, how best to live with it?
Continue the search or post barriers,
Go ever forward looking for an answer,
Endear myself to the void?

The choices are always mine
The way seldom clear.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 4


What is “Offender” Number 2?

I’m not looking for trouble, really I’m not, it’s just that thanks to this program I’m no longer plagued by resentment, but I doubt that is the only stumbling block there is. Possibly the remaining list is as divergent as the alcoholics who make the lists. Though I am guessing we have more in common than that one thing. I stare at the various and sundry bric-a-brac measuring potential harm and formidability, so many candidates with razor edges. I take my combat pose as I lift the pen, wondering if giving things status also gives them power. I take comfort that acknowledgement is empowering for me. Tell me the weights you lift to strengthen your “Spiritual Muscle” the things that crowd behind resentment vying for their turn as perpetrator of downfall and misery.




Poetry in motion is like a marching band with words



*

THE FORGOTTEN

I am not Cleopatra.
I am not in denial.
I forgot.
"Sure" says my sponsor
"I've seen the headdress."

That's not fair
I've heard women say they forget the pain of child birth.
"They're kidding, you can't just forget pain,
It's there waiting in the wings,
Looking for its fifteen minutes of fame."

"You will be the worse for it" she say with her smug way.
What if I can't drag it forward?
"Honey, Baby, Sweetie, you need to let those things come up,
Before they drag you back to a drink
Or whatever your new addiction of choice is."

"Just open your mind,
You might be surprised what is waiting to see the light of day."
What if it kills me?
"Darling, you're not that lucky,
You don't get to escape through death either."

"Lean into this and you will get through it faster
Hold onto the program and you will get through easier,
Fight it and it will tear you up."
Always the optimist my sponsor.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 5


More Than Less



There is a difference between doing G-d’s will and winning, though some times they look the same. Skin deep appearance or monetary prowess share no border with the will of G-d, but these can stack as transparencies seeming invisible to the uninitiated practitioner. The organs exist and blood flows in the living thing and the shell is hard, lifeless; though it glints. Success can be the mantel of right compliance or the shroud of something deadly. I mustn’t be pushed or pulled by the desire of accolades or acceptance, nor shall I flee into a trap for fear of ridicule or rejection. The lacerations of emotional infliction, unloving judgments and imprudent fallout cause me to flinch in the face of changing focus and relinquishing hope of control. I am powerless over everything and responsible to everything. Anything else is incidental and with loving help will work out if I do not panic. Ah, to love myself as G-d loves me.



Control is an illusion I perpetrate on myself

*

THE THRONG

The more people I meet, the more vehemently I do not believe in God.
The tidal wave of human ignorance hits me
And the sheer and repetitive force of it
Is more than my single souled craft can bear.

Cyclical, coincidental tragedy, coupled with purposeful meanness
Barbed with arrogance and misaligned fear
Hold my child's faith under a scalding bath of realism
What to do, I do not know.

The fragility and perniciousness of life war with each other,
Though loss wins out.
What can I use to keep myself from withdrawal
To despondent hibernation?

Looking for glimmers of goodness in the sea of overwhelming depravity
Is not cutting it with me.
Mystery as an explanation
Is not working either.

I am not a retarded five year old.
I am a despairing thirty-eight year old
And I am tired of game playing and coyness.
I want God to arrive, not with explanations, but solutions.

I am not looking for a punishing parent
To send errand persons to bed without supper.
I am looking for the equation of repair,
The dance steps to healing.

I am yearning for global twelve step,
A universal attunement
And galactic spiritual awakening
And by the way, I want it now


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 6

Two Powers


The river and the bridge; one force swift and roiling the other stolid and stoic, the first carries me away and the other carries me over. For the love of liquid, current and life I have slipped in to the water and washed; my life abandoned. For love of upright contact, terra bound movement I cross the bridge. Will I be deposited in the Ocean or wend to the City and back? Where is the greater power in Surrender or Choice?




Ignorance and greed are the same thing aren’t they?




*

THE SEAMLESS DOOR

Tongue and groove fit tight.
The pickled boards belie the passage.
Hinges buried deep
Secreted inside the place with no words.

The door remains shut, hidden.
The air, candy sweet.
The space, filled with the unbroken stream
Of surreal childhood.

What can I tell you of this living snapshot?
Nothing but haltings
Stops and shutters
Of a life encapsulated.

Proudly, I walk from this train wreck
Only to find the tether stitched
To my heart,
My soul, my mind.

Flashing through the room,
I weary and wonder.
I have often found myself outside this confusing destination
But never have I seen the door.

Always, I believe this time I am free of it.
When I find myself again within this realm
I know it is something
I cannot be parted from.

Then what of the door?
The undetected portal
Was spied by me one day
While it swung in the breeze.

I saw the simple barn
And the open loft door.
I never thought my incubus to be housed
In so plain a construction.

There the turmoil of my forward motion
Stored in the attic of the pony shed.
So may tragic contrivances
Are stored in such candid spots

Accessibility is the beginning of approach.
I take the stairs.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 7

From Pen to Progress

“Leave those gaters in the paddock awhile longer,” said my sponsor.
I gave a little better than a cursory glance at the hulking forms though I did stay strictly on my side of the fence and grasped tighter the hand of my custodian. The once over worked fine as my first pass through the creatures of the swamp, I didn’t fully grasp what lay beyond the petting zoo, but given my newness this wasn’t entirely a bad thing.
On second run I was in a boat with a glass bottom and a guide, I had vision, clarity. Third time through was a charm, swim fins and a rope tied about my waist, it was all too real. I floundered and had to be hauled bodily by my home group, my sponsor stood anchor.
I have numbered and charted these murky waters now and I see the lure they have for my ailing, twisted mind; the intensity of the brutes awash and the dark calling to dark make that sick sense that only an alcoholic can parse. I have to take to those by ways with supplies and reinforcements. Never swim alone!



Hand in hand is the best way to get anywhere



*

CONSERVATION OF LOVE

Love does not diminish
It recycles like the rain
Ever in transition and transmission

Love is not salvationary or redemptive
Nor do I believe it to be the currency of Godliness.
Love is an element like cobalt or gold
It has weight and substance.

Love is the coinage of responsibility
Not a door out of consequences.
Love, true love, inspires right action
Never cowardice or disrespect.

In this strange amelioration
Standing in the wings of realism
Love is love no longer

Love is the standard I have to bear
Not the canopy I stand beneath
In the frozen center.

Love cannot endure the pressure of misinformation
And melts with friction,
Floods with irresponsibility.

Love, like money, admiration and sex, has its place
And must not have expectation of being more than it is,
With that said,
Love is peerless, to be treasured, protected and shared


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

[Justin]

I needed this today.......

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.
When I am disturbed,
It is because I find some person, place, thing, situation --
Some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me,
And I can find no serenity until I accept
That person, place, thing, or situation
As being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.
Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake.
Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober;
Unless I accept life completely on life's terms,
I cannot be happy.
I need to concentrate not so much
On what needs to be changed in the world
As on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."

[girlin2une]

I love this little tidbit amongst the whole...

February 7
!



Hand in hand is the best way to get anywhere

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 8

Simultaneous Acceptance

Being typical is a difficult thing to live with, but I am typical. Being extraordinary is a challenging thing to live up to, but this is also mine to bear, you see I am a typical alcoholic after all. Walking with one foot in each camp is not enough. I must simultaneously accept both my common commonality and my lottery winner uniqueness if I am to travel hand in hand with my Higher Power. If I don’t integrate this double reality, allow it to imprint my thoughts the way it is tattooed in my DNA I can not possibly take the biggest step of all and drop my judgment of these things so that humility can dwell within. You see there is not enough room in the vortex of my humanness to accommodate the jags of verdict and the desire for the sublime smoothness of humility. I can’t chase humility I have had to face that, but I can remove the impediments to its residence.


Have some compassion for your wounds

*

READY

Ready or not here it comes.
Life on terms of its own.
Bracing for the onslaught of gravity
I grip too well the implements of past days.

Fearing the pressure, I lay in my shallow grave,
The ground having been scooped out by my own hand.
Withering from expectation, my blood runs slow and dark,
Reducing to coagulated futility, loosing my life in anticipation of death.

Attempts at being less, as means of protection,
Less is not a solution.
Fading does not make life more livable
It makes me unavailable.

Readiness is my responsibility, it is momentary, momentary is sufficient.
Sobriety is nothing more than lining myself up with the needs of this instant
I need go no further,
Whole solutions are not my department.
Showing up,
dressed and washed,
ball and bat in hand if possible,
Just making it to the lineup is my full-time job.
Even if I never swing
It is better than being buried in the field



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 9

Hospitality

What unites us, heals us, serves us, is the hospitality of the program. Fellowship encircles us and draws us close, in a word unites us, hospitality is our core. Hospital is the root of hospitality and recovery is the route to health, hospitality is the skeleton of recovery. Hospitable aid, the true gift of self is hospitality; hospitality the master of A.A.


Observe inaction and discover its root

*

FORGIVENESS

Forgiveness is not something to force on people
like unwanted coffee.
It is only appropriate to forgive people who ask
for forgiveness
And show with their behavior that they want it.

It is never appropriate to shove forgiveness on people
who haven't asked
And show no signs of wanting it
or demonstrate just the opposite.

It's been said, forgiving was to help you feel better.
It doesn't.
Letting go of resentments makes you feel better.
Making amends to the people you've hurt,
Cleaning up your side of the street makes you feel better.

Keeping an open mind and heart will make you ready
for the possibility of someone coming to make amends.
Forgiveness is a two way street.
Anything you have to throw over someone like a net
is usually a mistake.
You are reading selections from More Sober on the Way to Sane and Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 10


Recognition

All I have are these two hands; I can not lift the world

All I have are these two legs; I can not flee the hoards

All I have is this one heart though need and want prevail

All that’s left is this one mind to try to tell this tale.

Everything in this bright orb is there for me to see

Everything laid out before me all that I can be

Everything that I perceive as wrong and know it in my heart

Everything I think to touch and change believing it’s my art

Once I take the giant reins acceptance escapes the scene

Once the fates are in my grasp chaos is the theme

Once the sight of my right place is lost from in my mind

Once I try to fill the great big shoes is the day that I go blind.



Prune expectation with open-mindedness




*

DON'T BE A FRAUD

Fake it till you make it is like saying,
Keep drinking till you get sober, complains my sponsor.
But what about the things I can't do yet?
You work on them, that's all, you work.

You adjust your attitude.
Practice the steps.
Carry your behind to meetings,
And talk to me and others in your network.

Yeah, that sounds like a breeze.
It's easier than staying sober while lying.
In this program we try to stay honest
And in the moment.

Pretending to feel differently than you do
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 people who try to sell you a Softer Way.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 11


Rebellion Dogs

“Rebellion dogs our every step at first” AA’s 12 and 12

They won’t come to heal, won’t sit, won’t stay, these dogs circle waiting for signs of weakness or vulnerable skin, but there they are; they have been found out. The ones that worry me more are those that took show and place, the dogs that stand in the shadows and lurk in the wing. What are their names I wonder? Their distinctive smell? Must I identify these writhing mutts or simply call animal control? Though this never worked with rebellion dogs these lesser pups surely would run from would be dog catchers and leave me to my dreams. Alas, I name them and show them to my friends; we like they run in packs and are served well by honest disclosure.


Learn from old dogs

*

THINGS THAT ARE THICKER THAN WATER

Pudding, mud, ice cream, cement, sauce, paint,
sap, drool, gravy, wood.
What is that?
A list of things that are thicker than water.

There are so many,
Why do people get so hung up on blood?
Survival, comfort, or maybe tradition?
There must be many reasons.

Why we strong-arm one another into relations
with family.
Families we drank with
Or families we drank to get away from,
But it's not the family is it, it's us.

We have to learn to do what we need to do.
We can't force ourselves into relationships
with anyone for any reason
Other then it is what is best for us.

Shoulds and aughts have no place in the family situation
So can I walk away from them all?
You can't do anything in the sweep of the wand,
In the same vein don't obligate yourself to people
due to viscosity.

That sounds like a promising start.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 12

Whittle it Down


A famous sculptor mentioned that he doesn’t so much create the objects as remove the stone which doesn’t belong. I have had the same experience with willingness. Encased in the bedrock of my will willingness had no opportunity to open doors. Flaking away the extraneous the key shape appears, rugged, blockish, rudimental. As the tears stream down my face and wrong thinking flies from my brain the key is more finely formed. As I wheedle at misconception and haul bodily wrong action the teeth of this thing show sharp in this day’s sun. Many doors stand ajar, at first those with basic tumblers, but now even those with encrypted defense are no match for the willingness, which I wield with rapier wit. The obvious blocks to progress open to me as well as the subtle doors to untold destination, I am let out of danger, released into possibility.





Trace implication



*

NIGHT FLIGHT

The small log shape with wings
Passed the windshield of my moving car
Without collision.
Meticulous calculation and correction
In a night sky.

Silent passage
Swift and meaningful
The owl lives as it knows how.

I was not born to the night.
Darkness not my given realm.
I have inverted my senses and compensated
For the moonlight.

I pull my way through the air
And hunt for my survival
In a world of shadows.
The morsels caught on the wing.

Snatches of conversations
And lines from books sustain me.
Giving me strength to live
In spite of the nocturnal bondage.

I have made peace with the night.
I am changed by my living
And my living endures.

The grace required to abide here
Is bestowed on me nightly.
I wear it though it is not the prize I sought.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 13

Progressive Fourth


All I can do is stand on the grass and count the shutters, the windows, the doors. At first I cannot approach to inspect any closer than that. Time passes and the other steps work me. I peer through the windows the next time and count the stuffs I can glimpse through the glass. I possess no periscopic vision, but what is in plain sight I reckon. Subsequently I wished to exteriorize and draw the inventory of the house out onto the lawn and tally there wishing to avoid that interior life, the poisoned vixen who haunted there. Time passed and she recovered as did I, into the house I went. I am now able not only to number my possessions; I can assess the flow and function, work patterns, interplay, reliability. I have now appraised not just the what, but the how of my life and progress into tomorrow.


Give cooperation a hand

*

TRAVELING PICTURES

I parked next to a beaten little import.
The well of the passengers side filled
With empty sports drink bottles and soda cans
The dash board was a shrine.

Three taped photographs.
One of a young man and young woman.
One of the young woman and an older woman.
One of the young woman and an enormous marble statue.

There were small carved objects
Affixed to the dash.
Jade and soapstone figures,
Beads and a feather.

The sanctuary in my head is decked out
In a similar manner.
Postcard pictures line my mind.
People I love, trips I took, pets long gone.

The road signs of my journey
Stand as exhibits of a tour of duty
Not always to my liking
But nothing I would trade.

I know clearly where I have been
And study the map to prepare
For the future escapades and loved ones.

Trinkets strung on my life line
Give texture, flavor and flash
To my pilgrimage.


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

[Justin]

Awesome and inspiring.......Thank you :-)

[LeftWriteFemme]

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.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 15

Black and Blue Prints



Building hell from plans I found in the attic; furnishing it with what was left in the basement didn’t make a life but it did keep me occupied. Activity insulates me from living; camouflaging the windswept landscape I claw across turning my face from the oasis believing I have perfected a mirage. I have battered my hope and tied her in the corner the corner which I built from the blue prints I used to turn my life black


Turn up in the best places, turn up when needed, turn up the corners of your mouth

*

THE DEALS I'VE MADE

Because they are deals and not resentments or secrets
These circular schemes did not come out in my fourth step.
They didn't come out in the wash.
They come out whenever they are broken.

If the deal is-Don't eat pickled herring
And you won't remember X
The deal will be broken when pickled herring
Is served to me at some social gathering.

As I get healthier, the breaks connect evermore deeply.
What in early sobriety would have given me unexplained discomfort
Now gives me full-blown flashbacks
And I watch the deal unravel.

I wasn't supposed to eat this
Because this was on my plate-------When
But now that it's on the plate here----Now
I have to face this ugly roiling mess.

The deals saved my life
But unless they are handled with care and honesty
They can cost me the life I have now.

I must choose a safe person and place
To share these broken shards with.
Living alone with this will not work
And making it public fodder is a setup as well.

In every one of these deals
There is a back door to a drink
And therefore WE have to go out the front door together.


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

[girlin2une]

February 10


Recognition

All I have are these two hands; I can not lift the world

All I have are these two legs; I can not flee the hoards

All I have is this one heart though need and want prevail

All that’s left is this one mind to try to tell this tale.

Everything in this bright orb is there for me to see

Everything laid out before me all that I can be

Everything that I perceive as wrong and know it in my heart

Everything I think to touch and change believing it’s my art

Once I take the giant reins acceptance escapes the scene

Once the fates are in my grasp chaos is the theme

Once the sight of my right place is lost from in my mind

Once I try to fill the great big shoes is the day that I go blind.


Simple....yet not....
I love this...

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 16



The Long Dark Ride


Are fear and ignorance one thing that looks like itself or terrifying twins who feed one another? Can they be separated and if they can will it kill them? And if they die what will spring from their remains? Will it be better or worse? Can I tell what better is? Should I tell if it turns out to be worse? Is there ever an end to either fear or ignorance? If there is, how deep is that well and will I survive a trip to the bottom? Do you know and do you care? Will you go with me if I find the way? Will you take me if you find it first?




Learn from ugliness


*

THE 24 HOUR GOD

Matching a loving God to the horrors of my past
has proved impossible for me.
Projecting a connection to an all powerful God
of the ever foreshortening future seems implausible.

In today, I see a nurturing God
not an all purpose God
Not a God who serves all.
In my life there is a God I trust today.

Each morning, when I wake
there is a pleasant surprise to find a God.
Not an expansive God, not a God to fit the continuum
But a nice neat God who fits right in this 24 hours.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 17

Suzy Q’s Mother


Through process of elimination I have had to learn who G-d is and who G-d isn’t. When it comes down to my understanding everything incomprehensible is off the table and what is left is mine, all mine. I can’t fathom an all powerful G-d; therefore my G-d is not all powerful. I can not begin to comprehend a vengeful G-d, as you might have guessed; my G-d is not vengeful. Because of these constraints I have a non-omnipotent G-d, one with limitations and bounds. This doesn’t mean I love my G-d any less in fact it may be why I love my G-d so very much. And G-d loves me with a Mother love that trails me to the depths and heights of the path, but like any mother, she can’t do everything. My G-d is accomplished and wonderful, but there are days that I need things, which lay outside my Higher Power’s area of expertise and I must turn to help beyond our little circle of two. This is not easy at first. We both feel awkward in the attempt, but Suzy Q lives two houses down and her mother still has her hook shot from college and since my mom’s experience of basketball is that it’s the court you walk through to go play tennis, I ask Mrs. Q with help making the three point shots. I don’t have to understand Suzy Q’s mother, I leave that to Suzy. I just have to ask for help, learn the jump and go home when I’m done. It’s nice to be able to slam dunk, but there is no place like home.


Recommend earnestness
*

THIN ICE

The ice is brittle, transparent and breaking away.
I brace for destruction, turmoil and frigid descent.
I am stuck in my topside thinking
And cannot realize the chance for freedom the cracking expanse promises.

I am an oceanic creature.
I can escape my watery bonds with the splitting of the ice.
Trapped in a hole I keep open only through the friction of my unrest
I am kept from the community of life to which I belong.

My reflection mixes with my view of the sky
And I forget my place, forget my name,
Forget how I have come to be trapped here.

The pining after what is not mine to have
Has brought me to this thin edge.
I must break through to be who I am.
In doing so I shatter the illusion of who I thought I was.

Zeal to zenith
I must move away from the phantasm and mockery
And take refuge in what I am

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 18


Hiding


“Defeat is what you make of it,” says my sponsor. “Fighting a thousand secret battles when you claim that you want peace is not right. The agony of defeat is when you keep on fighting. There is no honor in waving the white flag, but never laying down your arms.”
“I can’t just give them up they have been in the family for years,” my whining retort.
“I’m sure they have, darling, I’m sure they have, and haven’t done any of you a lick of good either,” her smug reply.
“They are good for sabotage,” I begin my running start at her.
“Sabotage is something you only do to yourself, because who else can you really sabotage? Who do you really hate enough other than you?”
“My hobby is denying that, you know.”
“Yes, and sweet lot of good it does you, the war rages within you and outside you say it’s harmony, no matter all the signs of discord.”
“And if I were to really give up. If, I were really tired enough, how can I insure my safety?” I asked with my hands nearly in the air.
“Tell the truth, even if it’s only to your self. Put space between you and weapons of mass destruction. Oh, and make sure you surrender to a friend.”



Loosen your grasp as often as you can


*

LIFE IS UNFAIR

Assuring myself I will not be permitted through the gate,
I walk the perimeter assessing the fence,
Looking for a place to exploit, a wire slightly high.
Trying to look graceful, I duck under the fence.

Telling myself I prefer life on the edge.
The water is less dangerous here on the fringe.
I wouldn't want to be swept away.

I stay clear of my peers.
I stand in the baby pool and feel confidant I won't drown.
Brushing from my conscience that I won't swim either.

Struggling to the top of the pile or scurrying underneath
Is a blatant lack of humility
Skirting the margin is the same.

Facing life and finding it unfair
I take to the world of exception
And hope to slip through the cracks to a life of safety.
In that act, I discount my talent and ability.
Worst of all, I disconnect from God.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 19

Jenny


Though ignorance may be bliss, living in the shadow of someone else’s ignorance is sheer hell. The confusion is bad, but the lies are worse. Want to cripple a child for life give it to a well meaning fool who has the rule book to the wrong board game, that child will grow to need crutches they don’t make and medicine they can’t brew. Dependant on misguided insanity the child will require a miracle cure and may lack the ability to ingest it. Best case scenario the kid makes a brave escape into a world she can barely comprehend, worse case she turns the rule book upside down and reads it backwards to her own unfortunate brood. Ignorance is always a twilight proposition, half agreement the other half handcuffed nightmare. Full consent is by necessity impossible while blameless innocents is similarly unachievable. The only suggestion I can make from this side of the looking glass is to pick your poison and plan your getaway.



Rain encouragement down in your dreams


*

TIME IS HERE TO STAY

I have passed my days emptying them.
Like bread crumbs on a trail of rescue
Expecting them to facilitate redemption
And if not that at least retreat.

I release an audible sigh
As I let each evening slip to the path behind me
The future I view as a cliff I am nearing
I hope to be ransomed before the edge.

I plan carefully how to stay in sync with revision
Things must be resolved and revert
But this is not the way.
The past is there to be mined.

Inert gold as well as land mines linger beneath the surface
The days stream on.
I am not nearing the limit
I am shrinking from hope.

I turn my eyes from expectancy with a shutter
Deeply, I realize I must leave my fairytale life
And walk away with my days in my pocket
A treasure------mine to spend.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 20

Katie’s Wish

Does G-d arrange for my parking spot, foil the Colts opponents, release the stains from my dry-cleaning? Can I ask for the petty and pedantic? All One G-d Faith, reads the side of the soap bottle, but really is there only one? Like Santa? The Tooth Fairy? OZ? Is my life better or worse for the whimsy? How would I know? Why would I care? As long as I live with what I get most times, it truly is okay to ask for what I want sometimes, I mean hell, the Superbowl is only once a year. I’m allowed to be unreasonable and happy.


Open your mind more often than seems necessary

*

FOREVER IS NOT AS LONG AS IT USED TO BE

What time gives in permanence it takes in fluctuation
The relationships I stand on to reach with tippy toed grasp
The light of heaven
Flutter by like flounder disturbed from their sandy bed.

My mind probes the past looking for the shroud lines
To hold up the sail of hope.
Togetherness the banner of life,
Bonds to strength, protection, from outside and within.

I yearn for a life of love, unbending and calm
I am met with a tug of war
Which ends in the mud.
Days stretch into years but years are no protection from terminus.

Forever rings in my head.
Promises I have made to myself
Promises I have made to others
Promises made to me are nothing in the face of the promise of tomorrow.

Time flows like air over a row of seedlings, fresh and challenging
Sustaining life and carrying away familiarity.
Forever is not as long as it used to be.
I can live with that, have to live with that.

I shake my fist at the sky
But it won't make love last.
It will not keep my heart from loving again.
Sails which have filled before will fill again.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 21

Word Comprehension


There were scads and scores of words that I had at my command. I could command them that was a fact; comprehend them that was an illusion. My sponsor had every confidence in me and started my word comprehension lessons with the tough ones first: “No,” she would ask, “What don’t you understand the Nnnnnn part or the OHhhhhh part?” Took me sometime to catch on to words deep as that. Serenity that I learned through living Braille. Learned it like any hungry child, by taste. Learned it like learning the ocean as you swim in it. Serenity is my ballast and my bail, as for peace, all I can say is: No comprehension, no peace; Know comprehension, know peace.


Re-pattern fear



*

SEAM ALLOWANCES

The space, given and taken.
The space used to bind and sew us fast.
The permission for humanness
And the need for seams to make us whole.

The narrow margin is a shoulder on which I lean.
Slender strip, a place of refuge.
Darts are shaped to hug the curves,
I bend to fit to life.

Our nearness, being my own part and part of more,
Planning and a pattern, cut to order,
With allowances made for fraying and fragility,
Allow me to feel woven into a web of what is
And still hope for more

The unfinished garment taking shape
Easing and stretching
And before my eyes
Pins held between the teeth of God.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 22


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, full life and between you and me that’s just how I like it.


Lick your lips then smile



*

SHAME

I push shame around my plate like a chunk of spoiled meat.
The toxins leaching to every interface and cavity
With an inverse half-life, the lethal substance grows
Reinforcing and sending runners and tendrils
To worlds known and those yet undiscovered.
I wage my war on this shapehifting plaque.
Thrust and parry, I step back from the unsurmountable walls
And set my sights on tearing down the bunkers
In my personal city.
Like lead plumbing
The danger eludes the observation of my fellow citizens
I am labeled a lunatic
And no attention is paid to my evaluation of water quality.
I search for similarly crazed friends
Variants within a theme.
I depend on the poisoned sanity of my wounded compatriots.
We shovel the plate loads of spoiled meat and detritus.
The foreshortened mountain of shame
Allows tiny strands of light to glimmer across the surface
But the shamed devotees turn their heads.
We, the few, face the glowering mass.
I worry like a petulant child.
What if we cannot prevail?
Is shame stronger then recovery?
Have we traveled this far to miss the glaciers edge?
As it slides away from us
I console myself with the sure knowledge that,
This life of sobriety is better than any other offering
Healing the world, What a lovely thought.
Living free from shame today, what a necessity.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 23

Over Troubled Water

Though G-d might be everything, for a long time G-d was a resident of an unknown country; a theoretical citizen of a theoretical land. It took some time for me to spy yon distant country and longer to realize what a miracle it was that I could see my neighbor, holding my optics turned around the way they were. Turning over the binoculars came long before introductions or interaction, but it was an important step in relationship building nonetheless.
Having seen the island my mind fled due to the trumped up stories about its resident. Open minded observation cleared up the fallacies of ogres and super heroes, but this only told me who G-d wasn’t and nothing of who G-d is. Direct knowledge was going to require direct contact.
I began throwing tethered balls of string across the channel that separates us and was shocked, delighted, horrified to find that the far end would get tied to the far shore. I threw twine next, then rope, after a few successful repetitions I was able to shinny across for the first time. Filled with fear and trepidation I arrived on the apposing bank and stood shivering more from nerves than cold. I saw no one and felt much. I didn’t stay long and swam back. The first plank bridge was simple and straight. Having this link somehow emboldened me to explore the land of my own country. With great regularity I found narrow margins. I crafted a new bridge for each slender passage. The more I learn about me the more regular my connection to that inner land.
Like something shy of my wrath, G-d made an illusive sight. The more I calmed the more often the sightings. We made acquaintance and then we made friends. I’ve widened some bridges and G-d has widened others. We stroll together often hand in hand. We talk and laugh, cry and joke. Occupancy is fluid, times I live on the island and others the surrounding continent sometimes we live together other times we are one another’s guests. All the days are not happy ones but we are always happy to be together and more than that I will not ask.

Quarantine reluctance


*

DOMINOES

What happens to the dominoes that do not fall?
The show cut short by my sobriety.
The tiles stand front to back
The foul respiration will send them to their preordained destination.
I hold my breath as I glance over the display of generations
The design is set
Painstaking patterns lain with meticulous, ingenious deft.
Skill for falling, laying waste.
Sad pictures told and retold in speedy drops
The rhythmic fall of dominoes turning eight blocks to a corner.
Direction shifts
But the descending continues.
I cannot occupy this ground.
I must not upset the arrangement.
I cannot clear it from this world.
I must walk away from the upright mosaic.
A flower waiting to bloom with destruction
I have to move, climb the steep slopes
Vertical life,
Leaving the tumbling destruction for Yet.
Grasping the sides of the cliffs
I haul myself off the tableland,
A place set for a show of laying down,
I build my strength and keep off the well known flats.
This is a life apart
The game is there if I return.
It is a game no one can win.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 24

Cured

Ham is cured. Thank G-d, I’m not ham. Ham likes to be the center of attention. Thank G-d, I’m not ham. I can’t be the worker among workers if I believe I don’t need to work. I can’t be a friend among friends if I am an island or a precipice, above or away from the need or reach of others. Cured is a one way street that leads to a dried up lonely end. Just the same way that turning my cucumber into a pickle took me out of the garden, curing takes me away from the only home I know, recovery. Though I am often raw and sometimes fresh, these I can survive, finished due to the drying out process that would be a living death. Thank G-d I’m not cured.


Side step pitfalls
*


BECAUSE

Because I am my fathers child,
I make my attendance at meetings frequent and regular.
Having looked deeply in the genetic mirror
I see so many bitter days.

I've run from implications and sheltered in the steps.
The humility that saved my life,
Is understanding I am no different from my family
And since this is a progressive disease we all have
I will just get there faster.

Knowing who I can be helps me turn my will over
And keeps me grasping my Higher Powers belt loop.
All I am turns in every direction
And can pull or push, lift or fall.

I know my assets.
I know their power and their limitations.
All my hope is placed on a plan to use these resources.
I follow the only lead
Which has never promised more than it can deliver.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 25

Exceptance


“I want G-d’s will for me,” I sigh to my sponsor.
“Except for this and except for that,” is her trig response. She knows me, knows I have exceptance. “You have a list of exclusions, a list that dams up the works.”
“Well, trust is hard,” I splutter.
“Trust is not the issue here,” says she. “You don’t feel acceptable and exceptance is what follows.”
“Whatever could you mean?” my broken bluster leaving only this plaintive whine.
“You believe you’re not good enough for G-d or anyone and cross everything off the list in an attempt to duck blame or shame or some other nasty thing. You are good enough kiddo, get that and everything else is good enough, too. At least good enough for now and now is all we have. Accept that.”


Include water in your life
*

TOP

The chipped paint of the red stripe
Gives the illusion of fading to rose as it spins
The edge, painted thalo green, in it's intensity
Reflects the windows of the room.

The bead, purple and gleaming
Affixed to the stem holds the cuff
With it's two opposed openings
The cord recoiled inside.

Underneath, protected from easy observation
Resides the point, lathed and faultless
The turning weight is carried and balanced
Perfectly on this nib.

The hum, spiraling and melodic
Comes from the table as well as the top
The aptness of form and function
Grace and harmony

In spite of it all
The only thing
Which truly matters
Is who pulls the string.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 26

The Resentment of an Acorn


Because no one believed that I was a giant oak inside, I had to prove it and drop my little cap and leave my shell behind. Now I stand big and tall, alone, board feet to the sky. I have lost my portability in my quest for the recognition of my potential. My amazing growth painful due to its cause; poor mental health is a bitter road to achievement. As I stand head and shoulders above the undulating canopy reflection comes on a sweet breeze. Am I sorry I’m here, it could have been worse, could have been eaten by a squirrel or glued endlessly to a third-grade art project “my walk through the woods” bugs could have gotten me, though that looms even now. I could have disintegrated, lost my power and integrity. Whatever the driver I am appreciative of the destination, there were many darker roads on that map. It’s good to be here. It’s good to be anywhere sober.



Shade your honest attempts



*

BELIEVE

Listening to what people say
Is a half waste of time.
Believing it is a full waste of time.
Truth wills out in behavior.

No matter what is said
What is done is the real deal.
What is done over time
Is the final test.

The things that are repeated
Resounding from one generation to the next
Are to be counted on.

Believing in told truths
Is a snare and a delusion
The trap of all traps.

If your sponsor has a sponsor
You may sleep at night.
If your sponsor works with that sponsor
You can sleep soundly.

Doing the right things.
Doing them over and over again
Doing them with others,
Your group, your friends, your sponsees

That will make you believable
I can think of nothing else that will.




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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 27

Adjustment


The chase is on, round and round it goes and where it stops no one knows. I run after control and change as I grasp, but can never quite get my fingers wrapped around the thing. An open fist is an adjustment; no fist at all would be a feat. The fool’s errand I send myself on brings suffering; there would be suffering anyhow, I feel I am the cause due to my attempt to avoid it; another backhanded attempt at the illusion, the goal, control. Adjusting to reality is at first freefall; rarely do I get to second. The shape taken by the shift in my gears to no gears at all dilates my pupils and the rest is white. If the colors come back I don’t know when. If the ground beneath me returns I don’t know how. I am blinded by the light and can only follow the sound.





Stall your reticence



*

ONE IN A THOUSAND

"Did they tell you the odds when you came in?"
Asked my sponsor
Yes, One in thirty make it to the rooms
One in thirty of those stay for five years.

One in a thousand get truly sober
And are catapulted to another dimension
I responded.
"What was your response to that?"

Well, I showed the proper amount of surprise
"Yes but what did you think inside?"
I thought, Climb with me or I'll climb over you.
Not very spiritual is it?

"It worked, you're still sober.
A lot of folks aren't.
The company you keep is sober.
There is nothing less spiritual than a drunk."

Is that why it's called a selfish program?
"I don't know."
It seems to me sobriety is a gift you give the world
But I give it to myself.

"Yes, but you can't give a gift
You don't have in your possession."
Point taken.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 28


Pucker Up


The gifts I never expected, never knew I needed, never imagined wanting, arrive wrapped in fretful apprehension more often than not. “Who knew?” I ask myself standing swathed in a skin I never realized I owned. My identity has been handed to me an article at a time, each item less likely than the last. Do they fit, yes of course, fit as if they were made for me, fit because they are me. My inability to recognize myself is a stumbling block; my willingness to try is my salvation. Though there are times when a kiss is just a kiss, there are other times when a kiss can change the whole world.


Quarter your difficulties, dice your recriminations



*

YARD BOAT

Early in my life, I lived in a gated yacht club,
The canal passing in front of my home.
I had no boat
I didn't know how to sail
I had not a thought of learning.
In later years, I learned to sail.
I covered the water in choppy tacks
And prayed for safe returns to shore.
Those were the years with a yard boat.
Covered in a tarp, the blue sided craft sat dry
The sun and wind taking their toll
The vessel stayed on the trailer
Waiting to be towed.
At the reservoir it would fill
Water leaking in from every joint.
I would bail and sail with all my heart.
Timing has never been my strong suit.
Rare are the times when all the ingredients
Come together in my life.
I have used this as an excuse
To feel like a failure.
I have used it to blame and dismiss God.
I have used it to avoid pursuit of opportunities.
I have averted my attention from the satisfactions in my life.
Living on the water is a pleasure
And stolen moments tacking in the basin of Round Valley
An equal joy.
Happy with what I have makes MORE a surprise
Not a necessity.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 1

Reality and Desire



“I know the difference between desire and reality,” I whisper to my new found friend. Who I am and what I am, are a reality unto themselves, your recognition of that and how you handle said recognition are for you and G-d. The vastness of the true you; I hope to spend a lifetime surveying; but not sampling. What you want and your reality are not mine to mind or mend. If you are driving that train this is on you and if HP is the driver all the more incentive for me to be still, enjoy the ride and await the outcome. For in the end the question is never, will you be mine, but what will I be to you.



Explore beyond the bend in your mind



*

IF I HAD A SCREWDRIVER

If I had anything other than this hammer
Possibly, I would discontinue pounding
This helix into the side of my universe.

The slot is unused
The flat heat of my sledge slams.
A wide void is punched into my abyss
As the threads are pummeled, not turned.

If I had picked up the right tools.
If they had been displayed within my reach.
If my granny had wheels
She might yet be a wagon.

I have picked up new tools
But having never seen them used, I bang with them
Watching others twisting the wrist and angling the elbow
I try to wrap my mind around the posture.

Muscles I have never used
Laminated to mental configurations unthought of
Improvements in workmanship is slow.
May a fine toolbox has remained full and untouched.

The mind lacking the dexterity to grasp the in-workings
The body ill equipped for the outer
If I had a screwdriver, I pray I could bring to it
The flexibility of sinew and the nimbleness of wit



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 2


Stepping up


I look along the list of names, look upon the sea of faces. Are there any whose eyes I avoid? I gaze across the landscape are there any craters, any pock marks, any divots. I tick through my actions those I’ve recently taken checking for stumbles, glitches, snafus. These combined facts and figures create a portrait of my day; I appraise the eyes, the hair, the teeth. If I can smile at what I see all is well if not I begin the repair.


Plan for your contentment at least as much as you plan your escape



*

SWEAT

I turn the desk lamp into the eyes of God.
I put question after question
To the construct of my childhood concept.

Would you please explain?
Or exactly why did You do this,
That, or the other thing?

Are You now or have You ever been a member of?
I put the pressure on.
The beads of perspiration join and then trickle.

I have God in the box, I will not relent.
I don't understand You, I say disappointedly
As if speaking to a troubling adolescent.

You have so much potential, if only You would apply Yourself
The icon shakes It's head slowly and deliberately,
I shake my head too.

So much time has passed
And I am no closer to embrace.
You don't understand Me, says God to me.

Dawn breaks, I uncuff this mythic creature.
You are not the One I am looking for,
You are free to go


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 3


The Horse of a Different Stripe



When I arrived at the horse and pony show, I saw all there was to see; there were Morgans, Walkers, and Paints. Yet I couldn’t help, but return to this particular zebra, the spark of my imagination, the inspiration of my dreams. There was no help for me, I want what I want and need what I need. It was all about spirit, all about soul; the fire in its eyes matched the burning of my heart, ignition at the point of recognition. Then I stumble, then I fall, bad behavior and wrong thinking, the selfishness of the self-involved takes hold and runs my mouth, “Nice mount, great steed, But can nothing be done about these stripes?” The flash in those eyes, the knowing knickers, said it all. I was trying to stay in my small place and that would never work with her, if I wanted the Zebra, I had to be willing to go to Africa.






Respect randomness


*

DICHOTOMY'S' EMBRACE

Contentment and security
Bleed in through the doors and windows of my heart.
Peace blows its fine wind across my mind.

I fear for my identity
I raise my hand to beat the drum
Is my pulse still here if the beat of discontent is not?

The warmth seeps in
My fingers uncurl
I resist the urge to tilt my face to the sun.

How can I be I
If my countenance is not bleak?
Mirth escapes my lips, Am I a creature of laughter?

My brain feels through levels of sheltered memory
I am old and age hangs from my brow
I am young and exposure stings my flesh.

In all this----Joy?
Where can I enfold this antithesis
Shadows play across shade.

A child of extremes, Yes
Brooding and rage, howling and silence
How have sprinkles and starlight added to the mix?

Purring, musing and sweet kisses
What am I in this embrace?



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 5


What and When, When and How……and Why


Arriving at the place where I have nothing to prove, afforded me the luxury of not having to proclaim the amount of time I have, when I share in a meeting. Taking the score keeping out of the equation I was then able to think of what it was that motivated me to speak in a meeting. Self-Possession, a great gift to inhabit, a greater gift to demonstrate; quiet dignity is a real favorite of mine. If I am calm yet in control, if there is time, if there is a lull, I can share parts of my experience. If I have chaos, an agenda, a theory, a grudge it is all better left unsaid in the meeting and saved for the less vulnerable ear of my sponsor. For if I am wrong I might persuade in error and if I am right I might convert in righteousness.
Why is it that what I never say rings louder than anything I do?




Leave gossip where you find it




*

MOTE

I dug the mote, the alligators came on their own.
The rain fell, I did not bid it.
I've burned all the bridges
I've sold the farm.

I wonder at the company I keep
The birds fly in and stay for a season
Friends used to wave as they passed
Now my island is overgrown.

I stand to my chin in the tall grass
I guess it's a matter of maintenance
What I don't keep pruned grows back
The connections I don't secure weaken and fail.

I am subject to all that falls, if I don't keep my roof on.
The wind chaps me without the walls of my home
No clothes and I burn
No joy and all I do is cry.

It takes more than a continuous ditch
To protect my heart.
More than water and reptiles
To safeguard my soul.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 6

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 ache of night is the outstanding gift my spiritual path affords me.



Open stored creativity



*

ECHOES OF ACTION

Squares of light outline a patchwork on walls and ceiling.
Ripples of water formed this ancient glass.
Three hundred years these waves have shone through those panes.
Three hundred years these waves have held,
Like stability in a world of change.

Looking through the window
The City rams life down it's own throat.
The ripples are invisible,
Caressing currents imbed the glass
The wavelengths shining projections only with the street lights.

How much mundane activity is captured,
Only revealing itself surreptitiously.
What is not echoed from year to year comes to final rest.
My voice does not terminate at my mouth
How therefore can I consider a blunted end to my behavior?


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 7

Migration

Why does an alcoholic leave the drink behind? To go where it’s warm, because drunkenness has become cold comfort, because the climate has changed. The wind resists the flight from the bottle and the initiative to break the flow is rotated among the flock. Though each member of the band plays their part, the one diverting the air just ahead of me and the one just behind trumpeting still hold the majority of my attention. Flocking is my primary purpose because survival is the intention of life, demise the intent of my illness. One more sober day is all I can ask, it’s all I ever need, it’s all that’s ever offered.




Put wheels under procrastination



*

POPCORN FLAVORED LOLLIPOP

I can't know it, I can't believe it,
The world of popcorn flavored lollipops
Is now being visited upon me.

Both a surprise and a comfort,
A popcorn flavored lollipop
Given to me by a gas station attendant.

A blast of sugar and salt wake my tongue.
What can a mind do
In the face of buttered-salted bonbon on a stick?

I wouldn't have thought of it, no in a million years.
This is somehow a source of hope to me,
There are open minded people living in the world around me.

I often pray for creative thinking on the part of my Higher Power
I inadvertently dismiss the populace
Who are producing prodigies of ingenious originality and cunning.

I want the world to be gifted with what sobriety has given me.
Candy is not world peace
But many great things start with a little sweetness


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 8

Résistance

Resisting tough love is approaching long run action with short run thinking. I hate to set the toddling babe down lest he fall, but in the end if I do not put him down he and I will both be the worse for it. Whether I see a forest or I see trees depends so very much on my perspective, also on my willingness to delay the prevention of minor scrapes to eliminate the need for permanent scaring. The theme is greater personal responsibility and less irrational fear. Guarding tomorrow’s possibilities by not hamstringing them today through the resistance of tough love saves lives, it saves mine.


Raise the roof on your thinking
*

PICTURES & FRAMES

I paint my way into the corners of the frames.
Each picture I fill diligently,
Color, texture, all the tricks I use.
I work hard to get the desired effect.
I hold nothing back, I put heart and hopes forward.
I load my brush with pigment,
I propel my tongue out of my mouth,
I use it for balance like a kangaroo uses it's tail.
Stroke after stroke I layer the image
My depiction is fresh to me,
I bring the green, the red, the blue,
All of them flow from me.
The canvas fills, my soul soars through the tinctures
Then the disappointment begins,
The complaints, the lamentations,
The perspective is off.
I can't seem to contain this scene
Within the confines of this gilded prison.
I readjust, I tilt my head
I paint from the bottom up, then the top town, No---No.
I must pick up a new canvas and frame.
The oak, burnished and honeyed brown.
I cast to the side the gilt and sculptured casing.
I lay it along the wall with the others.
The many discards of my life
As yet the obvious has escaped me.
The tint, the hue, the angle
Size may diverge but that is all.
I have recreated the same scene
In all the frames,
In all my attempts,
I have painted only one picture.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 9


Revelations


And I, Sherrie, had a new freedom and a new happiness for the first freedom and the first happiness were passed away. And there were no more tears. This is how it should be and for the most part this is how it is. Hell’s gates hang broken on their hinges and I walk free. The world is mine to explore and I am happy. More than a notion, my life is a fact; sounder than a bank note and I am on an emotional foot race to keep pace with my recovering self. Could it be lost? Lost like paradise, lost like I was lost before? Why, yes, all could be lost and that is what makes this freedom truly free and this happiness truly happy, they are mine, mine to keep and mine to lose, they may not be in my control but they are within my reach.


Voir dere contempt

*

VOLUNTARY MUTE

I have learned I don't have to answer just because someone asks.
I have learned to change subjects.
I have learned it is better to say nothing.

Repeating the phrase, "It's just my opinion."
Followed with, "I could be wrong."
Has proven insufficient.

Somehow things frequently turn out worse than I expected
But as of yet none have turned out better.
This upsets.

People become angry when I am correct.
They are less angry when I'm silent.
I tell the truth and trouble follows.

I didn't get sober to lie so I keep my mouth shut.
There is no reason to distress folks
And reality has a way of doing that.

Silence is my new defense
I hide in it
And find my new freedom.

Unless it's my sponsor, my sponsee or my cherished friend
Battening down the hatches saves me from a tempest
And spare others their outburst.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 10


Isolation

I isolate from you, I isolate from others, I isolate from friends, isolate from G-d, I practice connecting by connecting with my sponsor, practice connecting with my friends, practice connecting with G-d, finally I am able to connect with you, the first thing I do is isolate us from them, my sponsor, my friends, my G-d, they are all now on the outside of the bubble of us and I must start again, only now I must try to maintain the you and me connection while at the same time connect with the rest. Are we still us if I am connected with them? Are we still us if we are in the midst of the crowd I think of, the crowd I call, them? Just because they see us as us, refer to us as us, are we still us if we don’t feel like us to me? If I don’t know us in the landscape of hordes are we still we? Isolation is an attempt at preservation, how can we best be preserved without being pressed in a book or jarred or jammed? You say let us be, and I say that’s how I got us; are you sure that’s how I keep us? And you hug me tight.




Bloom with or without a garden


*

THE WALL OF PLEASANT

How quickly I am protected by a sweet smile
A disarming countenance and gentle phrase
Save my skin and psyche.

No longer do I defend my reputation as a wit or critic
I let it all flow by.
The simpler I appear the more effective the facade.

The energy I conserve not fighting loosing battles
Is well spent in the company of like minded sober friends
In the pursuit of sober lives.

I stay out of the fray and behind this partition
It's insides are posted with announcements proclaiming my opinions
And the lunacy of the person on the other side.

The reading of these notices
Does not persuade me to dismantle the enclosure
But encourages me to keep it sound.

Many years of shelter behind this vine covered fortification
Allow restraint of my words spoken and written
To safeguard my sanity

When I am gifted with comment I am spared the desire for credit
Boundaries are a blessing
And living within them a saving grace.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 11

Conception 2

My active voice is the elixir of fire my addiction would have me snuff in order to keep us hidden from each other, me hidden from you, you hidden from me and no one noticing you or I pouring the drinks. Minus my active voice I slip easily into unconsciousness, my effectiveness doused. My active voice is the light in my room the candle in my window, the glow within me, which illuminates my days as well as my nights. Moving ever forward the gyroscopic precision of this voice never fails me if I keep my “listening ears” turned on and tuned in. My active voice is and will always be the live wire connection of my Higher Power uniting with me through people, places and things. My effective conscience is everything that results from this bond. I run at an unfathomable rate of efficiency when my active voice is on, my feet fail to touch the ground as I fly to right action, the nature of my effective conscience is just that, nature, as natural as if I were not carrying a fatal malady, but instead possessed the secret to serenity, which in fact I do: sobriety.


Try not to confuse available with empty

*

SPIRITUALITY

The bedpan of spirituality
Was shoved under my ass
Early in sobriety

It kept me from increasing the mess
With which I surround myself.
The cold smack of enamel got my attention.

The old timers showed me there is a place for my shit
It was not any of the places
I had been using.

My side, your side, all sides were strewn with my waste
Fragments, tatters and fearful reminders
Were all there for me to clean up.

Amends as the shovel
And willingness as its handle
Is what I use to clear my past.

Sweat is refreshing when progress is being made
I've made inroads, paths of travel help me more easily
From the past to the present without regret.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 12

Creed

We have a long standing family tradition of viewing miracles as tragedy; this custom has afforded us many a fine escape from the unknown. Most things in life are bad; people, places, things, this belief is protective though useless. Ultimately I feel this belief is not what colors the dynastic impression of the miraculous, but the apprehension is due to the limited nature of the thing. I come from a line of dissatisfaction; miracles are provided when what is desired is panacea. If everything is not imperially resolved then it is all for naught because the same psyche which cannot begin a process without a guaranteed outcome can’t pickup the slack after a triumphant start. Give it all to me tied with a bow, I will begin the critique from there though I will accept, offer me a beginning fraught with uncertainty and I will decline. A secure entrenchment is preferred to inexact risk. I will die with my boots on, but I mustn’t leave the house.

Respect your age

*

FRIENDS

My sweet, dear, funny friend
Steeped in beat
Whose hand I can no longer hold.

I yearn for the wildly flying words, like feathers in a snow
The shock of hair and glinting eyes I see so clearly
In my shivering mind.
I must let go.
I miss all the friends who for reason or no
Have traveled down the yellow brick spiral to who knows where.
My arms feel open and starved
But there is no way for me to retain myself
And follow them.
Some are lost, altogether
Some are lost only to me
But my arms remain empty nonetheless.
My ruined heart is sore and sad
But chasing this friend or that
Will not heal it.
The lonely path before me is the answer for me.
Possibly only for me among our former group
And will the paths cross later in this day or next?
I don't know and am better not knowing.
My path requires me to release outcomes
As well a kindred.
I must travel with my arms open
Some fall out of them
And others find their way in.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 13

Wax On

“Sometimes a dish is just a dish,” I said to my sponsor.
“Yes and sometimes it is the world away, which you hold in your hand,” her reply.
I stand at the sink and try to wash the dishes when I am washing the dishes. I try to drive the car when I drive the car. These simple acts of concentration, focus and sooth the jagged mental sutures where I am supposed to be coming together, but ultimately come apart. Anything to break my frenetic gyrations is a blessing, anything to cut away to a closer view and a clearer understanding of where I really am; anything to derail the speeding blur of a life of my creation is good. What I do and who I am are secrets and mysteries when I don’t know how to pay attention and ironies when I do. And if you doubt me, just go ask Arnold.



Contrast confusion


*


BLUE CROWS

Blue crows streak across my dreaming minds sky
They take up their post in a line of trees
I stand at the edge of a burning field

I feel nauseous at the thought of glorifying an 'active' life.
Everything is burned, scared and crumpled
The flashy crows call from the hedgerow.

I know it's time to fly
The fire is out and I have work to do.
To keep the sparks and dormant embers from ruining another harvest.

I must travel with these strange birds
And live an odd but regimented life
I needn't scorch my feet on this ground again.

Like my companions I must spend sometime in survey
If I do not fully assess this damage
I might not fully embrace this dawn.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 14

Patricide

I never killed my father. Why finish a job that someone is completing all on his own. It’s not that I didn’t wish him dead; I did and do for that matter. Don’t misunderstand me, I wish him no harm, it’s just that he is like a creature so tortured that he is nothing but a danger and a misery. Left to live he is a hazard to everyone he has contact with, an agony to live inside. What can I wish for him, but departure and rest, something he can never give to himself. I don’t plot, don’t scheme, I only know; know in part, the terrible lie he lives and hurt he drags from place to place acting like it is not there and nothing matters; let’s just get by. So, if he is not dead he should be. He is the embodiment of the hurtful impotent god and I don’t kill that man but I kill the image, perish that thought.



Provide for the future of your sanity

*



PRETTY FEET

I look at the line on my heel
Where I must stay vigilant with pumice and the moisturizer
My toes clean and straight but nothing more.

I see my feet as passable, it's hard to see them as beautiful,
Well cared for is the best I can do
But there is a beauty in that.

I think of myself,
I am an alcoholic
There is nothing beautiful about alcoholism either.

The care I take in tending my sobriety
The nurturing I see others use in their own lives
There is a certain loveliness to it.

Crusted over hearts
Scraped and oiled
Fit and ready to beat anew.

Polluted minds, drained and reformed
To turn lives upright
Step work and making meetings

Is just a functionary thing
But gorgeous in its own way
Efficacy is a pearl not to be disregarded.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 15

Three Card Monty




When I learn to excel at the good games and learn to leave the bad ones alone I think I will be all right. Simple enough to do when I can take off this blindfold and see the long term consequences of my pursuits. Engage this pastime and have no future; abandon that play and squander hope. Eyes open wide, I see what there is to see, but around the corner I am lost for anticipatory sight and must guess at destinations let alone intention. Tricky, tricky, is this life which toys with me. I think I have the bow in hand, though as life rubs me wrong then right, I see I am played upon as much and as often as I play. I take up the reins, but must also be led, I can lay out the deal, but sometimes, I just have to roll the dice.



Speak with your friends


*

ANGLE OF RETURN

As in a hall of mirrors, it is sometimes hard to tell
If I am moving forward in my recovery
Likewise, as promises are fulfilled
Their obtuse arrival is a quandary

The juxtaposition of acute homecoming
Of former faculties is also startling
How the light reflects itself from sober face to sober face
From open heart to open mind, is the spectral of hope to me.

My soul seeks me day after day
Though I left it so far behind
It brings to me the person of God's intent
And my new acquaintance.

Patience, never my virtue, finds me stacked with packages
Delivered in piles so high I can't keep up with opening them
Never in my life have I known less about my future
Or felt more assured.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 16


Bad Acting

Because there never seems to be enough love in the world to fill the wound, my wounded self riots. At times the debauchery seems good natured enough, flamboyant yet without harm, at other times the disturbance is apparently violent and the issuing tumult a crime. All for want of wholeness and sanity I pursue shattered fractured activity just to keep from dwelling where I cannot live, where there is no air. I want land beneath my feet and full, full lungs; on my own I find neither of these and little else of use. Isolation even in a crowd is the tell tale sign that I am in the me, myself and I mode of drowning in a teacup and require rescue. Little more than raising my hand above the surface and asking for help is needed though this is a Herculean effort as we all know. Rowing up stream is a bigger battle then it ever looks and I know the river runs through me.



Turn, turn, turn then rest


*

UNNECESSARY WORDS

I've spent years trying to put names on the streets in my 12th step map.
Post clear signs with monikers easy to remember, themed and progressive
But I have been wasting my time, the map is there, no doubt.

I have seen people follow it to varying degrees.
The names are unnecessary, like ants, we trail each others scent.
We track so closely as not to loose visual contact, we don't play with our survival.

Or we are bees standing in front of the meeting
doing the dance, which describes the path to sobriety
with meaningful jokes, and well earned tears.

As I stand at the foot of a few twenty-fours
and see the evolution of my recovery
I realize the names in the placards are ever-changing.

Meaning and value pour through the kaleidoscope of time
and come out as indescribable gifts, which I can only give through action.
I will no longer fritter away my time looking for tags and titles

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 17

Suit up, Show up

I stand naked, paralyzed, unable to reach my intended destination or any destination at all. Goose flesh is no real motivation and I am reluctant to use the prod having only produced resistance and reversals with past applications of this weapon. Entreatment might work if only I could find the right one; then again anything might work if it were a fit. Covering my all-together is an action; taken judiciously it sometimes is all the arrival I can manage, taken disingenuously it precludes the chance for any further forward motion and may create set back or retreat. I should not attempt to hide fear with wardrobe though I can try to warm it. Façade building is best done with a bottle in tow
reality is best faced with a sponsor by my side.

Acknowledge pain, acknowledge joy
*

OLD BEARS

Cold and Despondent
Nothing comforts me like the bear of early sobriety

Bought on a day I thought I would shake apart
This fuzzy old guy has been a display item,
For many years now,
Tucked to the corner with the lace edged pillows and folded shawls.

Jittery and Sleepless
It's easy to panic.

I turn and see the amber eyes waiting for my embrace
His body clothed in a hand knit child's sweater made by a friend
The warmth of this snuggle is more than comfort
It is also the acceptance of loss.

Quelling the dramatic highs and lows of the beginning cost many things
And the depth of this is not lost in the moment.

Alone in my bed the passageways to the future appear to me
I must rest and then walk on
I cannot stall or simper, plain work is before me
And simple old bears a consolation.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 18

Malaria

Flailing, reaching, screaming; hiding, avoiding, misdirecting, theses are subsets in a list of extremes whose commonality is lacking, lacking humility. I fall to pieces just thinking of standing exposed, imperfect and unprotected. I’m not sure what I think will happen to me in this posture; instantaneous death? Couldn’t be, I’m not that lucky, nor am I foolish enough to think that I am that lucky. Possibly, I fear rancorous humiliation, but really who is powerful enough to do that to me? I know and like myself well enough to deflect obvious flying nonsense, so what is it that I do flee? I think it is the endless grinding inelegance of life, the stinging nettled nature of things, my inability to weave my way around my weakness and slip into the open unpoisoned. I fear exchanging peace for failure. Humility is when I know I cannot fail.


Be conscience of judgment and try not to react to it

*

WET BLANKET

I have carried this sodden thing with me all my life.
It's weight a burden for numerous years,
I have never been able to explain my continuing drag of this pitiful thing
Though it has been commented on by many.

My fidelity is boundless
In spite of inner questions and doubts.
Now that the fire is here I am glad to have it.
I pull it over me and step into the fray.

Thick and moist, I somehow struggle under its influence
And am able to do what others, bare of my encumbrance, cannot
I don't believe I can quench all the flames but I hope to help some to safety
And bat down the encroaching inferno a bit.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 19

If I name it do I know it?

Does emotional proximity necessitate a nearer name? Far off I would be called earthling possibly human. On this plain, female maybe woman; in this country Mrs. Theriault; in my home call me Sherrie, but in my bed hy calls me Baby. Do these names offer the requisite information, no further inquires required, is it personal enough? Is the limited nature a stunted interest from without or a privacy fence from within? Does the boundary shift dependant upon the participants or is it an almost universal standard of metered advance and reveal? And do I get more when I give more or does that end in less info and a change of direction? Also who determines what I really need to know? Wanting curiosity; my hungry mind and lonely heart do not direct all the world, yet ceaselessly they strive, shutter and ask again: Who are you?


Step toward yourself
*

JAG

I have the most interesting lawn ornament.
It is long and sleek, low to the ground,
Resting on rubber rolls,
Steep of side and languid front and back

It has glass, glass which slants
And glass which slops into its sides.
It's paint shines when I buff it
And shows dust when I don't.

Inside there are seats and many artistic accessories
I sit on the steps and admire the thing
Then I sit in the thing and admire the porch
That's all there was until I was handed the key.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 20

Bent, Spindled, Mutilated

Injury changes memory, not just the memory of the individual trauma, but the very nature of the mind. The hooks and loops distort and I can’t hold on as I once did. The misses and disconnects become more frequent, then they become expected. Emotional fluff-ups do not suffice, the hardware is damaged and a positive attitude is advisable but the pliers are a necessity. Some things are easier to break than to repair, in fact most things are easier to break, no skill required, though some take it on as skill, most destruction is ignorant or accidental, nothing personal just a part of a pain filled landscape. Direct intervention is not the same as hands-free degradation, though both have their cost. Redemption, restoration, is sought from all comers. Possibilities and probabilities stack; action is a relief, whether or not it is a fix. I take a breath to face the final blow, for when the cost adds up and I look for recompense all I hear is the check is in the mail.


Line the bin so the ick won’t stick
*

20 CART PILEUP

What's the problem here?
Asks my sponsor, as she approaches my apparent impasse.
Well, I've been trying to get these carts lined up
What do you think of my progress?
How many carts do you have here?
A few, quite a few, why?
And how many horses? She asks
Just the one, the same as everyone else, I answer.
And where is this poor animal?
Back here.
Behind the carts
OK, we have a twofold problem here.
First, one horse can handle only one cart.
So pick ONE
Second, that sad creature needs to be in the proper position
To do any good at all.
You had best figure out a way to get him in front
Or you will remain stuck
Even after you whittle down your burden.
I was stunned
She went to her cart
Climbed to the seat
And took the reins
How long did it take you to get yours like that? I ask
Honey it takes every day.
Don't kid yourself
I wake up every morning with the same train wreck
Your standing in now.
Learn to sort faster
And you'll have the rest of today
You can start over
With us tomorrow.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 21

When is enough, enough?

“What is the difference between full and all? Don’t know? Well, let me tell you,” said my sponsor with a wink. “Full is when the broccoli that went perfectly with the entrée leaves a pleasant smile on your face, full is when the arrow on the gas gauge points to F, these are little indicators of full. Indications that you have reached all: the wet scary feeling in your mouth after your second piece of pie, all is the gas pouring down the side of your car because you have to try to squeeze more in.”
“Yes, yes,” I reply, “I know when I’ve overdone it; I resent everyone or at least I am cranky about everything. I know when I’m under doing it, too; I get either a lost feeling or the sense that I should be in charge, but how do I really know that I am doing enough?”
“If your sponsor has a good idea of where you are mentally, physically and spiritually; if the people in your home group can count on you to contribute service regularly. If most people in most meetings know not just your face, but also your name. If your sponsees freely admit that you are their sponsor, those are sure signs. Though the biggest signal for me is how constant my contact is. If I’m reluctant to pray I’m usually not doing enough of something.”


Learn from pain

*
MATH

If this is the solution why aren't I happy?
I ask my sponsor in a piteous whine.
You've run the equation and the solution equals happiness?
She queries, that's the whole and total answer?
How many times did you go through the computations?

What's your point?
Are you saying happiness isn't the answer?
What about joy and freedom?
I heard someone say that was the goal
I know that's what I heard.

Let's think about it for a hot second
What would you think
If I worked the steps as hard as I do
And as a result walked around in a perpetual grin?
I'd think you had lost your mind.

So you're telling me you believe
The product of recovery is idiocy?
The thing we all are aspiring to is bliss and nothing but?
No, I guess not.
Then what is the solution for you? I ask.

A tally which fits the day I'm having
Joy sometimes fits that bill
But other days it's sadness or concern
There have been days when disbelief
And dismay were part of the appropriate response.

For me, the solution is having an equation
That helps me respond to life
Instead of reacting to it.
That's better than unending happiness
That's wholeness she said with a grin


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 22

Clever Me

I am clever, I am so clever, everyone knows it and I know it, too. So, why do I get slam stuck on the very simple things required to keep my life running smoothly? I know what needs to be done, yet have no clue as to how to accomplish these threads of minutia. I stall; panic, plod, pout. When I do force myself to do it I end up creating either a new pile of impossible incidentals or some anticlimactic end, but secret solutions are as of yet undiscovered. The whip, the lash and the club avail nothing though sweet enticements do no better. I pray, “Dear G-d please help me!” but this has no point, I don’t want the help, I am afraid of the help, I am afraid of the change and of course who wouldn’t be? Beyond here lay someone I don’t know, someone I only fear, beyond here lay the fearless me and I am clever enough to be afraid of her.

Fill the potholes in your thinking

*

THE PROCESS

The mountains don't wash away like sandcastles
The amount of persistence required is far greater.
Acorns don't work like sunflowers
Not everything is instant gratification.

Marathons aren't run in seconds
If you don't love the whole adventure, pick a smaller goal
There is no shame in sunflowers or sandcastles or microwave popcorn
As long as you want it and hold it in esteem

Time-consuming, life-consuming journeys
Have a high price in boredom
And are not worth the consumption
If that is not where your heart leads you

You don't have to love washing the pans
To be a good baker
But it helps
Peace is in the process.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 23

Suddenly

Creeping realization has never been my experience with G-d’s handy work in my kitchen. I start out making a mess and I find in short order that G-d has made a meal; fit food for apt hunger. I could throw myself into the kneading and shaping, but without the yeast which is so freely given I have no bread; only a lump that will choke me in the end. Even my very own abilities are gifts I was incapable of offering to myself and are only found here in my possession through sheer grace. I have woken up with my face saliva glued to the table top far too often only to discover my Higher Power doing and I am grateful; for without that action I would be un-done.


Learn to live with the shadow of the moon


*
HOW RED IS RED

I check my color and contrast
I paint the setting sun
Add a bit of yellow
And fill to the edge burgeoning poppies

Add more blue and paint the blood
Which pools around my mind
The equalizer of all my mental conversations

Too much is never enough, as the story goes
I pursue my shades and signatures
Too much for the fingers and not enough for the toes
I disregard fraudulent crimson

I scale the mountains of intention looking for perfection
The leach of my addiction drains the other colors from my rainbow
My sponsor asks only one question
"How red is red?"

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 24

Water Buddha


The longer on the river I am the less I fear the river. I still don’t know what lay ahead, anything may wait for me just around the next bend, but I fear this less and less. Experience is a great foundation no matter what you are building or in which direction. I’ve gotten my sea-legs, a sure sign of the mind cooperating with the realities the body is experiencing. I have learned to avoid some forms of trouble and anticipate fortune more often. Further on could be waterfall, ocean, dam; I will contend with any or all, come what may, for when it comes to riding the river I have learned the most important thing: I don’t need to push.

Be left, be right, be yourself

*
THE ORDER

I can't expect delivery if I haven't placed the order
I never seem to know what I want
Until after I have accepted something else.

I can remember thinking order meant procedure not procurement
Set the table, not end my hunger
I focused on rational intent and turned my face from desire

Assailing outcomes leads to disappointments
Asking for a hole to be filled may cause dumping
Not management or conservation

It's good to have a plan before signing the requisition
Please help me know who I am
So I know what I want

I can make a request and stop accepting orders of attack
Don't let me order the end
While I am still at the beginning

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 25

Two X’s

I play sport at the three X folks and their still sometimes skewed thinking. Yet, I attack myself for feeling like a babe in the woods. Old and wise should be my stock and trade by now though I find vastness at my door regularly and confidence struggles to peek in the window. What in the world will I do if I can’t perfect this stuff soon? Hopefully nothing as foolish as fretting or anything as mean spirited as accusation, possibly I could try reception. Truly this only comes in gift wrap and after twenty years I would hope I had learned to live in the present.


Think kindly of chickens if not of cowards

*

THE ORPHANAGE OF MY HEART

The orphanage of my heart hold many children of the past
They gaze at me
Fixed in an attempt to draw me near their needs

I scurry, often my head down, eyes averted
Not knowing how to offer comfort or consideration
To these hapless souls.

Fearing the largess of poverty
I decline to open my small purse
What could I tender
Other than a tease?

Nearly barren, in my heartbroken, disconsolate, inconsolable state,
I rarely even obligate myself to extending my hand
This is the pit of my idiocy

These wee ones have the world of hope and strength to give
I am their offertory
I am the place where their gold resides
They live inside me to fill me and bind me to life and light

I flee them in the height of misunderstanding
Disconnected from these inner spirits I am impoverished
And far too weak to grasp their help

I too fogged to see the world within
Starve in the world without


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 26

Whirly Gigs

Pivot points and reference points subtlety disguised as harmless bric-a-brac escape my comprehension until I either stumble or land on one or the other and ponder the affect. Realization that much of my life’s contentment hinges like a door shocks me, though I don’t know why it should. Isn’t it the way of things that it all turns on a whim or at the very least hangs on fine gauged calculation? I am not the capricious vixen I accuse myself of; I am however human and given to a certain amount of fickle fussy frenzy which all reckons out given enough perspective and wit.


Resuscitate inspiration


*

CALIBRATE COINCIDENCE

Do good
Do right
Line up with the next movement

Get the universe into the sprockets of my desires
And make the miracles flow in my direction
Ah, The boy scout merit badge of sobriety

I force spiritual alchemy through the pasta maker
Of my small life
Expecting gold

And where is God?
Where is the realness of reality?
Where is my place in this hairy mess?

Well, who knows
Am I the Wizard, the Chemist?
The mechanic of the galaxy?

Though I wish and hope
In truth I am not the one who calibrates coincidence
I am the receiver of.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 27

New Borne

What happens when you finally get what you want, what you barely dared to dream? What happens when you can hardly do more than drip tears down from smiling eyes? Where do you go with a future filled with proposed joy? Heaven is an option if only you believed, but hell has been such a perennial destination it’s hard to realize there will be no return trip this year or possibly ever again. The work required to change from an attitude of longing to one of satisfaction is as real as all the work needed thus far. Tending love is a host of disciplines I want to step to, like I have done it all my life, like I was born to do it and I was, yet, still growth is accompanied by its own pain and awkwardness and who am I to deny this treat. Any new life worth living is worth the pain to bear it.


Turn up your smile

*
FEELINGS

Getting my feelings back
Was like a package delivered.
Not a letter bomb
More like live squid or bait of some kind
It was something to catch me out there.

I think overcoming the shock
Was more or less the small part
Though it seemed to loom at the time.
The squirming, the writhing of my soul
Was like a pregnancy following a bad dream.

I wondered how this became a part of me.
I squandered my days
Hoping it would leave quietly some night soon.
Like all difficult relationships
I attempted to hold my breath through it.

Failing this, I tried to offer my feelings a guest wing in my heart
And a never ending supply of tea and cookies.
When the reality of life with feelings planted itself firmly in me
I let out my breath, stopped the hostess act
And endeavored to roll with it.

This worked well.
I have since invested in a wet-suit and fins
The squid are much easier to live with
When I meet them on their turf.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 28

Feelings/Facts

Delay is when I don’t deal with the tack, don’t deal with the finish nail, land up with a 12 penny in my heel and think about waiting for the railroad spike. Rebellion is when I run through the razor-wire fence expecting to make a clean get away. If I don’t socialize my problems when they are puppies all hope is lost when faced with the big dogs. Exiting out the fifth story window is suicide in fact, but in my thinking I am merely rebelling. Willingness and cooperation make a dynamic duo; powerful combatants of delay, rebellion, many other joy killing, life stealing foe. A life led with cooperation and willingness is not necessarily perfection, but it often feels that way.

Coax loose your tangled frustrations
*

FUTURE TENTS

The future seeps in through the windows
Like the dawn steeling across the sky
Once I inhale it, I am out of doors
Only the lightest of canvas covering me

The opening, flaps in the breeze
The wind of unbidden things echoes
Off the wall of people
Shut out from this adventure

I brace myself for the cutting current
But am greeted by the softest of zephyrs
I duck out
I stand unfettered

Lonely whispers call
But I am isolated
The scene is empty, serene and beautiful
There are other tents

Other seekers standing on other hills
But they see their own futures
From the vantage of their own tents
And thankfully I am left to see mine


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 29

Yes, Virginia there is a solution

Suspended in the colloid of sobriety the overly large molecule, which is me, finds a fix I couldn’t imagine. I can get better, I do get better, I have a set of values to substitute into the old equations. I now live in a mixture where there is one thing in common and all the rest are variants which ordinarily don’t mix. The scientific method is entry to homogenous living; a concept that never made it to the table in my days as a rogue element. And with all this on board, the thing I love the best is that it grows; what I can do and how I can do it is an ever widening frame of reference, even things which were once outside of my view are now possible. I am grateful that there is a solution; I am amazed that it is the solution to everything.


Rethink awkward restriction
*

CRAZY

I try on crazy
The way I sometimes get out the jump rope
And see if all those muscles still work.

The unemployed, unexploited
Fallow nature of my once fertile insanity
Saddens me in an odd way

Today is a place
I stand in stiff comfort
Even though it has taken concerted effort to get here

There are days I slip from reality
The way I can slip off a chair
I no longer allow myself to lounge on the floor

Pride is not so much the issue as hygiene
Crazy is bad for my health
I gave it up like cigarettes or romance novels

I don't have enough time
Or insurance for these dalliances
Though I do remember them all with fondness


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 30

Catalog of Growth

The right seed in the right season grows a garden of miracles for me. I get the food for my table or the stores for winter, sometimes when I’m in a Jack like predicament, right planted seeds can provide a bean stalk of escape from my restricted life. I have a role to play with these wonders. I must sort the seeds from the pebbles. I must let the kernels out of my pocket and into the ground. I water when I can and harvest what comes to fruition. Though the best by far is the part when I get to share the seeds.


Putter in your emotional garden
*

RAIN

The rain makes shadows of water
It spills onto the ground like tiny worlds
What had been airborne and mist
Is now earthbound and integral
Feeding, cutting, learning the world

Once I contemplated theories and mystery
Now washing dishes is a spiritual service
The view was lovely when I was above it all
But now I course through the veins of life

There may come a time when I am untouchable again
But by then I will have been a part of it all
I will carry the world with me always
An orbiting servant
Not just above but through


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 31

Face and Ass

“It is hard to save your face and save your ass at the same time.”

What I haven’t tried in an attempt to live my life as a showman spotlight front and center. What I wouldn’t sacrifice to keep peace and image intact, but in the end it was just that, my end, that saved me from a life chasing prevention of defacement. I can’t live with the posture of an ostrich it leaves so much at risk. Hiding my face won’t protect it no matter how much I wish it would. I have to put my butt in a seat, a seat up front where folks get to know my face. I have to try my best yet still make mistakes and let people know my ass as well. Being a part of AA saves my behind, once that is cosseted, my face might just get its day in the sun.


Don’t invite ridicule, but deal with it if it comes knocking at your door

*

PADUANS

The pussy willows bloom
Looking much like crested poultry
The coldest part of my heart
Is fighting to thaw in this early spring

Weather is not of the mind to be rushed
My hopes nor the changing calendar
Can persuade the warmth into the May morning
It's May for me too

No longer the early sobriety of January
The years have marched on
I wait for the delivery of my returning brains
Long-term sobriety has begun

I am still beset with the chill of fragility
I desire dignity but find myself strutting
Like a fowl with blooming plumage
Addled and gawky

Don't worry says my sponsor
The pussy willow is in no way less
For showing itself
In the rawness of growth


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 1

Why is it so hard to be me?

I have everything I could wish for. I have love and friendship, I have talent and ability. What more could I want? I don’t want more, I want to learn how to overcome fear and live with disappointment. Abundance is ever at the door, but I have no room for plenty. Reassurance is the thing I chase after, yearn for, pine about, but it is an illusive thing like taking hold of smoke. Allusion is the gift-wrap of reality the unwrapping often puts me off the contents; regaining my composure and reestablishing willingness is a difficult job requiring dedication and fortitude. The barrier before the carefree me is thought the strongest of all substance. I must heal the calcifications of my mind and resist rigidity. My thinking is what makes being me problematic without it I am nothing at all.


Free fun from the shackles of expectation
*

ACCEPTANCE, ACTION, CHANGE

Acceptance equals action
Without action, acceptance is a death sentence
Action puts me in the hands of my Higher power
Inaction puts me at the mercy of others or worse self-justification
For acceptance to glow with life it must be moving

Action equals change
Action without change is repetition
The moon does not change
It orbits flat on it's face, forever dark on one side
And a mere reflection on the other

Change equals acceptance
Change sparks possibilities in mundane endeavor
Change without acceptance is a walk off a cliff
For change to endure, agreement is necessary
A one-sided argument is fascism and fraudulence

The heart of change is acceptance
Beating the blood of hope to the extremities
Whether we circle the heavens
Or the bowl depends on the cohesion of
Acceptance, Action and Change


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 2

Clock and Calendar Girl

I depend on the count and measure of time to get me through. The swing of the pendulum carries me from moment to moment and the divisions between days are like the rungs on a ladder; I climb from month to month and age to age. When I hold my breath I count the tic, tic, tic till the difficult time passes and I can inhale once more. Harder things require X’s in their numbered boxes to help me transverse the larger distance and rockier terrain. Take away my clock and I go deaf, remove my calendar and I go blind. Tools are tools even if they only aid sight and sound.

Address your future
*

THE SCULPTOR

Stuck in a block, my sponsor chips away at me
I struggle to hold still
With surgical precision she cuts through the debris
With which I have surrounded myself

After my sponsor frees my hand and arm
She places a hammer in my open fingers
When the other arm and hand are rescued
She places a chisel in that hand

This is how before my head showed above the surface
I began to help in my own restoration
I am the sculptor
The program has made me

Recovery has taught me
I can be anything
If I keep chipping away
At the things which hold me hostage

As time travels on I am a new shape
With each turn through the steps
And have an ever lustrous finish
With every application of the traditions

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 3

Unfettered

“The difference between a demand and a request is apparent to everyone.” A drunk once said this and I hold it to my heart. I can not be bullied or swindled into a corner; neither will I allow you to put a rope around my neck like a wayward calf. I obey because it works for me and if you teach me that you are untrustworthy or careless I will obey you no longer, this doesn’t make me less obedient it just takes you out of the lead. Sometimes I hold the reins and most times they are in the hands of G-d, but never shall my reins be in the hands of another, this is what I drank over and this is what I could drink over again. No one person is my salvation and I cannot allow anyone to be my demise. If you consume me like a drink, I will kill you as surely as any drug.


Hobble disrespect
*

STOP TALKING

Try to stop talking when people stop listening said my sponsor
And try not to take it personally
Why is that? I query

Most individuals can't handle much of anything real
Try as they may they are unable to listen
To anyone speaking the truth

Tell them a story and you can hold their attention all day
Sprinkle bits of honesty into the tale
And you still will keep your audience

But strafe them with bullets of the truth and they run for cover
I've seen it happen, I never knew what made them scurry
But I have seen them sprint away

It's a coping mechanism
If you try to turn their heart too quickly
They're afraid it will stop beating

Why is it you never worry about that with me?
You tell me the facts whether I want to hear them or not
I can tell you because you take step three

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 4

Give Me a Goose Any Day

The geese breaking wind resistance, the close ones, the far ones, the ones behind trumpeting, this is the gang who gets me sober and keeps me that way. Maybe you think that G-d is not a flock of geese, but it has been my experience and the honking and the mess are part of it all. I spend my days making sure I am one of them. Sometimes I am even in the lead, which may seem like a place of honor and prestige, but is actually a lot of hard work. Sometime I am the cheering squawker who makes my encouragement heard. Other times I am the one waddling around leaving an untidiness behind me. All of this just makes me part of the flock. I am especially fond of my nest mates though they are often the ones I chase and bluster at the most. I feel a sense of identity and pride when I see any goose flying high and know that because we don’t do it alone we are able to do it together.

Pet inspiration
*

FINE PRINT

I can scrawl the wall with everything I know
I can fill my books chapter and verse
With pure and honest hope
But let me begin the precision of language and watch.

My once open face becomes tight
My associations peek regularly around each corner
Neatly painted lines are a trap with teeth laid bare

Serrations of careful craft sever my umbilical
And God floats off untethered
Truth returns when I am shouting my prayers
Scrupulous observance never advances my sails

I must meet life with an open hand
The devil may not always be in the details
But check the fine print to be sure.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 5

Please Sir

Gratitude is a thing which collects and solidifies, it’s pink and I can walk around on it. Some days it is a broad highway and other times a winding spindling track. Ever present if I am mindful, gratitude roots out pests and pestilence while planting a garden beyond my dreams. Gratitude is like handholding; it warms and strengthens me, keeps me connected to real life and reassures me that I am not alone. Many days I find a way to make a face and pout, plundering the rich rewards of sobriety for the thin gruel of discontent, poke me with a stick on these days and remind me who I am, for I am never Oliver even if I feel a little twist.

Rest between great ideas

*
FEELING TEMPLES

I failed to appreciate the initial onslaught of feelings
I spent much time trying to capture them
Lock them away or in some other way submarine them

This only had the effect of retarding my recovery
I had to reframe my thinking
I had to start with simple calisthenics, embrace and celebrate

As my emotional health began to take shape
I started the foundations for tiny shrines
Each with its own theme

Happiness had a party going on until all hours
With grief there seemed to be a constant internment in progress
Body or no

Fear showed on IMAX film
Of the realities of life on earth
Curiosity had an endless library plus a DSL line

Making myself a willing and frequent visitor
To these contrasting places
Created in me wholeness and peace

Never again do I have to trudge
The two dimensional desert
Of my monochromatic former life

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 6

Fearing Fearlessness

How many times have I given the credit to night blind fear, credit due the brave persistent child? How many times have I blamed the willing diligent pursuer when the fault was the backstabbing delay of mistrust? I resist the onset of freedom. Fear was my oldest familiar and I put from my mind that it was my jailer, captor; kidnapped me from my cradle and kept me locked from G-d’s fine intentions. Fearlessness sounds debilitating to my crippled ears, organs who hear well the disclaimers and are deaf to the claims. I am the producer of bile and addicted to dread, endorphins wear white hats and win the day once this yellow belly is put to bed.


Allow yourself distance from uncomfortable people

*

BIRDS AND BEES

Birds and Bees can get me drunk
I have to watch the amount of envy
Which pours through me as I watch their bliss

When others make a beeline to the hive
I must head to a meeting and save myself despair
If my spiritual condition is not sound

When other couples are weaving their nests
I have to be careful
Not to weave my way back to the bar

The mating dance is so sweet and seductive
I have to make sure
I don't end up doing the two step

For as much as I hate to admit it
If steps one and twelve where enough to keep me sober
The rest would not have needed to be written


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

[girlin2une]

April 1

Why is it so hard to be me?

I have everything I could wish for. I have love and friendship, I have talent and ability. What more could I want? I don’t want more, I want to learn how to overcome fear and live with disappointment. Abundance is ever at the door, but I have no room for plenty. Reassurance is the thing I chase after, yearn for, pine about, but it is an illusive thing like taking hold of smoke. Allusion is the gift-wrap of reality the unwrapping often puts me off the contents; regaining my composure and reestablishing willingness is a difficult job requiring dedication and fortitude. The barrier before the carefree me is thought the strongest of all substance. I must heal the calcifications of my mind and resist rigidity. My thinking is what makes being me problematic without it I am nothing at all.


Free fun from the shackles of expectation
*

ACCEPTANCE, ACTION, CHANGE

Acceptance equals action
Without action, acceptance is a death sentence
Action puts me in the hands of my Higher power
Inaction puts me at the mercy of others or worse self-justification
For acceptance to glow with life it must be moving

Action equals change
Action without change is repetition
The moon does not change
It orbits flat on it's face, forever dark on one side
And a mere reflection on the other

Change equals acceptance
Change sparks possibilities in mundane endeavor
Change without acceptance is a walk off a cliff
For change to endure, agreement is necessary
A one-sided argument is fascism and fraudulence

The heart of change is acceptance
Beating the blood of hope to the extremities
Whether we circle the heavens
Or the bowl depends on the cohesion of
Acceptance, Action and Change


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

Oh my heart...

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 7

Two Things That Should Be One

The difference between my will and G-d’s will is that G-d actually likes me all the time, never looks to punish and would rather that I don’t settle for less then what is best for me.

The difference between G-d’s will and my will is left to my own devices I would run in a perpetual circle and dig a trough. I would never ask for help and would refuse if it were offered. I would take on misguidedness as a mantle and wear it to my wake.

Often my will and G-d’s will are miles apart, but they needn’t be. G-d is the president of my fan club; I just need to start attending the meetings.


Make music in your head that you can feel in your whole body

*

WHIP

I have been to the meeting where the play 'whip'
The meeting where the members are gotten in line
The tempo increases constantly in an attempt
To flick each other off into the land of shame and slips and less-than

This game is invisible to the participants
Though the stress on their bodies is surely felt
Spectators often misunderstand the meaning of the activity
And wrongly interpret it as strength training and endurance building

I think of it as a backward step
Throwing me to my initial desire for a drink
Living other peoples skewed lines
Sent me running for a bottle

The same lines
Placed around me in sobriety
Will measure me up for a box

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 8

Out on Your Front Porch

“If you want what we have,” said my sponsor, “you will have to follow somebody and lead somebody and do a few other things.”
“I have to follow somebody, that shouldn’t be too hard,” I mumble.
“In order to follow it helps if you stop looking at the ground, lift you gaze,” her retort. I raise my chin until I meet her eyes. “Better,” says she.
“I follow you?” I ask.
“Me, yes, if I have what you want, follow others if I don’t,” she says.
“Okay and lead somebody, how do I do that?” I ask.
“It’s attraction, Sweetie, be attractive, show your smile and your smarts, but most of all show that you’re sober, because that is always your best asset. And no matter what anybody tells you about the allure of bad girls, nobody can resist a good set of assets”


Don’t let the rush of the river scare you from the bank
*

WHAT IS PAST

The past cannot hold me in a loving embrace
I run too often looking for affection and recognition
In things long dead and purportedly buried

I return to the ghoulish obsession of digging up
Old hates and sorrows longing for support
And finding only the cause of the ulcers in my soul

I wallpaper the crumbling facade
Not wanting to cover it up but to hold it together
Trying to unify something which is totally scattered

When I view it with a sober eye
The past is nothing but a slideshow
Under a strobe light

The pulse triggers the impulsive belief that it was all real
When in truth it was the lie I survived
No life existed in the past

Only now is there air to breathe
The past is all vacuum
And I don't need to be sucked away

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 9

Up and Down: Round and Round

Like the wheel on my spinning wheel I pump up and down on the treadle and the wheel spins round and round, the roving twists in my hand and yarn is made. Really all I do is tap my foot and gently hold on, pulling occasionally. It is a small part I play in this production at least it feels small almost unnecessary, but with a clear mind I see that without me it doesn’t get done. I am essential yet still just a foot-tapper and hanger-on neither of these is prestigious yet the whole fabric depends on my mundane actions. I take great comfort knowing that all over there are foot-tappers and hangers-on keeping safe this way of life, sometimes keeping it safe just through sheer repetition. And if you ask, “Is that Unity or Recovery or Service?” All I can say is “Yes it is.”


Powder your bottom line
*

CLAW MARKS

There is a brackish River
Whose current changes directions twice a day
Its bed is well washed on every side.

It begs the question-
Which way is down hill?
There are times I struggle up hill in both directions

There are times I slip from every slope
What is up is often down
Judgment of topography requires distance

Scaling the surface takes tenacity
I plan on leaving my mark as I go
Life's residue staining my finger tips.

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

[girlin2une]

Love.


Powerful...


Thank you.


April 8

Out on Your Front Porch

“If you want what we have,” said my sponsor, “you will have to follow somebody and lead somebody and do a few other things"
“It’s attraction, Sweetie, be attractive, show your smile and your smarts, but most of all show that you’re sober, because that is always your best asset. And no matter what anybody tells you about the allure of bad girls, nobody can resist a good set of assets”

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 10

Stumbling Under the Tenth Step

When I’ve been outside of my mind it is so hard to tell when I’ve come home again. The landmarks take on such distortion in memory that the facts seem bloated or anorexic as I turn my face from side to side. Old journals remind me of old journeys and perhaps there are accurate landmarks mentioned, but how can I know for sure that these too are not just the ravings of a mind gone mad. Real or imagined I must take the daily count and try to keep the score in favor of the actual. I don’t always know that I’ve fallen until I inventory the dirt on my face, but better that I face the dirt than live the delusion of a mole.


Notice the shape of your fixtures

*

DROWNING NAKED

Bare & Exposed
I laid myself on the alter
Of my home group

AA, my only Source
I emptied the contents of my soul
And bore the mantle of overexposure

But vultures lurked in many rooms
I was safely guided by persons of my gender
To more secluded and effective place of transmission

I thrust myself into the arms and mind of my sponsor
She escorts me to the steps with the door closed
And taught me how and when it could be prudently opened

AA is a power greater than me, so is the ocean
Precaution needs to be taken when wading in
Care must be exercised as to how much to bare.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 11

The Key You See

The key you see is letting you, accept me. Oh, how I hide from that, run from that, flee from that. I must be in control of what you think of me. I curtain off the view of me I don’t wish to share with you. Add to that the unusual choices of what I hide. I will strip down with all the lights blazing long before I would let you see me drop the ball, be confused, misunderstand. What I truly fail to realize is that in the process of trying to hide my faux pas and fumbles; what I show you is my controlling ass. Backside bare I moon you with my freak show trying to hide my humanity. Your compassion and tolerant waiting for me to calm down and open my eyes is the key I fail to see about you.


Learn the difference between area and circumference
*

RANK

I took an area level service position
And my sponsor laughed herself off her chair
What is your motivation for this? she asked
I want to move up through the service structure, my reply
Are you trying to make rank?
Problem with that? I ask
Ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecy
You will become what you desire
You will become rank
And you will stink
The triangle is inverted to help you clean up your act
Don’t get washed away in a tide of ego
I put down my swim fins
And removed my epilates


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 12

My Experiences with Tennis

I have held the racket, I have hit the ball, but I have never played with a partner. I have slammed the fuzzy orb against the wall for long years now, but I have never had a mate. There were times when I had opponents; yes I’ve had a couple of those, a collaborator though, that I have never had. I have learned to overcome opposition either through wile or guile. Slugged my way toward some inevitable outcome, I never expected you on my court. The game we play is for keeps and the muscles required I have never used, I ache from the pain of ending an atrophy imposed on me by isolation and misunderstanding. Often I don’t know how to stand, don’t know how to act; don’t know how to be the equal to your service. I play chase, running after the thing I didn’t see and only faintly felt. I have come to the place where I know, you and I are a team; you will not be leaving looking for someone better equipped or with greater experience. It is time for me to lay out in front of you my host of tendencies and inclinations. I’m in the habit of overwhelming with my strength to hide my weakness; I must expose this all to you, the strength and the weakness, and work together for the resolution. I will no longer pretend that I know what is right and wrong in this un-played game. I fear that I will lose the old game by making this change, all that is familiar put up for grabs to the uncertain outcome of paired sports. All I truly know is that with you by my side I can never lose and I will learn to do whatever it takes to be your wife.


Dream with an open mind
*

SOLIDITY

Apprehension stands in the archeological site
Which is my life -----listening
Listening for the rumble of a cement truck to come
And help solidify the shifting and tenuous nature of my existence

A wet and sloppy solution
A solution to be raked and smoothed, covered and cured
Something to build a monument on
Or a place to park my car

The nearby grass looks lush and green
But I dare not leave apprehension alone or it spreads
I stand with it on bad days
And against it on good ones

I pray for the mixer to arrive
Or at least the gravel spreader
I need to fill this hole so it can be a life
And stop being a grave.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 13

Neither Frog nor Fish

I was falling and my Higher Power caught me in a net called AA, all of which was a pretty neat trick, but the strangest consequence of this is now I somehow think it shouldn’t be possible for me to drown. Defying gravity 24 hours at a time doesn’t make me aquatic or even amphibious for that matter. I still have all the corollary restrictions of anyone who is me. I still need sleep and water, food and warmth just like a mere mortal. How silly I am. I dodge a bullet and suddenly I think I am waterproof.


Don’t exchange your trinkets for your tools

*

WHAMMO

I have been hopping on one foot
With a ball of hope shoved under one arm
And a ball of hysteria under the other

I wish I could tell from the outside of the ball
Which one is hope- I worry I will put down the wrong one
So I hold onto both

My life is sorely limited by the baggage
And I fear I am losing life with every hop
A lack of information is my problem

I don't adequately know the properties of either
And suspect my every interpretation
Finally I stand before my sponsor

To ask the question of my life- That's easy Honey
Hope is the one that bounces back
Is all she had to say

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 14

Who to Ask

“You ask good questions and you ask the right people,” said my sponsor.
“I ask questions because I need answers,” my reply.
“Do you know how many people need answers and never ask?” she quipped.
“I ask my friends, no stroke of genius there,” I continue.
“You ask your playmates, you ask the people you trust enough to have fun with. You don’t realize how clever that is. You know lots of folks who work hard and you could ask your questions of these, but instead you save them for those diligent ones who still know how to play and that, Sweetie Pie is proof that you are no dummy.”


You may mute your horn, but don’t soap your bow

*

CRUMPLED PETALS IN MY POCKET

I can't bring back the bloom
Cohesion, lost ripeness
Is left only to memory

I carry home the parts
Folded, petite, fragrant bedding
For my wistful desires

I put these colored remnants into a jar of salt
I make an aromatic rub
For the sweetest wounds

Transforming the parts to useful duty
Doesn't restore the flower
It doesn't pay tribute to the past, it is survival

I have a mind filled with roses but I must make hay
Today I live, today the rose is dead
Its pieces in my pocket

I don't die with the blossom
Though my head blows in the wind
The rose runs its course, I run mine.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 26

Imperturbable


Perfectionism is a cover, a blanket of lead; hard to move and rich with poison. What it tries to hide is my unwillingness to struggle and strive. It’s not a fear of failure, but the horror of success after a long hot pursuit. If I can stall on the intricacies of the first move there is no further movement. If I can fail before I begin there is no sweat, no stain, no stink. Catastrophe is no bother, but skinned knees are my undoing. Winning is not so important to me; my unfortunate goal is to look untroubled.


Snap a picture of your beliefs
*

TRANSITIONS

During the months of winter
The trees stand tall and leafless
Static in their appearance, frozen in direction

The insurgence of spring brings to life the truth
The buds and flowers show the draw of the their owners
The pull of life from the earth and sky.

Other trees have begun to restore the gifts so graciously given
These leafless giants open themselves
As home and sustenance to the surrounding community

Returning favors and flavors, coming to terms with wholeness
Celebrations of all I have, call for me to give back
Even during the time when we all look the same.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 27

Blinded

Alcoholism hits me like a kind of blindness. I stagger through the living room cursing anyone who changes familiar placement or published timetables. Just like every aspect of this disease, shocked sightlessness, is mine to deal with. I must pick up the white cane, procure the Seeing Eye pup, learn to read clustered braille. When my vision clears in these well worked spaces I am relieved, but I must accept that when I walk into a new room more often then not I will be blind again and must pick up my walking stick once more.


Apply a timeframe to misery
*

STREET SIGNS

Hanging out on the corner of Disillusion Boulevard and Grief Road
Then returning to that special spot on Despair Avenue
Was my daily routine.

I made the circle and never looked far afield
Widening my circuit
Allowed me to find Anticipation Place and Hopeful Terrace

I pushed my search and found roads
Whose existence I never fathomed intersected
Creating areas of intrigue

Optimism Court interfacing with Realization Way
Is the fairest of my finds
But many a fine street corner has me lurking

Catching stray sunshine and encouragement
I make my home wherever the hospitality is available
And return less often to the dark and stifling places of the past

Happiness is where you find it
Just make sure to read the signs.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 28

Perkiomenville

Being actually alive does not feel as good as I imagined the relief of being dead would feel and therefore I have anxiety and dread, or is it disappointment. I feel like a failure when I am in the process of trying and I want to throw the pieces in the air and run. Does this mean I’m weak or does it mean I am frightened? Or is there some heavenly host of other reasons why my crêpe paper soul twists and turns in the breeze of the marketplace? Some part of me was auctioned off and its removal left a psychic scar that even equanimity can not ease. I am all things wonderful and yet there is this flaw, this toe tied thread which holds me back, holds me down with painful accurate precision. I look for the knife with which to cut it all the while wondering if this will turn it into a toe tag or a price tag.

Police your self destruction
*

K-TURNS

I do not believe in a universe that makes complete sense
I often find myself trapped
Because the things I pull into no longer feel firm.

I attempt K-turns in alleys far too narrow for the maneuver
I can’t back myself through the passages I plunged into willingly
My faith doesn’t compute in reverse and I find this disconcerting

I may walk into the face of fire
But find it impossible to turn my back on the flame
Today a one-way faith is fine
As long as I am moving forward.



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

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 29

Would You Rather a Lamp?

I am a girl filled with expectations. Like a ginger jar filled, stuffed caulker block full, though the filling is the part which is unpredictable; it could be match books, or seashells, acorns or all those pretty capsules. This makes me erratic and sometimes volatile. Are you strong enough or far too sane to stay and help me sort the contents? It’s lonely work without a witness or a spotter. I rather be alone than with you reluctantly, so please try to shuck that husk and remain. Yes, I am sometimes capricious, but I try never to be cruel. I know sometimes you convince yourself that leaving me to my own devices is the wisest of courses, but don’t be fooled; you disappear due to your weakness not strength and the worst part about the price of abandonment is that everyone has to pay it.

Design a window that looks out on your dreams
*

THE SHINY THING

The starling stands with the candy wrapper in its beak
The cellophane flexes in the breeze
Here is my life

I have the shiny thing in my possession , What do I do?
Do I give up my intended tasks to attempt dominance
Or control of the shiny thing?

Do I release this thing of intrigue and beauty
I am drawn to the shimerance and sparkle
But shutter at the price

The world is filled with shiny things
I can enjoy them
But leave them where they lay.


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

May 2

Reguess

When in my sarcasm I suggested that you ‘guess again’, I realized that you were in fact guessing, guessing about everything, guessing in order to create a process of elimination, a tool on which I now recognize you entirely depend. Guessing as a way of life is a tragedy. I’m not saying that trying to know every last thing in the world is an acceptable alternate goal, but to reach an adult age and not even be able to work your way up to a possible hunch is scary, scarier than even my sarcasm, which at this moment seems interminable, but I’m sure you guessed that.

Make a list of your favorite fingers
*

ON COMING

Anticipation of the approaching traffic consumes.
The tiny spec grows and develops into the arriving vehicle
50 miles per and the rapid succession of the coming
And those leaving eats quickly at my heart.

The pain seers me
Why are these who travel from the direction of my destination
Passing me by?
For miles and miles they appear to be greeters

The breeze created by their passing chaps my face
And questions my goals
How can so many abandon my objective?
But flee they do.

My hunger does not diminish
And I press on
Of course if we all went this way, we might tip the globe
Maybe that’s what they fear.

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

[LeftWriteFemme]

May 13

Be That Girl

I have tried to protect the investment I made in the past by selling the soul of my future. I arrived self-possessed, a winning girl, but I slid the self from the scene leaving me simply possessed. I gained everything then lost it a piece at a time starting with the parts nearest my heart. I must draw the shards together once more and mend this lovely crystal. The art of living is insured by my action not by grasping at slivers in terror of what slips from my fingers. I am what I have inviolate and all else comes to fruition when I am pleased; when I am myself.

Be aware which pens are poison

*
SOOT

I diligently work to remove the soot.
The residue from the last time I tried to hot wire my brain
When I attempted the short circuit of my safety-thinking
I caught my life on fire and flames, though brief, were spectacular.

Electric fires are very jarring
The burning insulation toxic
It leaves bare, stuttering lines crossing and recrossing

My stable base, the methods I once used to keep sane, is shot
All because I wanted to go joyriding in my thoughts
Suspended reality sounds so good but always bursts into flame
Leaving me with soot removal as a hobby


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

[LeftWriteFemme]

June 11

Prize Catch

There is a reason that fish flap and twist when they are caught, why even though they are in the air they fight for the life that once was theirs, only martyrs go without a fight, it is good to know that at least this vice is not mine. When I did not love my life its loss was not an actual change, there was nothing to hold onto, nothing to struggle for. Now I thrash at the feel of my loved life slipping from me. It is good to know I have passion enough to rally a defense. My life can be taken from me, but I haven’t lost my will to fight.

Turn confusion until its smooth


*

THE PALMIST

Last night I had a silly dream.
I was in a tent at a carnival and the woman across the table
Held my hand so dear, looked into my eyes and said
“Today you will go to a meeting which will save your life”

I thanked her and left full of anticipation.
When I awoke, I was filled with the same strong sensation
I rose, washed and left for the meeting with anticipation.

I paid close attention to the coffee maker,
Those setting up chairs with me and the newcomer
I listened carefully to the speakers
And the sound of the group’s voice closing in prayer

Nothing out of the ordinary happened
Other than my realization that
Every meeting saves my life.


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

[pumpndude]

this thread is important to people in recovery.....
I'm sure I'm not the only alcoholic/addict here in recovery...
If so I hope new members find this site....

[pumpndude]

Today is a good day, why? I have another day clean and sober....

I turned 20 on Nov.-13-16
I have heard pretty much everything at meetings or talking with fellow members etc....

If anyone wants to talk and don't want to post on this thread then message me....

Searching for fellow members of AA, would like to read posts and make some new friends...

[LeftWriteFemme]

December 8

THE WAY I DO IT


Cooking by smell, parking by ear, recovering by touch. The latter has to be done this way; I cannot see into the black-box technology, which keeps me sober. Feel through the resentments, pain, sadness, joy; find myself under a pile of rags with a match in my hand. The many times the steps have saved me from becoming a human torch are balanced by the weight of the rope, woven from these same rags, that together we use to drag one another to safety. The savory scent of a meal, or the glee of front row parking can’t compare with the tender sense of a sober heart.


Write bad advice on tissue and wipe with it.
*

Master Mind


I was taught that it was my job to master fear;
raised in a religion swearing they could master death.
I used to spend all I had trying to create a master plan,
while trying to keep secure using a Master lock.

I have seen Master & Commander
and do not long for that burden;
in fact mastery is so much a snare and illusion.

Life is quite improved
when we each have an oar and we all row on.

Vlog: http://youtu.be/J9IaheHYzsg

[Tommi]

Today is a good day, why? I have another day clean and sober....

I turned 20 on Nov.-13-16
I have heard pretty much everything at meetings or talking with fellow members etc....

If anyone wants to talk and don't want to post on this thread then message me....

Searching for fellow members of AA, would like to read posts and make some new friends...

Hello pumpndude,
Happy belated Birthday
It's Thursday and I am sober and happy to be a Friend of Bill.

Just for today, reading, meetings and membership in such a great club, came here to read and to post for many years. :tea:
So, welcome, and post away.

[LeftWriteFemme]

December 10

ELECTRIC CONNECTIONS


I step into a room and take its currency. Is the flow good? Steady? The pulse even and strong? Where are the power brokers and are they sharing the time or using their magnetic personalities to draw the current off others? I check the complement of resisters, examine their stripes and assess the possibilities. I pump in energy when I can and take when it is available. I keep in mind we are all transformers and change is possible for everyone as long as we make the connections.


Rich mistakes make good batter.
*



What’s that in the Pool?


Parts of the Rocky Mountains look like
algae bloom out in the Indian Ocean.
Parts of me look like parts of you
and here we go with oneness
being nothing more than
pattern recognition and optical illusion;
though I hope there is more to it than that.

My hurt might not be your hurt,
but I have a sense of it.
Likewise your hope may not resemble mine,
but it cheers you just the same
and we are all the better for it.

We needn’t replicate each other
or attempt imitation,
but recognition is a kind thing
and art is what we all have to share.


Vlog: http://youtu.be/ymX2yjLcpws

[LeftWriteFemme]

December 14

DO WE SEE



The old man walked down the road to see the end; I followed to glimpse the fruit of his pursuit. Does the highway come to rest or like the river just feed a greater sea? And time; will the clock stop him? Can he win the treasure hunt as the seconds tick away on the metronome? Will the slowing of his steps and the advancing of his age create a curve, which will prevent his accomplishment? Does this tag-along I am doing make me a part of his project? The road is long and its end may never come, only ours. When we take the road the road takes us. More and less is what we are and so too the road. I follow the contour of the ground, which curves around the world, spinning in our sky so we can all see the stars.


Reality builds contentment, fantasy disappointment.

*


Calm, Peaceful, On



Once I center my mind I can type in the dark.
All it takes is me present and willing to flow.
Limber up the learning curve,
press my fingers to the keys,

Let the story tell its tale.
Cease the interjections lest it all go stale.
There is nothing much to know,
It’s all inside, I just let it go.

Emptying this crowded vault,
I open up to prevent assault.
What to do when it hits the page;
marketing is all the rage,
but for this task I need a light.
To sell myself I must be bright.



Vlog: http://youtu.be/QpbtJlNkWto

[LeftWriteFemme]

December 16

GOOD SAMARITAN PIE


The meal prepared from my cognition, the bread and jam of humility, salad of expectation, roast of determination and Good Samaritan pie, wait on the table to be devoured. The courses pass and come dessert my kindly intentions are cut to wedges and pushed from setting to setting. I can, with dollop after dollop, cover the requisite desires of this tart in an attempt to deny my addiction to fixing or I can serve up the plain truth. I help and help and wander down roads looking for lost puppies to return to their homes. I must admit my longing to lend support is sometimes half-baked, and if kept to home and hearth it might serve me better and make a sweeter dish. Assistance is best in proportion to the meal. I must live my life and save my pie till last.


Hold each other's hands but explore.
*
Touch Your Toes


Funny how we deal with feet.
I have seen a woman cradle hers
and treat it like the dearest babe.

I know some folks who shun their feet;
can barely stand to think of them,
let alone to touch them.

There are the Mani-Pedi people
who leave it in the hands of others.
I met a guy who soaks them soft
and tucks little bits of cotton
under the corners of his nails.

I know too,
the woman with the snarling crusty dogs
that serve to others as a warning.

My grandma warns me
not complain about my shoes
lest I meet the man who has no feet,
but I doubt I would fit in his.

Vlog: http://youtu.be/7eUgwQQ5ZPI

[cathexis]

this thread is important to people in recovery.....
I'm sure I'm not the only alcoholic/addict here in recovery...
If so I hope new members find this site....

We are everywhere (under a rock or a disco-ball, as a CEO or the janitor). You never know where we'll up!!!

Sober 7 years.

[pumpndude]

Yes this site is up and running....good people coming back and post and read posts....

Its great to be clean and sober- so much to appreciate and enjoy...;cigar2:

Tommi- Hi glad your happy to be sober....:hangloose:

Cathexis- congrads on being sober 7 years....:bday:


:happyjump:

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 3

Maniacs on Pogo Sticks


I fear maniacs on pogo sticks peeping through my rural second story windows as the smoke of paranoia curls between my ears. Overestimating my interest to others causes me as much harm as the underestimation. Attributing super powers to onlookers is a parlor trick my ego plays to keep me occupied while my life passes by. I sacrifice all my possibilities for fear of what could be stolen through my keyhole. I cut off my face to spite my poor lonely nose. I must move forward in spite of my disquietude for the future lay ahead, yet I do console myself that it is harder to hit a moving target.



Use honey to get the peas to stick to your knife


~


DIDN'T KNOW I WAS GOING TO THE CIRCUS

I show up at a meeting
I didn't know the circus was in town
I expected calm, demure, sober behavior
My expectations were dashed, my bubble burst.

There were people streaming back and forth in front of the speaker
There were kids playing among the chairs
Smokers worked the meeting in shifts
Hustling out the back door and smoldering back in.

The side conversations rivaled the main attraction
People dressed for the street not the meeting, the bibby shirt, tights and no skirt
Was more of a high-wire act then I had ever seen before
Shock cannot even begin to describe the state of my mind.

"But for the grace of God" said my sponsor
"No" I said "It's a choice, they're sober now."
"Oh yes" she remarked "Weren't you sober when you took on
Every man with time, looking for a fight with each of them?"

"I was cutting my chops. They understood."
"Some of them didn't." said she
"Weren't you sober when you dyed your hair red - but only half?"
" I was afraid I'd dye my scalp, so I started lower."

"Yes, but aren't you the one who says sudden hair color change
Is a sign of instability in sobriety?"
"Yes, I do." I replied
"I think you would have fit in well with the circus.
You and your two tone hair but you didn't hear it from me."
"You're mean."
"And what are you being?"
"Judgmental."

"That's my girl, what are we going to do about it?"
"Be grateful, grateful I got in quick enough
Grateful people let me work things out in these rooms.
Grateful I still have something to learn from everyone. GRATEFUL."


Vlog: http://youtu.be/WLX_uTL2hao

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 4

One Singular Crowd


Isolation among the isolators is replete with metaphor and theme. Expectation blithers loudly but is drown by the palpable inevitability of the outcome. I pirouette in a room filled with dancers but we do not touch, we just spin near one another full view but little contact. Yet I hear my heart beating in my ear and know that I am alive. The flush of neighboring cheeks attests to duplicate conditions there. We are moving together sometimes in harmony but other times in antipathy, dependant all the same. We are the army of independent meanings. Individual cases sharing one slender goal but that’s all that we need.



If you can’t find the grape try some jelly.




~

THE BOAT

On my ride home from work there's a boat stuck between two trees
In the middle of a horse pasture
Next to a riverbed so dry it's filled with grass.
I think the boat is me.

I feel for the boat every time I see it.
Turned on edge, waiting for a river which doesn't exist anymore
And may never exist again
Placed on edge for protection, not comfort.

Although having my bottom rot out
Well, let's just say, might be more uncomfortable
What good will I be even if the river runs again
Since I'm fenced in?

If my Higher Power has a plan
If it includes a river and a fence
If I'm in this plan, me, the row boat
I just don't see it.

Not seeing my purpose in life is a theme in my life
Truth is, I don't want to face the fact, I might float away
Even though I'm supported by two big trees
Even though there is a tall fence around me.

Completely in spite of the fact
THERE IS NO WATER
My Higher Power loves me.
I AM THE BOAT


Vlog: http://youtu.be/BXqTSzIuod4

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 7


Dion


Everything in the world happened before I was born and the cinders sift through my fingers. Accomplishing cohesion of the ashes is a goal I have not yet achieved. Cremains precious but meager are a difficult building material, shifting due to emotions and wind, I find they stick too well to my lungs and not well enough to anything else. Tears help, but I will not cry forever. I must draw from a fresh water source and wet the powdery scratch I have inherited and form the world anew.


Use caution when interacting with the crème de la crème this may trigger intolerance



*


OLD GOLDFISH

I got them when my sobriety was new.
They were tiny little guys, ten cent feeders.
I wanted my stepson to sleep soundly
In our strange jumble of a home, fresh from purchase.

The tank sat on a dresser under his elevated bed
Space to fit my hand to feed them
No space for baby boy to climb in
I loved my goldfish.

There is never a NO with goldfish
Feed them as often as you want
Let the water get cold
Put them in a big space, small place, plants, no plants.

NO was so hard, I hate and fear No.
I am hard, fish are easy.
Tears and mesmerizing aquarium
Meetings and steps.

I could not keep myself alive
I don't know how I kept the fish fed.
The program kept me going,
Kept hope flowing and the fish swam.

In this century when we are finally outliving wild goldfish
We are sober together,
By the grace of a Higher Power, in this century.
It's been a wonderful time.

I am grateful to be here with the goldfish.
I am grateful the goldfish are here for me.
Expecting so little
Maybe I could return the favor

Vlog: http://youtu.be/BVWOAXsGMBI

[Tommi]

Yes this site is up and running....good people coming back and post and read posts....

Its great to be clean and sober- so much to appreciate and enjoy...;cigar2:

Tommi- Hi glad your happy to be sober....:hangloose:

Cathexis- congrads on being sober 7 years....:bday:


:happyjump:
:pile::clap:

Thanks pumpndude, Congrats on 7 years Cathexis, (f)

Jan 7, was my anniversary, 40th year sober and clean. Went to a meeting where there was over a hundred in attendance. Celebrations went from 24 hours to 46 years. Cake and chips were appreciated , celebrated and a good time was had by all us sober folks. :) :hangloose:

[pumpndude]

Tommi wow , happy, happy birthday, 40 years sober, you go dude...:birthday:

glad you had a good bday at a meeting...:thumbsup:

and thanks for the happy bday ....

[Martina]

I am not an acoholic, but am riddled with soft addictions which are ruining my health and preventing me from being the person I want to be. Tomorrow, a meeting. I am committing to it.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 1


Know Enough to Clap




If I know I’m happy I can clap my hands, but if I’m happy and I don’t know it, what then? Will my face display tell tale signs without whispering a word of it to my mind? Will I whistle a happy tune therefore revealing my inner state? If I can’t demonstrate my reality does it cease to exist? Does my retarded ability to reflect my emotion condemn me to remedial society? Is there any other society? If I become well enough to reflexively feel and exhibit my mood will I graduate to the advanced class or be forever alone no longer having a place amid the emotional head bangers, hair twirlers and cobweb pickers? Is it a choice of knowing happiness in isolation or confusion with a crowd? Could I know? Should I know? Would I know? Who knows?


Iron your will



*


THE DIFFERENCE

Falling and flying are the same, save the landing.
No matter what you do in the air, how well or how poorly
In the end, if you don't land, it's a fall
And if you do, a flight.

How we begin seems of ultimate importance
But is seen as a farce in the face of ruin.
The most promising of starts can be sucked ground ward,
Compass and instrumentation rendered useless, through lack of humility.

Piteous starts, starts without plan or goal
Are viewed as triumphs when safety has been captured from defeat.
Willingness is my aileron
It contributes to my lift in ways I cannot explain.

It smoothes the gusts of life which forever blow in my face
And willingness brings the ground up to meet me.
All I have to do is be willing
And stick out my feet.




.

[pumpndude]

I am not an acoholic, but am riddled with soft addictions which are ruining my health and preventing me from being the person I want to be. Tomorrow, a meeting. I am committing to it.

So glad you decided to do something about your addiction and hope you stick around the rooms of AA/NA its all your choice....

You just might of caught your addiction before it got way out of control....I don't know your story but I'm rooting for you....

Hope to see more of your posts....

[pumpndude]

I don't want to see this thread die out....so I hope people find this thread and the ones that have posted before come back and start posting again.
we have to stick together...

[Soft*Silver]

recovery is important to me. I had 23 year sobriety when I fell apart for one day...jumped back into recovery and now have 9 years. I cant believe its been 9 years! It seems like just yesterday! LOL. That just goes to show you how quick times flies in recovery! Well, when we arent white knuckling it!

I dont know what I would do without recovery. Even in recovery I have made some stupid choices and faced the consequences, but the difference is, that I was sober facing them and I didnt add to them! Even when I relapsed, it was a good thing. I was broken and didnt realize it until I snapped. Once snapped, I started working a good program again and faced my own inventory. I am still working on myself to this day, and will be until the day I pass from this earth. Its a progress, not a finish line.

I have such a wonderful relationship with my daughter and my two grand daughters. I had so much to resolve with my kid from my addiction. We were in so much pain together and individually from it. I know if I had not worked so hard on it, we would not be speaking today, let alone, be the happy family that we are.

I am also in a wonderful relationship, that for the first time ever in my life, I am not struggling within it. I use to join up with people based on my perception of them and my perception of myself. Sadly, I wasnt seeing very clearly and it negatively affected all those relationships. Once I relapsed, i did a very thorough inventory of myself, and refused to engage in any relationship. I was scared, alone, and tired of being in pain. I just wanted all that to stop. I worked hard on myself and as I did, some wonderful people came into my life, including the person I am now married to. I was able to clearly see him as well as myself, which started us out on the right foot. I was also able to evolve further into myself in this relationship, as I explored all those preconceived notions we are handed about relationships. Its been wonderful to grow instead of be swallowed up! LOL

I am glad this thread is still around...

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 4

THE FLOCK

Today I came to a place in the road covered with birds. The nearby fields, covered in birds, the trees covered. As I approached, the birds took wing. The flock responded to my presence; each bird flew, the sky darkened with their flight; wave upon wave, boundaries intact, taking action in the face of obstacle. The gift of instinct displayed for me as I fly to my meeting, my instinct rehab. I am learning my intuition; my sponsor spoons it to me from the steps. I suck it down never knowing what it is about this process that makes me better, anymore then I know how grain and bugs make birds fly. I have theories, things I roll in my fingers when I’m nervous. I get glimmers, things my Higher Power sparkles in my eyes for a treat. In truth, I don’t know ‘how’ I don’t need to know, any more than birds need to know lift to weight ratios.
When I respond to life events, when I spend less time self-concerned, I am so much closer to self.
“Aren’t we spiritually centered?” quips my sponsor.
“Yes,” I reply. “One day in a row, I’m going for the record.”
“That’s all the birds have; you’re doing as well as they,” she smiles and pats my back.

Say hello the next time a bee seeks you out
*

One Singular Crowd

Isolation among the isolators
is replete with metaphor and theme.
Expectation blithers loudly
but is drown by the palpable inevitability of the outcome.

I pirouette in a room filled with dancers
but we do not touch,
we just spin near one another full view but little contact.

Yet I hear my heart beating in my ear
and know that I am alive.
The flush of neighboring cheeks
attests to duplicate conditions there.

We are moving together sometimes in harmony
but other times in antipathy, dependent all the same.
We are the army of independent meanings.

Individual cases sharing one slender goal
but that’s all that we need.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 5


THE BAG

I saw a bag at the top of a tall tree. Full of air, the wind pushing it; it rocked back and forth, held by the stub of a branch. It is so beautiful, so lucky, so blessed.
My sponsor frowns. “Beautiful, yes,” she says. “Lucky and blessed? Convince me.”
“The bag is lucky; it could be on my doorknob, holding garbage. Blessed? It’s free, not a care in the world, supported aloft by the strength of the tree.
“Inside your house, it’s warm. Holding garbage is useful. Lucky to be out in the cold, no purpose, no one needing your help? Blessed? Caught on a tree, trapped, sharp twigs everywhere ready to shred you, beaten by the wind?”
“You're playing devil's advocate.”
“ I do it well. What are you playing? You want to be free. What is free? You want to know for sure you’re on the right path. You think the bag knows?”
“If I were the bag, I might be mad. I might condemn the forces filling me so full I can only feel the force itself. I might be exhilarated, overtaken, free from responsibility. I might feel isolated, unstable 40 feet in the air. I might feel punished, abandoned, dismissed. I could feel a thousand different things.”
“And on the days the wind doesn’t blow?”
“Oh.”


Imitate all the animal calls you know
*


Time’s Temperament


Bubbling tides of white water,
time roils past me and my protests go unheard.
Physic feedback loops revisits raw moments
to me with inopportune exactitude.

The beautiful droplets of dawn rain down
then evaporate leaving another day’s timeline
to fan out before me.

The alternating fury and jubilation
of passing intervals leaves a challenge,
first a question of bend or break,
second a call to forecast.

Can I flex or will I live in pieces?
Shall I look at patterns
and strive for harmonious waltz
or turn my face from the calendar dreading each trice?

Bully or benefactor time rolls.
I can go with it or be under it that choice is mine.

[Greco]

Welcome back LeftWriteFemme...I have missed your sober clarity, and writing.

Greco




January 4

THE FLOCK

Today I came to a place in the road covered with birds. The nearby fields, covered in birds, the trees covered. As I approached, the birds took wing. The flock responded to my presence; each bird flew, the sky darkened with their flight; wave upon wave, boundaries intact, taking action in the face of obstacle. The gift of instinct displayed for me as I fly to my meeting, my instinct rehab. I am learning my intuition; my sponsor spoons it to me from the steps. I suck it down never knowing what it is about this process that makes me better, anymore then I know how grain and bugs make birds fly. I have theories, things I roll in my fingers when I’m nervous. I get glimmers, things my Higher Power sparkles in my eyes for a treat. In truth, I don’t know ‘how’ I don’t need to know, any more than birds need to know lift to weight ratios.
When I respond to life events, when I spend less time self-concerned, I am so much closer to self.
“Aren’t we spiritually centered?” quips my sponsor.
“Yes,” I reply. “One day in a row, I’m going for the record.”
“That’s all the birds have; you’re doing as well as they,” she smiles and pats my back.

Say hello the next time a bee seeks you out
*

One Singular Crowd

Isolation among the isolators
is replete with metaphor and theme.
Expectation blithers loudly
but is drown by the palpable inevitability of the outcome.

I pirouette in a room filled with dancers
but we do not touch,
we just spin near one another full view but little contact.

Yet I hear my heart beating in my ear
and know that I am alive.
The flush of neighboring cheeks
attests to duplicate conditions there.

We are moving together sometimes in harmony
but other times in antipathy, dependent all the same.
We are the army of independent meanings.

Individual cases sharing one slender goal
but that’s all that we need.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 6


MARIAN

Even if the whole world was created in a cipher and whirls off into nothingness, this is still not a commentary on the existence of God. We have today. For this moment of sobriety there is a power greater than my despair, my apprehension and it builds with me a home from the bricks of my optimism. Partnership is no prevention of inhospitable endings but is a temporary relief from desperate loneliness. The tired struggle of guaranteeing niceness spills my energy, scraping from each 24 the marrow so necessary. My open palm saves me from grasping, my open mind from grappling; I rid myself of tiny gods in tiny heavens where I do not reside. Let the blades of grass probe between my toes; there is beauty for me to see, love to hold, hope to float. Where this train originated and whatever its destination, it’s in my station now and I am grateful to be on board.


Leave your outgrown shell for the sea to take
*


Hand Me Down Pain


You have sent a cold thing into my heart
it causes my feet to move me away from you.
It need not be spoken of this is a thing of ice and lead.

Words are no help here
action is the only cure.
Eternity can be spent
with a soul bisected by slivers.

Stepping the willing way to joy and freedom
seems so unlikely from this frosty local.
Make my mind up I must.

Close my eyes and move forward.
I will leave your pain behind me
I hope not to have to leave you.

[Esme nha Maire]

Just nipping in to say - you write beautifully, LeftWriteFemme! Thank you for sharing!
(hugs)

[LeftWriteFemme]

Greco, thank you so very much! I appreciate being part of this community sharing our experience, strength and hope!

Sherrie



Welcome back LeftWriteFemme...I have missed your sober clarity, and writing.

Greco

[EnchantedNightDweller]

Thank you, LeftWriteFemme. It is difficult for those who have lost their faith to use the concepts of a 12 step program, to move past Step 2 and onto Step 3. Who exactly will they turn their will over to? The group can work for awhile but human beings are fallible and will disappoint you. One must develop a faith in the mean time - a God of your own understanding.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 7

HELP FROM STRANGE SOURCES


I cannot get my mind wrapped around the places I find help. I struggle with believing I have been helped; I struggle with disbelief at my own resistance. I am helped daily by many tiny things seen and unseen. I realize now, I was injured by the same tiny things when I was misaligned with my Higher Power.
The sun rising, the tiny star I circle in this great nothingness, it makes my whole day. The air hanging around just in case I need it, which I often do. The people who live with me (a mean feat), work with me, those who exist here with me, keep my ship on course. How very sweet of them to do mostly right every day of their lives. What a help that is. The whole ecosystem and all the weather: what would I do without it? But this is on a good day.
On a bad day, the sun is in my eyes, scorching my skin. The air is too still or well, the wind is always a problem. And People, people are an endless plight. People do things to hurt, annoy and irritate me. Full intent, targeted to me, my life, my wants destroyed. Bugs seek me and I am followed by the darkest cloud, every day, all day lurking.
I am so thankful for a sponsor and a tenth step.


Name your tears; honor them for who they are

*
Dion


Everything in the world happened before I was born
and the cinders sift through my fingers.
Accomplishing cohesion of the ashes
is a goal I have not yet achieved.

Cremains precious but meager
are a difficult building material,
shifting due to emotions and wind,

I find they stick too well to my lungs
and not well enough to anything else.
Tears help, but I will not cry forever.

I must draw from a fresh water source
and wet the powdery scratch I have inherited
and form the world anew.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 8


OLD GOLDFISH

I got them when my sobriety was new. They were tiny little guys, ten-cent feeders. I wanted my stepson to sleep soundly in our strange jumble of a home, fresh from purchase. The tank sat on a dresser under his elevated bed, space to fit my hand to feed them, no space for baby boy to climb in. I loved my goldfish. There is never a no with gold fish; feed them as often as you want; let the water get cold. Put them in a big space, a small space, plants, no plants. No was so hard. I hate and fear no. I am hard, fish are easy.
Tears and mesmerizing aquarium. Meetings and steps. I could not keep myself alive. I don’t know how I kept the fish fed. The program kept me going, kept hope flowing, and the fish swam. In this century, when we finally are outliving wild goldfish, we are sober together by the grace of our Higher Power. It’s been a wonderful time. I am grateful to be here with the goldfish. I am grateful the goldfish are here for me, expecting so little. Maybe I could return the favor.
“I’m grateful you appreciate the fish,” says my sponsor.


Find a bell to ring
*

Lathe

Turning into a spin,
the edge cuts into my misconceptions,
the point sharp and accurate to a fault
digs into the excess I carry around,
keeping me from my useful purpose.

A good eye and steady hand
are needed lest breakthrough ruin me.
Not that all is ever lost
for a spoon with a hole
in the bowl will stir a soup smooth.

Relinquishing my burdens and trusting the carver’s tools and methods
takes great commitment.
I am carved commitment or no,
but things turn out better when I don’t flinch.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 9


IN A BACKWATER


There is a place so removed, uninspired, ignorance flourishes. I hate to go there. I avoid it when I can. Today I could not avoid it. Today I saw the gable end of a small barn, half hidden in the scrub trees. On the face of the gable end are two plywood cutouts, large, taking up the major portion of the space. The first cutout is a budgie, a bright blue parakeet, 7 or 8 feet tall. Tilted to its side, it looks dyslexic, but intriguing. Above it is a cutout of a black guitar, similar length, hanging long ways across the top, almost from eave to eave. I don’t know what it means, why they are there, who could have put them there.
A story’s tongue is sticking out at me; I can hardly bear it. I think of God, and laugh. If my God has nothing better to do than tease me, I need a better God. I think of my Higher Power and wonder if the power is curious, too. Am I overlapping a layer of consciousness I have no part in? Is this a subliminal preview of my future? Or am I far too nosy for my own good? My sponsor says the latter. I just don’t know. It could be something all together different. I have only time. Time will tell in the end; it always does. I hate to wait.




Compare and contrast eggplant and green beans.
*





Crestfallen


“Whoa is me,
I have crested the rise only
to slide down the other side.

Hard work and determination culminated in victory
but alas it was short lived.
Success is barely meaningful if it isn’t permanent.

Poor, poor dear,
I will have to strive once more
at the face of a new challenge or even worse
might have to make another run at this one.
How shall I ever bear it?” I lament, my sponsor smiles.

“Are you learning to be amused at yourself
or hoping to bring back melodrama to the everyman?”
She queries.

“A little of both I think,
whining is a consolation to me,
” I reply.

“It’s nice that you’re not doing it at me,
but even nicer that you have let your achievements
teach you to laugh at your mishaps,”
said my sponsor with a kiss to my forehead.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 10

BREAKING MY OWN GLASS

The police of a small town caught a serial glass breaker today. The man who owned a plate glass repair shop was breaking store front windows. I break my own. I go through my life; I slash my own tires and break my own glass. I fear continuity, stability, success. I love damage control, making arts and crafts from my slivers and shards.
“Think what you could do with undamaged goods,” says my sponsor.
I don’t know how to do anything with undamaged goods, except damage them or give them to others.
“Saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” she counters.
“Stick around,” I tease.
I can make a quilt from discarded clothes, mosaics from shattered dishes, collage from junk mail. I can hold your hand and cheer you on. See the potential in every person in a crowded hall. Rescue every stray on the block.
“What have you done for you lately?” my sponsor taunts.
She is making my point. What can I do for me? Search and destroy? Live outside myself? I have to be sober to be me. I can’t go around making messes so I have something familiar to wallow in. What if I can’t do anything fresh?
“Learn to market the retreads,” she says.


Watch an old thing in a new way.
*


Hoarfrost


On balmy evenings dew forms in my life
and moistens my extremities.
This friendly act requires the maintenance of temperature.

If I become suddenly cool the landscape changes
and the once welcoming vapor
is now a show of crystalline rigidity.

Cold to the morning light I am brittle
and snap at even a tentative touch.
For want of passion I have replaced it
with definition and structure I can not absorb.

I am outlined clearly but no longer myself.
I am frozen, formally changed within and without.
Warmth is necessary, but how to start my own fire?
Learn I must and quickly, lest frostbite set in.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 11

LONELINESS EATS MY LUNCH

There are days loneliness eats my lunch and I can’t fight back. How can I stand it? How can it still be this bad? I pull out the old chestnuts: If I’m not happy with what I have, how could I be happier with more? And, Even tickets on the fifty yard line don’t interest me; I came to play! I roll them around. I think of the other slogans, the tidbits, the smiles and hugs. Still, there are days my lunch is gulped down and I sit with my plate empty. Pickle juice, coleslaw drool is small comfort. Actually, it’s a jeer. I stare at my empty plate. I turn it and twist it. I stick out my tongue at it.
“You're good company,” says my sponsor.
Then why am I alone? If I’m so good, if my company is worthwhile, why do I sit here hungry and desperate?
“Are you sure you are?”
It sure feels that way.
“Well it might be true.”
And it might not. I get it. I am unhooked from myself; I’m ignoring the multitude at my elbow, looking for someone in my lap. I’m holding out for old terms from a new contract. I am loved by people who aren’t trying to consume me and I am letting my expectations dine for free.



Imagine who the wind visited before you and who it is on its way to visit now.
*



Pepo


My father used to destroy a perfectly good watermelon
by cutting a triangle in the top
and pouring a bottle of vodka into it.

I used to destroy my perfectly good melon the same way.
Emulating bad ideas in new ways
was a onetime pastime of mine.

Giving it up was harder than I had expected.
Flawed thinking blends so freely with my mental landscape
I have trouble distinguishing it.

Condemning the action and not the man
is not usually my preferred method.
I would rather condemn the man.

But this leaves me with the actions in place
and him long gone and though I prefer him gone
I will recreate him within myself
if I don’t flush his actions as well.

I have a good pumpkin on my shoulders
but it is my job to keep it intact.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 12

LIFE IS TOO GOOD

I know it sounds crazy. Is crazy. But I hate having the fear, the gnawing gut of “what if I can’t maintain this”? The sober life I live, what if I get struck unable to connect to my Higher Power? I had a spiritual awakening; what if I get spiritual narcolepsy? My spiritual cord was cut when I was young, not by my choosing. What if it’s cut again?
“What if this line of thinking cuts it?” asks my sponsor
I hate when she’s right. What if this is the test? Be like them or not. Follow the path of the twelve steps when there is no weight of need pushing me. I have to keep my eye on the ball for myself when everything is going in my direction. I’m still not God. This is the lesson the abusers never learned. The one I have to.
“This has been a prelude to a decision,” says she.
What decision?
“What went wrong was not bad people making bad choices in bad circumstances. It was disconnected people making decisions without help.”
I have to stay in your pocket. Never be a free bird. I have to remember what true freedom is. It’s not being cut loose. I had that and it never felt free.
“Keep your eye on the ball; hold onto my hand.”


Read a children’s book to yourself.
*
Live Bait



Is being a taunt to others really a life?
Dangling as the cover for a hook,
luring intended and unintended to their deaths,
is that living?

Or if I draw you with my attack
rather than my appeal
is that a worthwhile existence?

If I carry myself filled with poison
praying for a strike is that anything
other than a march to an unhappy grave
for two, or more?

Hidden under an avalanche of harassment
strips me of my vital quality
and my soul loses its true nature.

I am allowed to transcend
the setup of competition and social strife.
It’s alright to be tempting with no agenda.

I could be an appetizer
if only I removed the barbs
or better yet I could be dessert.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 13

CATCH



How can my sensibility catch my intellect? Or find a map with enough information to get my heart to the current location of my mind? What are the common markers recognized by soul and brain? I know the pulse of my wrist is counter-pointing the firing of my synapses. My life signs run their course and I struggle to find the intersections. I long for more than signposts and curbing. I would like parallels, paradigms and conclusions. There must be a place of common home and hearth. I am looking for the depot of my life. I hope I hit it before I hit the coast.


Warm your heart with your thoughts.

*
Offset


I often feel out of round
and unmatched to my counterparts.
Awkwardly I sit unable to strike a plausible pose.

I want my asymmetry to seem chic.
I feel a victim of universal ugliness
and gracelessly plod through my days.

Luckily offset thinking,
the partner of my offset soul, saves me.
I see that I am uniquely useful,

Like a screwdriver set at right angles
for use where a straight one could not reach.
I am counterbalance and compensation.

I may be lateral but I am also collateral.
I am an embellisher, beneficial in unexpected ways
and shouldn’t seek to be inline with the multitude.

I am the new growth,
the spur to the future.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 14


GRAVITY WORKS ALL THE TIME

Limits and boundaries are a drag. I hate feeling tied to the ground. I know I could fly if not for unseen forces. I sense myself lightening, smoothing, I drop my burdens; I pick up speed. Fourth dimension! Hell! I’m proverbial vapor trails. At this time I should explain. When I get moving this fast, I inevitably wind myself into a position where my head is up my in my nether regions, a place it does not belong.
I have slowly grown to love my limits; no restraint holds me back. In reality, I am supported, rooted as it were. I am not a hydroponic. I can live in the real world. I am me. Encouraged by the wind and the rain, I am not the hot house flower. I am truly free. I can walk where I was born to walk. I forget life has not been found outside my little world, and when it is, I’m still better off being me.


Introduce yourself to a new vegetable.

*
Specks


Spectacles are for specks;
tiny things that must be watched.
Commotion is nothing but a congregation
of minutia with an audience.

How many small things
do I strain my eyes to see;
then seek help to pursue further?

Some of these are put on display fishing for voyeurs.
Others are secreted away
only to be ferreted out through magnification.

Whether curiosity or contempt drives me
to these pinpoints I must search my motives
before I scan the plain.

For truly if I am not careful
I, myself will end up either speck or spectacle.


.

[Degotoga]

Congratulations on another milestone, cathexis! I know it's late but better late than never... :bday:

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 15

NO MAPS


Maps have existed longer than I have. By the time of my birth, aerial photography had made pinpoint accuracy the norm. I can be tracked by satellite on my daily commute. I can get a Trip Tik and travel to the far reaches of this continent.
"So what’s your problem?” asks my sponsor.
There is no map for where we’ve been going. There are the twelve steps but after that, it is all uncharted territory, except, of course for my family’s warnings about dragons.
“Those critters stay to home mostly. You have bigger things to worry about.”
So, where’s the map? I need to know where to go.
“No map. We go through this together. The pitfalls are similar: sex and money. There are a few others. What each of us finds on this journey is unchartable, plus if you spend your time looking down, you will miss the view. We prop each other up as we step off into the unknown, and reel each other back if we start falling off the beam.”
How do I know if I’m doing it right?
“Are you still sober?”
Yes, but I’m unsure. Lots of people are sober right up until the time they’re drunk.
“So true. It’s all about motive, and it’s difficult to chart your heart. Do you have willingness?”
Yes, you know I do.
“I have found that is the vehicle to everywhere, Honey. Learn to enjoy the ride.”




Write silly verse.
*


Comparison Shopping



Cost analysis of the yeas and nays
requires a savvy consumer.
Every word has a variable price
dependent on whom it is spoken to
and when it is said.

Some words charge compound interest
and others pay dividends.
Timing and delivery is of the utmost importance.
Knowledge of the markets requires constant assessment.

The risk to benefit ratio varies widely
and the short term verses the long term price
can flip the market from profit to loss.

Hold my tongue, speak my mind,
these must be weighed;
the clock consulted and inventories taken.

What I say and when
can be less a matter of bull or bear
than whether or not I can afford to be a sheep.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 16


FEEDING SQUIRRELS ON A ONE LANE BRIDGE

Cattle corn spread on the single Lane Bridge---the trap. Food or safety? There are plenty of other choices; my disease sees none of them. Gluttony and danger the perfect combination. How can I resist? Why would I resist? I have to have more. I cannot depend on my nature, the ability God gave me to survive in my environs. Help must come from outside, and must be wild and dramatic. Inward help is boring, subtle, tiresome. Where’s my image? My excitement?
How am I going to prove my God worthy without too much, without perilous risk and rescue? I can’t. I can’t prove my God, and my God doesn’t need to prove anything to me. I can find my way, off the beaten path, away from the prying eyes of rubberneckers. No cheers from the crowd are necessary. I have the equipment. It came standard. If I look at the controls and follow the twelve step tutorial, I should be able to manage just fine. No Mack truck in my face, as I stuff myself with ill-gotten grain.


Look deeply into a glass of water searching for mermaids.
*


Bon


Comfort or motivation
these are the two major reasons for building a fire.
Sometimes I set it before me
other times under me.

The warmth can be soothing
and the light dazzling,
but licking flames move me
off the spot like nothing else.

Fuel and surrounds contribute to the effect.
Mental state and personal company
provide dampening or air.

How high the flames rise or how long they burn
varies widely inspiring my passions,
my thoughts, my fears

The conflagration is an apt tool
as long as I don’t go up in smoke.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 17


IN THE COMFORT OF MY ROOM

I sit and panic concerning the future. I have come through hell, built a safe and satisfying life, but it will all end soon. I can feel it. The tide rises in my soul, the blood red tide of self-doubt and degradation. I fail to see my strength, or intelligence. Hell, I can’t even remember the sheer willingness, which has carried me this far. All I see are shreds, tattered little bits of my hopes and dreams, scattered by the breeze of fate.
What is the point of me being in this sweet space if I’m going to intellectually turn it to a dungeon? Why set out fluffy pillows only to frighten myself daily with thoughts of their removal? How can I pray for safety and practice personal terrorism? With an open mind? No! My mind is closed to the double side of life. I know the destruction but forget the glory. I have washed ashore in the land of love and support. I need not drag my mind and spirit to the nether world of hopelessness. I’ve been to the dark places. My task is to warm in the sunlit today.


Make an anagram of your name, which empowers you.
*

Hades


There is strangeness to the dark.
A velvety comfort
when my paranoia is not alive
with ice crystals and contempt.

Cocoons of light create hives of life
in an otherwise isolating phenomena.
Pressing to my skin I can wear the night out
as a jewel, a talisman for the hope I dare not share.

Pixies and faeries inhabit dawn’s wee hours
but the black blank stretch of space
is home to things quite different.

Unspeakable in their face I allow them to pass.
Should I be carried off my return is eminent
for half the seeds remain.

Not wholly ransomed I live only part time in the sun.
When the shadows fall there is the oddness of home
I can neither embrace nor deny.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 18


THERE IS A TREE

There is a tree in the woods. I’ve seen it. It is cut off from any visible source of strength or sustenance. Carried aloft by the surrounding trees, the splintered trunk dangles in the air. It makes no connection to the forest floor. I know the feeling. I have been cut off too. Violently separated from my God, as it were. I probe the fractured stump at the bottom of my soul. I explore the crevices seeking tendrils of hope. My anxiety bonds to my frustration, but faith eludes me. I look down to the broken place, the view unrealized by me. I have a vista of unimagined beauty provided to me by the growth of others. I am eye to eye with my peers, held in their loving embrace. I bloom and flower with them. I endure the winters the same as they, and come spring am the stronger for it. I don’t know why I was damaged. I don’t know why I was saved. I am grateful it is done.
My sponsor says it’s for our sobriety and the pleasure of your company.



Think of three honorable people.
*


Between Two Chains


The curving movement half seen sweeps forward
and catches me squarely on the chin.
Realization glimmers that next time
it will strike me in the mouth
and I take a step back.

I estimate the returning arc, raise my arms,
push the board back from whence it came.
As it hurtles toward me once more, I reposition.

Force returns force;
fury comes vigorously my way
and I thrust with strength and enthusiasm.

And this is fine for what it is.
I have learned how not to get hit.
I can push when I get shoved.
How much better will it be
when I can get on and swing?




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 19


ROCK BOTTOM PRICES


Marble topped dressers, dry sinks and wardrobes, standing in the auctioneer’s warehouse, show loving use and obvious value. The hungry consumers peruse the merchandise looking for the perfect piece to fit their need. Old men eating ice cream sandwiches pick their way through the rows of tidbits laid out on the lawn, bargains to fill in odd spaces and little desires. So like our meeting places, where people try to refurnish their lives. The cost to arrive may have been high, but once in the market is more than fair. We reclaim relics and we use them as road signs and warnings. There is always someone around to carry large truths home and no one has to go away empty handed. We bid on our own survival by buying someone else a break. Time passes easily, as the one at the podium recounts the rock bottom prices.


Curl up inside the nautilus of your mind and take a nap.
*



Tea or Sympathy


Tears pouring into the teacup
growing cold on the table
create a sea of emotions uncharted.

If I cannot offer sympathy to the contents,
the soulless heel that I am,
how then do I expect to have a future?

If I will tender only meager tolerance
toward the spindled thing
valiantly trying to beat within me
why do I even show my face to the mirror?

If shoulders are cold and turned inward
then I will collapse into the inexpressive,
dismal thing that has been misshapen
through misuse.

I might as well drink the chilly tea
for that is all the comfort I will get.
I must do better by myself
in order to brew a better world.



.

[cathexis]

Just checking in. Been watching the Government Shutdown. Think I need to turn it off, and turn on some Jazz or Blues to get mind off politics.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 20

BECAUSE



Because I am my father’s child, I make my attendance at meetings frequent and regular. Having looked deeply in the genetic mirror, I see so many bitter days. I’ve run from the implications and sheltered in the steps. The humility that saved my life is the understanding I am no different from my family. And, since this is a progressive disease we all have, I will just get there faster. Knowing who I can be helps me turn my will over and keeps me grasping my Higher Power’s belt loop. All I am turns in every direction and can pull or push, lift or fall. I know my assets and I know their power and their limitations. All my hope is placed on a plan to use these resources. I follow the only lead which has never promised more than it can deliver.


Be your own loving parent.
*



What Is A Sheep To Do?



Things are bad out there.
I see the trouble as I circle within the flock.
Many of us whisper to each other as we pass.
How can I create lasting change?

Is there something helpful
that will not separate me from my precious life,
something that will not make me prey
to the vultures before I even realize that I’m dead?

How can I live and strive
while the wolves hold the hilltops?
Is the choice merely, one death or the other?

Is there an as yet unseen path?
Can I find it
while maintaining my place in this congregation?
What is a sheep to do?




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 21


THE FROG

Stretched in the water, still, the frog hangs. The pond is barely a teacup, sufficient for the communion of God and frog. I watch the frog, unblinking , savoring respiration. In a pond in Maine, I bore this posture, center stage. A quarter mile of water all around, I hold my head above the surface and feel I am in the eye of God’s creation, face to face with benevolence. Peace spars with uneasy smallness. I am a tiny speck, floating in the soup; I am one organism in a sea teaming with life; I am a part of, not privileged but equal to the rest. Can I bear this reality, the struggle of living on a web? Can I live a humble life, knowing I am favored no more than the rest? Can I set aside my need for preferential treatment, a God-given Band-Aid for my multitude of hurt?
“If you can’t, you will drink," says my sponsor.
“If I have to live this way, I will cry,” I respond.
“That is your God-given right.”


Take someone else’s Higher Power out for a test drive.
*


Saurian or Dalliance


I love to be mystical
but the only dragon in my life
is when I drag on and on.

Procrastination is the winged beast in my world.
I armor plate the thing, shiny and gleaming,
my loitering delay is mightily impressive.

You might think it would take flight
from the way it postures
but departure has been adjourned
in favor of misgiving and postponement.

I wander through the forest
attempting to appear brave and feeling it occasionally
while my tale grows longer.

I need the fierce face and sharp claws
I can beat the mythology
if I will just continue to take action.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 24


COMPOST

Looking at the bins, the stages of decomposition remind me of my disease, the stinking garbage I came in with. I have learned to work my program the same way I learned to tend my pile: personal experience, advice, watching and smelling the mistakes of others and myself. I learned that covering thoroughly with meetings and steps works like leaves and hay to eliminate the immediate stench. Circulation is important to prevent me from becoming stale. In the end, the secret is turning it over. If I don’t turn it over, I become putrid; I rot and ferment instead of decomposing, breaking down in a way which restores me to usefulness. When I work the process, my Higher Power turns me into a medium of growth, a renewed source of life and depth. I become rich in all the things that matter and sought after by all the people involved in planting seeds of hope.
My sponsor says it’s a sign of humility that I aspire to be like dirt, encouraging sprouts from the remnants of my past.
She might be right.


Speak from your heart, listen with your mind.
*


Frankie


“Why do I expect new leaves to grow on dead sticks?”
I pleaded to my sponsor.
“Is that a ‘why do fools fall in love’, question?” she retorted.

“Oh, I suppose it is. I was doing so well having a ‘listen only’
relationship with someone then she asked why I don’t tell her
my opinion and I like a ‘fool’ I told her.
The ensuing pile of rationalizing and justifying
she gave stank up my whole day.”

“I bet your steady stream of self-reproach didn’t help either,”
my sponsor added.
“But, I know better!” I cried. “I mean this is why I stopped
my speaking role with this girl.
I know she is a reactor NOT a listener.
How could I fall apart at her first recognition that I am wordless
in the face of her diatribes?”

“You were hopeful, is that such a crime?
You think better of people than they really are.
I think that helps you stay willing to help them,” she soothed.

“Yes, but this snapped my willingness to work with her in half.
How do I put it back together?”
“Maybe you needed to learn that it’s okay to leave the dead sticks behind.”






.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 25


LIFE AS AN ELM

I stand tall, my bark sloughing elongated rectangles. Great bunions of protruding wood, giant bubbles of tight grain grown in reactionary curls, these tumors born of abuse and endured in maturation are harvested in recovery. The burden of them is severed from me by the sharp teeth of truth. Sectioning these masses for purposes of inventory allows the twisted and deformed wood to become dry and constructive. I inlay the contorted sheets of history into the panels of the doors AA built for me, the doors built to exit hell, which gave me access to the world beyond.
I stand in the woods, reaching the sky, sinking deeply to the underlying springs, surrounded by the joys of reality, things unseen in my pain- consumed, blister-covered life of addiction. Life was a forest of one; the wind hit only me; the snow fell only on me; the drought affected only me. Today, lightened by the loss of my inappropriate growth, I grow together with my sponsor, my group, and the we. I can accept shade and shelter; also offer it. The bugs and parasites meet with the resistance of communal health, and my disease has no harbor, not in my bark, not in my heart. Today, my program strips me of my disabilities and makes me strong in camaraderie.

Cry just to water your face.
*


The Max Factor


I apply foundation and rouge
to make up the difference between reality and expectation.
My composition is unexamined by onlookers
Appearance is the subliminal standard bearer.

My brave face is plaster cast
as an estimation and a singularity.
Powder gives and takes power;
builds a glass ceiling then a glass floor.

What I owe my mind
is more than what I allow its representation to be.
I am made up to a spot on the wall
from which I cannot move,
all because I wanted to put my best face forward.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 27


DEEP IN THE SEA

Under the mirror, there is a life. Under what I reflect to the world, I am a world apart. I smile sweetly, political in my response to confrontation and conflict. Deep, deep in the sea, is a current of sadness I can’t always shake. Pain is the past, but it’s there like a moray, lurking to strike aimlessly, pointlessly, at the passers-by. The ripping teeth and cold stare, my terror. No way to escape it, I focus on the topside, the reflective part of me. I keep the surface as clean and free as can be. I stick to my business, list goals and make plans. The water runs cold and then hot beneath. I carry the steps to this under-water grave, trying to inflate the rubber skin of god, but no. There is no life in the god of my understanding, or maybe there is no life for the character the drowned balloon represents. The sea is bigger than me, the life stronger and more abundant. The sky it reflects as vast as the liquid I swim. There is a Power and it doesn’t need that comic book face. Safety is not the requirement that can be granted. Lack of safety does not end my life. It does not end God.


Tear open your thoughts like a letter you read mostly between the lines.
*

A Living Love




What I love about the program
is that it is a living thing, like me.
It is not perfect, it is growing and changing,
adapting and correcting for each experience and need.

AA is a life into life process
and saves me because life begets life,
no matter what I was told.

The answer to life is living
and I get to see that being done
by everyone from newcomer to old-timer
each at his or her personal ability.

I am allowed to dangle my feet,
wade, tread-water and swim,
all under the watchful eye of
loving support and critical pretender.

Difficulty is not removed nor is the way made smooth,
but I am no longer without a thread to hold.
I love the web I help weave myself into
and feel protected from the spider of my addiction
because together we are living proof.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 28


AMENDS


Amends is about truth and change. The relationships of my past were places of little truth and even less change. I tried to be nice not honest; I tried to keep things going even when they needed to die. Making amends has ended most of my relationships from the past. A quick strong 10th step keeps me from starting too many new ones. Good healthy relationships require time and attention, so this necessitates a short list. Sometimes I wish for more quantity, but I realize in sobriety I cannot accept less quality.



Tie your shoes with humor.
*

Simplicity Itself

My life runs at a Gilbert and Sullivan pace,
with about as much sense and comic relief.
You say 'keep it simple'
and my disease says 'why ruin a good play?’

The truth is this is not play at all
but a work that consumes my life from me
and doesn't thank me for my time.

Simplicity for me requires respect,
a gift I selectively give myself
a gift that I often use only as a shield during battle.

My past method of increased self-respect
is life in a war zone, this is no solution.
Release of grief, this is the onerous path I avoid taking.

Purging the wrong thinking and action of others
from my blood, my eyes, my skin,
allows me to lift my chin and square my soul.

To plumb and level living,
don self-respect as a birth right
and set a calendar fit for plausible life, a simple life.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 29

MY MOTHER’S FACE


The way that age pours down my mother's face when she is sad reminds me that grief runs through my blood. Generation after generation has been transfused with anxious woe. Heartbreak vexes minds full of fear. There is no easy way to round the bend on sharp pointed issues; the route is circuitous. I battle the chaotic thinking to fight my way back to a place where my mother’s eyes sparkle as they squint closed with her smile. The war of peace is not easily won by contemporaries. We must close ranks between the ages to keep the joy from sheeting off our skin and keep the sadness in proportion. Restore us to our possible bliss; we can overtake ecstasy from there.


Build ladders for the boxes that confine you.
*

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.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 30


NURSE

What if the word God is like the word nurse? What if the person is only the simple meaning? The actor doing the service, the plain act, uncontrollable from my end. What if my active part of God is the same as my active part of nurse? What I draw down; how I schedule myself to be ready when the milk arrives? How I pull and am satisfied, digest and draw again, like the sea laps at the shore, the moon tugging it all the while. What if God is about my hunger, satisfaction dependent on finding a suitable teat?
Maybe this is why, when it comes to God, much of what I do is cry. When faced with my need, I open my mouth, finding only two possible responses: suck or scream. My aching consumes me and I don’t know how to calm myself. I look for the caretaker, the person, the deed. I need succor, but never look for the breast. I am the child of God; I must learn to draw God in.


Paint a picture of life after expectation.
*

Inertia

n.

1. Physics. The tendency of a body to resist acceleration.
The tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest
or of a body in straight line motion to stay in
motion in a straight line unless acted on by an
outside force. Resistance or disinclination to
motion, action, or change.

This force is real; the laws that govern it act on me for well and ill.
When I’m on a roll it’s hard to guide me
and like the girl with the curl; when I’m stuck,
I’m very, very stuck and it’s awful.

I am bound by this reality and go or stay according to what is set
in motion or stopped, but what about ‘the outside force’?
Am I in charge of summoning ‘it’ or is ‘it’ summonable at all?

Will ‘it’ obey like the dog, or obey like the cat?
Or is ‘it’ more random than the rain?
Can ‘it’ be lured or tempted or does ‘it lure and tempt me?

And the biggest questions on my mind:
Is ‘the outside force’ also subject to inertia?
Are we in this together?

What is ‘its’ outside force?
Might it have something to do with me?




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 31


TRUST

My sponsor always says, “You can trust people to be who they are.” I am a different being in relationship to different people. To some, I am the center of their constellation, the sun burning bright; I’m all they can see. To others, I am the moon, orbiting them, silent and dedicated. With another group, I am a comet streaking through the sky, seldom seen but well remembered. For many, I am a distant star, one among the multitude, blending in the night with the other signs. Then, there are the folks who see me in a more down to earth way. I am the dirt beneath their feet. The farmers see me as a plant to be tended. The cowboys view me as a horse to be broken. To fishermen, I’m a catch. I am what people want to see, so what can I trust them to be? Wrapped in their own worlds? Yes, mostly, I guess. None of my business in the end. I watch them and learn what I want to do, who I want to be, in large part, by avoiding what I see them do. I do trust people to serve as bad examples often and good ones infrequently, and for each of them to see me through their own filter, if they see me at all. From me, they can expect the same.



Find a corner, then pitch a tent.
*




The Was and the Is

The Silent Scream that existed as a placeholder
for my G-d was incomprehensible to me.
I entered AA and was informed
that understanding my Higher Power was required
not just some far distant goal.
In true alcoholic form my first move was to shun G-d.
This made room for my rage
which was in much need of the space.
After a few fine years of dissipation
I lost interest in incendiary devices
no matter how large their detonation capacity.
Having cleared the room I brought in G-d as potted plant.
I talked to it occasionally, watered and fed it, mostly ignored it.
Growing in spite of lacking ministrations
G-d was an unobtrusive force living in the corner
changing gas into air and demanding nothing.
As I quelled my apprehension and lived with the Presence
I looked, listened, probed and questioned
the subtle Force sharing the room.
“Add it up,” chanted the children in my ear,
“run the numbers, settle the accounts.”
I calculated proofs and discarded the faulty and inaccurate.
What was left, the whole, not the remainder was mine to keep,
But it was not everything. I haven’t an everything G-d,
because I am not a nothing person.
I am something and G-d is something too.

We are complimentary,
like pairs of angles who come full circle.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 1


WHEN I WAS YOUNG

I’m sure it will come soon, a time I can be a carefree, innocent. Worn and weary, I slog through the painful over-awareness of what was considered my childhood. What can I do but hope things will get simpler as I age? My sobriety takes years from my face; lines slip from me and I feel the weight lift from my shoulders. My tender branches, twisted with the constant force of wind, bud and flower in the shelter of recovery, holding themselves in their own embrace. Colors seep to the windows of my mind, form pictures and carry me to a new world. Through limpid pools I dive as I look to the mirror. Serenity, a rebounding of life fills me, and I am the gentle girl I missed so long. Longing for my loveliness, I cry at the sight of my baby one. I have not yet taken my place on the swing but I have been down to the edge of the playground and run barefoot in the sand. I will be who I was to be; it’s late but it’s better. I know well enough to enjoy it as it comes, treasure it for every sweetness. I will come into my youth.



Listen for a bridge that calls your name.
*



Principles before Personalities............and Gratitude!


As with everything I have to be careful
of how I infer meaning.
You say ‘Principles before Personalities’ and I hear,
Their principles and Their personalities,
immediately I’m on a tear.

How different if I think of ‘my’ principles and ‘my’ personality.
When I face it this way it is reflexive;
I embrace my principles and my personality falls into step.
I am safe and sane therefore gratitude follows
just as the topic suggests.

Good orderly direction is elegant when I don’t reverse direction.
There is an obvious way to pet the cat when I accept that
we get along fine, when I don’t………well, need I say more?




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 2



THE DIFFERENCE


Falling and flying are the same, save the landing. No matter what you do in the air, how well or how poorly, in the end, if you don’t land it, it’s a fall and if you do, a flight. How we begin seems of ultimate importance but is seen as a farce in the face of ruin. The most promising of starts can be sucked groundward, compass and instrumentation rendered useless, through a lack of humility. Piteous starts, starts without plan or goal are viewed as triumphs when safety has been captured from defeat. Willingness is my aileron. It contributes to my lift in ways I cannot explain, smoothes the gusts of life which forever blow in my face, and willingness brings the ground up to meet me. All I have to do is be willing and stick out my feet.



Use all your words.

*

Know Enough to Clap




If I know I’m happy I can clap my hands,
but if I’m happy and I don’t know it, what then?
Will my face display telltale signs
without whispering a word of it to my mind?

Will I whistle a happy tune
therefore revealing my inner state?
If I can’t demonstrate my reality does it cease to exist?

Does my retarded ability to reflect my emotion
condemn me to remedial society?
Is there any other society?

If I become well enough to reflexively feel
and exhibit my mood will I graduate
to the advanced class or be forever alone

No longer having a place
amid the emotional head bangers,
hair twirlers and cobweb pickers?

Is it a choice of knowing happiness in isolation
or confusion with a crowd?
Could I know? Should I know? Would I know?
Who knows?



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 3



AND THIS IS FOR WHAT?


I smiled down on God and said, “This is pretty and what is it for?”
“Oh, that’s your life. It is a surprisingly useful thing to have.” My Higher Power, like my sponsor, thinks she is funny but she is not.
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Who do you think I am, your mother, your Grandpa Joe, your guidance counselor? I put all the possibilities in you then I let the wind blow. What would be the fun of coming here if I gave it to you all mapped out? Did it occur to you the reason people say ‘you are right where you are supposed to be’ is because you did the things that brought you here, not Me, and if you don’t like it here you are the one who needs the motivation to change it.”
“Take my life............Please.”
“You are such a comedian!”
“No, that’s your department, and could you stop tending your garden for five minutes and give me your attention?”
“I don’t need to give you that kind of attention. You bloom on your own.”


Age with curiosity.

*
The Inside Half


I have drunk deeply from the glass set before me.
I’m not entirely sure that I am half way through,
but I am into it a goodly bit.

I would be happy to have another 19 years;
nineteen more hours would be a gift, too.
That glass might be half empty
but I am at least half full and I am amazed!

I am regularly stunned by the prodigies
this half trek has born to term;
equally dazzled by how quickly the generations
compound in this painstaking construction.

Development both internal and assembled
surpasses my wildest imaginings.
Amazement is my most constant companion,
more than gratitude

and as of late even outstripping willingness
my most trusted ally.
Shock has been replaced by wonder,
bewilderment with surprise,

I am fortified with these feeling realities
and look happily to finishing the rest
of what is in that glass.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 4


HOW LIKE THE MOON

I show the shining, bright face to the world but can not enumerate the dark. I change and turn for all to see, glowing sliver to full fledged smile. I inventory all phases, can tell you from wax to wane, but the darkness, the anchor to my lonely life, I can only guess. I feel my way across the unknown topography, searching with fingertips and faith to find the secrets of this magic nightmare. And what? What is the thing to break it? Hope? Reverence? A detailed map? Or is the darkness just a fact? Part of the big equation, the equalizer of the light? If this is so, how best to live with it? Continue the search or post barriers? Go ever forward, looking for an answer? Endear myself to the void?
The choices are always mine. The way, seldom clear.


Breathe with power.

*

Today’s Math


Today is 12/06/06 this is an equation to me,
12 = 6 + 6, simple.
Not everything is, but math always works for me.
My Higher Power is math based
and one of my major decision making tools
is to run the equation of the presenting situation.

There are many constants in my life
and those numbers are easier to calculate
the variables often prove more difficult.
Scalable problems allow for my Geometry.
Proofs are a comfort when I can get them.
Set Theory is what I settle for when I can’t.

I try to show all my work
and have others check my calculations.
I can’t tell you how often a simple error
in addition or subtraction has fouled my whole equation
not to mention my equilibrium.

In conclusion I would like to say it is now 12= 9 + 6
and somehow I’ve lost three days, or did I gain them?
See how tricky the signs are.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 5



THE FORGOTTEN


"I am not Cleopatra; I am not in denial. I forgot."
“Sure,” says my sponsor, “I’ve seen the headdress.”
"That’s not fair! I’ve heard women say they forget the pain of childbirth."
“They’re kidding. You can’t just forget pain. It’s there waiting in the wings, looking for its fifteen minutes of fame.”
"And what if I don’t give pain its fifteen minutes?"
“You will be the worse for it,” she says with her smug way.
"What if I can’t drag it forward?"
“Honey, Baby, Sweetie, you need to let those things come up before they drag you back to a drink or whatever your new addiction of choice is. Just open your mind. You might be surprised what is waiting to see the light of day.”
"What if it kills me?"
“Darling you’re not that lucky. You don’t get to escape through death, either. Lean into this and you will get through it faster. Hold on to the program and you will get through it easier. Fight it and it will tear you up.”
Always the optimist, my sponsor.




Dispel assumptions, inhale willingness.
*



What is “offender” number 2?

I’m not looking for trouble, really I’m not,
it’s just that thanks to this program
I’m no longer plagued by resentment,
but I doubt that is the only stumbling block there is.

Possibly the remaining list is as divergent
as the alcoholics who make the lists.
Though I am guessing we have more in common
than that one thing.

I stare at the various and sundry bric-a-brac
measuring potential harm and formidability,
so many candidates with razor edges.

I take my combat pose as I lift the pen,
wondering if giving things status also gives them power.
I take comfort that acknowledgement is empowering for me.

Tell me the weights you lift
to strengthen your “Spiritual Muscle”
the things that crowd behind resentment
vying for their turn as perpetrator of downfall and misery.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 6


THE THRONG

The more people I meet, the more vehemently I do not believe in God. The tidal wave of human ignorance hits me and the sheer and repetitive force of it is more than my single souled craft can bear. Cyclical, coincidental tragedy coupled with purposeful meanness, barbed with arrogance and misaligned fear hold my child's faith under a scalding bath of realism. What to do? I do not know.
The fragility and perniciousness of life war with each other, though loss wins out. What can I use to keep myself from withdrawal into despondent hibernation? Looking for glimmers of goodness in the sea of overwhelming depravity is not cutting it with me. Mystery as an explanation is not working either. I am not a retarded five-year-old; I am a despairing thirty-eight-year-old and I am tired of game-playing and coyness. I want a God to arrive, not with explanations, but solutions. I am not looking for a punishing parent to send errant persons to bed without supper. I am looking for the equation of repair, the dance steps to healing. I am yearning for a global twelfth step, a universal attunement and galactic spiritual awakening. And by the way, I want it now.

If you can’t write, sing.

*

More Than Less



There is a difference between
doing G-d’s will and winning,
though sometimes they look the same.

Skin deep appearance or monetary prowess
share no border with the will of G-d,
but these can stack as transparencies
seeming invisible to the uninitiated practitioner.

The organs exist and blood flows in the living thing
and the shell is hard, lifeless; though it glints.
Success can be the mantel of right compliance
or the shroud of something deadly.

I mustn’t be pushed or pulled by the desire
of accolades or acceptance,
nor shall I flee into a trap for fear of ridicule or rejection.

The lacerations of emotional infliction,
unloving judgments and imprudent fallout
cause me to flinch in the face of changing focus
and relinquishing hope of control.

I am powerless over everything and responsible to everything.
Anything else is incidental
and with loving help will work out if I do not panic.

Ah, to love myself as G-d loves me.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 7

THE SEAMLESS DOOR


Tongue and groove fit tight; the pickled boards belie the passage. Hinges buried deep, secreted inside the place with no words, the door remains shut, hidden. The air, candy sweet, the space, filled with the unbroken stream of surreal childhood. What can I tell you of this living snapshot? Nothing but the haltings, stops and shudders of a life encapsulated. Proudly, I walk from this train wreck only to find the tether stitched to my heart, my soul, my mind. Flashing through the room, I weary and wonder. I have often found myself outside this confusing destination, but never have I seen the door. Always, I believe, this time I am free of it. When I find myself again within this realm, I know it is something I cannot be parted from.
Then what of the door? The undetected portal was spied by me one day while it swung in the breeze. I saw the simple barn and the open loft door; I never thought my incubus to be housed in so plain a construction. There the turmoil of my forward motion stored in the attic of the pony shed. So many tragic contrivances are stored in such candid spots. Accessibility is the beginning of approach; I take the stairs.

Remember willingness doesn’t need to float; it swims

*


Two Powers



The river and the bridge;
one force swift and roiling
the other stolid and stoic,

The first carries me away
and the other carries me over.
For the love of liquid, current and life
I have slipped in to the water
and washed; my life abandoned.

For love of upright contact,
terra bound movement and love
I cross the bridge.

Will I be deposited in the Ocean
or wend to the City and back?
Where is the greater power
in Surrender or Choice?



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 8



ACCIDENT OF BIRTH

We are here together, born the millstones about one another’s necks. Parentage equates to persuasion and I hold these strangers to my breast. Minds having chosen, violent turns skew off radar’s blip. I am held by guilt’s tight sutures to this motley mass. I long for the freedom of birds to fly far from my nest mates. Possessing sense enough not to neighbor with owners of my same genetic skin, I dream to be a turtle of the sea and meet each other in neutral waterways, friends for seasons of choice, far from the family shore. Accidents brought us together. Let kindness emancipate us.


Test your mind with poetry.

*


From Pen to Progress



“Leave those gaters in the paddock
awhile longer,” said my sponsor.
I gave a little better than a cursory glance
at the hulking forms
though I did stay strictly on my side of the fence
and grasped tighter the hand of my custodian.

The onceover, worked fine as my first pass through
the creatures of the swamp,
I didn’t fully grasp what lay beyond the petting zoo,
but given my newness this wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

On second run I was in a boat
with a glass bottom and a guide, I had vision, clarity.
Third time through was a charm,
swim fins and a rope tied about my waist,
it was all too real.

I floundered and had to be hauled bodily
by my home group, my sponsor stood anchor.
I have numbered and charted these murky waters now
and I see the lure they have for my ailing, twisted mind;

The intensity of the brutes awash
and the dark calling to dark
makes that sick sense that only an alcoholic can parse.

I have to take to those byways
with supplies and reinforcements.
Never swim alone!



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 9


READY

Ready or not here it comes: life on terms of its own. Bracing for the onslaught of gravity I grip too well the implements of past days. Fearing the pressure, I lay in my shallow grave, the ground having been scooped out by hand. Withering from expectation, my blood runs slow and dark, reducing to coagulated futility, losing my life in anticipation of death. Attempts at being less as means of protection fail. Less is not a solution; fading does not make life more livable. It makes me unavailable. Readiness is my responsibility; it is momentary. Momentary is sufficient. Sobriety is nothing more than lining myself up with the needs of this instant. I need go no further. Whole solutions, not my department. Showing up, dressed and washed, ball and bat in hand if possible, but just making it to the lineup is my full time job. Even if I never swing, it is still better than being buried in the field.


Put a joke in your pocket.
*


Simultaneous Acceptance



Being typical is a difficult thing to live with,
but I am typical.
Being extraordinary is a challenging thing
to live up to, but this is also mine to bear,
you see I am a typical alcoholic after all.

Walking with one foot in each camp is not enough.
I must simultaneously accept both
my common commonality
and my lottery winner uniqueness
If I am to travel hand in hand with my Higher Power.

If I don’t integrate this double reality,
allow it to imprint my thoughts
the way it is tattooed in my DNA
I can not possibly take the biggest step of all.

Drop my judgment of these things
so that humility can dwell within.
You see there is not enough room in the vortex
of my humanness to accommodate the jags of verdict

And the desire for the sublime smoothness of humility.
I can’t chase humility, I have had to face that,
but I can remove the impediments to its residence.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 10



FORGIVENESS

“Forgiveness is not something to force on people like unwanted coffee,” says my sponsor.
Everyone tells me forgive, forgive, forgive.
“These are the same folks who said, ‘stay and have another drink.’ It is only appropriate to forgive people who ask for forgiveness and show you with their behavior that they want it. It is never appropriate to shove forgiveness on people who haven’t asked, show no signs of wanting it, or demonstrate just the opposite.”
I thought forgiveness was to help me feel better.
“Letting go of resentments is to make you feel better. Making amends to the people you’ve hurt, and cleaning up your side of the street is to make you feel better. Keeping an open mind and heart will make you ready for the possibility of someone coming to make amends. Forgiveness is a two-way street; anything you have to throw over someone like a net is usually a mistake,” she says with a wink, and then she has the nerve to curtsy.



Design your dream tea.
*


Hospitality


What unites us, heals us, serves us,
is the hospitality of the program.
Fellowship encircles us and draws us close,
in a word unites us, hospitality is our core.

Hospital is the root of hospitality
and recovery is the route to health,
hospitality is the skeleton of recovery.

Hospitable aid,
the true gift of self is hospitality;
hospitality the master of A.A.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 11


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 my complete understanding. I am learning how to be a part of this 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.



Make emotional bouquets for your mind.
*


Recognition

All I have are these two hands
I can not lift the world
All I have are these two legs
I can not flee the hoards

All I have is this one heart
though need and want prevail
All that’s left is this one mind
to try to tell this tale.

Everything in this bright orb
is there for me to see
Everything laid out before me
all that I can be

Everything that I perceive as wrong
and know it in my heart
Everything I think to touch
and change believing it’s my art

Once I take the giant reins
acceptance escapes the scene
Once the fates are in my grasp
chaos is the theme

Once the sight of my right place
is lost from in my mind
Once I try to fill the great big shoes
is the day that I go blind.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 12


MY TALE

I must be my own tattletale. I must give my sponsor bullets to shoot down my disease. Anything I protect and nurture will grow and overtake me. It is up to me to choose if I will feed my ailment or my health. My life will be consumed, that is a guarantee; all things feed into others. The direction this meal takes is my daily decision. The bull’s eye can be hit if I describe the target. The ending will be happy if the story I tell is my own.



Calculate the risk and build a bridge.

*

Rebellion Dogs

“Rebellion dogs our every step at first”
AA’s 12 and 12

They won’t come to heal, won’t sit, won’t stay,
these dogs circle waiting for signs of weakness
or vulnerable skin, but there they are;
they have been found out.

The ones that worry me more
are those that took show and place,
the dogs that stand in the shadows and lurk in the wing.

What are their names I wonder?
Their distinctive smell?
Must I identify these writhing mutts
or simply call animal control?

Though this never worked with rebellion dogs
these lesser pups surely would run
from would be dog catchers and leave me to my dreams.

Alas, I name them and show them to my friends;
we like they run in packs
and are served well by honest disclosure.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 13


NIGHT FLIGHT

The small log shape with large wings passed the windshield of my moving car without collision, due to meticulous calculation and correction in a night sky. Silent passage… swift and meaningful, the owl lives as it knows how. I was not born to the night; darkness not my given realm. I have inverted my senses and compensated for the moonlight. I pull my way through the air and hunt for my survival in a world of shadows. The morsels caught on the wing, snatches of conversations and lines from books, sustain me, give me strength to live in spite of the nocturnal bondage. I have made peace with the night. I am changed by my living and my living endures. The grace required to abide here is bestowed on me nightly. I wear it though it is not the prize I sought.


Write a letter home to you.

*

Whittle it Down


A famous sculptor mentioned
that he doesn’t so much create the objects
as remove the stone which doesn’t belong.

I have had the same experience with willingness.
Encased in the bedrock of my will
willingness had no opportunity to open doors.

Flaking away the extraneous
the key shape appears, rugged, blockish, rudimental.
As the tears stream down my face
and wrong thinking flies from my brain
the key is more finely formed.

As I wheedle at misconception
and haul bodily wrong action
the teeth of this thing show sharp in this day’s sun.

Many doors stand ajar,
at first those with basic tumblers,
but now even those with encrypted defense
are no match for the willingness,
which I wield with rapier wit.

The obvious blocks to progress open to me
as well as the subtle doors to untold destination,
I am let out of danger, released into possibility.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 14


TRAVELING PICTURES

I parked next to a beaten little import. The well of the passenger’s side was filled with empty sport-drink bottles and cans from soda. The dashboard was a shrine: three taped photographs, one of a young man and young woman, one of the young woman and an older woman, one of the young woman and an enormous marble statue. There were small carved objects affixed to the dash: jade and soapstone figures, beads and a feather. The sanctuary in my head is decked out in a similar manner. Post card pictures line my mind: people I love, trips I took, pets long gone. The road signs of my journey stand as exhibits of a tour of duty not always to my liking but nothing I would trade. I know clearly where I have been, and study the map to prepare for the future. Escapades and loved ones, trinkets strung on my lifeline give texture, flavor and flash to my pilgrimage.


Think of fish and dream of birds.



*
Progressive Fourth


All I can do is stand on the grass
and count the shutters, the windows, the doors.
At first I cannot approach to inspect any closer than that.

Time passes and the other steps work me.
I peer through the windows the next time
and count the stuffs I can glimpse through the glass.

I possess no periscopic vision,
but what is in plain sight I reckon.
Subsequently I wished to exteriorize
and draw the inventory of the house
out onto the lawn and tally there.

Wishing to avoid that interior life,
the poisoned vixen who haunted there.
Time passed and she recovered as did I,

Into the house I went.
I am now able not only to number my possessions
I can assess the flow and function,
work patterns, interplay, reliability.

I have now appraised not just the what,
but the how of my life
and progress into tomorrow.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 15

SHAME

I push shame around my plate like a chunk of spoiled meat, the toxins leaching to every interface and cavity. With an inverse half-life, the lethal substance grows, reinforcing, sending runners and tendrils to worlds known and those yet undiscovered. I wage my war on this shape-shifting plague. Thrust and parry, I step back from the insurmountable walls and set my sights on tearing down the bunkers in my personal city. Like lead plumbing, the danger eludes the observation of my fellow citizens. I am labeled a lunatic and no attention is paid to my evaluations of water quality. I search for similarly crazed friends, variants within a theme. I depend on the poisoned sanity of my wounded compatriots. We shovel the plate loads of spoiled meat and detritus. The foreshortened mountain of shame allows tiny strands of light to glimmer across the surface but the shamed devotees turn their heads. We, the few, face this glowering mass. I worry like a petulant child. What if we can not prevail? Is shame stronger than recovery? Have we traveled this far to miss the glacier’s edge as it slides away from us? I console myself with the sure knowledge: this life of sobriety is better than any other offering. Healing the world, what a lovely thought. Living free from shame today, what a necessity.



Crumple a sacred cow then iron it flat.
*


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,
ostensibly 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.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 16



THE DEALS I’VE MADE


Because they are deals and not resentments or secrets, these circular schemes did not come out in my fourth step. They didn’t come out in the wash; they come out whenever they are broken. If the deal is don’t eat pickled herring and you won’t have to remember X, the deal will get broken when pickled herring is served to me at some social gathering. As I get healthier, the breaks connect ever more deeply. What in early sobriety would have given me unexplained discomfort now gives me full-blown flashbacks. And I watch the deal unravel… you weren’t supposed to eat this because this is what was on the plate when… but now that it’s on the plate here, now you have to face this ugly roiling mess. The deals saved my life, but unless they are handled with care and honesty, they can cost me the life I have now. I must choose a safe person and place to share these broken shards, living alone with this will not work and making it public fodder is a set up as well. In every one of these deals there is a back door to a drink and therefore We have to go out the front door together.



Pick three color words and use them all day.


*


The Long Dark Ride


Are fear and ignorance one thing
that looks like itself
or terrifying twins who feed one another?

Can they be separated
and if they can will it kill them?
And if they die
what will spring from their remains?

Will it be better or worse?
Can I tell what better is?
Should I tell if it turns out to be worse?

Is there ever an end to either fear or ignorance?
If there is, how deep is that well
and will I survive a trip to the bottom?

Do you know and do you care?
Will you go with me if I find the way?
Will you take me if you find it first?



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 17


PIGS

“Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.”


Talking to a chrysalis about flight is like talking to a fetus about dry land. Descriptions of future events and possibility are lost in the translation. To the uninitiated, these realities sound like gibberish and flights of fancy or foolish dogma. Yet, I am drawn to talk of these things, imagine and describe them. I am changed by this procedure. I am transformed in the details. When I can accurately depict it, I am taking the stride into living it. I am my own pig. I have taught myself to sing and have wasted no time at all.



List your favorites so you don’t forget yourself.




*
Suzy Q’s Mother
Through process of elimination
I have had to learn who G-d is and who G-d isn’t.
When it comes down to my understanding
everything incomprehensible is off the table
and what is left is mine, all mine.
I can’t fathom an all powerful G-d;
therefore my G-d is not all powerful.
I cannot begin to comprehend a vengeful G-d,
as you might have guessed; my G-d is not vengeful.
Because of these constraints I have
a non-omnipotent G-d, one with limitations and bounds.
This doesn’t mean I love my G-d any less
in fact it may be why I love my G-d so very much.
And G-d loves me with a Mother love
that trails me to the depths and heights of the path,
but like any mother, she can’t do everything.
My G-d is accomplished and wonderful,
but there are days that I need things,
which lay outside my Higher Power’s area of expertise
and I must turn to help beyond our little circle of two.
This is not easy at first.
We both feel awkward in the attempt,
but Suzy Q lives two houses down
Her mother still has her hook shot from college
and since my mom’s experience of basketball
is that it’s the court you walk through to go play tennis,
I ask Mrs. Q with help making the three point shots.
I don’t have to understand Suzy Q’s mother,
I leave that to Suzy.

I just have to ask for help,
learn the jump and go home when I’m done.
It’s nice to be able to slam dunk,
but there is no place like home.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 18


THIN ICE

The ice is brittle, transparent and breaking away. I brace for destruction, turmoil and frigid descent. I am stuck in my topside thinking and can not realize the chance for freedom the cracking expanse promises. I am an oceanic creature. I can escape my watery bonds with the splitting of the ice. Trapped in a hole I keep open only through the friction of my unrest, I am kept from the community of life to which I belong. My reflection mixes with my view of the sky and I forget my place, forget my name, forget how I have come to be trapped here. The pining after what is not mine to have has brought me to this thin edge. I must break through to be who I am; in doing so I shatter the illusion of who I thought I was. Zeal to zenith I must move away from the phantasm and mockery and take refuge in what I am.




Remember your genius.

*

Hiding
“Defeat is what you make of it,” says my sponsor.
“Fighting a thousand secret battles
when you claim that you want peace is not right.
The agony of defeat is when you keep on fighting.
There is no honor in waving the white flag,
but never laying down your arms.”
“I can’t just give them up
they have been in the family for years,”
my whining retort.
“I’m sure they have, darling, I’m sure they have,
and haven’t done any of you a lick of good either,”
her smug reply.

“They are good for sabotage,”
I begin my running start at her.
“Sabotage is something you only do to yourself,
because who else can you really sabotage?
Who do you really hate enough other than you?”
“My hobby is denying that, you know.”
“Yes, and sweet lot of good it does you,

The war rages within you
and outside you say it’s harmony,
no matter all the signs of discord.”

“And if I were to really give up. If, I were really tired enough,
how can I insure my safety?”
I asked with my hands nearly in the air.

“Tell the truth, even if it’s only to yourself.
Put space between you and weapons of mass destruction.
Oh, and make sure you surrender to a friend.”



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 19



LIFE IS UNFAIR

Assuring myself I will not be permitted through the gate, I walk the perimeter, assessing the fence, looking for a place to exploit, a wire slightly high. Trying to look graceful, I duck under the fence, telling myself I prefer life on the edge. The water is less dangerous here on the fringe; I wouldn’t want to be swept away. I stay clear of my peers. I stand in the baby pool and feel confident I won’t drown, brushing from my conscience that I won’t swim either.
Struggling to the top of the pile or scurrying underneath is a blatant lack of humility. Skirting the margin is the same. Facing life and finding it unfair, I take to the world of exception and hope to slip through the cracks to a life of safety. In that act I discount my talent and ability. Worst of all, I disconnect from God.


Toy with your thoughts, play with your food.
*


Jenny

Though ignorance may be bliss,
living in the shadow of someone else’s
ignorance is sheer hell.
The confusion is bad, but the lies are worse.

Want to cripple a child for life
give it to a well meaning fool
who has the rule book to the wrong board game,

That child will grow to need crutches they don’t make
and medicine they can’t brew.
Dependent on misguided insanity the child will require
a miracle cure and may lack the ability to ingest it.

Best case scenario the kid makes a brave escape
into a world she can barely comprehend,
worse case she turns the rule book upside down
and reads it backwards to her own unfortunate brood.

Ignorance is always a twilight proposition,
half agreement the other half handcuffed nightmare.
Full consent is by necessity impossible
while blameless innocents is similarly unachievable.

The only suggestion I can make
from this side of the looking glass
is to pick your poison and plan your getaway.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 20



TIME IS HERE TO STAY


I have passed my days emptying them like breadcrumbs onto a trail of rescue. Expecting them to facilitate redemption, and if not that, at least retreat, I release an audible sigh as I let each evening slip to the path behind me. The future I view as a cliff I am nearing. I hope to be ransomed before the edge. I plan carefully how to stay in sync with revision; things must be resolved and revert. But this is not the way. The past is there to be mined. Inert gold, as well as land mines, linger beneath the surface; the days stream on. I am not nearing the limit; I am shrinking from hope. I turn my eyes from expectancy with a shudder. Deeply, I realize I must leave my fairytale life and walk away with my days in my pocket, a treasure that is mine to spend.


Tie a string around your hopes then let them go.


*

Katie’s Wish


Does G-d arrange for my parking spot,
foil the Colts opponents,
release the stains from my dry-cleaning?
Can I ask for the petty and pedantic?

All One G-d Faith,
reads the side of the soap bottle,
but really is there only one?

Like Santa? The Tooth Fairy? OZ?
Is my life better or worse for the whimsy?
How would I know? Why would I care?

As long as I live with what I get most times,
it truly is okay to ask for what I want sometimes,
I mean hell, the Superbowl is only once a year.
I’m allowed to be unreasonable and happy.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 22


SAFETY IN MY CHAIR

Sometimes I have to sit with my knees tucked up under my chin. My feet can’t touch the floor at these moments. I hug my legs to me, I feel contained but somehow adrift in my chair. I center my mind on breath and pulse. Pure fear flits and flutters while I gain my composure. When I feel safe enough to put one foot down, then the other, and connect with the world again, I am leaving home to embark on this earthly trek. The journey is there for me every day but some days I curl up in my chair.


Complement your feet with your shoes.


*

Patricide

I never killed my father.
Why finish a job that
someone is completing all on his own.

It’s not that I didn’t wish him dead;
I did and do for that matter.
Don’t misunderstand me,
I wish him no harm,

It’s just that he is like a creature so tortured
that he is nothing but a danger and a misery.
Left to live he is a hazard to everyone he has contact with,
an agony to live inside.

What can I wish for him,
but departure and rest,
something he can never give to himself.

I don’t plot, don’t scheme,
I only know; know in part,
the terrible lie he lives
and hurt he drags from place to place

Acting like it is not there and nothing matters;
let’s just get by. So, if he is not dead he should be.

He is the embodiment of the hurtful impotent god
and I don’t kill that man
but I kill the image, perish that thought.

.

[LeftWriteFemme]

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.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 24



DOMINOES

What happens to the dominoes that do not fall, the show cut short by my sobriety? The tiles stand front to back; the least foul respiration will send them to their preordained destination. I hold my breath as I glance over the display of generations. The design is set. Painstaking patterns lain with meticulous, ingenious deft. Skill for falling, laying waste. Sad pictures told and retold in speedy drops. The rhythmic fall of dominoes turning eight blocks to a corner. Direction shifts but the descending continues. I can not occupy this ground. I must not upset the arrangement. I cannot clear it from this world. I must walk away from the upright mosaic, a flower waiting to bloom with destruction. I have to move. Climb the steep slopes. Vertical life, leaving the tumbling destruction for Yet. Grasping the sides of the cliffs, I haul myself off the tableland, a place set for a show of lying down. I build my strength and keep off the well-known flats. This is a life apart. The game is there if I return. It is a game no one can win.



Carry yourself.


*


Over Troubled Water

Though God might be everything,
for a long time, God was a resident
of an unknown country;
a theoretical citizen of a theoretical land.
It took some time for me to spy yon distant country
and longer to realize what a miracle it was
that I could see my neighbor,
holding my optics turned around the way they were.

Turning over the binoculars came long before
introductions or interaction, but it was an important step
in relationship building nonetheless.

Having seen the island my mind fled
due to the trumped-up stories about its resident.
Open minded observation cleared up the fallacies
of ogres and super heroes,

But this only told me who God wasn’t
and nothing of who God is.
Direct knowledge was going to require direct contact.

I began throwing tethered balls of string
across the channel that separates us
and was shocked, delighted, horrified
to find that the far end would get tied to the far shore.

I threw twine next, then rope,
after a few successful repetitions
I was able to shinny across for the first time.

Filled with fear and trepidation
I arrived on the opposing bank
and stood shivering more from nerves than cold.

I saw no one and felt much.
I didn’t stay long and swam back.

The first plank bridge was simple and straight.
Having this link somehow emboldened me
to explore the land of my own country.
With great regularity I found narrow margins.

I crafted a new bridge for each slender passage.
The more I learn about me
the more regular my connection to that inner land.

Like something shy of my wrath,
God made an elusive sight.
The more I calmed the more often the sightings.

We made acquaintance and then we made friends.
I’ve widened some bridges and God has widened others.
We stroll together often hand in hand.
We talk and laugh, cry and joke.

Occupancy is fluid, times I live on the island
and others the surrounding continent
sometimes we live together
other times we are one another’s quests.

All the days are not happy ones
but we are always happy to be together
and more than that I will not ask.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 25



SOD

Green and black, pinwheels of rolled grass speed by me on a flatbed. Sod headed for home. That is how it is for me. I grew in a place of impermanence, a place clearly not my destination. Uprooted and prepared for relocation, I am in transition. My future surroundings, unknown, will be a perfect fit. I have been anticipated, grown for a purpose, of which I am uninformed. I have done my part. I am ready to lay down my roots and become a lawn of seamless expanse. Somewhere my Higher Power is grading a hill, smoothing the way. I am ready to take my place in the landscape of sober living and right thinking.


Advocate for the sweetness inside you.
*


Cured



Ham is cured.
Thank God I’m not ham.
Ham likes to be the center of attention.
Thank God, I’m not ham.

I can’t be the worker among workers
if I believe I don’t need to work.
I can’t be a friend among friends
if I am an island or a precipice,
above or away from the need or reach of others.

Cured is a one way street
that leads to a dried up lonely end.
Just the same way that turning my cucumber
into a pickle took me out of the garden,

Curing takes me away
from the only home I know, recovery.
Though I am often raw and sometimes fresh,
these I can survive,

Finished due to the drying out process
that would be a living death.
Thank God I’m not cured.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 26


TOP

The chipped paint of the red stripe gives the illusion of fading to rose as it spins. The edge, painted with green, thalo in its intensity, reflects the windows of the room. The bead, purple and gleaming, affixed to the stem, holds the cuff with its two apposed openings, the cord recoiled inside. Underneath, protected from easy observation, resides the point, lathed and faultless. The turning weight is carried and balanced perfectly on this nib. The hum, spiraling and melodic, comes from the table as well as the top, the epitome of form and function, grace and harmony. In spite of it all, the only thing that truly matters is who pulls the string.



Be polite to your dreams.

*


Exceptance


“I want God’s will for me,”
I sigh to my sponsor.

“Except for this and except for that,”
is her trig response.
She knows me, knows I have exceptance.

“You have a list of exclusions,
a list that dams up the works.”
“Well, trust is hard,” I splutter.
“Trust is not the issue here,” says she.

“You don’t feel acceptable
and exceptance is what follows.”
“Whatever could you mean?”
my broken bluster leaving only this plaintive whine.

“You believe you’re not good enough
for God or anyone
and cross everything off the list
in an attempt to duck blame
or shame or some other nasty thing.

You are good enough kiddo,
get that and everything else is good enough, too.
At least good enough for now
and now is all we have. Accept that.”


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 27


BELIEVE

Listening to what people say is a half waste of time; believing it is a full waste of time. Truth wills out in behavior. No matter what is said, what is done is the real deal. What is done over time is the final test and the things which are repeated, resounding from one generation to the next, are to be counted on. Believing in told truths is a snare and delusion, the trap of all traps.
If your sponsor has a sponsor you may sleep at night. If your sponsor works with that sponsor you can sleep soundly. Doing the right things, doing them over and over again, doing them with others, your group, your friends, your sponsees, will make you believable. I can think of nothing else that will.


Tickle your age and laugh with it.
*

The Resentment of an Acorn


Because no one believed
that I was a giant oak inside,
I had to prove it and drop my little cap
and leave my shell behind.

Now I stand big and tall,
alone, board feet to the sky.
I have lost my portability in my quest
for the recognition of my potential.

My amazing growth painful due to its cause;
poor mental health is a bitter road to achievement.
As I stand head and shoulders
above the undulating canopy
reflection comes on a sweet breeze.

Am I sorry I’m here, it could have been worse,
could have been eaten by a squirrel
or glued endlessly to a third-grade art project
“my walk through the woods”

Bugs could have gotten me,
though that looms even now.
I could have disintegrated, lost my power and integrity.

Whatever the driver I am appreciative of the destination,
there were many darker roads on that map.
It’s good to be here.
It’s good to be anywhere sober.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 28


ONE IN A THOUSAND

“Did they tell you the odds when you came in?” asked my sponsor.
“Yes. One in thirty makes it to the rooms. One in thirty of those stays for five years. One in a thousand gets truly sober and is catapulted to another dimension." I responded.
“What was your response to that?”
“Well, I showed the proper amount of surprise and said, ‘Oh, my.’”
“Yes. What did you think inside?”
“I thought. 'Climb with me or I’ll climb over you.’ Not very spiritual is it?”
“It worked. You’re still sober; a lot of folks aren’t. The company you keep is sober. There is nothing less spiritual than being drunk,” said my sponsor.
“Is that why it’s called a selfish program?" I ask.
“I don’t know. It seems to me sobriety is a gift you give to the world.”
“But I give it to myself.”
“Can’t give a gift you don’t have in your possession.”
“Point taken.”


Do what you can and try the rest.

*

Adjustment


The chase is on, round and round it goes
and where it stops no one knows.
I run after control and change as I grasp,
but can never quite get my fingers
wrapped around the thing.

An open fist is an adjustment;
no fist at all would be a feat.
The fool’s errand I send myself on brings suffering;
there would be suffering anyhow,

I feel I am the cause due to my attempt to avoid it;
another backhanded attempt at the illusion,
the goal, control.

Adjusting to reality is at first freefall;
rarely do I get to second.
The shape taken by the shift in my gears
to no gears at all dilates my pupils and the rest is white.

If the colors come back I don’t know when.
If the ground beneath me returns I don’t know how.
I am blinded by the light and can only follow the sound.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 1


WANTING

“Wanting to be alive is not as important as wanting to do right," said my sponsor.
“I don’t want to be here," I half blurted, half sobbed.
“I know," came the reply. “Many of us come in not wanting to live.”
“But sobriety is about living.”
“Yes, and you want to be sober,” said my sponsor.
“But I don’t want to live.”
“This moment. This moment you don’t want to live but you still want to be sober. You still want to do right.”
“Yes.”
“And that is what you’ll do. You’ll pick up the tools as you have done so often and you will try everything suggested. You’ll see how you feel tomorrow.”
“What if it doesn’t go away?”
“You’ll keep it up and see how you feel the next day.”
“What if I never feel better?”
“Ah, well. When have you ever had anything that dependable?”


Don’t force joy to simmer let it boil over.
*



Van and I
(Happy cleaning windows)



When the fog clears and I still can’t see,
I check my optics and wash my windows.
The mundane upkeep hones my pursuit.

After the weather and housekeeping concerns
are managed, eye exercises are next on the agenda.
I have to strengthen my equipment,
stay fit or fall prey to vagaries
of nearsighted limits or farsighted failings.

Myopia is an ever present danger
I must guard against as well.
A fixed focus is a death trap.

I must learn to track a moving target
while I wend onward.
Nothing in life is stationary;
concentration and a decent line of sight
are priceless rudiments.

Continual practice with the tools and tactics
build my confidence and sharpen wit.
Burdens are lightened
when I see my goal in stark relief;

I can chart my path and make my way.
Sobriety means if I can see it I can believe it,
so I best go get the Windex.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 2



IF I HAD A SCREWDRIVER


If I had anything other than this hammer, possibly, I would discontinue pounding this helix into the side of my universe. The slot is unused; the flat head of my sledge slams. A wide void is punched into my abyss as the threads are pummeled not turned. If I had picked up the right tools, if they had been displayed within my reach, if my granny had five wheels she might yet be a wagon.
I have picked up new tools but, having never seen them used, I bang with them. Watching others twisting the wrist and angling the elbow, I try to wrap my mind around the posture. Muscles I have never used, laminated to mental configurations unthought of, improvement in workmanship is slow. Many a fine toolbox has remained full and untouched, the mind lacking the dexterity to grasp the in-workings, the body ill-equipped for the outer. If I had a screwdriver, I pray I could bring to it the flexibility of sinew and the nimbleness of wit.


Remember the minutes; they belong to you.

*


Reality and Desire


“I know the difference between desire and reality,”
I whisper to my new found friend.
Who I am and what I am,
are a reality unto themselves,

Your recognition of that
and how you handle said recognition
are for you and God.

The vastness of the true you;
I hope to spend a lifetime surveying;
but not sampling.

What you want and your reality
are not mine to mind or mend.
If you are driving that train this is on you

If HP is the driver all the more incentive
for me to be still, enjoy the ride and await the outcome.
For in the end the question is never,
will you be mine, but what will I be to you.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 3


SWEAT

I turn the desk lamp into the eyes of God. I put question after question to the construct of my childhood concept. “Would you please explain?" Or, "Exactly why did You do this, that, or the other thing?" "Are You now or have You ever been a member of…?” I put the pressure on; the beads of perspiration join, then trickle. I have God in ‘the box.’ I will not relent.
“I don’t understand You," I say disappointedly, as if speaking to a troubling adolescent. “You have so much potential if only You would apply Yourself.” The icon shakes Its head slowly and deliberately; I shake my head, too. So much time has passed and I am no closer to embrace.
“You don’t understand Me,” says God to me. Dawn breaks; I uncuff this mythic creature.
“You are not the one I am looking for. You are free to go.”



New is neutral, not better or worse.
*


Stepping up


I look along the list of names,
look upon the sea of faces.
Are there any whose eyes I avoid?

I gaze across the landscape
are there any craters,
any pock marks, any divots.

I tick through my actions
those I’ve recently taken
checking for stubbles, glitches, snafus.

These combined facts and figures
create a portrait of my day;
I appraise the eyes, the hair, the teeth.
If I can smile at what I see
all is well if not I begin the repair.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 4



DICHOTOMY’S EMBRACE


Contentment and security bleed in through the doors and windows of my heart. Peace blows its fine wind across my mind. I fear for my identity. I raise my hand to beat the drum. Is my pulse still there if the beat of discontent is not? The warmth seeps in, my fingers uncurl. I resist the urge to tilt my face to the sun. How can I be I, if my countenance is not bleak? Mirth escapes my lips. Am I a creature of laughter?
Shadows play across the shade. My brain feels through levels of sheltered memory. I am old and age hangs from my brow. I am young and exposure stings my flesh. In all this, joy? Where can I enfold this antithesis? A child of extreme, yes. Brooding and rage; hounding and silence. How have sprinkles and starlight added to the mix? Purring, musing and sweet kisses. What am I in this embrace?



Write a collage.

*

The Horse of a Different Stripe



When I arrived at the horse and pony show,
I saw all there was to see;
there were Morgans, Walkers, and Paints.

Yet I couldn’t help but return
to this particular zebra,
the spark of my imagination,
the inspiration of my dreams.

There was no help for me,
I want what I want and need what I need.
It was all about spirit, all about soul.

The fire in its eyes matched
the burning of my heart,
ignition at the point of recognition.

Then I stumble, then I fall,
bad behavior and wrong thinking,
the selfishness of the self-involved
takes hold and runs my mouth, “

Nice mount, great steed,
But can nothing be done about these stripes?”
The flash in those eyes,
the knowing knickers, said it all.

I was trying to stay in my small place
and that would never work with her,
if I wanted the Zebra,
I had to be willing to go to Africa.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 5


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, which are intellectual straight lines and emotional 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 have been simpler? Or hope, how sweet a concept. After thirty rounds on the floor with setting limits, I realized you’re like the bean seller that Jack met. You say they are magic beans and I believe you. You say they will grow to the sky. I know they will and I will climb them. Just don’t tell me it will be easy.”


Write an advertisement for your best quality.
*



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.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 6



MOAT

I dug the moat; the alligators came on their own. The rain fell; I did not bid it. I’ve burned all the bridges. I’ve sold the farm. I wonder at the company I keep. The birds fly in; some stay for a season. Friends used to wave as they passed. Now my island is overgrown; I stand to my chin in the tall grass. I guess it’s a matter of maintenance. What I don’t keep pruned grows back. The connections I don’t secure weaken and fail. I am subject to all that falls if I don’t keep my roof. The wind chaps me without the walls of my home. No clothes, I burn. No joy and all I do is cry. It takes more than a continuous ditch to protect my heart. More than water and reptiles to safeguard my soul.


Memorize an affirmation for a pet.


*


What and When, When and How……and Why


Arriving at the place where I have nothing to prove,
afforded me the luxury of not having to proclaim
the amount of time I have, when I share in a meeting.

Taking the score keeping out of the equation
I was then able to think of what it was
that motivated me to speak in a meeting.

Self-Possession, a great gift to inhabit,
a greater gift to demonstrate;
quiet dignity is a real favorite of mine.

If I am calm yet in control,
if there is time, if there is a lull,
I can share parts of my experience.

If I have chaos, an agenda, a theory, a grudge
it is all better left unsaid in the meeting
and saved for the less vulnerable ear of my sponsor.

For if I am wrong I might persuade in error
and if I am right I might convert in righteousness.
Why is it that what I never say
rings louder than anything I do?


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

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.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 12



SPIRITUALITY

The bedpan of spirituality was shoved under my ass in early sobriety. It kept me from increasing the mess with which I surround myself. The cold smack of enamel got my attention. The old timers showed me there is a place for my shit; it was not any of the places I had been using. Discretion is the better part of everything. I needn’t show my backside everywhere I go. My side, your side, all sides were strewn with my waste. Fragments, tatters and fearful reminders were all there for me to clean up. Amends as the shovel and willingness as its handle are what I use to clear my past. Sweat is refreshing when progress is being made. I’ve made inroads; paths of travel help me move easily from the past to the present without regret.


Write directions to your heart.



*
Wax On


“Sometimes a dish is just a dish,” I said to my sponsor.
“Yes and sometimes it is the world away,
which you hold in your hand,” her reply.

I stand at the sink and try to wash the dishes
when I am washing the dishes.
I try to drive the car when I drive the car.

These simple acts of concentration
focus and sooth the jagged mental sutures
where I am supposed to be coming together,
but ultimately come apart.

Anything to break my frenetic gyrations is a blessing,
anything to cut away to a closer view
and a clearer understanding of where I really am;

Anything to derail the speeding blur
of a life of my creation, is good.
What I do and who I am are secrets and mysteries
when I don’t know how to pay attention
and ironies when I do.

And if you doubt me, just go ask Arnold.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 13


FRIENDS

My sweet, dear, funny friend, steeped in Beat, whose hand I can no longer hold. I yearn for the wildly flying words, like feathers in a snow. The shock of hair and glinting eyes I see so clearly in my shivering mind. I must let go. I miss all the friends who for reason or no have traveled down the yellow brick spiral to who knows where. My arms feel open and starved but there is no way for me to retain myself and follow them. Some are lost all together; some are lost only to me but my arms remain empty nonetheless. My ruined heart is sore and sad but chasing this friend or that will not heal it. The lonely path before me is the answer for me, possibly only for me among our former group. And will the paths cross later in this day or the next? I don’t know and am better not knowing. My path requires me to release outcomes as well as kindred. I must travel with my arms open; some fall out of them and others find their way in.


Organize a loophole and escape through it.
*



Three Card Monty


When I learn to excel at the good games
and learn to leave the bad ones alone
I think I will be alright.

Simple enough to do when I can take off this blindfold
and see the long-term consequences of my pursuits.
Engage this pastime and have no future;
abandon that play and squander hope.

Eyes open wide, I see what there is to see,
but around the corner I am lost for anticipatory sight
and must guess at destinations, let alone intention.

Tricky, tricky, is this life which toys with me. I
I think I have the bow in hand,
though as life rubs me wrong then right,
I see I am played upon as much and as often as I play.

I take up the reins, but must also be led,
I can lay out the deal,
but sometimes I just have to roll the dice.


.

[Greco]

LeftWriteFemme,

Thank you for your heart wrenching honesty. You know I admire your
work and I don't compliment so freely, but your words are stunning
and left me awe-struck. Only a sober heart and mind can write words
of such clear truth.

Greco

March 13


FRIENDS

My sweet, dear, funny friend, steeped in Beat, whose hand I can no longer hold. I yearn for the wildly flying words, like feathers in a snow. The shock of hair and glinting eyes I see so clearly in my shivering mind. I must let go. I miss all the friends who for reason or no have traveled down the yellow brick spiral to who knows where. My arms feel open and starved but there is no way for me to retain myself and follow them. Some are lost all together; some are lost only to me but my arms remain empty nonetheless. My ruined heart is sore and sad but chasing this friend or that will not heal it. The lonely path before me is the answer for me, possibly only for me among our former group. And will the paths cross later in this day or the next? I don’t know and am better not knowing. My path requires me to release outcomes as well as kindred. I must travel with my arms open; some fall out of them and others find their way in.


Organize a loophole and escape through it.
*



Three Card Monty


When I learn to excel at the good games
and learn to leave the bad ones alone
I think I will be alright.

Simple enough to do when I can take off this blindfold
and see the long-term consequences of my pursuits.
Engage this pastime and have no future;
abandon that play and squander hope.

Eyes open wide, I see what there is to see,
but around the corner I am lost for anticipatory sight
and must guess at destinations, let alone intention.

Tricky, tricky, is this life which toys with me. I
I think I have the bow in hand,
though as life rubs me wrong then right,
I see I am played upon as much and as often as I play.

I take up the reins, but must also be led,
I can lay out the deal,
but sometimes I just have to roll the dice.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 14

THE FIRST FATHER


The rest of what I have to say I will slip under your gravestone if I have time after I buy that red dress. To say I hate you is an overstatement; I only detest what I know of you, the rest I leave to other people who might have the misfortune to cross your path. Your unavailability can protect you from anything I could ever do to you. Your hurt and arrogance is far worse a punishment than I could ever inflict on you if I thought you were worth the energy of an attempt. Having to be you every day must make it hard to leave the bed in the morning; I know I couldn’t do it if I had to drag your baggage around all day. The sad part is I’m not sure you know it’s baggage. You might think it’s armor, but your misnaming of everything is just another of the things I never miss about you. That is why, although I pray everyday for your well being for the sake of mine, if I never see you again, it might just be long enough.


Live up to your height.


*


Bad Acting

Because there never seems to be enough love
in the world to fill the wound,
my wounded self riots.

At times the debauchery seems good natured enough,
flamboyant yet without harm,
at other times the disturbance is apparently violent
and the issuing tumult a crime.

All for want of wholeness and sanity
I pursue shattered fractured activity
just to keep from dwelling where I cannot live,
where there is no air.

I want land beneath my feet
and full, full lungs
on my own I find neither of these
and little else of use.

Isolation even in a crowd is the tell tale sign
that I am in the, me, myself and I mode
of drowning in a teacup and require rescue.

Little more than raising my hand above the surface
and asking for help is needed
though this is a Herculean effort as we all know.

Rowing up stream is a bigger battle then it ever looks
and I know the river runs through me.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 15



PRETTY FEET

I look at the line on my heel where I must stay vigilant with the pumice and the moisturizer. My toes are clean and straight but nothing more. I see my feet as passable; it’s hard for me to see them as beautiful. Well cared for is the best I can do, but there is a beauty in that. I think of myself; I am an alcoholic. There is nothing beautiful about alcoholism either. The care I take in tending my sobriety, the nurturing I see others use in their own lives, there is a certain loveliness to that. Crusted-over hearts, scraped and oiled, are fit and ready to beat anew. Polluted minds, drained and reformed, turn lives upright. Step work and making meetings are just functionary things but gorgeous in their own way. Efficacy is a pearl not to be disregarded.



Congratulate the part of you that survived.
*


My Experiences with Tennis
I have held the racket, I have hit the ball,
but I have never played with a partner.
I have slammed the fuzzy orb against the wall
for long years now, but I have never had a mate.

There were times when I had opponents;
yes I’ve had a couple of those,
a collaborator though, that I have never had.

I have learned to overcome opposition
either through wile or guile.
Slugged my way toward some inevitable outcome,
I never expected you on my court.

The game we play is for keeps
and the muscles required I have never used,
I ache from the pain of ending an atrophy
imposed on me by isolation and misunderstanding.

Often I don’t know how to stand,
don’t know how to act;
don’t know how to be the equal to your serve.

I play chase, running after the thing I didn’t see
and only faintly felt.
I have come to the place where
I know, you and I are a team;
You will not be leaving looking for someone
better equipped or with greater experience.
It is time for me to layout in front of you
my host of tendencies and inclinations.

I’m in the habit of overwhelming with my strength
to hide my weakness;
I must expose this all to you,
the strength and the weakness,
and work together for the resolution.

I will no longer pretend that I know
what is right and wrong in this un-played game.
I fear that I will lose the old game by making this change

All that is familiar put up for grabs
to the uncertain outcome of paired sports.
All I truly know is
that with you by my side I can never lose
and I will learn to do whatever it takes to be your partner


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March16



ANGLE OF RETURN

As in a hall of mirrors, it is sometimes hard to tell if I am moving forward in my recovery. Likewise, as promises are fulfilled, their obtuse arrival is a quandary. The juxtaposition of acute homecoming of former faculties is also startling. How the light finds and reflects itself from sober face to sober face, from open heart to open mind, is the spectral of hope to me. My soul seeks me day after day though I left it so far behind. It brings to me the person of God’s intent and my new acquaintance. Patience, never my virtue, finds me stacked with packages delivered in piles so high I can’t keep up with opening them. Never in my life have I known less about my future or felt more assured.


Earn your own respect.


*

Suit up, Show up


I stand naked, paralyzed,
unable to reach my intended destination
or any destination at all.

Goose flesh is no real motivation
and I am reluctant to use the prod
having only produced resistance
and reversals with past applications of this weapon.

Entreatment might work
if only I could find the right one;
then again anything might work if it were a fit.

Covering my all-together is an action;
taken judiciously it sometimes is all the arrival I can manage,
taken disingenuously it precludes the chance
for any further forward motion
and may create setback or retreat.

I should not attempt to hide fear with wardrobe
though I can try to warm it.
Façade building is best done with a bottle in tow
reality is best faced with a sponsor by my side.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 19

WET BLANKET



I have carried this sodden thing with me all my life, its weight a burden for numerous years. I have never been able to explain my continuing drag of this pitiful thing. Though it has been commented on by many, my fidelity is boundless. In spite of inner questions and doubts, now that the fire is here, I am glad to have it. I pull it over me and step into the fray. Thick and moist, I somehow struggle under its influence and am able to do what others, bare of my encumbrance, cannot. I don’t believe I can quench all the flames, but I hope to help some to safety and bat down the encroaching inferno a bit.


Acknowledge the upswings in your value.
*




Bent, Spindled, Mutilated


Injury changes memory,
not just the memory of the individual trauma,
but the very nature of the mind.

The hooks and loops distort
and I can’t hold on as I once did.
The misses and disconnects become more frequent,
then they become expected.

Emotional fluff-ups do not suffice,
the hardware is damaged
and a positive attitude is advisable
but the pliers are a necessity.

Some things are easier to break than to repair,
in fact most things are easier to break, no skill required,
though some take it on as skill,

Most destruction is ignorant or accidental,
nothing personal just a part of a pain filled landscape.
Direct intervention is not the same as hands-free degradation,
though both have their cost.

Redemption, restoration, is sought from all comers.
Possibilities and probabilities stack;
action is a relief, whether or not it is a fix.

I take a breath to face the final blow,
for when the cost adds up
and I look for recompense
all I hear is the check is in the mail



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 20


JAG

I have the most interesting lawn ornament. It is long and sleek, low to the ground, resting on rubber rolls, steep of side and languid front and back. It has glass, glass that slants and glass that slips into its sides. Its paint shines when I buff it and shows dust when I don’t. Inside there are seats and many artistic accessories. I sit on the steps and admire the thing; then I sit in the thing and admire the porch. That’s all there was until I was handed the key.



Live at home.


*
When is enough, enough?

What is the difference between full and all?
Don’t know? Well, let me tell you,”
said my sponsor with a wink.

“Full is when the broccoli that went perfectly
with the entrée leaves a pleasant smile on your face,
full is when the arrow on the gas gauge points to F,
these are little indicators of full.
Indications that you have reached all:
the wet scary feeling in your mouth
after your second piece of pie,
all is the gas pouring down the side of your car
because you have to try to squeeze more in.”

“Yes, yes,” I reply, “I know when I’ve overdone it;
I resent everyone or at least I am cranky about everything.
I know when I’m under doing it, too;
I get either a lost feeling
or the sense that I should be in charge,
but how do I really know that I am doing enough?”
“If your sponsor has a good idea of where you are
mentally, physically and spiritually;
if the people in your home group can count on you
to contribute service regularly.

If most people in most meetings know not just your face,
but also your name.
If your sponsees freely admit that you are their sponsor,
those are sure signs.
Though the biggest signal for me is how constant my contact is.
If I’m reluctant to pray
I’m usually not doing enough of something.”


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 21


20 CART PILEUP

“What’s the problem here?” asks my sponsor, as she approaches my apparent impasse.
“Well, I’ve been trying to get these carts lined up. What do you think of my progress?”
“How many carts do you have here?”
“A few, quite a few. Why?”
“And how many horses?” She asks.
“Just the one. The same as everyone else,” I answer.
“And where is this poor animal?”
“Back there, behind the carts.”
“Okay. We have a two-fold problem here. First, one horse can handle only one cart. So, pick one. Second, that sad creature needs to be in his proper position to do any good at all. You had best figure out a way to get him in front or you will remain stuck even after you whittle down your burden.”
I was stunned. She went to her cart, climbed to the seat and took up the reins.
“How long did it take you to get yours like that?” I asked.
“Honey, it takes every day. Don’t kid yourself. I wake up every morning with the same train wreck you're standing in now. Learn to sort faster and you’ll have the rest of today. You can start over with the rest of us tomorrow.”



Sip the bitter, drink the sweet.
*


Clever Me

I am clever, I am so clever,
everyone knows it and I know it, too.
So, why do I get slam stuck
on the very simple things
required to keep my life running smoothly?

I know what needs to be done,
yet have no clue as to how to accomplish
these threads of minutia.
I stall; panic, plod, pout.

When I do force myself to do it
I end up creating either a new pile
of impossible incidentals
or some anticlimactic end,
but secret solutions are as of yet undiscovered.

The whip, the lash and the club avail nothing
though sweet enticements do no better.
I pray, “Dear God please help me!”
but this has no point, I don’t want the help,
I am afraid of the help.

I am afraid of the change
and of course who wouldn’t be?
Beyond here lay someone I don’t know,
someone I only fear,
beyond here lay the fearless me
and I am clever enough to be afraid of her.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 22

MATH

“If this is the solution, why aren’t I happy?" I ask my sponsor in a piteous whine.
“You’ve run the equation and the solution equals happiness?" She queries, “That’s the whole and total answer? How many times did you go through the computation?”
“What’s your point? Are you saying happiness isn’t the answer? What about joy, and freedom? I heard someone say that was the goal. I know that’s what I heard.”
“Let’s think about it for a hot second. What would you think if I worked the steps as hard as I do and, as a result, walked around in a perpetual grin?”
“I’d think you had lost your mind.”
“So, you’re telling me you believe the product of recovery is idiocy? The thing we all are aspiring to is bliss and nothing but?”
“No, I guess not. Then what is the solution for you?" I ask.
“A tally which fits the day I’m having. Joy sometimes fits that bill but other days it’s sadness or concern. There have been days when disbelief and dismay were part of the appropriate response. For me, the solution is having an equation that helps me respond to life instead of reacting to it. That’s better than unending happiness; that’s wholeness,” she said with a grin.

Harmony is at contrast with permission.


*
Suddenly

Creeping realization has never been my experience
with God’s handy work in my kitchen.
I start out making a mess
and I find in short order that G-d has made a meal;
fit food for apt hunger.

I could throw myself into the kneading and shaping,
but without the yeast
which is so freely given I have no bread;
only a lump that will choke me in the end.

Even my very own abilities are gifts
I was incapable of offering to myself
and are only found here in my possession
through sheer grace.

I have woken up with my face
saliva glued to the table top far too often
only to discover my Higher Power doing
and I am grateful for without that action
I would be un-done.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 23



MISSING


The good times we never had but should have, the pleasantries I endured waiting for the pleasure. I remembered your potential with fondness. The days, weeks and years I waited for you to grow to me have passed, and yet--- time is what I have, not you. Hope is a wonderful thing until it turns on me and bites. Images I built have tumbled and colors wash from your portrait. I carefully remind myself it’s the idea of you I miss, not you.


Practice your manners on yourself.
*



Water Buddha


The longer on the river I am
the less I fear the river.
I still don’t know what lay ahead,
anything may wait for me
just around the next bend,
but I fear this less and less.

Experience is a great foundation
no matter what you are building
or in which direction.

I’ve gotten my sea-legs,
a sure sign of the mind cooperating
with the realities the body is experiencing.

I have learned to avoid some forms of trouble
and anticipate fortune more often.
Further on could be a waterfall, ocean or dam;

I will contend with any or all, come what may,
for when it comes to riding the river
I have learned the most important thing:
I don’t need to push.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 24

PARADOX OF PARADISE

Paradise is created when I collect paradox and live with it. Paradise is the set of acceptance and suspended disbelief. If anything is possible, accepting what comes is less heart-wrenching. If I arrest my misgivings, gratification in the voluptuousness of now is velvet. Vague consent is a Hell of incapacity. Fighting fiercely for both sides keeps the heart pumping and the mind at bliss. I must work to embrace contradiction and happiness. There is more than one path to take and I must take that one.


When you give time also take time.


*
Two X’s


I play sport at the three X folks
and their still sometimes skewed thinking.
Yet, I attack myself for feeling like a babe in the woods.

Old and wise should be my stock and trade by now though
I find vastness at my door regularly
and confidence struggles to peek in the window.

What in the world will I do if I can’t perfect this stuff soon?
Hopefully nothing as foolish as fretting
or anything as mean spirited as accusation.

Possibly I could try reception.
Truly this only comes in gift wrap and after twenty years
I would hope I had learned to live in the present.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 25


THE ORDER

I can’t expect delivery if I haven’t placed the order. I never seem to know what I want until after I have accepted something else. I can remember thinking order meant procedure not procurement---set the table, not end my hunger. I focused on rational intent and turned my face from desire. Assailing outcomes leads to disappointments. Asking for a hole to be filled may cause dumping not management or conservation. It’s good to have a plan before signing the requisition. Please help me know who I am, so I will know what I want, so I can make a request and stop accepting orders of attack. Don’t let me order the end while I am still at the beginning.



Self-respect is the gift you bring to everyone.
*

Whirly Gigs



Pivot points and reference points
subtlety disguised as harmless bric-a-brac
escape my comprehension until I either stumble
or land on one or the other and ponder the affect.

Realization that much of my life’s contentment
hinges like a door shocks me,
though I don’t know why it should.

Isn’t it the way of things that it all turns on a whim
or at the very least hangs on fine gauged calculation?

I am not the capricious vixen I accuse myself of;
I am however human
and given to a certain amount of fickle fussy frenzy
which all reckons out given enough perspective and wit.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 26



THE ORPHANAGE OF MY HEART


The orphanage of my heart holds many children, children of my past. They gaze at me, fixed in an attempt to draw me near their needs. I scurry, often my head down, eyes averted, not knowing how to offer comfort or consideration to these hapless souls. Fearing the largesse of the poverty, I decline to open my small purse. What could I tender other than a tease? Nearly barren in my heart-broken, disconsolate, inconsolable state, I rarely even obligate myself to extending my hand. This is the pit of my idiocy. These wee ones have the world of hope and strength to give. I am their offertory. I am the place where their gold resides. They live inside me to fill me and bind me to life and light. I flee them in the height of misunderstanding. Disconnected from these inner spirits, I am impoverished and far too weak to grasp their help. Too fogged to see the world within, I starve in the world without.


Incubate an idea.


*

New Borne


What happens when you finally get what you want,
what you barely dared to dream?
What happens when you can hardly do more
than drip tears down from smiling eyes?
Where do you go with a future filled with proposed joy?

Heaven is an option if only you believed,
but hell has been such a perennial destination
it’s hard to realize there will be no return trip this year
or possibly ever again.

The work required to change
from an attitude of longing to one of satisfaction
is as real as all the work needed thus far.

Tending love is a host of disciplines
I want to step to, like I have done it all my life,
like I was born to do it
and I was,

Still growth is accompanied
by its own pain and awkwardness
and who am I to deny this treat.
Any new life worth living
is worth the pain to bear it.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 27



CALIBRATE COINCIDENCE


Do good. Do right. Line up with the next correct movement. Get the universe locked into the sprockets of my desires and make the miracles flow in my direction. Ah, the boy scout merit badge of sobriety. I force spiritual alchemy through the pasta maker of my small life expecting gold. And where is God? Where is the realness of reality? Where is my place in this hairy mess? Well, who knows? Am I the wizard? The Chemist? The mechanic of the galaxy? Though I wish and hope, in truth, I am not the one who calibrates coincidence. I am the receiver of.


Date your recovery.
*


Feelings/Facts

Delay is when I don’t deal with the tack,
don’t deal with the finish nail,
land up with a 12 penny in my heel
and think about waiting for the railroad spike.

Rebellion is when I run through the razor-wire fence
expecting to make a clean get away.
If I don’t socialize my problems when they are puppies
all hope is lost when faced with the big dogs.

Exiting out the fifth story window is suicide in fact,
but in my thinking I am merely rebelling.
Willingness and cooperation make a dynamic duo;
powerful combatants of delay, rebellion,
and many other joy killing, life stealing foes.

A life led with cooperation and willingness
is not necessarily perfection,
but it often feels that way.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 28

FEELINGS

Getting my feelings back was like a package delivered---not a letter bomb, more like live squid or bait of some kind. It was something to catch me out there. I think overcoming the shock was more or less the small part, though it seemed to loom at the time. The squirming, the writhing of my soul was like a pregnancy following a bad dream. I wondered how this became a part of me. I squandered my days hoping it would leave quietly some night soon. Like all difficult relationships, I attempted to hold my breath through it. Failing this, I tried to offer my feelings a guest wing in my heart and a never-ending supply of tea and cookies. When the reality of life with feelings planted itself firmly in me, I let out my breath, stopped the hostess act and endeavored to roll with it. This worked well. I have since invested in a wet- suit and fins. The squid are much easier to live with when I meet them on their turf.


Sponge off what life flings at you.

*


Yes, Virginia there is a solution

Suspended in the colloid of sobriety
the overly large molecule, which is me,
finds a fix I couldn’t imagine.

I can get better, I do get better,
I have a set of values to substitute into the old equations.
I now live in a mixture where there is one thing in common
and all the rest are variants which ordinarily don’t mix.

The scientific method is entry to homogenous living;
a concept that never made it to the table
in my days as a rogue element.

And with all this on board,
the thing I love the best is that it grows;
what I can do and how I can do it
is an ever widening frame of reference,

Even things which were once outside of my view
are now possible.
I am grateful that there is a solution
I am amazed that it is the solution to everything.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 29

FUTURE TENTS

The future seeps in through the windows, like the dawn stealing across the sky. Once I inhale it, I am out of doors, only the lightest of canvas covering me. The opening flaps in the breeze. The wind of unbidden things echoes off the walls of people shut out from this adventure. I brace myself for the cutting current but am greeted by the softest of zephyrs. I duck out. I stand unfettered. Lonely whispers call but I am isolated. The scene is empty, serene and beautiful. There are other tents, other seekers standing on other hills but they see their own futures from the vantage of their own tents and thankfully I am left to see mine.


Tape a coin to the place you sleep.

*
Catalog of Growth

The right seed in the right season
grows a garden of miracles for me.
I get the food for my table
or the stores for winter.

Sometimes when I’m in a Jack like predicament,
right planted seeds can provide a bean stalk
of escape from my restricted life.

I have a role to play with these wonders.
I must sort the seeds from the pebbles.
I must let the kernels out of my pocket
and into the ground.

I water when I can
and harvest what comes to fruition.
Though the best by far
is the part when I get to share the seeds.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 30



CRAZY


I try on crazy, the way I sometimes get out the jump rope, and see if all those muscles still work. The unemployed, unexploited, fallow nature of my once fertile insanity saddens me in an odd way. Today is a place I stand in stiff comfort, though it has taken concerted effort to get here. There are days I slip from reality, the way I can slip off a chair. I no longer allow myself to lounge on the floor. Pride is not so much the issue as hygiene. Crazy is bad for my health. I gave it up like cigarettes or romance novels; I don’t have enough time or insurance for these dalliances, though I do remember them all with fondness.


Allow yourself a favorite spoon.
*


Face and Ass


“It is hard to save your face
and save your ass at the same time.”

What I haven’t tried
in an attempt to live my life as a showman
spotlight front and center.

What I wouldn’t sacrifice to keep
peace and image intact,
but in the end it was just that,
my end, that saved me from
a life chasing prevention of defacement.

I can’t live with the posture of an ostrich
it leaves so much at risk.
Hiding my face won’t protect it
no matter how much I wish it would.

I have to put my butt in a seat,
a seat up front where folks get to know my face.
I have to try my best yet still make mistakes
and let people know my ass as well.

Being a part of AA saves my behind,
once that is cosseted
my face might just get its day in the sun.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

March 31

BLUE CROWS

Blue crows streak across my dreaming mind’s sky; they take up their post in a line of trees. I stand at the edge of a burning field. I feel nauseous at the thought of glorifying an ‘active’ life. Everything is burned, scarred and crumpled; the flashy crows call from the hedgerow. I know it’s time to fly. The fire is out and I have work to do to keep the sparks and dormant embers from ruining another harvest. I must travel with these strange birds and live an odd but regimented life. I needn’t scorch my feet on this ground again but, like my companions, must spend some time in survey. If I do not fully assess this damage, I might not fully embrace this dawn.


Bury your dead issues.


*
Why is it so hard to be me?

I have everything I could wish for.
I have love and friendship,
I have talent and ability.

What more could I want?
I don’t want more,
I want to learn how to overcome fear
and live with disappointment.

Abundance is ever at the door,
but I have no room for plenty.
Reassurance is the thing I chase after,
yearn for, pine about, but it is an illusive thing
like taking hold of smoke.

Allusion is the gift-wrap of reality
the unwrapping often puts me off the contents;
regaining my composure and reestablishing willingness
is a difficult job requiring dedication and fortitude.

The barrier before the carefree me
is thought, the strongest of all substance.
I must heal the calcifications of my mind and resist rigidity.
My thinking is what makes being me problematic
without it I am nothing at all.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 1

RAIN

The rain makes shadows of water. It spills onto the ground like tiny worlds. What had been airborne and mist is now earthbound and integral, feeding, cutting, learning the world. Once I contemplated theories and mystery. Now, washing dishes is a spiritual service. The view was lovely when I was above it all but now I course through the veins of life. There may come a time when I am untouchable again but by then I will have been a part of it all. I will carry the world with me always, an orbiting servant not just above but through.


Engrave compliments in your mind.

*
Clock and Calendar Girl


I depend on the count and measure of time to get me through.
The swing of the pendulum carries me from moment to moment
and the divisions between days are like the rungs on a ladder;

I climb from month to month and age to age.
When I hold my breath I count the tic, tic, tic
till the difficult time passes and I can inhale once more.

Harder things require X’s in their numbered boxes
to help me transverse the larger distance and rockier terrain.
Take away my clock and I go deaf,
remove my calendar and I go blind.
Tools are tools even if they only aid sight and sound.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 2


PADUANS


The pussy willows bloom looking much like crested poultry. The coldest part of my heart is fighting to thaw in this early spring. Weather is not of the mind to be rushed. Neither my hopes nor the changing calendar can persuade the warmth into the May mornings. It’s May for me, too, no longer the early sobriety of January. The years have marched on; I wait for the delivery of my returning brains. Long term sobriety has begun but I am still beset with the chill of fragility. I desire dignity and find myself strutting like a fowl with blooming plumage, addled and gawky.
“Don’t worry,” says my sponsor, “the pussy willow is in no way less for showing itself in the rawness of growth.”



Listen to the sounds of your life.
*


Unfettered


“The difference between a demand and a request
is apparent to everyone.”
A drunk once said this and I hold it to my heart.
I can not be bullied or swindled into a corner;
neither will I allow you to put a rope around my neck
like a wayward calf.

I obey because it works for me
and if you teach me that you are untrustworthy
or careless I will obey you no longer,
this doesn’t make me less obedient
it just takes you out of the lead.

Sometimes I hold the reins
and most times they are in the hands of God,
but never shall my reins be in the hands of another,
this is what I drank over
and this is what I could drink over again.

No one person is my salvation
and I cannot allow anyone to be my demise.
If you consume me like a drink,
I will kill you as surely as any drug.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 3


ACCEPTANCE, ACTION, CHANGE

Acceptance equals action. Without action, acceptance is a death sentence. Action puts me in the hands of my Higher Power; inaction puts me at the mercy of others, or worse, self-justification. For acceptance to glow with life, it must be moving.
Action equals change. Action without change is repetition. The moon does not change. It orbits flat on its face, forever dark on one side and a mere reflection on the other. Change sparks possibilities in mundane endeavor.
Change equals acceptance. Change without acceptance is a walk off a cliff. For change to endure, agreement is necessary. A one-sided argument is fascism and fraudulence. The heart of change is acceptance, beating the blood of hope to the extremities. Whether we circle the heavens or the bowl depends on the cohesion of acceptance, action and change.


Listen to new music, sing old music.

*
Give Me a Goose Any Day

The geese breaking wind resistance,
the close ones,
the far ones,
the ones behind trumpeting
this is the gang who gets me sober
and keeps me that way.

Maybe you think that God is not a flock of geese,
but it has been my experience
and the honking and the mess are part of it all.
I spend my days making sure I am one of them.

Sometimes I am even in the lead,
which may seem like a place of honor and prestige,
but is actually a lot of hard work.

Sometime I am the cheering squawker
who makes my encouragement heard.
Other times I am the one waddling around
leaving an untidiness behind me.

All of this just makes me part of the flock.
I am especially fond of my nest mates
though they are often the ones I chase
and bluster at the most.

I feel a sense of identity and pride
when I see any goose flying high
and I know that because we don’t do it alone
we are able to do it together.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 4



THE SCULPTOR

I'm stuck in a block; my sponsor chips away at me. I struggle to hold still. With surgical precision, she cuts through the debris with which I have surrounded myself. After my sponsor frees my hand and arm, she places a hammer in my open fingers. When the other arm and hand are rescued, she places a chisel in that hand. This is how, before my head showed above the surface, I began to help in my own restoration. I am the sculptor the program has made me. Recovery has taught me I can be anything if I keep chipping away at the things that hold me hostage. As time travels on, I am a new shape with each turn through the steps and have an ever-lustrous finish with every application of the traditions.



Everything has its own intelligence and you do, too.
*


Please Sir

Gratitude is a thing which collects and solidifies,
it’s pink and I can walk around on it.
Some days it is a broad highway
and other times a winding spindling track.

Ever present if I am mindful
gratitude roots out pests and pestilence
while planting a garden beyond my dreams.

Gratitude is like handholding
it warms and strengthens me, k
keeps me connected to real life
and reassures me that I am not alone.

Many days I find a way to make a face and pout,
plundering the rich rewards of sobriety
for the thin gruel of discontent,

Poke me with a stick on these days
and remind me who I am,
for I am never Oliver even if I feel a little twist.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 5

STOP TALKING


“Try to stop talking when people stop listening,” said my sponsor. “And try not to take it personally.”
“Why is that?” I query.
“Most individuals can’t handle much of anything real. Try as they may, they are unable to listen to anyone speaking the truth. Tell them a story; you can hold their attention all day. Sprinkle bits of honesty into the tale and you still will keep your audience. But strafe them with bullets of the truth and they will run for cover.”
“I’ve seen it happen. I never knew what made them scurry, but I have seen them sprint away.”
“It’s a coping mechanism. If you try to turn their heart too quickly, they’re afraid it will stop beating.”
“Why is it you never worry about that with me? You tell me the facts whether I want to hear it or not.”
“I can tell you because you take step 3.”


Color a page using only three crayons.


*


Fearing Fearlessness

How many times
have I given the credit to night blind fear,
credit due the brave persistent child?

How many times
have I blamed the willing diligent pursuer
when the fault was the backstabbing delay of mistrust?

I resist the onset of freedom.
Fear was my oldest familiar
and I put from my mind that it was my jailer, captor;

Kidnapped me from my cradle
and kept me locked from God’s fine intentions.
Fearlessness sounds debilitating to my crippled ears,

Organs who hear well the disclaimers
and are deaf to the claims.
I am the producer of bile and addicted to dread,

Endorphins wear white hats
and win the day
once this yellow belly is put to bed.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 6



MORE


Sometimes people get more than they can handle. The evidence of this is their insanity or death. God is not the actuary of heaven, managing tragedy the way my loan officer manages my debt load. The victim blamers run to the ‘lack of faith’ accusation. I have to keep my hands tightly on the wheel of life or risk strangling the parrots who chirp outlandish claims but try to make it sound like help. I have to live with what I experience as real and be sober today. I will have to leave the measure of ‘more’ to time out of mind.




Lift your feet and let the chaos pass underneath
*



Two Things That Should Be One

The difference between my will and God’s will
is that God actually likes me all the time,
never looks to punish and would rather
that I don’t settle for less than what is best for me.

The difference between God’s will and my will
Is that left to my own devices
I would run in a perpetual circle and dig a trough.

I would never ask for help
and would refuse if it were offered.
I would take on misguidedness as a mantle
and wear it to my wake.

Often my will and God’s will are miles apart,
but they needn’t be.
God is the president of my fan club;
I just need to start attending the meetings.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 7

ARABIAN DAYS

There are days I feel like Scheherazade and could spin a thousand tales. Other days I feel my brain grab for its satchel and exit my ear. I find it hard to be a hospitable host to all of me, but when I stretch or strain my elbow or knee I think, “oh well, they go out, they go out,” but if my brain runs off and leaves me I am in a serious mess. I try to be a lover of my mind for when I don’t I grow small in my heart. I scent the mental bath water and light the little lights; I sing sweet songs. I wait for response. I smile broadly to hear the quick report of Rimsky-Korsakov.


Don’t transpose your feelings.


*
Out on Your Front Porch


“If you want what we have,” said my sponsor,
“you will have to follow somebody
and lead somebody and do a few other things.”

“I have to follow somebody,
that shouldn’t be too hard,” I mumble.
“In order to follow it helps if you stop looking at the ground,
lift you gaze,” her retort.

I raised my chin until I met her eyes. “Better,” said she.
“I follow you?” I ask.
“Me, yes, if I have what you want,
follow others if I don’t,” she said.

“Okay and lead somebody, how do I do that?” I ask.
“It’s attraction, Sweetie, be attractive,
show your smile and your smarts,

But most of all show that you’re sober,
because that is always your best asset.
And no matter what anybody tells you
about the allure of bad girls,
nobody can resist a good set of assets”

.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 8

CONSERVATION OF LOVE


Love does not diminish. It recycles like the rain, ever in transition and transmission. Love is not salvationary or redemptive. Nor do I believe it to be the currency of Godliness. Love is an element like cobalt or gold, it has weight and substance. Love is the coinage of responsibility not a door out of consequences. Love, true love, inspires right action, never cowardice or disrespect. In this strange amelioration, standing in the wings of realism, love is love no longer. Love is the standard I have to bear, not the canopy I stand beneath. In the frozen center, love cannot endure the pressure of misinformation, and melts with friction, floods with irresponsibility. Love, like money, admiration and sex, has its place and must not have expectation of being more than it is. With that said, Love is peerless, to be treasured, protected and shared.


Run away with your heart but bring your mind.

*

Up and Down: Round and Round

Like the wheel on my spinning wheel
I pump up and down on the treadle
and the wheel spins round and round,

The roving twists in my hand and yarn is made.
Really all I do is tap my foot
and gently hold on, pulling occasionally.

It is a small part I play in this production
at least it feels small almost unnecessary,
but with a clear mind I see
that without me it doesn’t get done.

I am essential yet still just a foot-tapper and hanger-on
neither of these is prestigious
yet the whole fabric depends
on my mundane actions.

I take great comfort knowing that allover
there are foot-tappers and hangers-on
keeping safe this way of life

Sometimes keeping it safe just through sheer repetition.
And if you ask, “Is that Unity or Recovery or Service?”
All I can say is “Yes, yes it is.”


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 12


WHIP


I have been to the meeting where they play 'whip', the meeting where the members are gotten in line. The tempo increases constantly in an attempt to flick each other off into the land of shame and slips and less-than. This game is invisible to the participants, though the stress on their bodies is surely felt. Spectators often misunderstand the meaning of the activity and wrongly interpret it as strength training and endurance building. I think of it as a backward step, throwing me to my initial desire for a drink; living in other peoples skewed lines sent me running for a bottle. These same lines, placed around me in sobriety, will measure me up for a box.



Turn your plants and your mind so every aspect has an opportunity to get some sun.

*


Who to Ask

“You ask good questions
and you ask the right people,” said my sponsor.

“I ask questions because I need answers,” my reply.
“Do you know how many people need answers
and never ask?” she quipped.

“I ask my friends, no stroke of genius there,” I continue.
“You ask your playmates,
you ask the people you trust enough to have fun with.

You don’t realize how clever that is.
You know lots of folks who work hard
and you could ask your questions of these

But instead you save them for those diligent ones
who still know how to play and that, Sweetie Pie
is proof that you are no dummy.”



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 13



WILLING PIECRUST


I lay the crust of my will over the pie plate of God’s will for me. I must have the willingness to trim off the excesses. I hesitate; I worked hard to roll it out. I know from past experience, when hot issues come up, these tags and hangings-on burn and drop sometimes ruining the flavor and appearance of the whole. It is easier to cut loose the things outside God-given intent. I get the pie in its entirety when I crimp and bend to the shape of my life.




Hope is free, so spread it around.
*




Chickens and Eggs

Who is more sober
the early riser or the long-timer?
How do we get here and what does it mean.

It all starts with a day, which is good
because this is more than we had hoped for,
sometimes more than we could do.

Then it moved into an ever escalating game
of can you beat this, each day an improvement
over what had been accomplished the day before.

For years the standard bearer is the pain or relief
of the very first in this string,
orbs of 24, yet here stands the question,

“Is the essence the last pearl you touch
or the total of the strand, which makes it real?”
I don’t know for sure.

Sobriety is like light;
is light made up of waves or is it made up of particles
and the answer is invariably yes, for it is.

And what you need and how you look at it
seems to make the determination,
scientific method or no

The watched is affected by the watcher and vice versa.
The end is a day round and imperfect as any
and what is strung between the beginning and the end
is what you’ve made of it.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 14



THE PLAYGROUND

Getting my ass kicked in the playground of my mind was once a daily event. Now, it is a far off memory. I absent myself from the jungle gym the same way I absent myself from bars---places set with traps and schemes I am no longer attracted to. Bullies and ego trips can’t draw me toward the fence. Dares and double-dares are such ancient devices I can’t even find the trigger they used to pull. Trouble doesn’t know my new name, my sober name; I don’t answer to the old one. I hate to admit the isolation of my school yard days, but no one I knew back then will keep me on the road to the future. So, I leave the ball in their court and wish them well.



Expectations are lovely as long as you leave off the outcomes.

*


Not Fur but Fin

You can’t delay the river,
I’ve tried, all it does is distort.
I block the flow and swamp ensues,
mighty oaks waist deep in water.

The current is strong
and I fear being swept away,
not realizing I was born to swim.

Dreading the swim back for spawn
I try to stay too close to my origins,
never make it to open water,
never to live the life I was intended for.

I’ve heard it said,
“Don’t push the river it flows by itself,”
but I can’t stall it either.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 15

TRAP DOOR


The trap door of my mind opens occasionally and I find myself acting out things better left to conversation. When I leave too many things unsaid, the pressure builds and the door opens. My thoughts connect with my body minus the benefit of my brain, not to mention the brain of my sponsor. I can ill afford the consequences of these open door exhibitions and I am obligated to spend much time scrambling up the hills my outlandishness slid down. Thinking, speaking and contemplating, the prerequisites of action, must be done frequently or my mind’s sink, piled with my dirty dishes, will flood the counter top, then leave dishes crashing to the floor. Even if I can’t keep everything caught up, at least I can leave things soaking. I can start notes or little chats so I am not weighting the latch. I can prevent the coupling of impulse and exploit. All I have to do is stick out my tongue.


Release your emotions from captivity.

*


Like an Elf Working in an Empty Tree

The chairs in the loft are empty,
but I still hear the choir sing.
The bottle though it’s empty,
still sometimes calls my name.

Though front pocket is empty
and there is rolled up empty sleeve,
still the nicotine haunts my dreams.

On this empty road I travel,
I still long for company.
The stillness is not all that’s empty,
but I run to fill that spot.

Chaos is like a tapeworm
it eats me from the inside,
but in the meantime I still believe it’s filling me.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 16



NAPPING


Too often, I have lifted the edge of the lawn in an attempt to join the worms for a bit of a dirt nap. Or I crawled into a self-constructed cave to bear my feelings and hibernate from life. The times I sprint with the deer, jumping the fences in hopes of escaping the wolves, these are all the times when I forget who I am. I forget to ask direction, fail to make a meeting. Seeing those of my ilk puts my feet on the ground, focuses my perspective on just what sort of creature I am. I can’t always follow my instincts when I don’t know who I am. I can’t see myself until I stand next to you.



Relax one toe at a time.


*
In Training

Like a faithful dog that was hard to train,
patience is a thing hoped for
yet peevish during the breaking in.
Stanch companionability is hard won,
but worth the cost of acquisition.

And what is the price I truly paid in the end;
whatever I gave in the pursuit of patience
was a cheap babysitter
and kept me from far worse reformation.

For what would I do in this late day and age
as a tempest torn toddler,
no bottle to sooth my woes and bothers.

Strictly speaking this is a world ill suited
to the edgy intolerant masses
and only seems to fit those who can mark time and bend.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 18



CLAW MARKS


There is a brackish river whose current changes direction twice a day. Its bed is well washed on every side. It begs the question: which way is downhill? There are times I struggle uphill in both directions. There are times I slip from every slope. What was up is often down. Judgment of topography requires distance. Scaling the surface takes tenacity. I plan on leaving my mark as I go, life’s residue staining my fingertips.


Design caution signs for your emotions.
*


What I Take from Laban’s House


If I have the audacity to have a problem
I must provide the instantaneous solution
or be the cause of world-wide panic.
Additionally it is the height of rudeness
to have open-ended dilemma.

It makes the gods uncomfortable,
makes them shift in their seats
and wish me away.

I prevent banishment
by either being problem free
or solution-full

When the answers are not to their liking
I exile myself saving them the inconvenience
and me the embarrassment.

It is never good to implode the household deities,
you never know when you might need one
for historic perspective or a door stop.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 19



DROWNING NAKED


Bare and exposed, I laid myself on the altar of my home group. With AA as my only Source, I emptied the contents of my soul and bore the mantle of overexposure. But vultures lurked in many rooms. I was safely guided, by persons of my gender, to the more secluded and effective place of transmission. I thrust myself into the arms and mind of my sponsor. She escorted me up the steps with the door closed and taught me how and when it could be prudently opened. AA is a power greater than me. So is the ocean. Precaution needs to be taken when wading in. Care must be exercised as to how much to bare.


Wrap your intentions in wool to keep them warm and in gold to keep them untarnished.
*



Bound


The reason the sleeves of my disease
wrap around and tie in the back
is so that I will struggle with change.

Alcoholism is my straightjacket
and my goal is that ‘loose garment life’
I’ve heard so much about.

The sweat I work up
from railing against my confining existence
causes petulance, frothing and enervation,

Defeat is the landing on which I collapse,
acceptance a flight of steps away.
My ailment leads me to believe
I have nothing to hold onto as I adjust.

Though this isn’t true,
the fact remains that this is still
a process of letting go.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 20


RANK


I took an area level service position and my sponsor laughed herself off her chair.
“What is your motivation for this?” she asked.
“I want to move up through the service structure,” my reply.
“Are you trying to make rank?”
“Problem with that?" I ask.
“Ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecy? You will become what you desire. You will become rank and you will stink. The triangle is inverted to help you clean up your act. Don’t get washed away in a tide of ego.”
I put down my swim fins and removed my epaulets.



Listen intently enough to hear the music of the planets spinning in your mind.
*




Bummed
I accept change
like coins slipped into a cup
that sits beside me on the curb.
Never did it occur to me
that I look in need of pity
or alms from strangers;
Which is to say
I don’t accept much these days,
yet I do not fight it either.
I keep my head down
when I can no longer fend off the inevitable.
I may not win control or compliance,
Might not remain strong enough to fight another day,
but this too is a blessing somehow.
A laying down of arms.
Money in my pocket
makes the world a funny place to endure
when I’m living in the tiny room in my head.
What good news it would be
if I learned to throw the windows open
and let the day take me.
This time it’s God
that needs to wear the ear muffs
and lead me through the coldness of change.
On my own I just walk farther
down the blind alleys
and fold myself on this sidewalk in exhaustion.
I don’t like the tea or the sympathy,
but I don’t think I would mind if God took me in.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 24



ESCAPING THROUGH THE CEILING


Up and away is my motto; upwardly mobile is my goal. If I can flee without leaving a track, I’m clean. No heart-wrenching walk down the aisle or the lane. No dust on my shoes. No possibility of stumbling. Grace at all cost. Empowerment through elevation. If I must leave my human plane to attain this, so be it. Give up my natural rights, such is life. But, yet, if I lose my bonds to earth what did the leaving gain me? I arise to appear better; as a result, I appear not at all.


Hold your hand then touch your face.

*



Imperturbable


Perfectionism is a cover,
a blanket of lead;
hard to move and rich with poison.

What it tries to hide
is my unwillingness to struggle and strive.
It’s not a fear of failure,
but the horror of success after a long hot pursuit.

If I can stall on the intricacies of the first move
there is no further movement.
If I can fail before I begin
there is no sweat, no stain, no stink.

Catastrophe is no bother,
but skinned knees are my undoing.
Winning is not so important to me;
my unfortunate goal is to look untroubled.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 25


FEEDING THE MONSTER

Who will feed the monster once they’ve made her? Her hunger burns in her like a beacon. Should I let her starve? Should I put her on rations of old crusts and tepid water? Rebuke her as if she were her own idea? Possibly bind her hands and cover her eyes? Stand her in line with the good girls and fit her in? Turn her visage from her desire and tell her to forget? Hold her hand and tell her that’s enough? When I stand in the face of her yawning hunger, what do I say?
“It’s for your own good.”
Well, that’s what ‘They’ said, too.


Round the corners and square your shoulders.

*


Blinded


Alcoholism hits me like a kind of blindness.
I stagger through the living room
cursing anyone who changes familiar placement
or published timetables.

Like every aspect of this disease
shocked sightlessness is mine to deal with.
I must pick up the white cane,
procure the Seeing Eye pup,
learn to read clustered Braille.

When my vision clears
in these well worked spaces I am relieved
but I must accept that when I walk into a new room
more often then not I will be blind again
and must pick up my walking stick once more.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 26



HOW THINGS SEEM


Not everyone who pushes me down is my enemy and not everyone who pulls me up is my friend. I have been seduced by the closeness of people who used me as their shield. When I have been held in the place of honor, the point man of life, I forgot that made me the replacement target for the one who stood behind me. I had been offended as I was thrown to the ground. The hands that shoved me, I saw as my rejecters. I was spared the tragedy and peril of the thing that flew by my ear thanks only to the grace of a thrust in the right direction. Accurate appraisal is my weakness. Seeing things for what they are is hard. Things are rarely how they seem.


Grow tall with your grain and the years will grow around you.

*


Would You Rather a Lamp?

I am a girl filled with expectations.
Like a ginger jar filled, stuffed caulker block full,
though the filling is the part which is unpredictable;

It could be match books, or seashells,
acorns or all those pretty capsules.
This makes me erratic and sometimes volatile.

Are you strong enough or far too sane
to stay and help me sort the contents?
It’s lonely work without a witness or a spotter.

I rather be alone than with you reluctantly,
so please try to shuck that husk and remain.
Yes, I am sometimes capricious, but I try never to be cruel.

I know sometimes you convince yourself
that leaving me to my own devices is the wisest of courses,
but don’t be fooled;

You disappear due to your weakness not strength
and the worst part about the price of abandonment
is that everyone has to pay it.



.

[Degotoga]

By the grace of a power greater than myself and some awesome people that check me when I need it and love me when I’m not so loveable, I reached my 24 year milestone three days ago. I am truly grateful for the many lessons, gifts, and opportunities for personal growth that have been bestowed upon me thus far.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 27



SERVICE AND SACRIFICE


The difference between life and death in my recovery is the equal difference between service and sacrifice. If I offer you what is in my hand, fine. If I also give you my fingertips, I am lost. Service lightens the load in my heart; sacrifice removes my tools for living. When I go into debt for your existence, the cheer and optimism is sucked from my awareness. My eyes go dead and soon I follow. The cingulotomy of obligation crucifies my future and murders true hope and love. Service feeds my heart and yours. Renovating makes space. It builds the muscles for joy and contentment, pumping and refilling my plate with spirituality.



Wriggle your toes and flex your mind.
*



Perkiomenville

Being actually alive does not feel as good as I imagined
the relief of not being dead would feel
therefore I have anxiety and dread,
or is it disappointment.

I feel like a failure when I am in the process of trying
I want to throw the pieces in the air and run.
Does this mean I’m weak
or does it mean I am frightened?

Is there some heavenly host of other reasons
why my crêpe paper soul twists and turns
in the breeze of the marketplace?

Some part of me was auctioned off
and its removal left a psychic scar
that even equanimity cannot ease.

I am all things wonderful and yet there is this flaw,
this toe tied thread which holds me back,
holds me down with painful accurate precision.

I look for the knife with which to cut it
all the while wondering if this will turn it into
a toe tag or a price tag.



.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 28



CHAPTER AND VERSE


I remember being trained and rehearsed for finding the words which would release my soul from bondage. The scrupulous concern for detail pointed me to heaven. And yet I drank. Inside these rooms the path is wide, judgment is suspended and I have the right to be wrong. The penalties for error can be great but the privilege and risk are mine. As in all things, the extremists come. They have come to this place, too. Thumpers hound and belittle, threaten and cajole. They tell page numbers like punch lines and narrow the field at every opportunity. I can’t stay sober sitting on my old stool and I can’t maintain this desire by their chapter and their verse.


Notes are numbers, so count out your time and sing your song.

*

Jane Street

The space between wanting to live
and not wanting to hurt
is the alley in which I live.
This lane is not as narrow as you might think,

In some places there is room for parking on one side.
Since I reside here more often than not
I have filled it with many of the appliances,
which allow me to pretend at life.

It doesn’t afford a truly clean or cheerful locale,
but there are laughs, sometimes flowers in the spring.
Finding my way out of this is tricky.

When unlocked I find these are backdoors to commerce
and though better than being sold wholesale,
retail is not what I was hoping to find
as I wrest myself from a confined existence.

I have heard of those who
drive through plate glass ignoring the structure.
I think this is less workable from the back.

What is left when I can’t bully or climb?
I guess I will have to throw my hands up and pray.




.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 29


WHEN A SNAPPER CROSSES THE ROAD


What should I do? I see the soggy green/gray lump creeping the macadam too slow to survive for long. The surge in me, to aim and end the duckling eater's life, is a short-lived but palpable surge. My Disney style justice is dismissed but heard from nonetheless. Shall I pull over and assist? This turtle is as ill equipped for this stretch of road as I am ill equipped to aid in its conveyance. Should I reach with fingers or toes to something I know can extend its neck and sever me from parts I hold dear? The ever-present missionary in me has spoken and is silenced. In fact, what I can do is slow down and give wide berth. I know this creature is a danger, but never more so than me.


Plot your graph and measure your curve.
*


Terry Bradshaw

When someone wants to take the easy way out
I condemn them for wanting ease
and fail to register that they want out.
I hear a whine when in fact it’s a cry.

A challenge is rarely passed up by the able bodied,
but must be foregone by the injured.
Carried from the field is no personal victory,
not a goal for sure.

When I would rather watch than play
I need to check for wounds not inflict them.
It is not natural for me to sit in the stands,
but accusation is never the way to get me on the field.

Suit up when I’m whole and hide when I’m not.
Absence is a fallback position for the fallen
I have to help myself to get back up.


.

[LeftWriteFemme]

April 30



PINK CLOUD

When the pink cloud lands in my valley, my task is to walk. The pleasure of its presence can never outweigh the practice this cloud affords me. I walk in a haze of cherry blossom lightness; the future is a blur I do not fear. Forward motion seeds my inertia; my gyroscope is set. When dark clouds gather and the way is overshadowed, I will keep on. When the test begins and I must proceed in the obscurity of night, the lively steps of pink-cloud days will cheer and empower me. I can embed my future with right action and bank the confidence I feel today, saving it for the rain swept days that come to everyone. Progress is positive even when made in bliss.


Get a cozy blanket for the times when the answers don’t come.
*


Reguess

When in my sarcasm
I suggested that you ‘guess again’,
I realized that you were in fact guessing,
guessing about everything,

Guessing in order to create a process of elimination,
a tool on which I now recognize you entirely depend.
Guessing as a way of life is a tragedy.

I’m not saying that trying to know every last thing in the world
is an acceptable alternate goal, but to reach an adult age
and not even be able to work your way up to a possible hunch
is scary, scarier than even my sarcasm,

Which at this moment seems interminable,
but I’m sure you guessed that.



.