Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 7

HELP FROM STRANGE SOURCES


I can not 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.



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

[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.




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

[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.


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

[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.


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

[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.


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

[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.



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

[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.



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

[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.


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

[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.



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

[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.

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

[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.

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

[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?

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