18 Years Today

 

Today I celebrate 18 years of continuous sobriety and want to reflect on tackling the beast of addiction and the benefits of recovery.

Not long ago I had a dream in which I bought a pack of cigarettes, drank alcohol, and ate ice cream. It’s been 34 years since I’ve had a cigarette and 10 months since I’ve had any sugar, and yet my inner addict is never far away.

Brian asked me if there were times in these 18 years when I was close to having a drink? Nothing recent came to mind, but the beginning certainly wasn’t easy.

Omar Manejewala writes, “You can’t fight cravings; you can only outgrow them.”

Facing an addiction requires growing in new ways when times are hard and the old coping mechanisms are ones I don’t want to use. I’ve learned to pray more earnestly than ever and to tell people what’s going on, even when it’s not pretty or doesn’t look like the put-together image I’d like to present.

I also have learned to take a deep breath, take a walk, take a nap, read a book, take a bath, drink tea, or journal about what’s eating me in order to ride the wave of desire, which is an old neural pathway that gets lit up when a situation emerges and escape seems like the best action.

Of course, I still escape. I read voraciously, I shop with tenacity for the “perfect” whatever I’m hunting for at the time, and I spend too much time rehearsing what I’m going to say, should have said, or should have kept to myself.

And none of this recovery happened overnight.  Identity gets formed over time, and in community, so hanging out with other recovering alcoholics and food addicts helps normalize what affects only a small percentage of the population actually. There's still plenty of stigma surrounding addiction, yet people in recovery are the happiest, most honest and generous people I know.

If someone had told me 30 years ago that someday I wouldn't smoke, drink, eat sugar or flour I would have gasped. But it gets easier.  I can do hard things because I don’t do them alone. I believe that anyone else can too. There’s nothing special that allows me and millions of others to be sober or abstinent while someone else struggles. We just made a decision and kept coming back until it stuck.

It’s not the easiest path, but it’s so worth it, that if you’re in a place of deciding to give up something that’s not serving you, please reach out and let others help.  You may, as I have, be given a life beyond your wildest dreams.

Puzzle Me This

 

It’s the season for jigsaw puzzles in our house.  Our dining table has been cleared and right now there are two 1000-piece puzzles being constructed on the ends.  Brian’s working on Van Gogh’s The Irises, which is too difficult for me. So I bought a puzzle that was my skill level. Every time I work on a jigsaw puzzle, the way I eventually see distinctions I didn’t at first strikes me.

When I first dump the puzzle out and turn the pieces over, I pile the edges together and make some large groupings by color. I’m not sure how many hours I need to immerse in the scene for finer differences to emerge.  In this puzzle—portraits of women in a museum—the frames seemed all the same at first, but each one is slightly different. The blues take on more subtle variations of shading, etc.

It feels magical when I find the exact piece for a spot after scanning what had once been an undifferentiated mass.

In life, what have I clumped together without seeing differences? It might be a group defined by race, ethnicity, gender, income, caste, occupation, age, etc. It could be a geographic, educational, or political affiliation. But not until I immerse myself in the actual community, through literature, media, or in-person connections, does the rich variety within every group get revealed.

What I know for sure is that the pieces don’t change; I do. It’s my perspective that grows more sophisticated because of the time, attention, and lack of judgement I bring. If I hated all the green puzzle pieces, I wouldn’t be as likely to notice variations. While some pieces/people are more immediately visible, every piece is essential, and ultimately we are all linked. It matters to look on the floor for missing pieces so that each one gets placed into the whole, creating a complete puzzle, a healthy community, and a well-functioning nation. We can’t afford to leave a single soul behind.

Only when I invest time, attention, and curiosity to the uniqueness of non-interchangeable people and ideas does something whole and holy emerge.

A Spacious Year

 I often choose a word or phrase to guide my year, and for 2021 it is spacious.

Here’s what happens when I don’t claim spaciousness during a day:

I snap at people to keep them away.

I eat too much to give myself a break.

I read anything, typically falling into the black hole of social media, rather than carefully choose what to read.

I shop.

I cut corners on meditation because the silence, which feels more like emptiness than spaciousness, has become less familiar and therefore scarier.

When I stop writing morning pages because writing by hand annoys me, I lose what has become a portal to inner wisdom.

Space is not a hole to be filled but something to explore, shape, and curate. 

If I have space in my day, without appointments, errands, meetings and chores lined up like spices on a too-small rack, I listen to my body, drink more water, rest, or stretch the muscles that call for attention.

On a spacious day I brush my hair, clean my glasses, put on earrings because I notice what’s needed.

With enough space I find my puppy charming and can give him guidance with a light heart. Without space our power struggle consumes me and I channel my own mother at her worst.

With space I drink tea when it’s actually hot, savoring the nuanced flavors. Without spaciousness, cups grow cold, get microwaved over and over, and I start longing for half and half to make the tea more enjoyable.

A spacious moment allows me to take in what is happening, process what I'm feeling, express it appropriately, and decide how to act next.  Otherwise I'm simply reacting to one atrocity after the next outrage, never feeling the deep grief that underlies most anger.

Spaciousness may be a privilege, but it is not a luxury. 

If people had the breathing, living, playing, creative, political space to attend to their dreams, desires, and loved ones, we’d have more creative solutions to our daily challenges.

May your 2021 be S P A C I O U S.

What if you just let yourself weep?

 

Today an inner voice said, “What if you just let yourself weep?”

Because having a puppy is harder than I thought

Because all the work decluttering seems for naught when I see how much I still have and how obscene it is in a global context

Because even being sober and abstinent isn’t a magic potion against feeling overwhelmed somedays

Because isolation is lonely and virtual connections don’t quite meet some primal need to connect

What if I just let myself weep without even knowing why?

Because we’re all connected and so many are hurting

What if I just let myself weep instead of bucking up, counting my blessings, or thinking of someone else for a change?

What if I just let myself weep?

How long would it last? 10 minutes? Thirty? An hour or more? Am I afraid I won’t stop?

If I wept every time I felt sad, scared,  anxious, impatient, out of my element, in over my head, or utterly alone, would it be like an afternoon tropical shower that clears the air and enhances the sun?

What if I just let myself weep because others have so hardened their hearts that some of us have taken on their quota of feeling?  

What if I let myself weep because some people won’t make it through these times, at all.

If I cry today I could feel lighter tomorrow and see glimmers of goodness and slivers of solace anywhere I truly looked. 

Why don’t you  just let yourself weep?

On Loving Work

 

I’m not a workaholic, for I can relax and be away from work without becoming anxious. But I do love to work. Intellectual and emotional labor is what my current job entails. I’m a well-trained listener and invite people to share details, stories, and memories of their lives. I notice patterns, phrases, and perhaps most often, what’s absent from speech but somehow here between us. That’s where I gently probe. My career requires concentration, presence, and effort, but it doesn’t exhaust me and is never boring.

I need physical work to be happy as well. My favorite vacations are visits with people who need my help with some project, or travel to beautiful places where I can hike each day. Walking the Camino de Santiago was sublime pleasure for me. I prefer having a destination when I walk.

Work provides purpose, which keeps the life force moving through me. I have noticed that people who retire without a project often turn their health into their life’s purpose. Couples with nothing new to create once the family is raised have a harder time staying together.

As I descended to the basement for a second time this morning, I realized that this kind of physical effort to clean, replenish supplies, and release what no longer serves is what connects me to humans throughout time.

Our ancient connection to the actual work of staying alive played a big part in my love of camping: making a shelter, building a fire, cooking food and cleaning up to prevent animal encroachment feels primal and satisfying. Resting in that deep lap of time brings comfort.

It’s always seemed ironic that the work of tending bodies and souls of children, the old, and the ill pays the lowest wages in this society, whereas abstract work with money, paper, and numbers pays so highly. I’ve come to believe that the intrinsic reward of work that has immediate value offsets the low wage while work that has been made up and doesn’t serve people in a tangible way requires more monetary reward to justify itself. It's  not just but it makes a perverted sense.

Since the start of the pandemic, many people have devoted additional labor to their yards and houses. Now that we are spending more time at home, why not make it completely functional, even beautiful?  The privilege of this work is not lost on me: too many Americans are unhoused, and encampments in parks have highlighted the crisis we face and must resolve.

We have collective work ahead of us. Establishing practices, policies, attitudes, and systems that don’t let anyone fall through the cracks will call upon all our talents, energies, and ancient knowledge. Such work can renew our sense of purpose, connection, and joy. 

I’m ready.

What does writing want of me?

 

Now that I feel some space to breathe, I'm curious what new project I might undertake in this coming retreat-like winter. 

I asked a question--What does writing want of me?--listened, and  wrote. I hope you do the same in whatever form your creative energy wants to dance.

My writing is a lean and sinewy older woman, tanned from living mostly outdoors, with hands that are strong, nimble and capable of healing. This writing/woman has long grey hair in a braid, and she wears jeans and turtlenecks but can put on pearls for special occasions.

What does writing want of me?

Writing wants to be a daily presence in my life because she thinks of herself as my friend, and the more frequently we talk, the better we know each other, and the deeper we can go.

Writing wants a regular time with me. It doesn’t have to be long, or always at the same time. It needn’t be formal or at the computer or a desk, but it does need to be daily because she gets scared and shy when I don’t show up to listen.

Writing wants to be trusted. She wants to take the lead and know that I’m willing to follow, that I’ll let my imagination go and sometimes write a paragraph of fiction.

Writing wants to be in the process and the mix without criticism every step of the way. She knows there’s a time for winnowing and weeding, editing and revising, but most of the time she wants to be trusted, unfettered, and allowed to run.

Writing wants to be well fed. She knows that sometimes I want to check out and just read a good story that makes me turn the page, but she also wants slow food, some poetry, something to sink her teeth into and ponder, language that takes her breath away.

Writing wants not just the message but the way it’s expressed to matter.  She knows that happens late in the process, but she gets sad when I never return to these pieces to polish them and put them out there. She’d love to be in the world more than she is.  It’s those occasions when she puts on her silk and pearls and is admired for looking good as well as being wise.

Writing also doesn’t want to be lonely--she wants to nestle next to others, to be held and thought about in a circle of writers.

If Democracy were a Dog

The last time I saw them we were driving from Indiana to California and stopped at the veterinarian’s office to board them.  My sister and I waved as the black and white mutts we’d had for six months were led into the office on their chains.

We vacationed up and down the west coast visiting cousins and friends, and when we came home, my parents did not pick up the dogs. I don’t remember feeling sad or betrayed. Mostly, I think, I was relieved. That was the end of the Campbell family’s attempt to have pets. 

Happy and Snappy weren’t housebroken, didn’t come when called, and were never walked. My parents had little experience and less patience and skill training dogs, so these two were seldom in the house.  They slept in the garage at night, unheated in the winter, hot and muggy in the summer, and spent their days tethered on long chains on the hill beside of our house.

My job was to shovel the dog poop regularly and to get them in and out of the garage daily. More than once they got loose and ran pell mell through the neighborhood with me chasing them in school clothes.

Years later I realized my parents had no plans to collect the dogs are our three weeks away, and neither is alive to tell me if they were adopted into better homes or euthanized.

Today I have a new puppy, Lucky, who we picked up last week from my cousin. As we drove 90 miles home, I cradled his little head and  flashed to a scene years from now when I would hold my beloved companion again as he took his last breath.

Although I don’t have much experience raising a puppy, I’m going to become a skilled dog guardian, someone who sticks during challenges, who is steady and present, consistent and firm. I will have a well-trained, well-loved dog.

I believe the same is true for tending a democracy.  The United States has allowed all kinds of bad habits to develop: racism and genocide are at the foundation of this nation and we’ve never compensated for that in any way. Yet rather than work diligently to weed those traits out and replace them with rules, policies, and practices that reward our better traits, we’ve chosen a set of policies that reward greed, power, and exclusion rather than generosity, love, and inclusion.

So where does that leave us? Can we be vigilant like never before, consistent in calling out racism, sexism, violence against the working poor and those without homes, disdain for those addicted or mentally ill?  Or do we hand over this experiment in democracy to another owner? Or euthanize it?

I want to be a guardian of the basics—one person one vote, easy access to voting for citizens, fair taxation, sovereignty in our home without fear of invasion—some of which the initial revolution was based on, some of which has evolved as our thinking has evolved to embrace equality and equity of ALL.

This dog called democracy, although not perfect, is worth all our energy right now. We can’t stick it in the garage and hope it develops on its own.  And if, as those who have lived through authoritarian rulers tell us, it’s already taking its last breaths, I need to be there, having attended to it every single day.