Cyber Monday!!

I Must Say!

--Ed Grimsley

Day 76 
Today I'm grateful for a silly heart.  The cap'n rolled his eyes this morning as I did my Ed Grimsley dance to the Carol of the Bells as it blared from some TV commercial at 6:30 am this morning.  He said, "I don't know which was worse the hungover morose you or this annoyingly chipper you."  F#$%  him!! 

Off to battle for a new computer this morning, it's time to give this poor old thing a well deserved rest.  It's eight years old and it's been banged about on a sailboat, dropped off of docks into a dinghy, exposed to norte's in Mexico.  Oh if the poor thing could talk. 

Anyway, I may be offline for a day while they transfer all the very important, necessary shit I have crammed on this one into a new one.

So today I'm out there just doing my best to keep the cap'n from self-combusting as he deals with the ever helpful geek techs that speak a language that they haven't made a Rosetta stone for yet.  Oh yeah!  I'm getting a new phone too, one that takes pictures.  Be still my silly heart.

Happy Sunday, Mom!



I feel like a tiny bird with a big song!

Jerry Van Amerongen, Ballard Street, 08-18-05

Day 75
I had a friend from the message boards ask me the other day whether I ever missed drinking. I had to think. I told her I spent more time worrying about or anticipating missing it than I did actually missing it. I said, “Looking back I thought I had fun when I was drinking but I didn’t have any joy. Now I have both.”
I’ve mentioned in earlier posts that I do this exercise every morning of writing my “morning pages.” It consist of scrawling three pages of supposedly random thoughts, it is supposed to spark my creativity. Lately my morning pages have taken the form of letters to my mother. Here’s what I wrote Mom this morning.

Happy Sunday Mom,

I’m sorry I haven’t written in a couple of days but don’t worry, I’m okay. I’m better than okay. It is a wonderful thing to have joy come back into my life. I hadn’t even noticed it was gone. How could I not have missed it, Mom? How did I live so long without it? It colors everything. It’s the reason I get up in the morning. I’m finding that girl I was again, probably that girl I was trying to find for so long in a bottle. I hope I don’t lose her again.

You remember her. She’s the girl that gives her husband hugs about fifty times a day because she just can’t help herself. She’s the girl that scoops Stanley, the blind killer bichon, up in her arms and dances around with him in the whirling snow. She’s the girl that makes a playlist of Christmas songs by Bing, Dean (your favorite), Nat, and Doris and sings along with them while she does the dishes. She’s the girl that calls her step daughter-in-law just to yak about a book they both read and ends up yakking with her stepson (that’s awkward since we’re only 7 years apart in age) instead and cries a little when he tells her he loves her as he hands the phone to his wife. She’s the girl who stands out in the dark in the middle of a frigid mountain night and gazes mesmerized by the stars.

She’s the girl who couldn’t wait to get up and tell you all of this, Mom. I sure missed her and I know you did, too. I know you are so happy and relieved to have your daughter back. I’m sorry I worried you for so long.

I’d better go, Mom. I can’t wait to see what this day has in store for me. Manana!
I Love You,
Kary May

Today I’m just out there doing my best to stop worrying my mother and enjoying my winter wonderland for just a few more days. Sing it, Dean!

Shopping Frenzy

Pleasure is spread through the earth

In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.

~William Wordsworth, 1806

Day 73

First off I have to say that yesterday was the least stressful, most joyous Thanksgiving I’ve ever had. That is one more milestone achieved for me, my first major holiday without alcohol was a total success and I will not worry near as much about the next one. The unknown is now known and found to be of superior quality.

Now it’s time to shop. Am I crazy? I don’t think so. I have no intention of stepping foot in one of those insane asylums we call malls or discount stores. I’m going to shop right here in front of my roaring crackling fire, with my sweats and fuzzy house shoes on, Christmas music floating through the headphones and a cup of tea at my elbow. Yeah, I know I’m going to miss all those Black Friday deals that would save me hundreds of dollars but that’s okay because what I’m shopping for shouldn’t cost much, it probably won’t cost anything at all. Obviously, I’m not shopping for the kids or grandkids, they still have the ignorant belief that things of value must have a price tag on them, poor things. No, I’m not shopping to find something for a special someone, but I am shopping for that “just right” gift for a special soul. My sober soul.

I read all the time on the message boards about members that are bored. What are they supposed to do with all of this extra time on their hands, where’s the fun in being sober? Just like my grandkids who think fun comes with a joy stick and then wonder about aimlessly whining, “There’s nothing to do” when the game is broken or, more often, when they are grounded from it, so are we drunks when our bottle of fun has been taken away from us. We’d rather whine and sulk then go look for something else to do. Yet when our kids or grandkids come to us with their complaints what do we tell them? Well, I know what I tell mine. I roll my eyes and say,” What do you mean there’s nothing to do? Go read a book. Write a story. Paint a picture. Go outside and build a treehouse or a fort. Go explore, look for arrowheads or cool rocks.” Are you getting the idea?

A sober soul doesn’t like to get bored. It whines and it sulks and it looks with longing at the liquor cabinet or the keys to the car that will take it to its favorite bar. It’s up to us to find other things to keep it occupied. Look at the list above. Do any of them appeal to a newly sober soul? Of course not, because just like our kids, all that our sober soul wants, is what it can’t have.

Too damn bad!

 How many times have you told your kids, “Fine, go ahead and sulk but go outside or to your room to do it” and when you look in on them an hour later you find them totally involved in building that fort or entranced by a book they’re reading? We have to do the same thing to our sober soul, send it outside or to its room and let it sulk until it finally decides out of desperation to pick up that paintbrush or hammer or hiking boots. Does this mean our kids will now turn up their noses at the Wii or Playstation once it’s available to them again? Unfortunately no, and we parents are often too weak or too weary to continue the battle and we surrender even though we know that the other endeavors were so much better for them. It’s the same for us drunks, if all of a sudden someone said we could drink again, would we turn our noses up at it because we’ve found something that is better for us, something that gives us longer lasting, authentic joy? I think it depends on whether we’re still stubbornly sitting on that front step or on the edge of our beds with our chins in our hands sulking about what we can’t have or whether we’ve made ourselves go out and find something better and put our whole hearts and sober souls into it. Because “it” is out there waiting for us, and "it" will fill us up with joy in ways that perpetually diminishing bottle of fun never will.

I still sulk occasionally, probably for a few minutes every day, but it’s not out of boredom. I’ve said plenty of times that there are not enough hours in the day for my sober soul to do everything it wants to do, what with my walking, writing, knitting, cooking, reading and message board chatting but keeping my sober soul busy is not enough, it wants to be enchanted and challenged, entranced and thrilled. It still just wants to have fun. It’s always asking for new things, telling me I wasted too much time. So today I’m shopping for something new for it to do, it deserves a reward for behaving so well yesterday. I’m thinking about getting it some yoga. Sure, it will bitch and moan about it and probably try to return it but I’m going to do my best to encourage it to stick with it. My sober soul needs to learn to stretch and become more limber but it also needs to learn to relax and just breathe, too. It wouldn’t hurt my sober body either.

So today I’m just out there doing my best to find something that will surprise and delight my sober soul and googling “yoga for the middle-aged and woefully out of shape soul.”

HeartFull

For each new morning with its light,

For rest and shelter of the night,

For health and food, for love and friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Day 72

Happy, Happy Thanksgiving!

Across the river, Mary stands, watching tranquilly from the riverbank. I try to make it over there on a daily basis to lay my hand on her head and ask for her guidance and a measure of her grace. I step carefully this morning when I make my way across the frost laden bridge. Fragrant steam rises from cup of tea that is warming my hands and a thick bed of pine needles cushions my footfall on the other side. I place my hand on her cold head in my familiar custom for a brief moment and then I sit down beside her to hear what she hears and to see what she sees. The sun is just peaking over the pines and washing the snow in an early morning blush. The woodsmoke is curling from our chimney. A squirrel gives chase after the bandit that stole his pinecone. The gypsy river gurgles its protest to the creaking cover of ice that holds it down and keeps it from dancing among the rocks.  The wings of a blue jay whisper in the branches above.

I had planned to write a progression of the last few Thanksgivings, starting with a boozy, slurring one spent among fellow boaters and then progressing to last year’s Thanksgiving when I was early in my pilgrimage to the new land of sobriety and my sons looked on with wary eyes as I opened the second bottle of champagne. But I don’t want to go back there. Instead I just want to be right here in this hard-won new joy and peace, with the sun shining on my face.

Today I’m just out there doing my best to be as thankful as I should be.

A Not So Subtle Reminder

Recall and reclaim the same passion for what you're doing that you felt when it was new.


Day 70


“Oh shit!” I thought as I rolled over in bed. I remembered I had got out of bed yesterday and I felt pretty good. And then it came crashing in. I drank the night before. Shit! Shit! Shit! Why???? I couldn’t remember. Still it couldn’t have been that bad or I wouldn’t feel as good as I did. I went out to the kitchen, the cap’n was already up. He gave me one of those old funny looks. The kind I used to dread. The kind I didn’t get any more. The kind I thought I’d never see again.

“What did I do?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“You don’t want to know,” the cap’n said.

“Tell me,” I pleaded, already sick at heart. “It’s worse not knowing and imagining the worst.”

The cap’n left the kitchen and came back with the black dress I had been wearing the night before. The smell of ammonia wafted up from the crushed material.

“I pissed myself?” I asked, mortified and so shamed.

How could I have let this happen again?

And now I lay there cringing in the dark, wanting to bawl. I hear a snore from the lump beside me. I sit up and look around. I’m home in my cabin on the mountain. I’ve been in hotel rooms for the last two nights. Just plain old hotel rooms with a king size bed, a microwave, and a small refrigerator. No kitchen, not even a kitchenette in sight.

“Thank God,” I whisper in the dark. “It was a dream.”

In the midst of mourning my traditional bottle or two or three of champagne that I’ve celebrated every holiday with for the last 20+years, I had this dream. I admit, I was considering that “special occasion” excuse and talking myself into just one. But I knew one wouldn’t be enough and shortly every day would become a “special occasion”, I just needed this dream to remind me. Of the shame. Of the heartbreak. Of the fear.

So today I’m out there just doing my best to conjure up something sparkly and bubbly just like yours truly plans to be on Thanksgiving Day and, thankfully, just like me it will be alcohol free. I’m taking suggestions. Someone on one of the boards suggested Ariel’s NA Champagne but I doubt I’ll be able to find that in my lovely little mountain village. They also suggested a virgin cosmo, I might have to shake that up.

Neighbor Kary May's Radio Show Cancelled

Happy "Act Like I'm Not A Drunk" Saturday.  I'm still celebrating even if I'm not doing the radio show this morning.  I'm hitting the road this morning, gonna go see the grandkid, oh yeah, and his parents, too.  It's going to be a great day, I was so excited to start starting for home I was awake at 4:00 am.

I know I've been missing my old friend, that "some beach" ETOH a little in the last couple of days but this morning as I was writing my "morning pages" I was thinking about my 50th birthday which is coming up in a few months and you know what?  I don't want to invite booze to the party.

I am relieved and overjoyed at the thought of having a sober celebration, a special day that I'll want to remember every moment of, and waking up the next morning and smiling at the memory of the day instead of grimacing with a hangover and blurry memories.  I can't wait.

You guys have a great weekend, cuz I'm gonna.

Vaya Con Dios, Carlsbad

Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos. ~Charles M. Schulz

Day 66

Well, I’m packed up and I’m out of here tomorrow, we’re taking a side trip to visit my youngest son, pregnant daughter-in-law, and the beloved grandson. They just moved to TX this week and are just settling in so we won’t stay long, I’m anxious to be back on my mountain even if it is for a short time.
I’ll miss dusty old Carlsbad, most of the last two months have been spent here and I’ve been sober the whole time so it will have a special place in my heart, there’s not many places that can claim that auspicious sentiment.

I’ll miss the little stone church and the parishioners that grew to expect this stranger on week day mornings. I wonder if they’ll ask themselves, who was the strange lady and where did she go.

I’ll miss my dawn walks along the slow moving Pecos River and the ducks that grew to expect me and the popcorn in my pockets, I wonder if they’ll wonder when the lady with the popcorn is coming back.

I’ll miss my friends I made here at the apartment complex, a pack of latchkey kids who swear I make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world.

I’ll miss the quirkiness, the pretty music lady at the church who never seems to comb her hair and the guy who rushed up to me as I was going into the bathroom at the riverwalk park yesterday morning. He handed me a roll of toilet paper and said, “They’ve been out for two days, I brought my own from home.” Now that’s downright neighborly. Weird, but neighborly.

I always seem to end up in quirky little towns, maybe it’s me, maybe it’s life.

I looked back and saw that the longest I’ve been sober before yesterday was 64 days, yesterday was day 65 for this go around. Maybe that was why I was so cranky, I was treading uncharted waters. Drinking is often compared to marriage and when you end it, you have to hold the bad memories of it close to you so you can end it, you can’t let any of those good memories creep in because they confuse you and cause you to waiver. But eventually, a few of the good ones get through and you look back and wish you would have done things differently. Maybe someday I'll learn to smile at the good memories, because there were some, but that doesn’t mean I want to go back. I don’t.

So today I’m just out there doing my best not to forget anything but still leave some of the good stuff behind.