Living with Sorrow

One thing you can depend on is that nothing will stay the same. Life will throw you a curve ball, a slider, a fastball you never saw coming. And everything will be different all over again.

My family got hit with a triple whammy this month. To respect the privacy of others in my clan, I can’t talk about details except to my trusted advisors. I haven’t known what to say in my blog. So I’ve said nearly nothing. But the itty-bitty-shitty committee in my head has been blabbing nonstop. I was told by oldtimers early in my recovery from alcoholism that my head is a bad neighborhood and not to go there alone. But at 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m., it’s just me and the darkness and the chatter in my head. It’s a form of torture.

I’ve tried: counting sheep; counting steps on a green path in a forest; guided imagery; breathing; prayer; telling myself imaginary stories; herbals like melatonin, valerian root; tryptophan; wrestling with God; making gratitude lists; reading; even watching late night science programs about recycling. Nothing shuts off the committee.

A nasty bug has been making the rounds here in my town, and many people are falling ill for two weeks, a month, at a time. It settles in the chest and results in pneumonia in some people. I caught it and have stayed home for nearly three weeks trying to fend off another bout of pneumonia.

I’ve resorted to watching television, catching up on films I missed in their theater releases. So far I’ve seen “Revolutionary Road” (what a wrenching movie!), “Julie and Julia” (Meryl Streep’s tour de force), “In the Electric Mist” (James Lee Burke paired with Tommy Lee Jones!), “Nell” (give Jodie Foster an Oscar!), “The Duchess” (wow!), “Secondhand Lions” (loved it!), “Flawless” (another wow!), and “Masterpiece Classics” on PBS. I haven’t watched TV in years, being an avid reader instead. But reading has become difficult. I have, however, worked my way through one-third of award-winning David Brin’s “Sundiver” sci-fi classic.

Being ill, I’ve hit maybe four or five AA meetings in three weeks, and I’m accustomed to six a week. At least for an hour in a meeting, the itty-bitty-shitty committee falls silent. So I browse through what we call the “Big Book,” AA’s textbook, and the “Good Book,” my other “textbook for living.” I’m trying to concentrate on a few passages they contain:

First, on the subject of the “magic magnifying mind” that enlarges whatever it dwells on, there is this:
“When I focus on what’s good today, I have a good day, and when I focus on what’s bad, I have a bad day. If I focus on a problem, the problem increases; if I focus on the answer, the answer increases. … I must keep my magic magnifying mind on my acceptance [of things as they are] and off my expectations [of what things should be], for my serenity is directly proportional to my level of acceptance.” [Pages 419-420]

And this from the Good Book, as it has been quaintly called:
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. … And the God of peace will be with you. [Philippians 4]

I’ve heard it said (by Robert Louis Stevenson) that any man can carry a burden until nightfall which would overwhelm him if he tried to carry it forever. Therefore, focus only on this one day, doing the next right thing a moment at a time, and leave the future in God’s hands, where it rightfully belongs. In my life at this moment, all my needs are cared for. For that, I am grateful.

Free Advice Is Worth What I Paid For It

Have you ever paused to consider what your favorite room in your home says about you? I haven't. But this morning I noticed my writing room says something loud and clear about me: I live in a land of contrasts. The beagle dog hair lies an inch thick on the carpet (neglect, messiness, who-gives-a-shit, good grief, woman, have you never met a vacuum?), but a very clean pot of sturdy pink hyacinths has landed on my desk next to the laptop (life and beauty cherished here).

I'm off to search for soul at a workshop. I'll be back.

(Friday evening, I had this to say about life-shifting events:)
Another fun-filled day on the California central coast has passed. I don't think I told anyone what they should do about their life situations today. I did listen to a few people talk in a noon AA meeting. The topic was Faith: How Do You Get It When You Don't Have It?

I'd like to know the answer to that myself.

My convoluted path to well-being. Picture me on the lower left arm of the root. Got miles to go before I sleep.

****************

I had no sleep whatsoever Thursday night because I'm in pharmaceutical transition (it doesn't matter what that's about), and I drove into town at the crack of doom with a brilliant idea percolating merrily in my head. I'm either dog-tired of paying attention to icky things, or brilliant ideas are percolating merrily.

I think my life is shifting beneath my feet. Six months ago I was a boring middle-aged poet. Today, I'm looking into "clarified breathwork" and prenatal journeying, not to mention Metsu, which I thought was a Jewish ball of bread. I am pricing a hookah. I didn't know what a hookah was two months ago. I Googled "wellness retreats" and gave thought to the physical repercussions of a "cleansing" diet. I didn't like what I was thinking but there I was, thinking it anyway.

Saturday finds me in a local college town with my 80-something friend, doing something called "Searching for Soul." The workshop is free, so why not? What was I going to do with this Saturday that is so important, anyway? I think I'm going to ride my shifting plate tectonics (see below) like a surfboard and see what happens.

(Early Friday morning, I had this to say about people offering free advice about how to Behave:)
I was in a hot tub with my best friend last night, relating the sum of my week, which I found interesting and worth the ruminating. She listened like a good friend does, and then she pointed out that the conclusion I had come to was based on a flimsy foundation. I think she said something like "You're just buying into that because it co-signs your bullshit."

My bullshit being, in this case, taking long afternoon naps and once a week or thereabouts staying in bed all day.

It doesn't matter to her why I am doing that. It matters that I am doing it. This is a common refrain from our mutual AA sponsor. All excuses are navel gazing. My friend made her observation right after I told her what the hospice grief counselor said when I bemoaned the sleeping business for preventing me from doing things I believed I should be doing. The counselor said, "You're too busy lying down." That response cracked me up. I made her write it down on a piece of paper so I could show my dearly beloved. This is a bonafide counselor, in a PhD program from a worthy university.

"In yoga," said the counselor, "savasana or the 'corpse pose' is the most important part of the session. You lie on your back, still as a corpse. That's where the healing takes place."

So this morning, after yet another sleepless night, I wrote the tale of how I feel about all the good advice I'm receiving from caring people...and did it in 55 words, so I could participate in the G-Man's Friday Flash 55. You can check out the tales other people are briefly relating here.

I decided I will file this piece under the header: Everyone knows the right path for me to walk.

The physical therapist says improve
my mobility. The doctor says exercise
like my husband; my husband says
rise early and be punctual. My friends
say don’t lie abed but fill my days.
The grief counselor says my plate
tectonics are shifting, so rest as long
as I like. Of all the voices, hers I obey.

This Is Me on Steroids

The treatment for my pneumonia requires that I take steroids along with antibiotics and inhalers. I seem to have a lot of energy, and I am in a really good mood. Here’s what I do on steroids:

Write a 2,500-word brief for a law professor that a) details the civil-rights violations of hospitalized Alzheimer victims, and b) advocates enforcement of state and federal self-determination laws by imposing punitive measures against medical facilities for violations. Compile copies of the pertinent regulations, rejoice that the guy is interested, and send the package off.

Indulge in an act of shoe repair to mend my favorite slippers.

Cross-examine an old friend, via email, who has retired to a sailboat in Mexico and fallen in love. Quiz him at length about her, the circumstances, and the emotional/philosophical conditions of falling in love with a stranger.

Make yet another attempt to concentrate on my overdue writing assignment about local charity programs during the holiday season.

Wander in the garden with the pruning shears, investigating the whereabouts of two praying mantises that live in the dahlias.

Query the family corporate attorney about the legal interpretation of certain provisions in my parents’ trust, comparing the instructions to the actual intentions of my parents.

Stand in the middle of my sunroom office and whirl my arms in big circles because it feels great.

Have AA meetings on the phone with sober friends. Explore big issues like spirituality in marriage, how to pursue a goal, and the best way to treat a sore throat.

Cope with a bedtime panic attack, afraid I’ll stop breathing in my sleep. Wake my husband to warn him of my impending death and remind him where I keep all our essential papers. Ask him to stay awake and keep me breathing. Forgive him when he chuckles and goes back to sleep.

Make a little autumn bouquet and ride into town with a friend to put it on my mother’s new headstone, taking a photo to send to out-of-town family.

Stay on top of respiratory treatments and medications. Check for improvement with my new lung-exercise toy.

Eat a gloriously crisp Braeburn apple. Then grab a few Cheetos for nutritional balance.

Tackle that overdue writing assignment again. Try to write a lead paragraph. When that fails, take the beagle for a walk. Ponder my upcoming 56th birthday. Laugh at the falling leaves. Thank God for my life.

Addiction's Different Faces

What I hope my Lady Banks rose will look like next spring.

“When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it.”

W. Clement Stone

I’ve spent the better part of the past two days in bed and now sport wrist braces on both arms because I discovered my mission and it filled me with a burning desire to get to work on it. My to-do list is down to two items and both hands are messed up. My right hand and forearm are swollen. Both hands buzz with some kind of nerve pain, and the right hand is agonizing at night. I’ve also contracted a cold.

But my Cecile Brunner rose is now an architectural beauty, and the Lady Banks rose hedges are lean, clean, and rewoven. I have conquered and pruned the tumultuous herb shrubs into tidy mounds. Parts of the house are sparkling clean.

I don’t know how to work in moderation. I have two speeds: slow and 100 mph. Some of my sober friends blame their excessive behaviors on their alcoholism. I don't know about that. I just know that today I’m thankful I can work at all. In the past two days, we’ve lost two friends to the ravages of addiction.

On Monday, a youngish woman showed up at an AA meeting after an absence of a few months, tearful and thankful to be welcomed back warmly. She had made a decision that she wanted to live, she said. She was going to start calling me, and a sober newcomer became her designated driver so she could attend a meeting Monday night and another one on Tuesday at noon. On Tuesday at noon, she was found dead.

Wednesday evening, the wife of one of my husband’s good friends called to say he had died that morning. In the past six months, his heroin addiction had robbed him of the ability to walk, to eat, and to care for himself, but he spurned the offers of his sober friends to help him. All I could think of after Janet’s call was that day, years ago, when I called him for help because my husband was in a deep depression, and he came right away to our house.

My other friend, who spiraled out of control earlier this month on an opiate addiction, has decided for now that she doesn’t deserve to ask her friends for help in her struggle to stay clean. She wants to be left alone. So we don’t see much of her. Until she reaches out for help, there’s nothing any of us can do.

More than 20 years ago, before I got sober, an unsolicited manuscript came across my desk as editor of a fitness magazine. One of the associate editors had thought it worth consideration for publication. The title of the manuscript put me off because it didn’t provide a clue what the article was about. It was called “Cunning, Baffling, Powerful.” After a glance at the manuscript, I understood it addressed alcoholism. I didn’t like it, so I passed it back to the associate editor with a rejection note.

But today I know what “cunning, baffling, powerful” means. Substance addiction is a hard enemy to fight. It can strike when you’re weak and when you’re strong. It can go into remission and return with a deadly vengeance. It can conquer a person’s willpower for life. It makes you deny you have a fatal disease. It’s insatiable. It’s never cured. We live recovery one day at a time because that’s all we’ve got, this moment of freedom from addiction.

I’m thankful for freedom today. With my wrist braces on, I put my hands together and pray.

I Fought the Rose and the Rose Won

A Cecile Brunner rosebud

I went to war against a Cecile Brunner rose yesterday afternoon and I'm not sure who won. Today I'm injured: three stab wounds in my hands, one in my arm, two festering thorns in my fingers, and a new, incredible pain that shoots from my lower back down my thighs. The Cecile Brunner looks fine. It's an antique climbing rose with canes that arc up and over the garden fence, and it's trying to take over the patio.

It started out pleasantly enough. I'm on a pruning binge after neglecting everything since my mother died. All the herbal shrubs, the sage, rosemary, and lavender that were outgrowing their spaces, got whacked in half. The stringy-looking rock rose shrub now looks like a bonsai tree, with its gnarly little branches all tidy and peppered with specks of new growth. Next to it, the Cecile Brunner flailed all over the place and seemed to beg for discipline, which I, with my pruning shears, gladly supplied. And supplied. And kept on supplying.

My husband emerged after dark to ask why I was out on the patio yelling "You suck!" every ten minutes. Cecile Brunner is a "nearly thornless rose" as they tell you in the garden books, but when you are wrestling with them, they pull thorns out of nowhere and stab you. And those thorns, I swear, are coated with some sort of poison that burns like fire when it penetrates your skin. So every time the rose stabbed me, I yelled, "You suck!" in pain.

But Joe's question sobered me up. Why was I out there after dark having a sword fight with the Cecile Brunner? I was a madwoman, that's why. The more the rose hurt me, the more I hacked at it. I had turned a helpful, peaceful act into a battle of will, and of course I was losing.

In the zen of pruning roses, you and the rose cooperate. Your job is to study the rose. The rose reveals its structural lines and you help it to grow along those lines. In struggling to dominate the Cecile Brunner, I had broken the law of thermodynamics. (Just kidding.) I had broken the social contract of the gardener and the rose, and I was being an idiot.

Living in recovery has made it possible for me to admit when I'm wrong. Likewise, when I recognize I'm doing something insane, I can stop it. Trying to exercise my will over a rose is just as disrespectful, and just as futile, as trying to exercise my will over a human being.

So I put down my shears, went inside, and nursed my wounds. Even my back feels better now. It feels good enough, in fact, now that I'm up and around, that I'm going outside to make amends with the Cecile Brunner.

Friday Flash 55

Crawling Out of Fire


The way across the desert is not by holding hands with you.
I am my own salvation. Through fire, thirst, and wretchedness,
still my feet will carry me, my hands
will claw across that no-man’s-land
to a country where upon the moss and fallen trees
the cool mist of morning rests.

If you would like to tell a tale or a poem in exactly 55 words, post it and go tell the G-Man.

The back story of this poem is that even in the cups of my alcoholism, I knew it would take my own effort to crawl out of the fire my life had become. No man was going to help me. Every relationship I had entered had ended the same way; no matter how exhilarating the beginning, it eventually wound down due to my craziness and self-medication.

I had the sense to see even in my cups that it was going to take personal work, not a love relationship, to save myself. It would be another five years after this poem was written before I found my way into Alcoholics Anonymous, and discovered a way out of the desert.

Somewhere within me burned a spark of the divine hope that perhaps there was a solution to the mess of my life, and perhaps I had enough inner resources left to stumble into the rooms of recovery. I haven't had to crawl through a desert since.

It's appropriate for New Year's Day to reflect on the thirst, the fire, and the wretchedness that plagued me in all my addicted years. Drugs and alcohol had been part of my life from the time I was 13. I was 36 when I found Alcoholics Anonymous, thanks to a few people who told me the truth about my behavior.

I've been in the fellowship of AA for almost 20 years. When I followed the program and did what was the original key to recovery, I stayed sober for a very long time. Then I drifted away and got well, and within a year or two was drunk again.

I have struggled since 2006 to get real time again. It has been a wonderful journey back into recovery, with a new perspective and new devotion to the spiritual way of life. My experiences are a great help to a number of women who struggle in AA. Everything I have gone through will be someday a blessing to someone else.

I've never been so content in my whole life. I hope my blog encourages others who are casting about for hope, that they might also leave behind the desert of their old life. We do this with the help of one another and of a tireless, relentless Higher Power, who never gives up on His kids.

God bless the coming new year for all of us who struggle and overcome, who find the great joy in the road to happy destiny.

Photo credit: sand dunes at Dubai, courtesy staff at East Tenn State University

What I Love About Furry Legs

The view from my office on Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning



We lie abed with the old dogs and listen to the wind

the children are all grown and have flown with the wind

the window is a collage of leaves washed by the rain

these are the gifts of the Magi: the scent of old dogs

the wealth of the years and the preservation of love

We lie abed with wrinkles and our sagging skin

our love windblown by the turbulence of years

imperfect and well worn The smell of it is beautiful

and your legs are soft as fur where they mingle

with mine and I pet them with my foot

as I consider rising up and bowing down

with this great gift extended to the king transformed

as we are by the hand of God

____________________________

We start off Christmas Eve with a 7 a.m. meeting. There's so much gratitude among the sober alcoholics there, even if they don't have family here, or the family is estranged, or even if they're broke, even if they're homeless. The great gift of recovering from seemingly hopeless state of mind and body is all they care about. The clubhouse in town will have marathon meetings beginning at five p.m. and it will be a safe haven for all who come.


Then we go to work, cleaning the house, dropping off or picking up last-minute thingies, getting dinner organized for our 4 p.m. traditional family supper at our house. That's another great gift. We have shelter and family and food, and many people aren't blessed with such things.


We go to church at 7 to sing the old hymns and savor the atmosphere of our church in full joyous bloom. I know I'll be singing "Angels We Have Heard on High" at some point in the evening. Back home to tidy up and stuff stockings for Christmas morning.


We are alone here on Christmas Eve night, and we wake up on Christmas just the two of us in the house. My daughter will come with a couple of others for the unwrapping of presents, of which there are a few, more than anyone needs, but it's still fun to rip the paper and find the little treasures.


God bless us, everyone, especially those who work through the night in service to others. Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night!

How the Pervert Saved Her Life

Tonya was my best friend, and she died last year of the seventh cancer that finally killed her. Tough, tall, take no shit, she was a powerhouse of a woman.

Before she died, she told me this story. In the years before she found sobriety, she lived a wild life, and this is one of those unforgettable scenes from the insanity.

How the Pervert Saved Her Life


The Pontiac Le Mans was lean and low and she sang
swing low sweet chariot as she drove
to her self-appointed date with death.
In the dead of night, in a halo of lights around a bar,
a hitchhiker waited, odiously dressed
in overcoat and hat. She screeched to a halt,
threw open the door and said get in,
take a long last ride in my Le Mans.
He got in, misreading her intent.
She tore out of there, fishtailing.
There was no moon in the mountains.
The road was a tunnel writhing like a snake
and she sang swing low, my sweet chariot
thinking of the river, the swift, mean river
hidden in the darkness below the road,
and the Le Mans carrying her home to it.
She dreamed he slid his hand between her white thighs
and she screamed in outrage you pervert!
You sonofabitch! I’m out to kill myself, and now
I’m taking you with me! He cowered in his overcoat,
clinging to the door, as she swung the wheel
of the mighty Le Mans to and fro across the road
scraping the car with roadside shrubs.
You crazy bitch let me out, he hollered at her
but she hurled her fist into his face, connecting
with his nose. He sobbed out loud. He spit blood.
She laughed. The river was coming for to carry
her home, and he, the man with the wandering hand,
would see that she didn’t go alone.
Then please he said, soft as a lover, soft as a kitten,
and something broke in her, some wild and keening
sound fell silent, interrupted. Startled,
she pulled over, turned off the car. The Le Mans
fell silent. The black mountain above them
was silent. Below, the river swept on.
He flew from the car, slammed the door,
and vanished in the dark. She sat dumbfounded,
strangely happy the Le Mans was safe.
Carry me home, she said, and turned the key.

Gosh, It’s Chilly Around Here

We had our first frost last night, and it's cold here in my sunroom. I tried keyboarding with gloves on; it was a ridiculous failure.

There have been way too many warm fuzzies on my blog lately. I think I will pick on my marriage today.

My husband and I have weathered 18 years together. It has not been a bed of roses.

Joe is getting a swollen head because lately he has been especially wonderful, and I’ve told him repeatedly how wonderful he is. He walks around here puffed up like a pigeon.

Deliberately, I am going to remember that five years ago I thought we were headed for divorce court. We had a teenage daughter and different opinions about surviving the hell of it all.

The fact is, for these two recovering alcoholics, working our 12-Step program at home proved to be crucial. I was powerless over him, he was powerless over me, and we were both powerless over that teenage daughter. But praise be, God could and would if He were sought.

When times were hard, we both remembered the vow we made in the beginning: We won’t run, or stuff our feelings, or lie to each other. Life together was painful sometimes (for years, actually), and there were phone calls to sponsors and plain old prayers (God help me!). Somehow we lived through it.

Here’s a mean poem I wrote when I couldn’t stand it anymore, when I couldn’t just grit my teeth and keep on chugging away at married life like the Little Engine That Could. It reminds me today how grateful I am that we stuck it out, that the struggle made us stronger.

Doldrums of the Weaker Sex

Orange leaves whip around in flights of fancy.
People pull on sweatshirts against the sudden chill.
The rhythms of maroon and yellow on the lawn
are rimed by white frost in the mornings.

Why is attenuate, like autumn, a lonesome word?
It is, you say, just a weak-kneed verb.
The dog wants into my private room
and without asking, you let her in.

This romance has attenuated,
shrunk so thin it’s like a fence
turned sideways and you hardly see it.
Your questions are sharp and pointed
with slender answers. Because. Who cares?
I don’t hate the dog, but I want my room
inviolate, a word more powerful than you.

Chris Alba © 2009

Gophers Suck

Gophers are God's creatures too, but when they invade my garden, they are asking for trouble. Yesterday I was all la-di-da about orb spiders; aren't they fabulous; aren't I great to admire them. Today I am totally pissed off at those rotten rodents: Gophers.

I raise dahlias. To the gopher, dahlias are like potatoes: Yum.

Found a gopher hole in the dahlias. Murder is once more on my mind. This old nature girl draws a line in the sand. I once beat a gopher to death with a shovel, myself and the neighbor lady. We laughed our as*es off: Old hippie and nurse, whacking away with our shovels long after the poor thing (ha) was dead. I think we were grossed out at what we were doing and what it said about our potential (not at all latent) for violence. Gophers deserve violence.

Apropos of that, I go tonight to my friendly neighborhood college town to do a featured-poet reading. Recovery has given me my poetry back. I had thought: too much insanity for so many years had killed what creativity I used to have. My poetry had been beaten to death by the shovel of John Barleycorn. Hallelujah for one more great gift of sobriety.

I am going to read this poem tonight for gophers everywhere who deserve to die:

The Dahlia Eater

I am the breath of life.
I breathe into the soil
and flowers bloom
where I have breathed.

Like God I touch the earth
and living things spring up.
I plunge dark matter
into the dirt and beauty
grows there.

Blood drips from my hands
and sweat drips into my eyes.
This living sacrifice
calls to the dahlias
and they rise from the dead.

When that creature
burrowed into my yard
I became something else.
I became that woman
from Babylon bent
on destruction.

I thrust poison into the soil,
my precious soil,
sifted so fine by that little
engineer, I could never
sift it so fine.

But did I feel awe? Did I feel awful
as I shoved the deadly pincher trap
into its perfect hole?
I felt bloodthirsty,
throbbing with godly vengeance.

Until I found
that soft brown body
terminally squeezed,
I never knew death
could be so hilarious.

Chris Alba (c) 2009

Prickly People Need Love Too

My husband and I have noticed that marriages between strong personalities tend to have moments of prickliness in them, which people survive when they practice forgiveness and tolerance of each other's character defects.

It's harder to practice a good recovery program at home, where we somehow feel free to let it all hang out. It's easier to be a good AA in meetings than it is to be a good member of AA when your partner annoys you.

My husband and I are both strong personalities. He is a self-confessed control freak, and I am often stubborn. We struggled for years to learn how to have mercy with each other, keep our side of the street clean, and grant the other person the right to be wrong.

But he's been sober for 22 years, and I've been sober for 16 out of the past 19. We've grown together. Forgiveness of ourselves and each other has become second nature, except when we have the usual sort of heated words that crop up when somebody's being a butthead. We made a promise to accept each other as the way we are, warts and all.

One day, when it was it his turn to be a butthead, I wrote this poem:

Cactus Love

A work of art the cactus is
a hymn of symmetry
a prick and proud to be

How primal yet complex it is
austere, yet blooms appear
delicate but severe

Compelling is this crown of thorns
it makes you want to touch
but pain results from such

It sounds like you, the cactus does
a fearsome man apart
yet beautiful at heart

Chris Alba (c) 2009

How Torture Turned Into Love

Coffee Love
Love has everything to do with coffee in our household. Joe loves me through coffee as thoroughly as he loves me in all the conventional ways.
When I arise in the morning, he has prepared my Mr. Coffee so all I have to do is touch a button. He does this at 4:30 a.m. while he readies for the gym. It is, for him, a loud and clear statement of his cherishing me, as clear as a diamond ring.

I receive that gift each morning when I rise at seven. Most days in my self-centeredness I fail to appreciate the fact that all I need to do is press the Brew button. Only occasionally do I pause and marvel at the love within a simple pot of coffee. For so long has he loved me this way, I forget that love is what fills my coffee cup.

I once thought love was a verbal declaration. If a desirable man spoke it, I pursued that man to the ends of the earth just so I could hear that soul-nourishing phrase again and again.
I repeatedly failed in such pursuits.

The men I tracked hightailed it to the hills for good reason: I pursued a man long after he grew tired of saying the magic phrase, long after I ceased to be the wonderful woman who warranted worship. I think I tried to lay hands on men who wanted miracles, forgiveness of sins, fine meals out of soda crackers, and other suitably godlike acts.

Hungry for love, I was a she-wolf in search of a meal. I thought love was a compulsion to worship and have riotous sex. The words were the nourishment I craved.

It was only through numerous miserable escapades that I became willing to adjust my concept of love. When I met Joe, I learned to recognize both my humanity and his. Our love is a desire to be kind, to accept calluses and farts, to find comfort in one another’s company.
The love expressed in that morning cup of coffee has the freedom of kindness within it. I shake my head in wonder at the love in the man. Then I drink my coffee. I drink it all.



Tracking

Twilight falls on me
belly to cold ground
nose pressed to the
imprint of your foot
searching for the
scent of you.
I am in hot pursuit:

However cold grows your trail
I’ll not abandon it.
I am the shadow
which trails behind.
I shall lay hands on you.



Chris Alba (c) 2009

I Used to Love Torture

Once upon a time, I was addicted to bad relationships. I must have loved torture.
Today I'm grateful that I can choose to have healthy relationships with people. Today I'm grateful to be in recovery, where I have learned everything I know about living life fully and making good decisions.
You know what tortures me today (besides everything that's evil in the world)? Those stupid tags they stitch into clothing, at the neckline, on the waistband, where they rub your tender skin. Who decided that stitching labels to clothing with fishing line was a good idea? Who decided that tags with sharp edges were just the thing to put on a neckline and a waistband? Whoever invented those stupid tags should be sentenced to wearing them all over their body, all day, all night, rubbing, irritating, torturing their stupid hides.

But enough of that. Let's talk about bad relationships. I've had my share. Drama and pain made me feel alive. Shoot, I actually thought suffering was artistic. LOL
I was such an artist at tortured relationships that I wrote this lyric poem about it (Warning: This poem contains rhyme!):

She Must Have Been a Masochist

Gentle jailor, blessed foe,
If you broke this yoke I would not go,
Nor would I were the lock ajar,
The cuffs uncuffed and the lash laid low—
If free of such, I’d not fly far
Before I craved the clutch of iron and chain
And my cold bed, where I have lain
And carved my name in stone
More nights than stars have known.
I know no home beyond these bars and claim
No wish to flee. I can’t abscond.
I have no lord but thee. Your scepter whip
Your reins and key are instruments of sanity.
What meaning lies in the land beyond?

Though my cellar be severe,
Sweet warden, all is clear in here:
These black shackles bond
My pale arms where they belong.
Had I not their iron grip, how should I stand?
How should I know the sun had dipped
Beneath the edge of land, without that
Slanting scrap of light?
How should I sense without your whip
To cut me as it kisses,
To burn me as it lays me bare,
Pealing has it hisses through the air?

My nerves have come to love the pain.
My neck would break without the chain.
I choose it so. I bear your mark.
My eyes have grown to love the dark.

Chris Alba (c) 2009

Cracks in the Ground

One of the oddities of the 6.5 earthquake we had here a few years ago was the humongous crack in the ground that opened up in the countryside. It was two blocks long and about 15 feet wide.
Cracks in the ground open up interesting possibilities. A child might ask: What if you fell into a crevasse and wound up someplace like China or Wonderland?
People fall into crevasses far more often than you might think.

Uncle Otto at 90 years old was a spry, wizened man smoking a pipe at a family reunion. Right in front of my eyes, he fell into a crack in the ground: a time warp in which decades drop away. Suddenly he was a boy again in Montana:

“In the dark before dawn, it was 20 below. I walked behind the wagon to keep warm, a young boy feeling sorry for myself. I can still hear the sound of the iron wheels crunching in the snow.
“In the manor where I live, there are 135 old people. I gaze at their faces. The women, they must have been beautiful once. Now, like the rest of us, we aren’t so attractive. But the beauty was there…”
Time is a crack in the ground that you can pitch headlong into, and you find yourself being somewhere different from where your body stands. Memories are like that.

Sometimes cracks in the ground open up when you’re walking through hard times.
One minute, for example, something troubles you, weighs on you like an iron wheel around your neck. You’re shackled to your worries. Then suddenly you fall into a wonderful crevasse.
You open your eyes, and beauty is there. Trouble has vanished in the soft sloughing of waves on the sand…the wheeling flight of sea birds…the irresistible desire to run your fingers through the pebbles on the beach in search of sea glass.
If you are worried today, may the ground open up beneath you, and may you tumble into a blessing.

Trial by Fire

My marriage, 18 years strong, has not been all sunshine and roses. Both Joe and I had our fair share of failures before we met (in an AA meeting), but those prior failures proved to be our greatest asset when we were courting.

"I don't know how to have a healthy relationship," Joe told me. "Maybe if I do everything the opposite of how I've done it in the past, I'll do the right thing for a change."

We made an agreement: We will not run, stuff our feelings, or lie to each other. In the early days of dating, that agreement kept us going when old behaviors and old patterns of thinking threatened to do us in.

Our 12-step program gave us a good model to follow, and our agreement gave us compelling reasons to stay and tell the truth, as well as to be responsible for our own thoughts and feelings as we inched through the minefield of courtship and then marriage.

When my lifelong battle with depression struck again, and I went through a bout of drinking after 14 years together, Joe stayed and asked the most loving question: "What can I do to help?"

We survived, and I got sober again. Our agreement stood us in good stead through the perils of step-parenting, the death of Joe's parents, the normal disagreements of two married people. We have grown together and independently. Joe has said that the real secret of a happy marriage are four little words: "Honey, I was wrong." We have learned to practice forgiveness, of ourselves and of each other.

One of my meditation books this week used a sailing metaphor for the ups and downs of life. In sailing, one of the worst enemies is the dead calm, which leaves you dead in the water. Every bit of "turmoil" in the air is the sailor's friend. Our faith, said the meditation, is always at its greatest point when we are in the middle of the trial--the tumultuous wind that sends the boat scooting along to its destination.

Joe and I enjoy our periods of becalmed waters, when life is utterly serene. Then the wind of a trial stirs the air, and our sailing skills go to work. These trials make us better sailors and carry us further along on our journey. The storms exercise our faith in each other and in our Higher Power.

I remember that as I cope with my demented mom, with clinical depression, with an eating disorder, and with the other trials and turmoils that beset me.

Here is a poem composed when I was beset by problems caused by living life on life's capricious terms, and when my marriage and my faith were my sources of strength:

Powem

oh your smiling face
zzzts like a spear
into my chest
strikes my heart
stretches it
wide as a smile
I feel it
in my toes

Chris Alba (c) 2009

My Demented Mom

My mother is 78, and following two hip replacements four years ago, she very quickly developed a form of dementia characterized by zero short-term memory. As her cognitive function deteriorates, she has developed child-like behaviors and a loss of verbal skills. She also became a quilting machine, sewing quilt after quilt of cut-up jeans and fabric squares.

She sewed so many quilts, we three adult children struggled to find homes for them all. They went to the women's shelter in bulk; they went to the hospital; they went to the homeless and to Africa on missions. They went to the police department and to skid rows in L.A. and San Francisco, and they went to homes of unwed mothers.

This year, the quilts began to shrink in size, from twin-bed dimensions, to baby-blanket lengths, and now they have diminished to the size of large placemats. Mom's ability to do the math required by quilting has vanished. This past month, she can't remember how to run her sewing machine.

Watching my mother's mind collapse inward is painful for me, her only daughter. She ran a business for 25 years, until she was over 70. In my childhood, I was afraid of her brisk, no-nonsense personality; now I am afraid of her childlike innocence. She asks me how to dress. She asks me, "Is this my purse?" She says, "Thank you for taking care of me."

Mom lives in assisted living with five other women who need elder care. I take her out every Wednesday on a field trip to real life, and she marvels at the sky, the hills, the breeze in her hair. To battle my sadness, I practice the attitude of gratitude that seems to be a secret of success in life. Her cognitive function may be shrinking like her quilts, but her joy in living has grown.

Sometimes Mom can make funny little jokes that are quite lucid. One day in January, I carefully explained to her that it was an important day in the church calendar: Epiphany. She listened to my explanation, then said, "Oh, I have epiphanies every morning. I wake up and realize, 'Here I am again!'"

And here is my poem about my mother's dementia, written on one of those sad days:

The Waiting Room


I sit here with my mother
feeling like a parent
hush, keep your voice down
don’t talk to strangers
stop squirming in your seat
why don’t you read this nice magazine

Oh, Mom,
where did you go?
I watch you browsing Newsweek
and you show me the pictures
You exclaim over Highlights
studying the hidden-objects page
You speak loudly of the fat lady
three seats over as if she can’t hear you

I can’t hear you anymore, Mom
You referred to yourself
as an aged child today, the first
truly lucid thing I’ve heard you say
in months. I’ve had better conversations
with my three-year-old grandson
yet you and I once explored
the whole wide world together

I wish I had known the last good talk
we had was the last good talk
we ever would have, so I could
remember it down to the last detail
With bitterness I’m at war
with your frontal lobe, and your
temporal lobes are my enemies

We wait here in this room
for the doctor to pronounce sentence
on your disintegrating brain.
It could always be worse,
and how much worse it could get
he will tell us, a word I use politely
for it is not us he speaks to, but to me
for you are lost in the fairy tales
of childhood once again
and I am left behind to sweep up the pieces.


Chris Alba (c) 2009

Dusting

Are you a collector of things? Do you dust them? I collect glass eggs, stones, seashells, books, flower vases, and way too much stuff. They abide in etageres in the living room. For a month I did not dust.
It took two days to thoroughly clean the things and oil the wood underneath them. When I finished, it was beautiful.
I look for lessons in the ordinary stuff of life. Both my husband and I are in a 12-step recovery program, and we've learned that our level of serenity is directly related to the actions we take, or procrastinate on, or altogether fail to take.
I marveled, when I was through dusting, at a couple of things: a) all the stuff I collect is worth very little monetarily but sentimentally worth a lot; and b) why did I procrastinate so long when the joy of the finished product was so satisfying?
Isn't it simpler to just do it? Every day I wait is one more day I could have enjoyed the fruits of my labors.
The ultimate in simplicity would be to stop collecting beautiful glass eggs and get rid of those I have, but I'm not ready for so extreme a step. Instead, I wrote a poem, with acronyms, about dusting:

Dust

Damned if it is a measure of your life’s worth that
U have more tchotchkes than books
Stultifying on your shelves, a grim reminder
That all things arise and return to it

Diminishing, finally, to a collection
Unified only by its ridiculous paucity of value
Someday your grandchildren will not be
Thrilled to inherit its archaeological zilch.

Chris Alba (c) 2009