September process

It helps when I wake at 3am and can’t get back to sleep and sit reading James Frey’s hyperbolic Million Little Pieces and then lie in the cold darkness feeling diminished and belittled and angry and useless, it helps to know that I am sober and haven’t got a hangover on top of all the uncomfortable feelings. Which are just feelings and nobody ever died from just enduring the feelings. On the other hand, many have died from attempting to avoid feelings, especially when the escape turns into a motherfucker of an addiction, as James Frey would put it. (What a pity he didn’t just tell his story without exaggerating, lying and playing for extra sympathy.)

September is getting underway, the beginning of spring and my natal birthday month, a Libra air sign of a month. Looking out of the study window I see that some of the snow on the mountains has melted, although it is still very cold.

I’m making a large white-and-blue pot of grated ginger tea, which is not tea at all but grated fresh ginger and boiling water, with a squeeze of lemon. For lunch I shall have some lentils with cumin, garlic, chilli and fresh rosemary. Is rosemary the right herb? There’s some origanum but no more coriander. When I’m not reading Frey and wanting to go out and sit over coffee wth suffering alcoholics, I’m also reading Julie/Julia, which I first read as a blog. Julie spent a year saving her sanity by cooking every single recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, one day at a time. She saved her marriage, her sanity and landed a publishing contract. I wouldn’t choose Julia Child myself (Elizabeth David or Maddhur Jaffrey or Claudia Roden maybe) but the therapeutic value of cooking is nothing new to me. I see that lovely cookery writer Elisabeth Luard has also just published a memoir recounting how living with her brilliant charming adventurous and philandering alcoholic husband, Nicholas, made her take up cooking in order to survive the terror and misery and shame of his chaos. Cooking is a metaphor for so much in life…

So I am going to spend a couple of hours working, then go for a walk in the frosty spring air, then make lunch and do some more work. And hopefully the bloodyminded mood will lift somewhere along the way.

And that the alarming new twinges of toothache will resolve themselves quietly because I can’t afford a dentist. Dentists and therapy tend to be crucial at those times when they are out of the question. The dentist may not be optional and I am going to have to ‘make a plan’ as we are so fond of saying here in Africa.

But in the meantime I can browse my recovery bloggers and borrow a little es&h (experience, strength and hope) because, well, it could be worse and any day sober is a miracle. Whether or not it feels that way.

Carrying on carrying on

Another day of trudging, a rainy and cold Sunday.

 

But I have to say that looking at the thought-provoking and intriguing artworks posted by recovery blogger ScottW in Attitude of Gratitude always gets the morning off to a good start. Art (paintings, music, literature, dance) is so core to living well, whether we are appreciating it or creating it.

And even the most piercing heartache doesn’t stop me enjoying a strong cup of coffee and a hug from my housemate. I am so lucky to be loved, really I am.

And talking of coffee, I am going to have to cut out that morning cup or two in the course of this week or I shall spend the first few days on retreat sitting with a headache from caffeine withdrawal. I don’t drink that much coffee (two or three cups a day) but strong cupfuls and enough to give me a mild pang or two of discomfort when I stop altogether. So I shall have chamomile or green tea and feel virtuously bleh.

I’d love to be elsewhere. But I’m not, and while doing a slightly chilly meditation this morning I could feel myself grounding again. The way I feel when I am sitting in an AA meeting, just there and nowhere else, listening and swelling with empathy and ‘me too’ stuff. Or that ‘Thank you God that her/his particular trainsmash hasn’t hit me yet’ stuff.

Sitting up in bed in the half-dark, paying attention and clearheaded, calm, no inner storms even though the rain and wind was hammering on the glass and rattling the front door. Sober at the dawn of another day. Thinkng: this is my life and this is all there is right now. I can go into the ‘thisness’ more deeply, I can wait for it to pass or change, but right now this is as good as it gets and this is reality. Awareness filling the bedroom like the quiet acceptance in my bpdy, that inner spaciousness I never understood.

Thinking: whatever happens today, I need not drink. I choose to stay conscious and mindful, I choose to live as fully as I am able. I choose to grow in skilful relating.

Telling myself: it’s OK, you didn’t do anything wrong, you just fell in love. It isn’t all your fault.

The breath so sly and subtle as it enters and leaves my nostrils, so cool, then warm, so gentle and soothing.

At this point I often start to ruminate with bitterness on what others have done wrong or how sad it is that I can’t seem to get my life together or to worry about the ache in my left shoulder blade and remember that the yoghurt is nearly finished and I will have to have a mingy breakfast etc, etc.

But this morning I just sat there and enjoyed being in my life and aware of myself sitting there, while the thoughts and feelings flowed in and out and my breathing expanded. Nothing to run from, nothing to avoid. Nothing to hope for, nothing to fear, everything right there in that moment. All the Maryness and Marylessness possible right there and then.

Consciousness is more interesting than I would have believed. Considering I spent most of my life desperately seeking obliviousness.

So I’m getting on with the day. Rain pouring down so I can’t walk anywhere. A leak dripping into a bucket in the kitchen, but slowly. Not enough yoghurt to moisten the muesli. But I have access to a computer, I have a house lined with books like a quilted coat of many colours, a garden spongey and green from rain — and I have a modicum of inner peace.

So I’m carrying on, just trudging and letting the feelings come and go. Our neighbours have given us four litres of freshly squeezed Eureka lemons in great big ugly jugs. And that means adding sugar, boiling it up and making lemonade, or, to be more accurate, organic lemon syrup to drink on spring evenings out in the garden. Life is blessed if I can open myself to that blessing.