Today is March 22, 2015. I am alive and shaking…

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…I won’t be going into why I”m so rattled, though.

I laugh because when I brought Grams and Annie home from the Humane Society they were basically feral. Now Grams is all over me most of the time. And Annie will come and snuggle up to me if I take a nap. Grams is a black fireball, always wanting to bring heat to my body. Annie is the soldier at the window, making certain we are safe. I am their mom, watching them prance around. Cats are certainly grateful.

I did not prance and was not graceful growing up. I was a gangly 6′ tall girl at 13. I left my body to spend time in my mind. I would appear to be sitting at my desk in ninth grade, but my eyes took a bow and I would be traveling by flight to Switzerland. I picked Switzerland because the Swiss seemed so beautifully neutral and anonymous. They don’t make the newspapers. There is no war in their country. I love chocolate and have a great respect for money.

While in Switzerland, I dreamt i covered huge canvases in bright colors. Today, they would be considered sister canvases to Rothko’s work. He the dark colors and me the bright. He the solemn one and me the free spirited one, a fly landing her and there and everywhere, terribly curious as to what the spot of life I live in brings. Rothko came to  a tragic end; he took his own life at a young age. I have had over ten suicide attempts in my lifetime. I am really bad at dying. It’s amazing that I will be 51 on Friday.

I live in my body today. I don’t need alcohol to do that for me like it did for so many years. My height at Christmas time is a beautiful thing; I can be in a crowded shopping mall and not suffocate.

Today is March 16, 2015. I am alive and well.

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They know she enters. Their cat eyes focus as snap dragons, their ears perk, the shape of the end of a butter knife. I take a breath in. Hold it as if I’ll be able to hear her. She is thinner than air, lighter than the flame at the end of a paper match. Death has left her to dust my desk.

I need more than cat knowledge. I need the miraculous–her framed photo to fall, my desk chair to quiver, her hands on my keyboard. I let breath out. Nothing changes in front of me. There is no mist.

But I feel her. She is warmth around my wrist. Pictures as memory–her teaching me to make a Greek salad, her on the toboggan with me, the snow not biting because she leans forward, wrapping her arms around me …I feel her coat as I do skin.

She is here as I feel the love for her. This love reaches out and comes to rest on a spindle. The love is invisible but strong. The spike of the spindle I imagine rotates like the bowl of a blender turning powered cocoa to chocolate syrup.

Mom, you make me bold. I am able to ride in an inner tube down the stream, opening into the river. I can jump off a cliff to the water below. I can write anything I damn well please. Ketchup mixing with mustard. A bare ass flashing me outside my window. President Obama not being given a warm welcome by all the vets at the Veteran’s Hospital.

Your mail came to me for a while. I don’t know how they found my address. I didn’t open it knowing you don’t need a bank account any longer. You don’t need coupons. You have no need to buy a car. Your mail made me sad. It was not you sending me letters. I miss you like I do leaves in autumn. Be at peace. Walk in the grass. Hold my love as you do fog.

Today is March 14, 2015. I am alive and well.

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Mom, why did you go? Was it Johnny tugging you into the grave. Yes, I know your liver quit…just like that, just like the pop of a champagne bottle, a very expensive champagne in the hands of a small child wed to the bottle because you can’t get off the couch for more booze. The child makes certain the ice trays are filled. I would fill a freezer full of ice for a conversation with you. Do they have nail polish where you are? Hopefully, Johnny showed up in briefs, welcoming you to the unknown–drop your skirt, unbutton your shirt, follow Johnny into the nearly naked.

I was there when they shut down the machines, keeping you lonely in a bed unable to squeeze a hand. Why did you go? Was it Johnny tugging you into the grave?

I’m glad you are free from the shackles of bourbon. I loved being your side kick…I had no idea I was poisoning you. Your reply, You couldn’t have known I was drowning. All you saw was a bed and no river.

She would say, I love you sweet. I have stopped looking in the mirror, stopped looking for the hand on my shoulder, nails painted a deep blue red.

Today is March 11, 2015. I am alive and in emotional pain.

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My world turned to fog yesterday. Have you ever been asked to do something that you don’t want to do by a person you really respect? It feels like I’m being disemboweled, my heart torn out, my body left to lay on the concrete, an unattractive rug. Why did I agree to do this thing? It’s really complicated. I am to do it for a month. I guess, simply, I want to know the lesson in what I’ve been asked to do.

Unfortunately, it involves hurting someone I love. I absorb the pain. It is a heat that spreads to my lungs, causing me to be short of breath. I want to tell my  loved one that the month will move quickly, the days a cough from someone without a cold.

My heart is heavy today, but at lease I feel it in my chest. I reach out to the one I love. I wonder if he can feel me, a brush of finger along his jaw line. This blog is my only way to communicate my love for my love. Unless of course, he opens his heart to the possibility that energy travels in thought like a blind pigeon knowing his way home.

Feel my hand at rest on your chest. The fog hovers, I know this. But I also know the bond two people share can move through tunnels, exploding into light at the end.

Today is March 7, 2015. I am alive and well.

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He’s under my skin. Not like nails being hammered into my right nostril, nor like stones rubbing into my heels because I didn’t pause to empty my shoes. He is under my sin like apricots and honey softening my elbows, whipped cream resting on my tongue.

I hear hime in my mind telling me things:  you are kind, you are compassionate, you amaze me. I have friends who tell me these same things. But my friends are not trying to make up for the wrong they have caused. They are fresh, their actions, honest.

He wants to see me. A friend told me she thought of domestic violence victims because they, like me, will not let go. Don’t read into this…he has never hit me or said unkind things to me. In fact, other than being financially in the skids, we had the best relationship…other than his lies and another woman.

I will see him again. It’s in the stars. Just like there’s a moon and the night winds whisper tuned light, a soft chord on a guitar. It will be months, maybe years before I see him. But the day will come and there will be fire in the trees, burned to the root leaving nothing to smolder.

Or, who am I. He may tire of waiting for me. I embrace my singularity. I love my friends deeply, and they, me. And then there are Grams and Annie, my kittens who nestle up to me. I am smiling. The kind of smile that is goofy but genuine. I know the wrinkles around my eyes have come to kiss the smile. I am soon to be 51.

Today is March 5, 2015. I am alive and well.

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I’m going to share my work with the 12 step from my 12 step program. I hope that I am not losing readers because of focusing at times on the spiritual. And I hope I’m not losing readers because I claim to be spiritual and not religious. If I’m losing you, please let me know that.

Step 12….having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

I didn’t wake up one morning and think or feel spiritual. It was a gradual process that occurred over a period of time while applying the 12 steps to my life.

I live with a God consciousness today. I am not the person I was when first waking into a meeting of the 12 step program. That person I was could have not stayed sober. As that person, I was anti-social, angry, untrusting, and completely self centered. I hated the person I had become. Drinking alcohol soothed me like a cherry lozenge placed on my tongue. After the lozenge dissolves, there is a little period of numbness. Then the numbness wears off and at times my throat screams louder than before.

God is a rhino, and a baby cub at peace with each other. God is to be found at the foot of my bed, inside my worn shoe, between the pages of books, and under the willow. God is to be found everywhere.

I wish I held God foremost in my mind 24/7. But my hat slips and I fall into fear and worry. I can tilt my hat at a different angle with little difficult. Sometimes I don’t think to do it so quickly, so I stew–a carrot once sliced is placed in water to stay fresh. When removed from water, it shrivels and dries out. I reach for another carrot from the refrigerator. There are none. I drive to the grocery store and find an abundance of carrots. Life is good.

I’m glad for the idea that we “practice” spirituality. It would not be good if someone said “be spiritual every minute of everyday or else the leg of your chair will break off and you will land on your ass. Every time.” How many times I wonder, before I break my tail bone.

I can give God a human personae. I believe God can take any form. God can be a mass of electrons at rest. God can exist in a handshake. I know if helium is pumped into a balloon, the balloon will float away, reaching into the sky.

Today is February 21, 2015. I am alive and well.

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Excerpt from my second book which remains untitled.

I review my day. “I continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear.” All of these things keep me from the sunlight of the Spirit. Just as I needed to drink all the time during my drunken rampage of years, I now need to align myself with God all the time. If I am loving people, even the person who stole my laundry, I am aligned with God. It is not hard to have a full heart. It’s as simple as putting on clean clothes. Most people have plenty of shirts. Most people have plenty of socks. If they get dirty or stink, they can be changed. Just as our spiritual condition is a daily thing, so are our clothes.

My writing friend doesn’t believe me when I state that having a full heart is simple. Is it hard to turn on the tap, knowing water will come out of it? Is it hard to pause when called a freak and smile at the naysayer? Smiling is timeless; it is less than a breath away.

There are people who don’t have closets. Or homes. Or showers. I have never had a conversation with any of these people, so I don’t know if they have faith. I don’t know if they have hope. I do know God sees them, too. I do know how to have as much respect for them as I do the businessman seated on the fifth floor of the library, asking me to find a particular book.

Today is February 14, 2015. I am alive and well.

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It is Valentine’s Day and I have no idea how significant this is. My friend told me it would be best to not dine at the Cheese Cake Factory tonight like I’ve been doing. she says it will be swamped with couples in love and celebrating. My friend works as a waitress there. I guess she thinks I will miss being with someone. I have been making Saturday night my date night with myself. Rather than dine tonight, I am joining Laurie for dinner at the Cheese Cake Factory tomorrow night.

I celebrate couples in love. They are petals on a new bloom. They are royalty to one another. They are not tentative in taking each other’s hand or wrapping their arm around each other’s shoulders. It is like rafting with one current, the current that has brought them together on this particular day. I salute all couples whether they be gay or straight, mixed raced or not. Love is a lovely thing. I applause Stellar and Solstice, the children of Guy’s daughter, Carrie, playing with dolls, innocent to the fact that one day they will become the doll. Andrew would call me baby doll; I didn’t find this condescending but rather special. It warmed my toes.

Guy, my ex, is still in my life. A few days ago, my dear friend, Pat, told me that she held no judgement. She said that if she ran into the two of us together, that she would be kind to Guy, welcoming to Guy. This almost brought tears to my eyes. Friends very much dislike Guy for the cheat that he was, the liar that he was. And I, I love him beyond reason. It is unexplainable I know.

Guy is no longer in Arizona but is in Florida, which is a good thing. It gives me time to love my single life (I am done with dating for awhile). It gives me time to reflect. I am a woman in need of time. I seek time. Time is a friend that allows me to think that anything is possible. Allows me to marvel at how secure I really am. I am blessed beyond belief. God loves me, and I know it. Life is here, right now, in this moment. It tastes like coconut juice and smells like sandalwood. I will go to sleep tonight as a single woman, knowing there is power in this, knowing that someday I will open my heart again and be the one to wrap my arm around his shoulder.

Today is February 9, 2015. I am alive and well.

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Today, I will leave for work at noon. I want to stop and get a sandwich from Subway. I like the egg, ham, and cheese on flat bread with two scoops of avocado. Egg whites, please. It is four dollars and eighty three cents. I know this like I know I have two sisters, one of whom I don’t talk with and have no idea if she is even in Arizona. Hunter. She is a paper bag who has been ripped open from the weight of all her own misgivings. Being a drug addict is easy. Being a drug addict is hard. I really don’t know which is true. I have never been a drug addict. I am simply an alcoholic in recovery. A drunk who has a great shot at living a happy, joyous, and free life as long as I stay sober and maintain some sort of spiritual life. God is good to me; I know there will be a next loaf of bread.

It has been good to write today. I miss Guy and the two little dogs. Writing pulls me away from missing and plops me into a dream of letters. The letters are lovely, forming words such as chocolate. Laurie, my friend and supervisor, keeps chocolates in her desk for me. Laurie is like a motorized cat, always moving quickly from one task to the next, never batting the ball entirely out of the room, but tracking it so it stays in play and ultimately gets where it needs to go even if it lodges itself beneath a shelf of books. Laurie will know what to do when this happens

Today is February 8, 2015. I am alive and well.

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excerpt from my book, Mind Without a Home

A steady breeze of smoke carries Rose to a small table in front of the stage, a leaf carved into the top. Rose puts her cigarette out on its vein.

Rose was close enough to Paul to smell his sweet, an odd mixture of alcohol and mint. Paul winks and drums charm. Rose vibrates from his gaze. Later, they will make love in the alley, Rose’s small size thrown up against graffiti, her slender legs wrapped around Paul. Their baby, Frankie, Would be conceived here.

Paul had drummed with the best in his youth. His gentle spirit and large hands beat sweet cream into rhythm that buried itself into the souls of audiences. He was sought after and he sought the high  applause  gave him. When this high was not enough, he moved on to find laughter and contentment in a battle of whisky.

He told me that drunkenness was like having a million women gently stroke his face, tickle his face, love his face.

When he saw Rose, he wanted her. His mama said “to always leave the ones alone who cast spells; don’t let your heart leap on a first glance. This kind to woman will eat you up.” Paul thinks “What does mama know? She jumped in front of a bus two years ago”. Paul didn’t make this up. Mama’s as dead as the goose that came to Christmas.

(names have been changed)