Just Swell.

I don't have much to say about my life lately. It's all going well. It's all just swell.

There are things that could be better, of course. I could make some more money. My husband could get a job. I could work out some kinks in important family relationships.

But overall, I'm happy. I am in love with my husband, and I feel loved by him. I have great friends. I have wonderful tools, and I'm learning to take better care of myself every day. There are fun things on my horizon...friends visiting, weddings, events. I am looking forward to these things. I am even thinking that my husband might be able to participate...which is exciting. He's never had it together enough to be able to come with me to a wedding or to visit family, and the idea that he can be my real date, a real boy, is exciting to me.

I am happy. I am comfortable. Today, I have enough. Thank God.

Fried.

I am fried. I'm not writing well. It's sucky.

I have a huge project that I'm trying to finish that was due on Monday, and it's been eating my brains. I have decided that today, I'm going to work on other projects and let the big, soul-sucking one lie for a bit. I hope this helps.

I'm not sleeping well. I'm not going to yoga. I'm not doing much besides sitting in front of my laptop in a questionable state of sanitation, writing.

One thing I have been doing in the midst of it all is keeping up my meditation practice, and it has served me well. Having a few minutes to be quiet and to notice my state has helped me to stay aware and to recognize that I'm doing a bad job at meeting my own most important needs. I have had a few experiences this week in meditation that have been powerful, and one last night has given me some insight into the way I'm working.

God gave me a gift with words, and I honor that gift when I use it well. It serves me; it is how I make my living. It is how I serve others. It is how I soothe myself when I'm struggling. However, when I exploit it like I'm doing right now, I don't honor that gift. I've got to learn to slow down and take my time to avoid exploiting this skill. I need to nurture it so that I can use it to nurture me.

Prayer and Meditation.

I have been focusing on meditation after having a really wonderful experience meditating a few weeks ago, but I have had less success with being able to pray. I have had a few different kinds of prayers over the last few years while struggling with my reactions to my husband's addiction. Most often, my prayers are centered around the themes, "Help me! Help me! Help me!" or "Please help my husband!" Sometimes, I have prayed in gratitude when I've broken through some barrier, and after working the steps the first time, my prayers have frequently reworded the 11th step..."God, please show me your will for me and give me the power to carry it out."

Last night, though, I recognized something new...

When I pray, it can function similarly to my meditation. When I sit to meditate, I am trying to quiet my mind, and the way I quiet it is to bring awareness to my thoughts. If I start to have a sexual thought about my husband, I can label it as "desire," and come back to my breath, my mantra, my center. If I have a thought about a resentment, I can label it as "aversion," and again return to quiet. Once I shine some awareness on my thoughts, they tend to dissipate, and I find some peace and stillness within myself.

If I apply these same principles to prayer, then, I can shine a light of awareness outside myself. I found myself praying last night, and the thoughts that came to my mind were all extensions of loving kindness to people who I love. I thought of my husband, and I brought my attention to hoping that he is able to follow God's path for him, and that the path will include some healing. I thought of certain members of my family and friends, and I bathed them with similar loving wishes. I thought of my students, and I wished them success in finishing the semester and hoped God would guide them to breakthroughs in their work. It felt so good that I even thought of some the people I like least in the world, and wished them peace and a softening of the rough edges of life.

I've heard many times that meditation is listening to God and prayer is talking to God, which was a helpful starting place...but this new understanding of meditation as an inward-facing concentration of loving kindness and prayer as an outward-facing concentration of that same energy helped me understand it all in a new way. I'm excited.

Spiritual Shopping Spree.

Today was my second meeting with my guru, and I am very excited about one particular suggestion of his to enhance my meditation practice. He recommended that I get a set of clothes that I use only for meditation, which sent me on a giddy shopping spree for my perfect white light outfit. I had $25, so I headed to a discount store to see what I could come up with.

I started out in the exercise section, but nothing was quite right. Fortunately, though, the exercise section was right by the pajama area. I never wear pajamas, preferring either to go naked or to wear an old t-shirt to spending money on sleeping clothes...but there, in the pajama section, was a selection of the most ridiculous, beautiful, outrageous daishiki-muumuu looking things I've ever seen. They are long, one-size-fits-all kind of things, and they were only $8 each. It took me a while to settle on which one looked most meditative, but I settled on a black, silky number with a peacock design that has beautiful red, blue, and purple feathers.

Since I only spent $8 on the meditation outfit, I had plenty left over for additional spiritual accouterments. I got a beautiful black box with a Buddha on top. It's going to be my God Box now. I also got a set of candles and a pretty, sparkly candle holder.

I can't wait to get home and set it all up!

Meditation

I was meditating tonight in the bathtub. I like to meditate there. It's safe and warm and quiet. There aren't dogs around poking me with cold noses or wet kisses. I always visualize things in the bath tub. I'm not sure why.

Tonight, I couldn't focus on the quiet. I kept hearing the words to songs, kept wanting to sing along, kept thinking about how much I'm hurting and how afraid I am. The voice that sometimes speaks from the quiet, still place said to me, "Go ahead. Sing. Think. Feel. I'll still be here."

So I did. I thought about my worst fears. I thought about what it would feel like if my husband were to die. I thought about how awful I'd hurt if he were to kill himself or overdose or otherwise die tragically. I pictured his body, broken and cold. I pictured myself looking at his dead body. It hurt awfully, and I weeped and moaned, but behind it all was the quiet voice.

It was still there. I was still ok. I was hurting, but I was still ok.

Then I thought of how awful it would be if my husband found another woman to take him in. I thought of the terrible betrayal and the heartache. I pictured him with his hands all over another woman, and I felt the rage and sadness fill my heart...but again, the quiet was still there. I could still feel myself being carried in the palm of my God's hand. I knew I'd be ok.

If you can't accept it or enjoy it, stop doing it.

I just finished Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth last night. I've been reading it for a while, kind of in between other things I've been reading, and through the peaks and valleys, I've found a lot of things that helped me re-think my choices and re-view my life. In many ways, it felt like reading familiar material put into new words...and not in a bad way.

You can find the rest at The Second Road.

Passion vs. Peace.

In this second go-round with the Steps, I've had something of a discovery of my understanding of what this lesson with addiction might be teaching me.

So I have this Higher Power, and I've been learning to turn my fear, my distrust, and my pain over to this Higher Power. In exchange, I have found some new space within myself for peace. I have found comfort in being alone and the sure sense that no matter what happens to my marriage or to my husband, I am going to be ok. Through this sense of peace, I have found a portal to get away from pain. If I truly get centered in myself...truly let go of all my desires for things, for my husband, for my marriage to follow the path I'd set out on initially...I can avoid much of the gut-wrenching pain that has consumed my life. I find contentment, quiet, stillness...

The catch, however, is that I also give up my bliss. I give up the moments of ecstasy for a lifetime of satisfaction and contentment. I give up the passion that leaves me speechless, the love that makes me breathless. I exchange a couple of tiny, impossibly beautiful diamonds for a lifetime of wheat.

I'm not there yet. I still want my bright and shiny. I'm not ready to give up my highs to get away from my lows. I want an in-between, and I'm coming to believe that it isn't possible...I can have peace with no pain or passion with pain.

My Bell

My very special blog BFF recently sent me a present. It's a beautiful Japanese bell, quite like the one in the picture. When you bang it with the pretty wooden stick, it makes a wonderful, resonant sound, and it reminds me of the way there are angels that seem to sing when people say "Om" together before a yoga class.

I was showing it off to my husband, and you can read the rest of the story at The Second Road!

Geese.

I had another evening of sitting by the lake tonight, and I found myself surrounded by geese. Apparently, my break time is also dinner time for geese. They came all around me, and they were making these quiet, gurgling noises.

I'd always been a little afraid of geese. An ex of mine was afraid of them because of a bad experience as a child. He'd been chased and bitten. All my previous interactions with geese left me anxious. Some of them hiss. Their beaks are black and strong.

Tonight, though, I insisted that my fear be quiet. I sat still, and the geese came all around, rumbling in their throats. They ate grass, and they looked at me. I liked their black feet. One of them kept stretching out his leg and his wing at the same time, balancing on one foot. It made me giggle. None of them hissed.

I decided to look up what the presence of geese might mean, what my outside might be trying to manifest to teach me about my inside, and I found this Mary Oliver poem, which I've read before, but I don't know when, where, or why. It makes sense why I'm reading it tonight, especially the first four lines:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Bird.

At one of the places where I work, there's this big artificial lake behind the building. It's always been kind of annoying to me in its juxtaposition with a large, corporate building. There's a few ducks that live there, and a few other birds that fly in and hang out.

I get a break halfway through my shift, and a few nights ago, I sat in my car and stared at the lake. There were a lot of dragonflies, flitting around, skirting the edge of the water and fighting or fucking each other. I liked their big eyes and delicate, strong wings. I was almost late getting back to work I'd enjoyed watching them so much.

Tonight, I sat down on the edge of the lake during my break to watch the dragonflies up close. It's only twenty minutes, but I'm finding that I don't have many twenty minute blocks to myself these days. Taking that time required a little commitment to escaping from all the people who need me, to turning off my phone, to stepping away from the computer, and it did my mind a world of good.

A big, blue heron-y kind of bird came flying in across the lake. It was sort of gawky in that long-necked bird way, but also sort of elegant. It settled in a spot beneath trees and stood on one leg, moving up and down every now and then. Its head moved around, side to side, and it stared at the water. After a while, it spread its long, strong wings and flew off. A storm was coming. I wonder where it was going.

That bird was a messenger to me. I can't articulate what his message was, but I felt better for watching him for a while. Isn't that odd?

What's Your Specialty?

When people ask you what you do for a living and you respond, "I'm a writer," the question often follows, "What's your specialty?" Nice girls respond with nice words like, "I write copy!" or "I review movies!" or something, anything, other than what I say.


Someone asked me recently, and it was all I could do to keep the word "Addiction" from flying out of my mouth. I actually choked on the word, stuffed it back down my throat, and responded with something like, "I write personal essays..."


Addiction: it's become my area of expertise. Specifically, I'm quite knowledgeable in writing about heroin addiction, and even more specifically, my husband's addiction to heroin. If there were only a job that would pay me well and give me benefits to write about my husband's addiction to heroin, I'd be a great candidate. I bet I'd get a promotion quickly.


I'm trying to diversify a bit, to expand my writing portfolio to include subjects that lie outside the circumference of my own asshole. I'm not good at getting outside of my comfort zone. Or more accurately, I prefer to stay within my discomfort zone. My life isn't comfortable at all. It's comfortable in its discomfort, and it's what I like to write about. Other subjects seem kind of dull, lackluster.


I don't know where I learned that pain is exciting and glamorous, and I don't know how to unlearn it. I guess it's getting better, and I'm getting better at taking care of myself and pursuing healthy, loving activities and people in my life. Still, though, sometimes all my recovery hoohah and spiritual blahblahblah kind of makes me gag.

I don't know.

I'm Better.

I'm better. We talked a lot. I think he heard me, and I think I heard him. Neither of us is going anywhere tonight and probably not any time soon. We're real fucked up, crazy people, but we're also fucked up, crazy in love. It hasn't stopped. I can't take my eyes off of him when he's in the room with me.

Sometimes I think the story of my life will be a battle between passion and spirit. Tonight, passion is winning. Passion usually wins with me.

A Small Peace.

At the last meeting I went to, I spoke about my struggle with resentment and my suspicions that I was clinging to anger because I am afraid of sadness. A friend advised me to pray and spoke about her own experiences praying for and receiving relief.

So guess what? I tried it. It worked.

Imagine that! I can ask for help, and receive it! I don't have to do everything on my own! I asked for help processing my anger and sadness about our present situation, and I woke up the next day with a profound feeling of peace. We have had a lovely weekend. I am still afraid, and there is still a lot of big stuff coming that promises a lot of hurting...but I had a weekend of peace with my husband. That was a small miracle.

It amazes me sometimes how quickly I can forget everything I know. I go to meetings. I work my steps. I call folks in the program when I'm struggling. I do all the stuff I'm supposed to do, and yet when things get messy, it's like I've never heard of a higher power. It's like I never learned about detachment, never read about choosing my own attitudes and emotions.

I am also recognizing that I struggle with the spiritual side of the steps...the spiritual side of me. I am having a hard time asking for my higher power to help me because I'm not sure who my higher power is. I've been working on finding out who it is, and I've had some realizations about what I think about this God...I am struggling with reconciling my emerging understanding of God as being the universal, eternal element of myself, that quiet place that I can turn to within myself when the world gets too loud, too complicated...with the idea of an external being that I can speak to directly and ask for help.

And maybe I'm making a mistake by trying to understand. My mind has stood in the way of my spiritual side for a long time, so maybe I should keep my mind out of it...just listen for the quiet when the inward-manifestation of God is helpful and turn outward for help when I'm not able to find the quiet in me. I honestly don't know, but I know that asking for help in a few urgent words worked to bring me some peace in a difficult time.

I am afraid that I might be facing the hardest part yet. It's been a lot of uphill in this adventure with my husband's addiction, and I keep thinking that the ground will get more level just around the bend. What is coming up is potentially the steepest part yet, and I'm terrified for both of us. I am sorry to be cryptic, my friends. I would probably be really annoyed if someone whose blog I read suddenly had a big secret. As soon as the time is right, I'll spill the whole story...and I swear it's not just a machination to get more readers with a Dickens-like chapter ending.

OK. Time to try to go to bed. Goodnight, folks!

Art by Atul Sharma

Are You My Mommy?

When I'm most upset, I find myself often crying for my mother. Yeah. I cry for my mommy. I do. I cry, and I cry, and in the midst of it, all I want is my mom. Or I think I want her. I think I want her, the actual lady with the soft hair and the nice face. But then, again, I don' t know.

The actual lady is nice in many ways. I've never doubted her love for me. I've also never felt that I'd ever be able to make her happy. I've also spent years of my life repairing the damage that her anger did to my insides. I'm still working on it.

I'm not sure, today, that what I want is her. I'm not sure what I want, which is scary, because it means I don' t know where to go to find it. I'm fairly sure that she, my mother, the actual woman, is not a tool for my recovery. I'm pretty sure that she hurts me.

What do I want? I want love. I want the kind of love that is maybe from a mother, the kind of love that doesn't have a price. I want to give that love, and I want to receive it. Sometimes I get close to filling up that space in myself. I was close for a moment. I think it's god, it's that diamond that is at the center of my heart. It's me, my inmost me...or maybe it's not that. I think I've got that part of my spirituality...the part that is inside me, that is quiet. That is the part that I can call on when my world is in the most turmoil to find quiet and peace, at least for a second. That is where I find the eye of the storm of the rest of me...

But tonight, it seems like that quiet place is a half of something. There is an outside thing, an outside other half to the thing inside of me. There is a Mother that I'm seeking. It's the God that I'm seeking, that I can't quite see and hear. It's the thing outside myself, connected to the thing inside myself, that is protecting me, that I want to trust is there...but that I can't feel. I want to know this Mother. I want to follow her will. I want faith and confidence in her love. I want to know that all the things that are happening to me right now are part of a plan...but I don't trust it yet. I don't hear it, and I don't see it, and I don't feel it, and as much as I want to, I'm not sure of how to let go. I'm not sure of how to hear the response from the person I'm crying to when I'm asking for my mom, my Mom. It's like there's something there, guarding the portal to what I most want and need.



Photo Credit: Cathy Rositano

Be Still.

"Be still, and know that I am god. I shall be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth."

-Psalms 46:10

I love it when I find these little tastes of the god of my understanding in the Bible. I need to make time to meditate. I hate it when I'm too lazy or busy to take proper care of myself. I hate it when I don't know if I'm too lazy or busy...you'd think those two wouldn't overlap so strangely.

I had trouble sleeping last night. I had trouble being still. My mind goes, and goes, and goes, and I seem to be lacking skills in turning it off...and no wonder I don't have skills in turning it off. I don't practice.

My goal for myself is to try to find 20 minutes twice a week, at least, to sit in stillness, to lose my focus, and to find that soft place inside myself that is most precious and true...to be still and know.

God Stuff

I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embacing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart--
oh, let them take me now.
Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God, spend them however you want.

-Rilke

I was listening to Tara Brach lecturing about Radical Acceptance this morning, and she quoted this bit from Rilke.

Rilke is one of those poets I sometimes turn into a fiend over...my entire being will be gripped by my profound need for a Rilke poem. Now I have a new one to add to my Rilke supply.

And once again, how funny to find these words when I'm in the midst of my own adventure with finding and defining my own Higher Power! I'm reading the Bhagavad Gita, practicing yoga like a god-thirsty madwoman, praying and looking and seeking the loving kindness and acceptance of something bigger than myself, something with answers better than the answers I've come to on my own.

My answers are bad answers, and I need help finding the right ones. I like it that everywhere I go, I find little sign posts indicating I'm on the right path.

Krishna Das Is My New Boyfriend.

And I don't care what you have to say about it.



See and hear more here.

I Need To Believe That Something Extraordinary Is Possible.

I found myself trapped in a situation today with nothing to do except watch A Beautiful Mind. I'd wanted to see it for a long time, but I had no idea how moving it would be, or how apt for this particular moment, or how much I'd identify with that Alicia character and her love's infinite stickiness.

Through her child being nearly drowned and her husband's near-attempts at murdering her, she held on. She loved.

Two of her quotes were just right. There was that quote in the title of this post: I need to believe that something extraordinary is possible. Indeed, I need to believe that something extraordinary is possible...that my husband can beat the odds against heroin addicts getting clean, that the sweet, creative, strong, centered man I fell in love with will win this battle against the drug addict that's leaching off of him. I need to believe it. I need to have faith that my love for this man isn't bottomless, pointless.

I also really liked it when Nash's friend was asking her how she was doing, and she started explaining that her husband's delusions had subsided. I do that. Folks as me how I'm doing, and I say, "Well, we're through the worst of the withdrawals," or some other such foolishness. If forced to say how I'm doing, I have to pause and really remember what's me as opposed to what's him.

But when she finally says how she's doing, it's something like:

Sometimes, what I feel is obligation, or resentment towards John, or God. But sometimes, I force myself to look at him and see the man I fell in love with. And when I do that, I become the person who loves him. And for now, that's enough.

I related so much to her, her frustration and her tenacity. When she was watching him go through the agony of electric shock, wondering if the man that she loved was really in that body, was ever really in that body, or ever even really existed in the first place...I know that place. It's a bad place.

I couldn't help but wonder, though, at how much I seem to be getting the same message pounded into my head, again and again:

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. Be patient and LOVE.

Some Promises.

Having grown tired of looking to other folks to keep their promises, I've started a little collection of promises to myself. They're small things, but they're mine, and I'm going to do my best to keep them. I'm going to list them here so that I have a little accountability:

1. I'm going to walk my doggy every day. She needs the stimulation, and I need the quiet time. Today, I walked her and tried to talk with somebody or something like a God-like person or place or thing.

2. Every day, I want to try to talk to a God-like person or place or thing. In today's effort, I did a great job of weepishly wishing for wonderful things to happen for my friends and my enemies. I smugly, sweetly wished for the people I most loathe to have long, happy lives. I sweetly, truly wished for all kinds of folks to find peace and security and serenity and fulfillment. I didn't have a lot to say for myself. I'm going to work on that.

3. I'm going to try to do yoga at least 3 times a week, and preferably in the morning. It's nice in the morning.

4. Every day, I'm going to write at least a few lines of poetry. It's ok if it sucks. It will get me back in the habit.

AA