Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

The commander cleared her throat and stuck the facts to the board. What they knew could be counted on one hand: the victim’s false identity, modest career, lack of close relationships, and his time of death.
She’d never been efficient at managing her emotions, still locked up for a few seconds when she passed that yellow tape, somehow worse after the promotions from 15 years of noticing how and why people kill. TV makes her and her colleagues look like observant rockstars, using clues and a penchant for puzzles to rid society of her worst. But that wasn’t the case, if you’ll forgive the pun — the solve rate was abysmal. Although the fanfare afforded to the high-profile ones helped the pill go down easier for the masses.
Her therapist would call this “overwhelming herself in order to underwhelm herself”. Progress.
A cough brings her back to linoleum, fluorescent lighting, and uniforms stress sweating as the solve window approaches. She’s been mostly successful at shoving back a too-cramped apartment, thoughts of mythical coins, and self-actualisation. Here there’s a man that needs justice and for now, that’s all she can handle being aware of.

Ric Cengeri of WDEV Radio’s Vermont Viewpoint invited Gary on to talk WFR. Check it out!

Raise Your Chalice High

She gave me a white chip today

I’m no longer pissing my life away

maybe I’ll find another wife

to give me grief and strife

Raise your chalice high

to the guy in the sky

for he alone only knows why

we spit in the reapers eye

Then bitter tears came to my eyes

or was it the smoke so thick you 

could cut it with a knife

to reveal the lies

she’s been whispering 

to me all my life

Raise your chalice high

to the guy in the sky

for he alone only knows why

we spit in the reapers eye

Oh what great things

we could do a snuggling

staring at the ceiling

and insanely sniggering

Raise your chalice high

to the guy in the sky

for he alone only knows why

we spit in the reapers eye 

So now I’ll say good night

and go to sleep

dreaming of holding 

a red chip so tight

It wasn’t like this

when I was growing up.

It was strong and limber

when the green in my limbs

were still growing

It wasn’t always old and creaky

when I was still exploring myself

when all my love was self defeating.

It wasn’t enlightened by the awareness

of the brevity

of our delicate stay here

I wanted, so much to perish prematurely

so I threw much of it to the ether

as if i could breathe it in another dimension

Only after years of swaggering and staggering

only after spitting venom at the world

and having it spit contagion back

did a precious spark

give hark to my ear

Now, embracing the moments I have left

I sometimes reflect with remorse and regret.

The warmth against my body is comforting.

It’s Fiona.

My wife and I call the space between us in bed, Fiona’s Middle

She heaves herself into my back and heavily exhales.

When I was so sick from alcohol it was Fiona, gave me comfort.

Fiona was there, the warmth and pressure of her body against my back was comforting and calming to the shake I had within.

Now she is older. Her entry is not so much a leap but a step and a plop into her space.

She will be 12-years-old at the end of this month.

That is five years more than Hank, our first yellow lab, had.

Hank had the middle too. At his end it was Hank that was shaking and I was the steady warmth against him.

Now sober. I, like Fiona, have five extra years.

Who’s a good girl? I am. I’m a good girl

We didn’t talk about it.
We didn’t talk about anything.
We were talked to.
“Don’t do as I do, do as I say.”
“Stop crying or I will give you something to cry about.”

I started talking about it.
It didn’t go well.
I am now living in exile.
Shunned for daring to have an opinion different from you, Mother Dear.

Well, it is quite an adventure living “No Contact.”
It’s quite lovely really.
I don’t hang up the phone and feel sorry for you and sad for me.
I no longer search for remedies for your ills online only to have you ignore me.

We didn’t talk about it then,
And we won’t talk about it now.
Now that you have shown me who you are.
Now that you have exposed your ugly underbelly.
Now that I am getting healthier, I not only talk about it, I write about it.

The writing heals me.
It reminds me.
Every day it reminds me.
The page is a place to practice talking about everything I have been warned not to talk about.
As I write, I heal.

If I Hadn’t

There was a time I wore a coat of so many colors sometimes I got lost. Forgotten amidst my protection, which shell I was wearing, which disguise I had donned that particular day. Was I the good witch or the bad? On the yellow brick road or the path to destruction. Was I the queen or the pauper, the turtle or the hare? I could always run away but could I ever run toward? That’s an interesting idea because running toward is not something I do lightly. Not something that is easily done from under neath these many layers of colors I have so cleverly created. Can the world see them or are they only visible to me? If I hadn’t created them who would I be? Would I be normal, different, loved more? If I hadn’t been me, then who would I be, who would you see. You would still simply see me, If I hadn’t been me.

Ode to Johny

You can’t convince me there is only one way to do this. That your way is the best way, the only way. You have what I want so do it the way I do it. You tell me if I try it my way-How’s that workin’ for you? Had enough yet? This friendly face came across the room toward me on a computer screen not too long ago. He didn’t preach to me. He didn’t tell me how to behave, how to react, how to feel. He didn’t list off the only way do this thing that we were all reaching for. He asked me some questions, he listened for my answers then he asked me what I felt. I will never forget that face coming toward me on that screen that day. He didn’t try to convince me of anything. He still doesn’t. He is real today. He came out of the screen and into my life. He didn’t need to convince me. I am convinced. There is more than one way.

Writers for Recovery cofounders Bess O’Brien and Gary Miller are pleased to announce that they have acquired a new, living mascot for the 6-year-old writing and recovery program: Regggie the Recovery Zebra. Reggie, rescued from a roadside zoo in Beaufort, SC, will reside at the home of Bess and her husband Jay in the Northeast Kingdom, and will accompany Bess and Gary on recovery-related events across New England.

“It seemed like a natural fit,” says O’Brien, “After all, when we enter recovery, we begin to change our stripes. So why wouldn’t Reggie be a great reminder of that fact?

Miller, who is currently helping a crew build a small barn on Bess and Jay’s property for Reggie, points out that while zebras usually live in warmer climates, they quickly grow a thicker coat when exposed to cold temperatures. “He should be snug as a bug up in the Northeast Kingdom.”

Bess and Gary both look forward to bringing Reggie on his first Vermont tour, sometime in early June. Also, they wish everyone a wonderful April Fools Day.

On Wednesday, February 17, Writers for Recovery was honored to read as part of Vermont’s annual Recovery Day. This year’s event was held online, but it still managed to showcase all the hard work, love, and community that characterizes the recovery movement in Vermont. We are grateful to Peter Espenshade, Danielle Sessler, and all the other folks at the Recovery Vermont, without whom this amazing event wouldn’t have been possible.

This year, four of our amazing writers shared their work with the Recovery Day audience. Please enjoy these wonderful pieces!

When You Said That

by Ashlee Loyer

When you said that,

Did you know how it would affect me?

Did you know how angry, how sad, how confused you would make me?

When you said that

Did you know you would validate so many things?

Did you know so many negative thoughts and feelings would truly lock into place?

When you said that

Did you know that it suddenly made sense that I was an outcast, genuinely the black sheep?

Did you know it would make me question everything about my life and question how much of it was a lie?

When you said that

Did you think at all about me? I was only 17.

Did you think at all about the emotional repercussions could be?

When you said that

I shattered into a million pieces. Did it make you feel better?

I was never the same after that moment. Did you know you tore out a piece of me?

When you said that

Did you know I would use drugs and alcohol to cope with the emotions I was feeling?

Did you know that I would be swallowed into a world that I never wanted to be in and almost didn’t make it out of alive?

Did you know it would destroy so much of my life?

When you said that

You changed my life

Shattered my being

And I have yet to return.

Did you think of me at all

When you said that?

The Lilacs Were Starting to Bloom

by Johny Widell

 The lilacs were starting

to bloom, and that meant we were

fully into Spring.

In a few weeks, we'd be planting the garden.

The apple blossoms would come out any day 

and the orchard behind the house would become

a sea of white.

In no time

white petals would fly 

and soon

corn would be high and green.

Soon

leaves would begin to change and apples

(did I ever see them green?)

would be red and yellow ripe and falling from the trees.

The leaves, 

the leaves red and orange and yellow flying on the breeze.

I would feel that first breath of winter,

shortened days, the smell of chill

on the night air,

bitter cold and snow blowing 

against my face and neck,

all the branches except a scattering of

golden leaved oaks,

turned to sticks,

gray sticks

cold against the gray white sky.

Now I see these first blooms of lilacs, 

soft purple in a vase on the altar

with deep purple tulips

behind the names of the dead.

Walking Around Rutland Through Falling Snow

by Johny Widell

I see folks smoking in front of

The recovery center

The strange beauty of snow falling through

Big puffs of smoke.

Behind what used to be the Dream Center,

Virginia, my friend who works in the opioid epidemic,

Whose son died in the opioid epidemic,

Scattering salt from a small Morton container

Onto the thick ice.

Through the heavy snow,

I see broken windows,

Bare boards where all the paint has worn away

No trespassing signs

Some handwritten with dire warnings

A laundromat, another laundromat, another laundromat,

That one closed for good.

Houses here and there freshly mended

Freshly painted.

A mom pulling her child on a sled,

Both giggling through heavy snowfall.

Across from the old abandoned Methodist church,

There is a house where last spring

I had several chats

With a friendly guy who told me,

While quickly downing his morning tall boy,

About the drug dealers upstairs,

The semi-trucks full of merchandise.

Now the whole place is boarded up.

Across the street, a large plate glass

Window completely filled with

A colorful tapestry of a seated Buddha.

I hadn't even seen it until Busshin pointed it out.

Even then, I looked right at it for a while before I finally spotted it.

Now, it is enormous, surreal, bright

in this neighborhood of white and colorless houses,

All of it filtered through the hoard of lovely snowflakes

Descending softly from the sky.

That Wasn’t the End of It

by Nelly W.

It began with the taxi cab driver rolling me, or maybe before that because I hadn’t eaten for a while-- so excited about seeing you!  

and it may have only been toward the middle when I was propositioning you and you were talking to lace-sleeved girls, telling you that you had prior claims on my body or heart, 

but slurring lyrics instead and leaning in, mad, angry, and incomprehensible--invading your space.  The lace long sleeve see-through shirts, and trying to get out of my bar bill as the music ended, and did I fall to the floor serving a platter of petit fours? And I laughed and said, “a Bosnian-Canadian Bar-be-que? I don’t want to eat any nationalities” and I remember how the band was relying on me to be charming, 

all commands at my dance, 

and it was Nuit Blanche  a festival of White Nights and outdoor art installations, all for me, 

and all the transportation was free so I should not have taken that cab ride and that circumnavigated town and I was wearing the sequence union flag almost spice girls dress with red Mary Janes 

and my sister was really worried because the whole next day I may have eaten two tiny squares of a chocolate bar because to see you, I never needed any food and I looked so good and you could see me on the dance floor making the scene and everybody wanted to be me, and I looked good 

and I was on others’ Facebook feeds 

and it was not even clear if I was a female impersonator because I was thin and tall and sexy and hot and so so effed.

At the Dark Horse the next day, near the metal horse sculpture, you still wanted me to tell me about your movie 

even after it all, the next day 

still valued my heat-mad-wet and resplendent brain.  

You forgave me enough to see me through that drunk and even a few more after that when I missed breakfast or you took the train to see me and I slept through our connection. 

You are my favourite step nine.  A reason we can be blessed with many lives, a throughline conversation and an old friendship’s timeline’s worth of breakfasts. 

Yay obviously not the end, as teen, I could tuck into and dust a thirty pack. 

Not the end of the adventure, or the research, and thankfully not or our friendship.

You call me Carol Danvers and have seen me turn this epic life into a superhero prequel because this is not the end of it.

I Can’t Believe It

by Nelly W.

Worth thinking about?

the moment, an atmospheric tenderness: late summer’s embrace, home after the first birth

My Columbian friend tells me that girl babies steal your beauty.  The gender was revealed in the OR, but on the adage alone, it was clear.  The new parents were so grumpy.  Acne and long-term not-sleeping on both of them.  

We were walking 

The stalks of corn so high

The harvest moon so high

The kind of walk that massages the earth:

Man: philosopher peripeditically strolling 

Woman: wonder-filled and swaggering 

Kitty-cat-like leashless dog: clomp clomp trot-- so proud!

Bushy tail clippity cloppity

Long empty country road like a classic American painting

Far from people  

I was letting you in 

on how they were happy-tired and grumbly-tired

So new, brimming with story 

New family stories 

It really took them a year to get in a full, good sleep!  

Like with us, with our origin story,

up every night for a month, 

that first month, not sleeping, working together at the institute, staying up

until 

the tear gas and the protests in Quebec City with the 4-storey bonfire and the parade of 100,000.  Hula hoops and fire breather fire dancers. “Solidarite! Sole-ee-dar-it-tay” 

Holding hands in the roar

That’s when we slept.  

So I was trying to tell you about living in Toronto, and the how and what of this longed-for baby even with my sisters’ blood and ovarian betrayal.   All of the proudness of the pup in the city: maybe she was on set with Neil Patrick Harris!   and you turned to me and said,

“We dodged a bullet when we didn’t have children.

You are the most effing irresponsible person in the world. 

You don’t deserve children.”

Now, so many miles, addresses, and lives later,

I’m trying to unweave belief.

And let go the kite string on the rea `sons I drink. 

I’m Looking Into It

by Peter Fried

I’m looking into it:

the looking glass.

Through it. Screw it, 

stale, gravestones,

endings. Braided hair. 

Braids. The world spinning 

on its axis. The choir singing,

Hossanah in Excellesis.

Come here dear. Steer my car 

near your curb. Curb your dog. 

Put the collar on my neck,

call me reverent, what the heck!

Put me in a tail spin. Render 

me useless. Take me to the 

slag heap with your other kids, 

the ones that poke fun at you, 

and one day might poke a 

hole in the smoke…stack. 

Bring me my tobacco, my 

Drum, my Shag, my papers, 

my skins. Feel me where

the light comes in. Liberate me 

from self-consciousness from my 

portable prison made of light 

kill me in a disjointed way 

right now right here on St. Patrick’s Day.  

The Pogues, The Boomtown Rats, and Sinead 

O’Connor. Tell her it’s not because of her 

that I have a boner. On Talbot Road,

on Westbourne Grove. Gimme, gimme, 

gimme more vibration Jimmy. 

Joe Strummer. What a bummer. 

Daisy Colburn. I did a runner. 

Come on, come on, take me on

the anxiety omnibus, a quick 

trip to Battersea shouldn’t kill us. 

Bubble and squeak. Eel and pie. 

No need to wait, we’re going to die!

 It Happened A Long Time Ago

by Peter Fried

It happened a long time ago.

Did it?  Did it really-like-happen-

like a long time ago? Anyway. What?

What happened a long time ago?

Nothing? I know nothing happened a long time ago,

because nothing is happening right now.

A long time ago the river said nothing.

She did not speak to her neighbor.

She didn’t mend fences,

make good on promises, on small talk.

She didn’t. It fizzled out. It all did.

It was all left out to dry in the wind,

blowing across the farm,

chilling the livestock,

blowing up skirts,

causing a ruckus, a commotion,

a, ‘come on baby’. 

“Please baby baby baby please”

Down there in the yard

with your rubber boots sinking into the mud

growing impatient, your skull hurting

like hell. Blissed out on something.

Blissed out on bliss balls.

The bliss balls laid out on the stall.

For anyone to take, to put one by one 

into open mouths. Ready to chew down hard,

on the cud, of the money,

the wedge. The sinking ship that wouldn’t 

float-refused to. Wanted to sink,

to say farewell, Titanic-style,

plop, whoosh, gone- no tomorrow,

arrivederci. bloop bloop bloop

Down she goes

Nothing much to see up hear

Dead Calm.

Just How Does that Work?

by Peter Fried

“Just how does that work?”

asked the doctor, letting go of all

expectations, 

dropping the deck of cards

onto the pile of lonelinesses-

tomorrows which never came,

did not come, have not, will not,

cannot, would not, ought not. 

To the stable with the barrow boy-

out with the rifle, don’t stifle, this trifle,

this connection, this appointment with hate,

with the labyrinth at the end of time-

at the end of the hall,

turn right for hate room 101, or 108,

I forget which- you will remember-

just follow the barbwire-

laid-low rosary

leading the way to kingdom come,

to Valhalla, the hate bomb,

the eight ball- don’t get stuck

behind the shadow Sisyphus got stuck

behind, getting his inverse, reverse tan

on the hill to the beacon- 

comb your hair stallion,

meet me where the shadows are long,

where the asphalt ends,

where the fun starts,

the angels land-

light as feathers,

deft as dandelions

before they are blown-

don't pass me up because my skin is sallow,

because I didn't swallow,

because I didn't change

my Carhartt tutu

for the real deal!

Ever wanted to write a song? In this six week Zoom workshop, we’ll explore how the craft of songwriting can be a tool for recovery from addiction, and help pave a path to a richer, deeper, creative life. You’ll learn skills, perceptions, tricks and tips used by professional songwriters to unblock your creativity and help you turn your stories into songs. We’ll also explore how the skills that make a good collaborative songwriting team are also tools for maintaining integrity, managing emotions, communicating openly, and staying sober.

Dates

Five Saturdays at 1 -2:30 PM starting February 20, 2021.

Please join us: space is limited!

To register, email writersforrecovery@icloud.com
Course Details to Come!

About Steve

A professional musician and songwriter for over 20 years, Steve Wehmeyer is a co-founding member of the contemporary Celtic band Gaelic Storm (featured as the “Steerage Band” in James Cameron’s Titanic). With an ASCAP catalog of 90 original songs and traditional adaptations and several film and television credits, in the course of his career Wehmeyer has co-written and recorded with Nashville notables like Mark Sanders, Tia Sillers, and Johnny Reid (Grammy and CMA winners); folk legend Nancy Griffith; Jim Creegan (guitarist for Rod Stewart); and a number of independent folk and Celtic acts around the country. Steve is currently also a college professor – with a deep and abiding interest in exploring the ways that the songwriting process can help folks who struggle with addiction recover their creativity, reclaim their voices, and sing their stories to the world.

I’m starting to repeat some good habits, healthy habits.

It’s hard to think, so many thoughts, can’t grab. I feel that now, before I couldn’t see it, grabbing thoughts from my bubble, I’m so behind but I’m a good sprinter.

Not all days can be good days, enjoy the moment.

Everything is adding up, I can use my own words, again. It was too much, I didn’t know how to speak. I had to realize who I was, my mannerisms, my personality.

This walk, I have to keep going without needing to talk to my parents, I’m just scared to be on my own.

Facing my fear and doing the work.

I see the moguls, I’m ready, I’ll make it to the bottom.

Keep this mentality up, you’re doing great.

I’m sorry my left seems easier but it hasn’t felt that way. I’ve had support though and I’m sorry you didn’t have that. Everyone deserves that.

I want to call Dad. I miss talking to him. I don’t know what to say a lot.

I’m figuring out my true feelings and what they mean and what I want to say or do or why it’s hard to let the words even flow.

What does being a feminist mean to me.

Feelings pass, keep going.

Smoke, go for a walk, meditate, listen to music, try not to call people.

Weed needs to be consistent like medication.

I can enjoy alone time. My walks at gram’s house, remember that, you needed those breaks.

No man has all the answers, I do, it’s my journey and life.

Dancing in the snow. When will this happy feeling end? How much longer do I get to enjoy? Perfect VT snow day. Not too cold or windy, light snow falling down.

Dancing in the snow. No one around, I have this outdoors all to myself. Walking down the path with my headphones in, I’m jamming out by myself. Well, Onyx, my dog, was there with me, She’s doing her thing and I’m doing mine. I look at her and think about how life is so much better with her in it. I kept wanting to dance. When will this happy feeling end? How much longer do I get to enjoy? I took a few rips off my bowl before heading out, my joyous mood is enhanced from that. I don’t usually make it though a day without feeling irritated or down about something. Today feels different. Onyx and I were outside for much longer today, taking our time and enjoying this beautiful VT snow day. We get home after a long talk with my good friend. It’s always nice when I can spread my happiness around. We both work hard to live mentally stable lives. We get inside and the first thing I do is get comfortable to meditate, five minutes, I’m finally ready to try this on my own. I really should be doing this everyday, I did it, I can have care for myself like I give to others. I’m capable of loving myself. We have now reached the time of day that is known as the afternoon and I’m still happy with my day. I’ve been using my time well and I’m enjoying myself and not rushing through. These are the things I need to be writing down, I’m doing it, making the changes, look out world here I come. 

Given the prompt, here, the subtitle, you get seven minutes to write whatever. There are five sequential pieces, unedited, hence 35 minutes. The Epilogue is just what couldn’t come out in time.

35 Days in 35 Minutes

– 1 –

The Light is Getting Brighter

12/22/20

Fall is my favorite time, leaves change, time changes, decay of matter, decay of time. I’ve always lived in this time, this season, this mood, maroon. Marooned in the melancholy of autumn.

The snow comes, it goes, so what, who cares? Well, all those that forsake a New England upbringing and clog Florida. Me care? Not really. Snow is an inconvenience, a necessity, an essential cycle.

Years ago, at the cabin of my college literature professor (we were only friends, though he may have had other aspirations). Charles said to me in the middle of the night, “Let’s go for a snowshoe!” in his marble-filled mouth voice. So we did. It was cloudy and feet of snow were on the ground.

We walked through an old lane lined with magnificent sugar maples. The scene was lit by a strange residual light in the snow – like light trapped.

I asked myself a strange question. ‘If there are fairies here, I wonder how I’d know.’ And just then balls of fire like Roman candles shot over our heads. Charles exclaimed, “What was that?!” And I said, “Don’t worry. I know.

– 2 –

In the Middle of It All

12/29/20

There’s a fall, that happens in the middle of it all, when you think you’ve got it figured out. And then, the out, the rout, the pout, then wow.

In the middle of it all, you can fall from tree top to dell, from crown, knowledge, to hell.

Gravity takes us all, sometimes to the bottom of the well, where we drink from old things, dead things, like a dead snake that fell in there. Or the piece of ice I ate on a walk yesterday that tasted of snow, that minerally bite of carbon dioxide trapped in ice.

In the middle of it all, I realize there’s no start or end, just complexity and purgatory. That’s my lot in life, living in the middle of it all, and wanting an end, a completion, a moment that isn’t in the middle.

– 3 –

That Wasn’t the End of It

1/5/21

Postponement derangement self-flagulation mutilation distortion – me. When there was a time, a clarity, a purpose – so much to do, so much done. Shame, self-doubt, embarrassment. Why do I return to these? ‘Cause coffee and vitamins only take you so far.

Neighbor Dave called me this morning, only more hermit-ish person I know than me. We shared video links of inspirational speakers who seem to have beaten this disease. They might have. We haven’t. He mentioned “Covid winter.” A new phrase for a new phase. I asked the docs if there was a honeymoon period in sobriety. No one admitted to it, ‘cause they knew all too well, there was, and then the mighty fall that is all too inevitable. Should they have told me the truth?

Lapse, relapse, prolapse, collapse.

At least I have help coming and advice, because the last thing you EVER want to do is go back to the ER and tremble and get jacked up on saline solution and anti this and anti that meds.

If it was the end of it, then, well, the cemetery. But we’ve got friends and helpers, maybe even family, for some people. The statistics, the experts, the nauseating facts. But we have hands and feet and stand back up and right our gyroscope and set a course and go forth to those things that make sense and don’t pause or look askance at things that aren’t part of the solution, the mind pollution that drives us mad with brain chemistry, bad reactions, exothermic or entropy.

Getting up is how we assure it’s not the end of it.

– 4 –

Let Me Show You

1/12/21

How do we learn, how do we learn to be smart or wise or loved? Learn to make a worthwhile garden, a household, a pot of tea, be considerate or mean, be gracious or violent?

Nature or nurture and hence the conversation is about nurture – a beautiful way to absorb all of life’s negative messages, of ego, avarice, malice, nurtured into a soldier’s uniform, nurtured into a life of crime, and at first, learn to drink or smoke or inhale a whippet?

You know the answer – from each other, from heroes and the powerful, and from the desperate. It’s true what they say about misery. Like begets like. And the contrary, all this is all true – that beauty begets beauty, love returns love, and politeness and discourse, and I want to be shown, like those who care for me and show me empathy by example.

– 5 –

I’m Looking into It

1/19/21

There are things in life we ignore. I always think about the root word of ignorance: ignore. We think to claim ignorance is a fair excuse that something happened out of our control, but no, it happened because we ourselves ignored. Have to learn to own up, bone up, be a grownup.

Somewhere between 40 years ago and just now I began to own my ignoring, passing off, putting off, showing off, delaying, denying where I had found – no – put myself. Like a snowboarder who’s broken so many bones that one day they wake and know they’re done, that they need to stop and find something more… suitable.

That “snap” of bones or spirit or agility, ability, fragility is when ignorance ends. It isn’t fun. It is watershed change in your watery eyes, when you look into the mirror and see, truly see into your foibles, habits and self-told lies and you see something honest about yourself and look into it.

– EPILOGUE –

1/20/21

My Dad said, “It takes two to tango.” Mine is “I try everything twice,” reasoning that, you know, on any given day it might not be great, so try it again. Twice might keep you from making a snap judgment. Twice might let you find something out… about yourself.

I’ve been bitten by vicious dogs twice in my life.

I’ve caught girlfriends with other men twice. Embarrassing for me, emboldening for the hims. You question yourself.

I’ve been rescued from almost drowning twice, once by a sister, the other by the neighborhood bully. Well, three times really, if you count the time I was snorkeling well off by myself, off the shore of Isla de Mujeres in Mexico. But no one was there to rescue me that time – life threatening, swallowing seawater, caught in currents, my corpse would have been washed out to sea and no one would ever have known what happened to me. Lucky to be here, or am I?

I’ve eaten uni twice and never got the hang of it. Looks like baby shit and tastes like salty mud.

I’ve eaten natto twice, the nastiest looking fermented food ever, tan soybeans caught in a mucilaginous, stringy, rubber cement kind of, dunno, some kind of microorganism. The first time I hurled, but… since I try everything twice, and I really do try to live up to that aphorism, I went back, found it from a different producer, and… wow! Those are some goooood rubber cement beans!

I’ve been through alcohol detox twice. Once in the hospital, then next time, on my own, alone with my own tormented soul without whatever it is they give you to shutter the shudders. A single room hall of horrors, where, by design I put myself there and then had only myself to find my way out of the maze. Not exactly true, I have understanding friends, and a daughter, and a particular sister, and a cell phone. Before I did this thing, I made arrangements. “If I run into trouble, I’m going to call you guys, and maybe one of you can take me to the hospital.” Roger agreed. His adult twin brothers are recovering alcoholics, something like, since 1984. He matter-of-factly told me it takes a couple times, but “You’ll get it, man.” He’s a kinda famous punk rocker from the eighties. He can have a couple of beers and he’s good. Not me. I’m wondering if a couple of times through this hell will be enough to teach me.

I was told by a doc, I am in the deep end of the pool. But a pool is a pool. It’s all the same except it’s deeper on one end. My pool is like that beach in Mexico. You could walk out and keep walking and the sand was soft and water just got incrementally deeper and the sun was blazing and the water felt good. But there comes a point where the waves lap up to your face and a few more steps and there’s no bottom and the current is persuasive and the clarity is gone and seaweed and sea creatures wash upon you and you think “I got this.” Do I?

My second time, for two days I could barely walk. Fuck! I could barely stand up. My hands trembled so violently I could not type. It took both hands for a glass of water. I forced myself to drink water and eat something, a slice of bread, and take vitamins and pills.

I heard songs repeating in my head for the two days and nights. “Why the fuck is Camptown Races playing over and over and over?” “What dark shit is in your brain that THAT is what bubbles up?”

For two hours it was an ancient refrain from some long obliterated monastery. For two hours I heard a folk song in some Eastern European tongue. For a while it was some electronic dance beat. That part was okay.

You should have seen me, walking around putting my ear to every speaker or computer to see which was emitting faint tunes, reasoning a short circuit or the fillings in my teeth, or soundwaves caught in the wind suddenly falling out of the sky, like a kite in dead air.

I chased the sound into a corner and put my ear there, my left ear, that’s where the sound was coming in, and put that ear to the corner and… nothing.

When I was a young man, I knew this guy who would lumber about and put the palms of his hands on the sides of his head and push. He was so unhappy. He asked me if I ever felt my head would explode, or if I felt like there was a hole in my head and brains were leaking out. I chalked it up to one too many acid trips, but it is a real thing, the exploding head thing. It has a diagnosis and everything.

By Wednesday, I walked outside and became convinced the treetops were crowded with a cacophony of tree frogs chirping as loud as a murmuration of starlings. It was winter, no tree frogs.

So for the next two days I heard bird songs. Summer songs in winter. That was the moment… did I have a stroke? Have I uncovered a hidden schizoid state? Am I a psychopath now?

I’d wake up from dreams so lucid they were in four dimensions, wake up during some discourse only to find myself speaking outloud and continuing the conversation with someone in the dream. I was caught between two realities: the dream state and the conscious state. Or was it the descent state versus the intent state? Or was it all one in the same – the specters I long ago planted in the creases of my brain, wriggling free like nightcrawlers after a storm, to remind me my universe is still almost entirely unknown to me? I would have written things down, but I could barely hold a pen.

Shit like that will drive you to empathize with people who hear voices all the time. Our stereotype of the town drunk, whiskered, gaunt, stumbling, mumbling, trembling, asking for a little something. I’ve now been inside him.

On the sixth day the sound hallucinations stopped. Just tinitis, lingering, like when you flush the toilet and the refill is still shitty.

It took two more days for me to begin to feel normalish, in my own skin again. The old Matt. The me who was the most awesome teenager, before dope and alcohol and bad sexual experiences and college knee injuries and marriage fucked me up, meaning, before I allowed them to. Because I didn’t know any better. Oh Big Sandy, sing it, “If I knew now, what I knew then.”

Today, at 2 pm, I went for a constitutional swim at the Y. It isn’t really a swim – it is a maximum of six old farts, each relegated to a portion of the pool so we don’t get the plague upon each other. My corner is in the deep end of the pool.

Remember the near drowning episodes? In a Herculean effort entirely of my own design, I took a swimming class. Still don’t know how anyone relaxes when you’re about to go under, but I did it, then I did it again. Now I am comfortable with just floating on my back, my knees bending some, so that my feet are below the water. I inhale deeply and bob up to the surface. I exhale and I sink. I sink until just my nose and eyes are above water, but it is enough. I have had to learn it is enough, and that if I struggle, I can’t maintain the delicate balance between bob up and just survive.

I listen to my breathing. I am comfortable, for now, with the idea that I am doing something impossible. Floating where before I sank. Swimming where before I flailed. I think of the pool water around me versus the solvent that was inside me.

I begin to let go, let go of worry, my surroundings. Transfixed on the square ceiling tiles, each with hundreds of perfectly organized little divots. Bob up, sink down a little. Bob up, sink down a little. Bob up, disappear, sink down a little, reappear.

I am aware of the ceiling and the water and my breathing. Nothing else is here. I feel as if I’m on a ceiling looking down at a tiled floor. My whole world is upside down. I’m loosely attached to a liquid ceiling, floating above everything. Seeing things differently and feeling things differently. How long can I remain here? Is this the destination? Or am to stay here for a couple of hours, a couple of days until whatever is next.

Tune in. Two-n-in. 

Let me show you how it is to live life today.  

I am in the business of making my world bigger while those who hate on me on whats app groups wither into obscurity.  

Stick around and let me show you that 

I am tolerant, 

and sex positive, 

and a good resource-- It feels cringy to tell you such.  

Let me show you my town

and my apartment and 

my collections.  At one point it was wine, at a point before that it was international sugar packets, and at various points ashtrays, or Tim Horton’s coffee cups.  Does that not tell the time or what?

Let me show you I’ve picked up, although I am still mess I am getting better, I could help you too, 

Let me show you how you can help me not just if

Let me show you that there are diamond facets to my personalities and synonyms for everything although I am choosing choice moments and not always full of bon mots.  

Let me show you what acceptance looks like. 

Look into my eyes. 

How could you possibly want violence on me? 

Let me show you what it looks like to love you fearlessly.  Let me show you how you may do it for yourself, 

because in that moment, 

when it turned midnight, 

and we were on the the Zoom and 

the phone and on 

the youtube, and in one another’s 

respective towns and 

balconies and 

windows and we were 

blowing kisses and publicly 

belly laughing, and I felt 

something, and I am just starting to know my feelings as beautiful and 

corollary to other times, 

I began feeling, and I don’t know 

how to express it with words, so let me show you.

The reality was staring me in the face. It was so clear and crisp that I could feel it and taste it. My marriage was crumbling. The fights were more frequent and more vicious. The times when we got along diminished to the point that they felt like brief respites to reload, and nothing more, before returning to battle.

I drank to relax. I drank to unwind. I drank to bolster myself for the dysfunction on the homefront. I drank to tolerate that which had become my existence.

My wife was a nag, and I was never good enough. Sure, my temper, my anxiety - they played a part. There was so much destruction that there was plenty of blame to go around. The relationship was dissolving, because we were running out of glue to hold it together.

The drinking eased the pain. It used to be fun, but those memories were so far in the past that faint wisps of joy were all to which I could cling. Now, it was about bridging the trauma from one day to the next. My elixir was medicinal.

Had we crossed the point of no return? Was the relationship salvageable? Even if it was possible, was there anything left worth saving? What would have to change? Love was out of the question, but was there even anything there to like?

What role could alcohol play in my future? Was it possible to drink enough to trick myself back into love? The tangible feelings were so painful, that I wondered - could I drink them all away?

I existed in these two realities for so long. My life and my marriage coexisted but were hidden from each other. I was causing the pain - my pain and the agony of my bride. My solution was the problem. My medication caused the cancer between us. My escape trapped us both.

“I quit drinking for you, Sheri! What more do you want from me?” A realization. A glimmer of hope. But had it come too late? I stopped, but I didn’t understand. And my question to my bride drove my ignorance home. Even once I could see it, still, somehow, it remained invisible.

Happy joyous and free?

I was, for about a moment in time.

Sober, carefree, new life, new friends, new attitude, new strength

new beginning

I kept hearing that saying recovery is like peeling the layers of an onion and I didn’t get it. 

But what they were trying to tell me was it wasn’t over

My journey

Discovering the self unfolds with every, new experience, argument, loss, grief, celebration brings up new old feelings and deeper insights

and deeper pain.

This feels Familiar

But different

Raw, foreign, 

What is it?

I have this emotion, what the hell is it? Look inside. Shit, I’m lonely. WTF? Me lonely? Surrounded by friends, family, clients, love, things to do….how can this be?

I’ve never really taken that deep dive of intimacy you see. I let you see some of the mess inside but I’ve kept that one closet door shut. It’s my shameful version of Monica’s closet in 'Friends'. 

You open the door and all the shit falls out that you’ve stuffed inside and thought “I’ll deal with that later. I’ll put that in the correct spot when I get organized”. And you never do. 

You leave it. The closet fills up and suddenly the door bursts open as it can only hold so much.

A year or so ago my door burst open.  

Fuck. It wasn’t the end of it they were right. Goddamn onion.

I stalled to tell you the thing I really needed to tell you because I couldn't quite admit it to myself. I stood at the top of the hill, my hair blowing in the wind, my breath catching in my throat with anticipation with what you might think of me. My makeup wasn't quite right, my shoes didn't match my outfit, my coat had a hole under the arm. I had lost the pin you had given me to close my scarf but I knew you wanted me to get it right this time. To be straight about things. To be fair to the world around us. So, I waited. In all my glory, I waited. And here I am. Not pretty, not polished, just me. Today, I waited.

The heart lies

in such strange

lands

vistas unseen and welcoming

The mere strand of

now

When can the yearning

evolve

how will  the flying be

such is the true

and noble yes of it all

Every 3 or 4 years I feel it

It’s time to start over

Wishing we had reset buttons

Instead of 80-100-year expiration dates

But the Buddha says

my essence would stay

Or would I be a new essence

Or would whoever I started over being

eventually revert to original me

It’s not that I can’t change,

it’s that old me’s are never forgotten

Even if I leave one behind,

someone inevitably knows a story

I don’t live under

my family tree mythology anymore,

but they know all about

the me’s I was while I did

and we have been learning

how to talk now

in this new language I speak

I couldn’t find my way to the door some days nor could I find my way down the hall. If it occurred to me to open my eyes I might even have found my own way out of my own way. But the funny thing is, most days that just didn’t occur to me. Some days I could feel the cold air blowing in my face and you know how much I hate, really hate, the cold air in my face. Why didn’t you stop the cold air blowing? Why didn’t you close the door? Or steer me down a different hallway? What? You say you tried. You say you pointed me in a different direction but you didn’t think I could hear you. I was in a world of my own. Yet you never gave up. You kept trying to steer the boat. Be the captain in the middle of the rough rocky sea. In the middle of it all, there I was. I finally saw you, heard you, crawled out of my world. In the middle of it all, I found the door. The hallway straightened, the cold wind turned warm, I opened my eyes.