I’m grateful for the huge storm that rolled through last night. I’m grateful for my quick-dry chair on the pirate balcony. I’m grateful it’s Friday. I’m grateful for what comes together and for what didn’t. I’m grateful to be sober today.
song of the week:
Why? I was going through playlists and saw this and switched from Sibelius to Suffragette City and it just seemed like the right vibe for this alcoholic on this Friday. What does the song mean? No idea. This was one of the great challenges of growing up in the 1970’s: Very much of life deliberately didn’t make sense. Listen to some Steely Dan lyrics or watch H.R. Puff ‘n Stuff (seriously). I’ve said this before, the culture of the 1970’s didn’t make me an alcoholic, but not sure it helped much.
So, last night was another installment of the Tour de AA. We picked a meeting and when we got there, it was an incredibly confusing, very claustrophobic setting with probably too many people in the room and a frenzy of chair grabbing. We decided to depart and, it being NY, we found a meeting at 7, just a few blocks away on East 12th Street. Overcrowding was not an issue here, we got settled in and the meeting began. Then this blockbuster:
“So, after the 20 minutes of quiet meditation, we’ll go around the room for shares.”
Twenty minutes of quiet meditation? I’ve written before about my meditation practice and it has been strong. It has not been strong recently and if you were to ask me why, I would say something like, “things have been really stressful lately and just haven’t been able to do it.” Hahaha. It has been pointed out to me that this might suggest a greater need/urgency to get that mat unrolled and my alcoholic mind unspooled, but of course, my alcoholic mind seems to prefer the roiling, chaotic thinking patterns, so like usual, it steers me away from the thing I probably need the most.1
Well, before I could muster too many panicky thoughts, (I did briefly consider suggesting that we bug out of this meeting, too, but even I knew that wasn’t the right answer,) the lights went down and the quiet meditation began. I got myself positioned, feet on the floor, hands and arms unclenched and resting weightlessly on my legs, fixed my posture, leaned my head back against the concrete wall (this meeting is in a basement) and started breathing and counting breaths.
I think I had gotten to three, and then realized I was in the middle of an imaginary conversation with someone I work with. Pretty far into the “conversation,” actually. I gave my wandering mind a bit of side-eye, as I would a misbehaving Labrador Retriever, and stated back at “1.” This cycle repeated itself a number of times. I was doing to-do lists, figuring out just what to say in that email, reproaching myself for forgetting to mail that bill, etc. Anything but keeping that mind silent for just a little bit.
I’m not going to tell you there was some great spiritual experience that happened last night during my jagged meditation on 12th Street. What there was? A reminder that my brain is a something of a machine, and unfortunately, a machine with some pretty odd proclivities and idiosyncrasies. It requires maintenance and sometimes just need to be shut down for a bit. I finally got a little non-rhythm, rhythm going on and soon enough the blaring alarm went off and the 20 minutes of purgatory had ended.2
It was just a reminder that this is a Program of spiritual experiences and practical, sometimes hard work. Just as the nearly perfect frozen Reese’s Miniature Cups require both peanut butter and chocolate, sobriety seems to require the tandem of hard work and spirituality.
The spiritual part happened when I was on the way to the subway last evening and was walking up 86th Street. I was passing the construction site where I had that little exchange with the Higher Power of my own conception. The one where I thanked him for getting me where I needed to go and he said:
You hung on to you.
I stopped and thought I would take a picture, because it’s kind of an ironic place to hear from God (especially for a Lutheran boy from Iowa, pretty sure that’s supposed to happen at about 8:15 am in church). So I did:
Then I realized something. When I looked over the fence, I knew what I was looking at. Two blocks almost directly south is the sober house where I first lived when I arrived in NY. The place where I found my footing, where the Higher Power of my own conception finally got through the static and started showing me how my life could be. Suddenly, my encounter the other week made a ton of sense.
I have spent a lot of time in my life thinking about how alone I am. I’m not sure if God has some kind of pied-a-terre on the Upper East Side. But he was for sure there in that sober house and he’s for sure there in that construction site. He’s for sure still there when I’m forced to look into the dark and stop thinking. Because I think it’s less about him talking and more about me listening.
Happy Friday.
I used to remark, unironically, that it seemed like my brain wanted to kill me a lot of the time.
Except for the guy next to me who stayed asleep until the end of the meeting.
Great insight. Have a great weekend TBD. 😎
I hit my limit after about 3 minutes of meditation