Learning to Fly

(Part Two)

I’m grateful for some slowing down. I’m grateful for a chance to unplug. I’m grateful for that budding family in Boston. I’m grateful for watching things grow. I’m grateful for the rainy days and my garden.

song of the week:

Like every Friday, this starts with me saying that this is not what I had planned. I had a different Beatles song picked out, that much is true, but here’s how this happened. I’m not a good sleeper and haven’t been since I was about ten.¹ I wake up pretty frequently at night and have gotten very, very good at estimating the time by the level of darkness/light—I’m usually within about ten minutes.

Anyway, it’s been super rainy here in NYC—this can distort the time-telling thing—I woke up early, estimating it to be about 4:30am (I try not to get out of bed until after 5) and as I tried to doze off for a few more minutes, I heard the very loud sounds of birds chirping. Like really loud. It was very gloomy, still inky dark and grey rainy clouds were wisping around and there was this really loud, really happy sounding, bird chirping noise. I’m near Carl Schurz park, my neighborhood is pretty leafy and green and beautiful in the Spring and the garden and balcony are attractive resting places: All of which is to say that I hear and see a lot of birds up here.

Maybe that’s appropriate since I have my own perch, high above York Avenue, like the young hawk who sometimes inhabits the neighborhood and these pages. I’m frequently visited by a single Mourning Dove and I’m always driving off pigeons (not welcome and who thinks it a good idea to draw packs of them to parks—it’s the opposite of charming). I hear a lot of birds up here, I guess is what I’m trying to say, but this was different.

It was just unusual to hear them singing so loud on such a dark, gloomy morning. I guess that’s what stood out to me. I had been listening to my Beatles playlist a lot as I thought about what I was going to write, and when I heard the birds chirping somewhere outside my window, I realized it was the same as the birdsong in “Blackbird.”² That hit me, as some things do, way heavier than I would have expected.

One thing I’ve learned is that my body often gives off clues about my feelings and emotions and this came in handy, because when I made that birdchirp connection, I just felt myself sag and feel heavy and unweighted all at the same time.³ So, here we are.

I spend a lot of time thinking about why it took me so long to get sober. I wonder why it happened when it did? Why didn’t it happen all of those other times? To be honest, it would have been so much better if I had managed to stay sober for more than 45 minutes after that stint in rehab in 2016. Or 2017. Or after my Mom’s heart attack in 2018.

It’s hard to escape the grim accounting that goes along with being a long-term alcoholic. It’s hard not to count up the missed opportunities, the lost chances, the love torn apart, the terrible scenes and the feelings of utter emptiness that used to arrive with alarming and demoralizing regularity. It’s hard not to think about a life that was mostly wasted. I was an alcoholic for roughly 46 of my 62 years.⁴ I can’t even begin to really estimate what I lost and what I cost others—-it’s gigantic.

I feel that weight. I talk a lot about the freedom I feel these days, but the guilt and the intimate knowledge and recollection of all of the losses is never too far away. The 9th Step is designed to alleviate some of that, but the idea of trying to imagine the might-have-beens is just too crushing to even contemplate most days. I’ve been sober for more than five years and while I’d like to say the burden diminishes over time, I think it’s more a matter of getting accustomed to the weight.

This maybe is the sinister side of that well-worn AA thought exercise: “Play the tape forward.” Playing the tape forward is actually an exercise in remembering what you’ve done in the past. To the extent those memories help form the bulwark that keeps me from drinking, I kind of have to learn to live with them, it seems.

It’s not always easy being a pirate in his 60s. It’s not easy to be rebuilding when others are retiring. I had the very great and distinct privilege of attending my grandson’s christening last weekend. Little R and his cousin were both being baptized, so there was a big party on Saturday night. I roamed through, making small talk, sharing admiration for the beautiful babies, but feeling like a ghost walking through a life I used to inhabit.

I had a much different life not so long ago. It was pretty swanky to be honest. Beach houses, fancy trips, great restaurants, the best seats at everything. But it didn’t serve me, trying to keep my spot in that world never really worked, things never really fit and it required a shit-ton of sauvignon blanc to keep the enterprise afloat. It killed me a little bit every day I tried to live in that world.

I’m pretty sure I was the only single person in attendance at the pre-christening soiree, even my ex-wife has a serious boyfriend, that’s not the issue. It’s definitely by choice.

I know where I am and am very much aware that I haven’t really settled out yet. What I mean is that there has been a shit-ton of growth and change and pain and love and kindness and hard things over the last five years. I’m still getting accustomed to the life I inhabit these days, getting accustomed to the person I’ve become, or really, am still becoming. That’s what I feel these days.

I love strolling on my pirate balcony in the early, early morning. I pad around in my pj’s, coffee in hand, marveling at the plants coming up in the garden. Wondering how much strength it takes for those tender green shoots to push through the black topsoil. I wonder what it must feel like to be a little plant finally emerging into the soft spring sunlight, what it must be like to feel that soft breeze for the first time.

I wandered through the christening-eve cocktail party chatting and telling jokes, but feeling very much apart from the scene. It wasn’t a matter of feeling superior, it was just a matter of observing a lot of stuff that no longer made sense to me, that wasn’t part of my life anymore. One thing that you do notice at cocktail parties, especially when you don’t drink, is that people tend to repeat themselves and are often just not that interesting.

I’d made a lot of circuits around the party and was feeling like it was soon time to make my exit. I wandered into the back room and there was little R, being held by an aunt. Little R was becoming a little fussy, as babies tend to do, and no one likes to be the one holding the crying baby. She spied me and saw an opportunity to offload the baby before the wailing got too intense. I was only too happy to oblige. Owing to all of the competition, and since I had spent the previous weekend with him in Boston, I had let others get their fill, but I eagerly took a seat.

She passed him to me and he looked up and into my eyes. He’s got brown eyes that get a blue-green cast to them in certain light.⁵ I gave him my finger, he grabbed on and stopped squalling. I began talking to him softly and he kept his eyes locked on mine. It was a funny movie-like moment; the party and all of the chattering people went out of focus, there was just that tiny adorable face gazing up at me, holding that finger so tightly. My heart felt fuller in that moment than it has in a long, long time. Maybe that’s what all of the heartbreak was about, I thought, making lots of room for all of the love to come.

To that blackbird singing in the dead of night, to the sunken eyes just beginning to see:

All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arrive, for this moment to be free.

Happy Friday.

1. Actually, i was nine and and it was the summer of 1972, not that it stuck with me or anything.

2. It was originally about wishing for the right things.

3. Maybe that’s a yoga thing, the heavy feeling giving way to ease.

4. That’s more than 2/3. As a decimal, it becomes .666 (7).

5. Mine are hazel.