Gratitude for 25 years ago today

When I walked into my first AA meeting - age 23 - trembling, shocked, not knowing where the fuck I was or why.  People it seemed to me wearing far too many pastel colors, though in reality it was probably just that everyone wasn't wearing black...but it was 1986, so maybe pastels...

Scared shitless, sure I'd made a terrible, terrible mistake but then that still, small voice saying calmly and persistently: stay.  Just sit down and stay.  This is where you belong.  The running is over now.  Just stay.

A week earlier I had gone to my first Al Anon meeting, which is for family and friends of alcoholics - because my mother kept saying I should try that because she had just begun AA herself after 2 disastrous years staying dry on her own, which led to a horrendous slip drinking a 'sip of champagne' that ended in drunkenness, a black out and a date rape.

I thought she was mad.  But I was desperate.  I walked into Al Anon and felt at home, people talking about feelings and thoughts I thought were only mine.  And apparently no, millions felt that way, or at least the people in that room...

But without getting into all the details, that led me to AA, when I realized I too was an alcoholic, and because of that one moment, which for some weird reason stuck, I am still sober 25 years later, and alive.  Sober longer than the young man I heard qualify at a writer's meeting tonight has been alive.  He is 18 - and sober 3 years...and has as harrowing a story as anyone else in the room.

And he sounded just like my BCC kids I'm teaching now in the Bronx.

I am just so overwhelmed with gratitude...for being alive, for this fucking FREE program that saved my life and asks nothing in return - suggests I stick around for my own good and pass it on - but I could (and have) just fuck off and no one would come running after me.  No money, no leaders...it just shouldn't work but it does and it saved my life and that of millions of other people.

How is it possible?  These gifts?  And why do I think I should have even the tiniest little bit to say about how my life should go when I have been given such a gift FOR FREE and with no strings attached.  There is just nothing like it I've ever encountered on this earth.

There may be other things like it, but I've never seen it.

I have felt so sad at times over these past years due to losses of things, some of which have been large, but compared to this gift, they are small.  I have been offered, was offered and was given the grace to receive a gift of life 25 years ago.  And I am alive, still.  And sober.  And that just fucking amazes me.

Why me?  I don't know.  And I mean this in the 'why did I get this gift' way not the bring in the violins way.  No one deserves it more than another and God/dess knows not everyone receives it.  This will always remain a mystery.

And why do I get to now live in a Gorgeous part of NYC with bright orange red yellow leaves, a wetland, egrets, ducks, geese, eagles, bluejays, squirrels and all manner of beauty of rivers colliding, turning, churning still in Manhattan but the tip top tip and able to walk to work across a bridge over the Harlem River and I feel like Walt Whitman about this town which I love love love love love with a passion that makes no sense, which of course means it is love because why on earth would you love something any other way...and would it be love, no...

and I've sat through the loneliness and the discombobulation and there will be more of all that and the emptiness where Bill used to be and all of that...and there will be more but there is now also this - this sense of gratitude of joy of love and loving too the hardness of my work, the struggle to teach (sometimes and sometimes I just want to kill them all!) but then there it is - there they are - my kids.  Not my kids but yes my kids...squirming out of seats, bilingual, English as a 2nd 3rd god knows what language, ADHD, learning disabled, freaking the fuck out, can't stop talking - 18-20 at a time, trying to teach of all things interpersonal communications...

and then the moments when at least one them Gets something and I cry almost, can't believe it - it's So Hard and I'm not writing writing...just dog paddling to keep up with my life cheered on in my heart by Rick Moody's words - no you don't need a writing schedule you just write when you can and the rest of the time: live.  If you don't live what the fuck will you write about?  Amen brother.

And there's even a cat, a cat I want to adopt who is still coming out of his shell in Washington Heights and who's original saver I've now met in AA of all things by amazing coincidence...

And so what could be better?  To love where you live, what you do and to be so fucking grateful to be alive and love love love everything and everyone I see...I know this probably sounds almost delusional but it's not.  It's real.  And it's fantastic...

And it is REAL.  There is nothing fake or fluffy about this.  That's just amazing.

So thank you Universe all the gods and goddesses and all of you in my life who have manifested for this life of mine...I am so grateful to you All...

love...blessings...and more love....

hello briefly

somehow I've managed to say most of what I need to say publicly or in a journal.  I should have made this blog truly anonymous for truly private thoughts but did not, so other than family stuff from the past there's not much to write about in here.  Except perhaps overt recovery stuff as well...

But for now, I have moved back to NYC and am starting a new life, which is occupying a lot of my time and thought and just keeping up with the most basics of that on my public blog has taken up all my time.

I may use this again at some point...

and just as an update on family stuff - my mother and current step father ended up apologizing for their response to my blog and told me it was a good thing, so am glad of that.  My ex-stepfather did not budge and so we are not speaking right now.  Not sure that's the best response but right now it's the only one I've got.

I haven't had time to write on a deeper level, am peddling old writing around right now and teaching a lot at a school, which is a college, but has a lot of remedial learning kids so it's a challenge.

I am definitely Occupied...speaking of which the most exciting thing in the world right now is Occupy Wall Street and its spawn...I've never felt so optimistic about politics like ever...not traditional politics but this movement - it's tenacious, striking a chord, telling the truth and not going away...

and, thank Christ, it's NOT ironic...it's real, committed and organic.

Amazing...didn't think I'd live long enough to see this happen.

All power to the Occupation.

be well.

let the rage begin

OK, so I've shifted back from my public blog to here for personal stuff because my goddamn family has attacked me for going public with the precious fucking family secrets - of abuse, alcoholism and the like.  I am furious.  So I'm no longer writing about it in public because I know one thing - this level of fury makes for really shitty writing.  And it's ugly and I warn you now - if you can't fucking handle it, don't even bother reading this post.  Really, it's fine because if I get any moralizing comments I might scream.

I was the victim of a brilliant good cop bad cop pincer movement that just fucking cornered me.  We have my step-father (ex-step-father, the gay playwright one) attacking me, and I mean Attacking me by email, with an email that began and I quote "Fuck you, Julie..." and went downhill from there, telling me if I want to tell my incest story, I should take my second father to court and that my blog was a 'drink I had not thought through' among other choice shit.

Then, after telling my mother how angry I still was about some things because my current step-father chose to share an email with her I had sent to him that clued her into this not very well kept secret, she decided to back away, and that was fair enough, but then when I sent something about feeling her love, too, she sent me back an email saying she was glad and hoped this was the start of 'a new beginning' - which means: wherein I am suddenly not angry and don't feel compelled to talk about anything.

My current step-father meanwhile was accusing me of flogging my mother, which I think is completely unfair, and on and on and on...

Anyway, in the end, I decided that if I were to continue to try to talk about any of the past on my public blog it would be so infected with the anger I Now feel because of this blatant attempt at silencing me that I could no longer write about anything in a way that was not vengeful and because of the fucking principles of my fucking sobriety I can't get away with that shit and I know it.

God, I HATE that.

So, here I am back at my anonymous blog venting my spleen to probably some person sleepless in the Philippines or something wondering why on earth she's reading this bullshit and for that I do apologize.  But don't say I didn't warn you.

Damn it damn it damn it...it's not bad enough children suffer abuse but then if those same children want Any kind of relationship with their parents afterwards they have to suffer this crap if they want to talk about it in public.  This SUCKS.

And my husband has basically dumped me, just as background to all this, so I feel like dog shit anyway, and no word from him like ever asking if I'm OK or anything so it's just me alone and feeling like crap.

OK, not totally alone, there are some of you out there that have access to this blog who have been Fucking Amazing to me, incredibly loving and kind and supportive as I have Ranted and Raved and Ranted some more.  And to you I am beyond words grateful and if it weren't for you, and most of you of course are in AA, because of course you are almost the the only people on the planet who can understand how it feels to go through all this crap without the anaesthesia.

Damn, am I ever fucking Glad I didn't let go of this blog and that I never stupidly linked it to the public one...Phew, do I need this place to rant and rave...as I wrote my painfully adult sounding professional blog post today I thought my shoulders would adhere to my neck permanently.  Fuck. Fuck Fuck FUCK.

OK, I have to now eat dinner because I keep forgetting to eat and then another inchoate panic starts rising in me about starving to death...I honestly think my blood cells start panicking.

My shoulders are still tight as shit but at least I don't feel like I will suffocate to death...and when I can FINALLY let this shit go meaning the RAGE I will attempt to write again about my background but I think probably in book form so I can get the story written and in a form I want before the fucking peanut gallery can throw their shit at me.

Damn, you know, I really, really, just wanted to let it out in the public blog and be done with it, but that is apparently not to be.  I wish I could just shove them all over to the side and go ahead but right now, I cannot.

I am also not speaking to any of them because they scare me now and I don't want to any way appease them, though I am afraid by changing my public blog I have and I am flogging myself for being a wimp for doing so, but I do believe I have a right to protect myself, even though again I feel like a wimp.  On the other hand, I don't want to be associated forever in the public eye with ranting and raving and am afraid that is what would happen...

Oh DAMN, I hate this...

OK, dinner and thanks for whoever made it through this whole tortured post for witnessing my rage.  And for those of you who have done so in person...

peace and love to you all.

How to Piss Off Everyone in Your Family....

So, my public blog has managed to totally piss off two of my step-fathers and in the process of communicating with them freak out my mother and I cannot believe that telling my own story, and not Even the worst bits has to create all this drama in their minds.

The good news is that it's not going to stop me writing but somehow I don't want the public blog to become all about this so am writing about it here.  I can't believe how much of an unwritten rule I have now broken.  It is this: we will love you as long as you don't say anything about all the abuse that You suffered in public.  Even though it's My story, my stepfather keeps calling it 'outing' people.  I'm not Outing anyone, I'm not a journalist but a human being telling my story.

A good friend today said their over-reaction tells of their guilt and I think she's right.  Plus they are protecting their own feelings and their own parents and their own 'reputations'...but to my mind, this becomes an episode of forget the abuse 'what will the neighbors think'.

Dear God...and now I don't have a fucking clue what To write on the public blog for today...I guess I could go through the beginning of the day wherein I cried for 2 straight hours over my husband leaving. That's always good for a laugh.

Dear God...I really really don't know what to do.

But I need to figure out something as I am committed to writing every day.  I had no idea I was putting my relationship with my family at risk, but if so, so be it...Nothing is worth living in silence anymore.

Please pray for me and my voice, that I don't get cowed and go along with the unwritten rule.

Oi.

Oh, and I wrote an email full of rage to my mother, because I've always tried to be so 'reasonable' about everything, and I threw all my rage at my absent father...but this time, lucky her, she got some.  I just can't fucking take it anymore, protecting her, protecting fucking everyone from my real feelings and what it was actually like to be an incest survivor, be abandoned many times, left with a woman who almost killed me and etc etc...it just goes on...and Then have to be fucking forgiving about it all and Reasonable when talking about anger and kind of apologetic.

Can't do it anymore.  I'm done.

That seems to be the running theme of my life right now: I'm done.

Wonder what begins to happen now as I let go of all the old stuff?

We'll see.

I'm over at my public blog mostly

Hey folks,

I just want you to know I'm posting every day at my public blog and so this one is suffering consequently.  If anyone wants to know that address, feel free to leave a comment with an email or a way to contact you, and I'll give it to you.  Unfortunately, I need to keep this one private so can't disclose my identity publicly here.

In case you can't do that, just to check in briefly - the separation with my husband has happened, it's horrendously painful and I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life now - as in what country to live in and suchlike.  I am working on my writing but mostly just blogging and trying to sort through emotional shitstorm...also hoping to get some work soon.  Not sure of anything basically...

On the other hand, have lots of wonderful friends and support that way and so don't feel alone even though it's a lonely journey...

the old joke: when one door closes, another opens but in between is a long dark hallway.  That'd be where I am right now.  

Blessings to you all.

have a cold but feeling better

Hey all,
I've been focusing so much on my public blog that I'm neglecting this one.  Just to say that I have a cold, am in gorgeous Maine and in general am feeling better.

I still don't know the status of my marriage but this trip I am on has made the whole thing a bit easier to deal with as it's put an automatic pause button on the thing.  Also gives me time to feel through stuff without having to put words on it, which is good.

That's the other reason I haven't written much here, am in the time of allowing feelings rather than naming them right away...so many thoughts and sensations and they move a lot and I'm not falling into the temptation of trying to force them into a framework.

So, it's about staying open today....and every day I suppose.

Now to take a shower and a walk in the sun.

sad news...

looks like I will be separating from my husband...more weirdly enough on my public blog...but was feeling OK when posted that and now feeling pretty raw, devastated and like my face hurts.  can't sleep because I just start crying...I know I will be OK but right now the feelings are just pools of endless sadness.

it may not be the end, I know that, but it also may be...I feel like such a total failure on every level right now...

if you believe in that kind of thing, please pray for me, I need it right now.

love and blessings.

some scenes from childhood...

Some scenes from my childhood that I am afraid to share on my public blog but have to get out.  I feel like a loser because I can’t ‘out’ these things out of fear of harming my mother.  However, I also wonder if I’m just fucking myself over by some confessional urge…in any case, I will start by putting them here…

I am getting myself up and out to school, starting age 6.  Sometimes I also try to get my parents up to go to work.

At 10 I am left with a babysitter who almost kills me, and I respond to this by going to school and getting straight As.  I never mention anything about it and no one understands why when David saves me.  I end up feeling guilty for not having gotten myself out of this situation.

I am sitting at a booth in a restaurant with a man behind me groping me and bothering me.  I am about age 11 or 12.  I cannot move.  My mother is watching this and laughing.  She is drunk, stoned or both.

There are more and more men coming home with my mother when I visit from boarding school.  I finally freak out one night and she falls on the floor, crying and saying what a horrible mother she is.  When the man of that night says he will leave, she turns from me and begs him to stay.  

There is the slideshow my father shows when I visit him in California aged 13.  It starts off with leaves in trees and ends up with naked photos of my step-mother.  I sit paralyzed.  She finally tells him to switch off the photos.  He seems to not understand why.

I am naked in a bath with my first step-father.  He has an erection, I don't know what it is but I can see it.  Is my mother there?  She has no memory of this.  It goes blank after that.

OK, so...writing this makes me feel sick.  I feel I am not supposed to tell anyone any of this, even now.   I want to rush and explain a lot of this away, tell you my mother was an alcoholic at the time and is now completely different (which is in fact true), that she had me young (18) and has her own history of trauma (also true), that she is a good person not a monster (also true).  But first, I had to take the risk and tell you this.  I think when I press post today I may be sick...well on the private blog not so much but on the public one I would...

going public is scary

So I am posting everyday on my new blog and found it terrifying for some reason yesterday, not sure what put me over the edge but today will go back to my more private writing project I think.  Am glad I kept this blog going so I have somewhere I can vent in a different way.  Perhaps this is a bit whoosy (sp?) I don't know...

Anyway, hoping to continue along and not get deterred by fear.  Please wish me luck.  This is usually the point at which I exit stage left and say well that was a bad idea and wait for the more socially acceptable option to appear.  I pray for the strength not to do that...

be well everyone.

started a new blog...

Hey all,
I've started a new public blog.  As I want to remain anonymous regarding this one, I can't give you the link, but I'm pretty sure most of you reading this already know me.  If not, and you really want to know the address of the public blog, you can try leaving me a comment here with a way to contact you and I'll do my best.
I may also still post here as there are things I can't really talk about publicly - especially recovery stuff and this would be the place for all that.  But I am not sure how much I will be writing here, so wanted to check in now before I forget.
This has been an amazing ride, and I feel, as with therapy today, in some ways - with this phase - I'm done.  Not as in I'll never grow more or find out more stuff, but there has been an extraordinary change internally and I feel deeply OK, just that: OK.  And like I am OK no matter what.  I've never felt this before in my life.
Something about 'going public' is important too, putting my name on stuff, not hiding in the wings afraid of people knowing my name and what I really feel.  It feels a bit like I've emerged from a cocoon or perhaps shed a skin...all the analogies sound pretty lame, but you get the picture.
I really feel like I've graduated from high-school, especially today, leaving my therapists for the last time after 7 years of work, crying, for the loss of such an amazing person in my life but knowing it was the right thing at the right time.
Now, I'm off to bed as I've blogged til I dropped earlier today on my other blog and need to stop staring at screens...
be well everyone and blessings to all.

just found new family!

Hey everyone,
I have the most incredible news ever.  I just made contact with a huge part of my family that I didn't even know existed because my grandfather changed his name in the 40s because of the Red scare - his boss told him his name was 'too Red' - for anyone too young to understand that it means too Communist, back when the US was even more paranoid than it is now...well maybe about the same, but it was directed to everyone.  So I am suddenly being embraced by a very large, Catholic family as a lost member thereof, which I am.  I will be meeting them when I visit the US in June I think.  I just cried and cried when I got a response to my letters - sent out in hopes they were to the right people, who are all in their late 80s.  They live in the same area my grandparents grew up and I just can't believe I'm going to finally find out what happened - I had heard about the name change but was not sure about spelling or anything and tracked them down using a card sent to my grandmother when my grandfather died - a card that I found in my father's things the week I was in California for his death.

I am completely overwhelmed for so many reasons.  As an only child from a multiple-broken home (many mothers and fathers) I used to envy the kids with big Catholic families.  My grandfather had 14 brothers and sisters!  And I never knew any of them until now.  Only a few are alive but my new great uncle is beside himself with happiness I'm in touch a new cousin is too and I cannot wait to meet them.  It is all reminding me of my grandfather's love, which was the closest to unconditional I had growing up.  And to feel this warm embrace now, in this time of my life which I'm in such transition and doing all this research on my grandmothers is just amazing.

The card I used to track them down was sent my a great aunt who died last November but who arranged for mass to be said for my grandfather when he died in the early 90s for a year.  And from her name and that fact I started searching and I found them through her obituary.  I wish I had started the search earlier to meet her.  Perhaps she is the one who has guided me along here, it could be.  I know that may sound hooey but I believe in that type of thing...

I am old enough that the family and love embrace means so much.  I have only recently begun feeling the cool chill of having been an only child and the lack of support or just allies in my life.  My father was an only child too and so it's a shame he lost all these cousins in the name-change and what appears like some kind of icing out of this family....who's decision was that?  My grandmother's?  I really don't know.  I will find all this out soon enough, but right now just finding out who these wonderful folks are that are being so loving and trusting and Embracing.

Wow is all I have to say.  Wow.  I keep crying - with happiness - the big Catholic family I always dreamt of as a child and suddenly, it's here.  I never knew I had one.  What an amazing gift.

Wishing you all many blessings.

I heard the news today....

So, woke up to news of Osama Bin Laden having been killed,  and as I lived in NYC most of my life up until 2003, I was moved to tears...not 'of joy'...I don't even know what of...but I am reminded of 9/11 and the sadness of that day and the sense so many of us had that we never wanted to see anything like that ever again - anywhere.  So it is a mixed feeling.

I knew then - even when it was happening - that the US had a hand in it - not in the conspiracy theory way, but in the sense of our foreign policy in the Middle East making this kind of reaction at some point almost inevitable.  That it would be so incredibly masterfully planned and executed, that I did not in any way predict.  But I was as terrified as everyone else and as devastated as everyone else for long afterwards.

I now live in London in a neighborhood with a large Muslim population some of whom are radical some of whom are just wandering around rooting for their football teams.  Some of the people who supposedly wanted to blow up planes using liquid in shampoo bottles came from around the corner.  They were teenagers wearing track suits and frankly didn't seem too capable of their attacks if their 'martyrdom' videos are anything to go by...

So here I am like usual, seeing and feeling things from many places at once.  The place of the person who had her hometown attacked and smelled the stench of dead bodies and plastic for weeks afterwards - a smell I wish on no one ever.  The person who lives overseas now and sees the US from this POV too.  Who wonders about the people wandering around yelling USA today - that in their teens and 20s, who saw 9/11 when they were 12 or 13 and must believe a monster has been slain.

And the part of me that on that day 9/11 decided to commit myself on the deepest possible level to non-violence even if it was fucking terrifying...not that day, that's a lie...a couple weeks later.  I read Gandhi and began to realize how hardcore that man was...what kind of faith is necessary to be non-violent and that it means risking death.  I knew I wanted to be that, was not sure if I was as hardcore...but I did commit to this: attempt to disinvest from the patriarchy on a molecular level...

This is what I have been attempting since then...it's almost 10 years later...have I?  I don't know, honestly.  I weirdly enjoyed watching the royal wedding, which seems to disqualify me on the face of it - felt some kind of awe at the continuity it implied and was drawn in by the emotions of any wedding of anyone...but also as some who comes from broken everything and lives in a global capitalist world beset by trends and planned obsolesence, the tenaciousness of the monarchy alone is somewhat awe-inspiring...

which means I have definitely Not disinvested from the patriarchy at a molecular level.

What I have done is this: managed to begin to observe myself without judgment or less judgment anyway - decided to that these emotions I have are simple those - they are the weather and not the atmosphere.

I am writing now, a lot, and letting go of millions of expectations I have felt of myself both externally and internally imposed...I am letting of 'the image of me' - it's just crumbling.  Somehow this seems more important than any ideological stance...it feels alive and well alive...

And so I cried when I heard the news that Osama bin Laden was killed.  And that means...I don't know. I wonder if I will move back to New York.  I wonder where I will be in a few years.  I really don't know.  Right now what's most important is my writing and my finding the last living relatives of my dead grandparents...

A couple days ago tracked down a lot of people and need to start writing letters...found the war death record of my grandmother's brother killed in a Destroyer by a Kamikaze at the battle of Okinawa.  My grandfather worked on the Manhattan project - as an admin person...he was too small to go to war and changed his name at his boss's request because it was 'too Red' - those are the relatives I'm trying to track down and find out if they are related or adopted parents...so murky...

and I have a cousin once removed and her husband who are Palin supporters of all things...so I definitely need to talk with them and find out how on earth that works.  My grandparents on that side were Nixon supports though, they were the hardcore who during Watergate said 'Ah, they're all liars, he just got caught.'  And so he should have been left alone presumably.

The other side of my family are as virulent democrats, so there you have it...class/political warfare American style, internecine, irrational, angry...strains like viruses...apparently I, like most Americans, am a mutt...a conflagration (I use that word on purpose) of all of these strains...identifying with some, trying to damp down others and then they rise again...a crazy quilt of emotions and loyalties.

When I was young and living with my left-wing mother and 3rd father, I was a Republican and Baptist - no shit.  I argued for this stuff pretty violently.  I got over it when I was 16 and doing a history paper on Iran.  It was 1979 and the hostages were being held in the embassy after the first big islamic revolution, and my history prof said why don't you check out the CIA's involvement in 1953, which being a good student I did...and all my political ideas changed...I saw the cynicism of US foreign policy and went ballistic (also used on purpose that word...), and turned into a left wing activist for many years after that.  Like usual my timing was impeccable - in the 1970s when US was liberal, I was conservative, when US was about to go all Ray-gun, I turn into someone who my mother proudly told her friends was 'somewhat left of Mao'...in her circle, this was a good thing.

And now?  I write a lot...I am sorting through a lot.  I still hold non-violence as the highest ideal, even if I don't know if I'm capable of it.  I know that I never want anyone to suffer what we did in NYC on 9/11 and I know the US has inflicted that type of suffering on others and that makes me sad.  The UK too, don't worry I'm not delusional and think it's all crunchy granola over here, cause it's definitely Not.  But I still vote in the US and am still American in the end...so feel more responsible for that.

It's a beautiful day here in London - blue skies, gorgeous just like on 9/11.  I hope my neighborhood doesn't kick off today, it could.  I will walk outside tentatively and see what the mood is.  I hope there is not some big crackdown and helicopters everywhere.  I hope that the young amazing people leading the various revolutions in the Middle East are the future - extraordinary courage, commitment for the most part to non-violence and an ability to die for a cause, simply to get out from under soul-destroying dictatorships.  God bless them...whatever 'god' - I don't care I really really don't...

Oh please, this is my prayer to the universe or Whoever - let this day someone bring peace and not what I fear which is more violence...please let the US begin withdrawing from the places it has no business and and and.....you know, I know you know...I don't need to say these things out loud.

feeling much better now

Hi folks,
Just a note to say that sitting through the blues has done the trick as usual...that and doing some writing and cleaning my office and enjoying the weather...also burned a bunch of papers that had to do with some counseling I did around my abortion a while back, and then planted the ashes underneath a plant a friend gave me in the garden.  This felt right and like it unlocked some energy that was quite stagnant and had to do with lingering guilt and shame.  Only afterwards did I realize it was Easter and somehow this seems appropriate as the counseling was by a lovely but somewhat Christian lady who I think figured the only way to recover from abortion is to repent.  This was a weird situation and one I decided to walk through because of my Baptist background, and I think it was the right thing to do, but I think in some ways it made me feel worse, so the point is burning all the writing I did for that seemed right...releasing energy trapped in an unhealthy process and releasing the remnants of guilt and shame.  And it worked, which is amazing.

Also, feeling more and more grounded by the day in what I am doing...sometimes feeling sad about the theatre company but then all I have to do is think about what I would be having to do right now to keep it going and then poof the regret is gone.  It doesn't mean I won't do theater again but it does mean I'm done with this manifestation, and that's OK.  Also realizing how many writing ideas I have and how many projects I want to work on so this is clearly the path...

Right now editing down the piece I posted here about my father's death.  I may send it out for possible publication, and it would need to be half the length, so it's turned into an excruciating and incredibly good writing exercise to do this.  I worked for about 6 straight hours on it yesterday and did not finish, but felt a sense of accomplishment somehow...I think I will need to do this mix of the long projects and the short ones.

So I'm basically feeling quite good, and in a simple way.  Freer than in ages and like I'm doing what I'd be doing if someone told me I had terminal cancer.  This is a very good feeling.  Today was about cleaning on many levels and that seems right too...

Onward we go...feeling rooted in some firmer soil,  amazing...I am just amazed...

Happy Easter!  or Passover or Whatever it Is you celebrate...It's a lovely day.

the public and private dilemmas...

hey there,
So now I've made it more public letting go of my theatre company and it feels quite vulnerable and like i've given in to the forces of darkness or something.  like I'm Cool Hand Luke and this time just gave up on the fight, so it's not a fun feeling.
I am continuing my writing, which is good, but also overwhelmed with how much I still have to learn in this arena.  i've written one kind of thing and now doing something else, stretching way past a comfort zone so that feels vulnerable and scary too.
and i'm realizing again that of course being vulnerable, really being vulnerable is scary and uncomfortable. I think I used to believe in some kind of controlled vulnerability or something, but that's bullshit.  So I am really out here now, really feeling naked and like I'm in one of those horrible dreams where you can't remember your lines or are naked or don't know what to do, except it's real.  Scary.
I have had a huge realization though in the midst of all this massive uncomfortableness...(otherwise known in the English language as discomfort, but there you go...I'm such a writer...hmpf)...
- pause for skype conversation with husband in yet another foreign city  - and back:
so the realization - is that the reason I ended up here in a place as weird as the UK, if you happen to be American and a writer and therefore used to a certain idiom that then makes no sense where you happen to live now, etc., etc...- is that I needed to get to the place I am now: no props or lighting effects to show me in a certain light of my choosing so you can like me and affirm me in a certain way, etc.  In other words, it's up to me to generate my own oxygen.  I think traditionally people have this realization when they are approximately 2 1/2 years old.  I'm just 45 years late is all.  There are reasons for that, but the fact is I missed that crucial stage of development and whilst embarrassed it's taken this long I'm relieved it's happened at all.  This means perhaps I don't have to live my life as an unconscious codependent and can allow things to fall as they may...and that means me as well as other people.
There's a slogan in AA (there are lots of them and they sound dumb but they hide wisdom weirdly enough...) 'Live and let live.'  I got the 'let live' part ages ago but I forgot the 'live' part, and so the 'letting live' was happening in bad faith with an unconscious wish for the person I was so 'generously' letting live to help me live.  None of this was overt, stated or in any way asked for by me, except in this really underhanded (even to myself) way...this is the tricky bit about denial.  It's actually denial.  You don't know it until you know it.  Scary shit.  I find it excruciatingly embarrassing that it happens when I'm sober as well.  OK, if you're drunk or officially a mess, but sober, in therapy and 'recovery', meditating, doing yoga, you name it and STILL this nonsense...but there you go.  I think it may be called being human, but I also think in my case this change is crucial, and I am grateful for the realization.
So thank you UK for leaving me here bereft of my props, lighting, sound effects and clever little tricks... it's fucking scary but now I have a bat's chance of actually living.  Life begins at 47 or whatever...
OK, got to get ready for yoga now.  I hate going but I always feel better when I've done it...

Into the World! Scary...

Hey there,
a brief post to say that I have just sent out my first short story to a journal for publication.  The last time I sent out a short story I was 14 years old and it was a Christmas story contest at our local newspaper.  I won that contest and even received some money.  Haven't had the guts since!  Sent it to a publication I've read since the 1990s and never even dared dream would publish anything I wrote.  I now feel nauseous.  However, I have sent it out there, into the Big Bad World...scary, scary...

Wanted to say this out loud and hoping moral support will get me through the nerves of waiting for a response.  Mostly, you have to submit these things to one place at a time.  This means I have to have patience (ha!) and begin work on the big project I want to start and have photos all over my room to begin. Now just have to - well - start.  And finish!  I have 3, count them 3! unfinished novels sitting around.  So, this one, I am scared of starting lest it end up in the Incomplete section as well...

OK, enough for now...enjoy the Spring!

Enormous changes for the better....

Hi everyone.  So, I’ve let go of a huge part of my life for the past 7 years, namely a theatre company I started.  And whilst I feel very sad about this, I also feel a profound sense of relief.  I am focusing now on my writing and feel like I’m finally on the ground again and living the life I want to live rather than one I’ve felt obliged to live.  My AA sponsor’s response to all this was: you sound like you’ve been de-institutionalized and indeed I have.

I have a short story almost ready to submit to some places.  Waiting to do one last edit and also see if I can get some feedback from a couple more people before I do that, but was given a ‘deadline’ by someone I met online to send it out by April 12 to one place.  So I will do this, because that sounds right.

I’m embarking on some new other projects that are larger but also feel peaceful and right.  I may even start a blog with my name on it, but not sure about that yet.  We’ll see.

I feel strong and like I’m living the life I would want to be living if I found out I had terminal cancer.  I know that sounds extreme but it’s always my test as to whether I’m living properly or not.  And I could not say that for many years.  I had a theatre company a while back that also ended and when that happened I said to myself ‘I’ll never do That again’ and felt the way I feel now – much happier and relieved, though sad to let go of something I had worked so hard to build.  Apparently, I had to do some more research in this area…and I can only pray to the gods and goddesses of Good Sense that I don’t feel the need to research this area again.  I know I suck at producing and doing admin.  I knew it before and I know it again.  I hate it.  So, clearly some masochism takes over…I don’t know.

Anyway, I’m glad to be back and focused on something that is Not a group sport and able to put my name on a creative process without worrying about it.  I think I may be far too codependent in the end to be a good theatre director.  Not sure about that, but I worry.  I think I’ve gotten better on that score, but still…anyway, for now, for now, it’s the writing.  And what a relief.

And it’s scary too because now I have no excuses for Not doing it, and I think even writing this blog is a bit of a feint to avoid some writing today if I’m honest.  But we’ll call this writing for now….

Have not heard back from the step-father mentioned in last post and don’t expect to hear from him.  Realize now writing the letter was the important part not the response.  I have one last thing to do in the outside world to finally come to peace with everything, that involves someone from my more recent past, and as I know I’m willing to have that meeting and conversation, that’s enough, don’t have to force it.

Will most likely end therapy on schedule at end of April consequently, as I feel quite strong and even when I’m whacked off-beam, I seem to be able to find my own way back.  This is a great feeling.  Interestingly too, now that I feel at home with myself, I find myself caring a lot less about where I live.  At home is about me not the outside world.  Amazing.  I remember a yoga teacher saying something to that effect and thinking yeah right whatever, but I think now she’s right.  Again, what a relief…

And it’s Spring!  And there are flowers all over my back garden and wild flowers in the un-mowed grass and it’s just lovely.  I feel the seasons so much more the older I get, it’s so interesting that.  I feel the light and darkness shifting and really take in the changing of the seasons.  The light has been spectacular the last few days, twilight extraordinary and organge pink red sunsets over crappy shopping malls…and the sunset wins, thank God/dess.

Oh and I taught some lovely young people on Saturday – was dreading it actually, but then remembered, I love this age group and I did.  I taught them some of my theatre techniques and they rocked the house.  16 year olds are the best.  I found it easier teaching them than university aged students.  They are open, willing, able, fearless…lovely, lovely, lovely.  So that was just exciting and a real bonus prize.

OK, off to the ‘real writing’ now…she said bravely.  Hope whoever is reading this is well and happy.  Things can change, this much I know.  Thanks for reading and listening.

the letter to the abuser routine....

Hey there,
So just realized when sending an email to a friend that I should make this public.  I've sent a long letter to my first step-father, the sexually abusive minister one.  I have many step-fathers if you don't know that already, so making a distinction here.  I asked him to fill in the blanks for me, as I have many blanks.  I have no idea if he will do this or, more likely, deny everything, or what.  I haven't laid eyes on this man since I was 13 or 14.  Hadn't seen him since I was 6 before that.  Even at 13 or 14, I thought, wow he's just this older man, not intimidating at all.  He had been this giant scary person when I was little.  I remember a story he told then, when I was a teenager, about handing in a paper at university to a teacher and realizing he would either fail or get an A because it was so controversial, what he had done.  He got an A, of course (which is of course why we would be hearing the story) and I took that on board.  As kind of a guiding principle my whole life.
This is the weirdest thing about this person in my life.  His politics were very left-wing and absolute at the time.  We had to go to Canada to get meat that was less imperialist and he yelled at his congregation/s for saying they were Christians and supporting the Vietnam war (we had to move all the time because he would get kicked out of the churches consequently, by the Trustees who were none too pleased to be lectured at by their supply pastor).  I remember all of this, and anyone who knows me now would recognize certain features...so it is odd that he was also the most abusive person in my early childhood in many ways.  I think people leave imprints in many ways.
So I have reached out to this person, in hopes of the blanks being filled - what, so I will be whole?  I suppose this is my hope.  Is it a a vain hope?  Perhaps.  There is an icy tundra in me, I feel it at times acutely and I want it to melt...but at times, like now, it feels like perma-frost.  my therapist keeps assuring me I am moving forward that these are toxic feelings coming up and I hope she's right.
I'm also somewhere between paranoid and just plain weirded out by my relationship with others right now.  Afraid that the dark times I'm in are alienating people...then finding out directly from some that my way has been difficult for them...no overt hostility but a kind of impending sense of doom, that I am not a good friend somehow or failing even in this...it's weird though because I have other friends where that is not the case at all.  however, in the state I'm in now anyone with a negative view of me wins the contest for who am I 'really'....and those with whom I can share things honestly and openly, well that just gets thrown by the wayside, which is of course deeply unfair.
Right now, I must say, the folks who I can relate to best tend to be in AA, which makes sense, as I think we are all more forgiving of each others' foibles in general and understand more than most where the jagged edges come from...but that's not entirely true either...
Oh, the shame in writing this!  The sense that I'm saying I'm a horrible friend and others don't like me so I will be shunned by the other girls in school like when I was little...WOW, amazing that that shame is still there, lo these many years later...
And of course the shame of the abuse when I was too little for school and we lived in rural countryside where there was no one to see or hear what went on...the attempt to hide that damaged child, the permafrost...seeing her in there now, suffocating wanting out, not knowing how to allow it to happen, how to warm up the ice.  Christ on a stick this is hard.

Not sure if writing this will help or hurt but writing it anyhow...this was the original point of this blog being anonymous to let out what could not go anywhere else.

A friend said who does the same it's outwarding rather than inwarding and I think she's right.  I've probably already written that here before but so be it.

OK, out into the wilderness with this...before I chicken out.

darkness visible...

So, have been going through a very dark time but after therapy yesterday realized that of course it's feelings from when I was very little and could not afford to have those feelings.  They manifest in me today as being 'beyond help' but of course this is indeed how I was a little girl and infant 'beyond help' - because no one was there to help, no one could even if they wanted to as they did not have the capacity - both my parents being alcoholics and quite young and no one else knowing what to do or trying to do things they thought were right only making it worse.
My step-father, later on, was sexually abusive and we were stuck in rural Maine moving all over the place, moving targets, left-wing, righteous, etc.  I was 3-6 years old and helpless...not 'powerless' but actually helpless and my higher power, whatever s/he is couldn't help me either.  I was truly alone.  This is the feeling I've been having recently in a 47 year old body, which is mighty uncomfortable and manifests in fun ideas such as 'you're such a failure' and other such constructive thoughts and feelings.  The feeling sense is being in a fog, with no ground or horizon and yet quite heavy and leaden...an oppressive fog - which is of course not dissimilar from London weather, so at least I can feel at one with nature as it were.
I am writing all this now in hopes it can help someone else going through a similar time because I know when I'm in the middle of it, it just feels horrendous and very real (the feelings are real of course, but the reality field is a bit wonky in terms of age and circumstance) and I felt at times these past couple of weeks that it would never pass.  I am apt to fall into it again as it's obviously some necessary part of the healing process but just Knowing it's that already lightens the load considerably.
I have not gone into workaholism, which blows my mind.  I am going about basic tasks and am now back to eating OK.  I was eating not so well for a bit but that seems to have passed.   For now.
I have been rejected for two residencies, but for one was at least encouraged to apply again next year, so will take that as a good thing.  The other was the generic kiss off.
Will be teaching my workshop at a conference tomorrow that I've been asked to contribute to, so that is a good thing.  Paid as well.  Hurray.
The other good news about the residency rejections is that I will be able, in theory anyway, to spend more time with my husband, who is now away until April.  I say in theory because there is every chance he'll keep having to travel, but at least this way there is a chance.
It's raining out but I feel so profoundly relieved to have some sense of what's going on with me, that's OK too...and it gives me a good excuse to sit inside, enjoy the well-heated cozy little place I live and count my blessings, starting with: at least I don't live in Japan right now.
Blessings to all and courage, too, to walk through the darkness.  It does make us stronger.  My analogy right now is that Downton Abbey (yes I watched it, I confess - my neighbors gave me the DVD, that's my excuse...) where the sober drunk valet throws away this horrendous contraption he's had on his leg to attempt to make it straighten.  He hides the pain until the head housekeeper forces him to show her his leg, which is bloody and blistering from the screws of this metal cage.  It's her compassionate witness and horror at his pain that allows him to throw it in the river and begin the process of accepting himself as he is.
So that is another wish for all of us: compassionate witnesses who help us shuck off false attempts to fix ourselves in the image of so-called 'normal' brought to us by either local or transnational ideas, sponsored by Pepsi or provincialism...throw off the horrendous metal contraptions!  All we have to lose are our chronic wounds.

Sundays...

hey there,
not sure what I'm going to write about but wanted to say hello out there.  Am working on some writing again, which is good and walked through a pretty dark week after feeling very grateful and light the week before.  Am doing a kind of experiment, which is to not force myself out of this space but instead allow it to be and see what happens.  And even though feeling weirdly vague and unfocused not hopping into some kind of organizing and self-exhoration routine...seeing what emerges organically.  I'm afraid of course that I will fall into some kind of morass and never come out but we'll see.  So far, seeing some interesting results, some rigid ideas being exposed as such and some writing coming into clearer focus tho glacially slowly.  I would like for once to not have the sneaking suspicion I'm doing work of whatever kind, including creative, to just get out of a funk.  Maybe that's too purist of me, don't know.

Anyway, if any of you out there have any experience of this kind of experiment, I'd like to know of it.  And what, if anything came out of it or if you gave in and fed the hungry ghosts of Puritan Work Ethic or Ideas of What One Should Be...etc.  I'd love to stop feeling like food for the undead, if you know what I mean.  I've even had good work come out of me, but I still feel I could go deeper, get to something better by sticking with this somewhat dour experiment.

Or am I just nuts?

Could be.

Also, a shout out to Japan and all the poor people who are suffering or have died and hoping that after this the Japanese will finally be done with nuclear energy.  Of all people, you'd think they would not have drunk the kool-aid on that one after WWII and all.  Dear God.  As Oppenheimer himself said 'I am become death the destroyer of worlds.'  Indeed.

On the other hand, the other lesson from all this is even more simple: prepare all you like, be a wealthy nation and still you are powerless over forces larger than yourself.  Someday I will learn to accept this for real and at that moment I will become happy.

peace out and all that kinda thing.

I'm back...

Hi there,
I have been back from China for a while but got out of the habit of posting here and then wrote something to post but saved it instead and decided it sounded too self-pitying so spared you all that.  I have been told recently though by someone close to me in spirit but not distance that she and her husband do read this blog and it means a lot to her, so I've decided to revive it in her honor.  She is my cousin and has been going through a lot of horrendous health-related things and I love her to bits as she knows...she's the closest I will ever have to a sister, and so cherish her.  And the weird thing is, I know the feeling is mutual, which fills me with tremendous warmth and gladness.  Makes me wish I did have something resembling a family in some more consistent way but my weird patchwork quilt of hand-me-downs, steps and exes will have to do.  Plus my long-distance husband on skype...rumor has it we're married...

However, and this is true, I had an amazing time in China, and won't give a travelogue as I believe they are boring.  It is not however, what you expect if you haven't been there before, and the very difference of well everything made it stick in my mind and dreams for weeks after coming back.  Go if you can, it's something that cannot adequately be described in words but only experienced.

I am as of Thursday, 24 years sober.  That means I have been clean and sober longer than I was even alive when I first walked into AA (aged 23) and had my last slip - on pot - in late Feb or early March (hence sobriety date of March 3) 1987.  Reagan was president, Maggie Thatcher was Prime Minister, there was a Soviet Union that Gorbachev had recently taken over, a Berlin Wall and no one had ever heard of Tienamann (Sp?) Square.  I was a mess and a half...I had come into AA in early November 1986, after a week in Al-Anon...realized I was an alcoholic and decided everyone else I knew was one, too.  This did not go over well, and I faced mass resentment from my friends and roommates.  I tried to straddle two worlds and inevitably had a slip (the aforementioned night high) which I blame more on Tom Stoppard than anyone else, because I was ushering for the determinedly mediocre ACT in SF and they were doing horrible piece of comic tripe by Stoppard and all I could see was the punch line, the audience laughing where expected, the jewels and upper middle class pretension at intelligence and 'wit' and it made me ill.  I ran out of the theatre and wanted to blow it up.  You may think I am exaggerating.  I am not.  Mediocre tripe is bad enough if you can have a couple glasses of wine or beer to take the edge off, stone cold sober, it makes you want to resort to violence.

I went home and got stoned with my friends and roommates, who were mighty relieved at my so-called transgression.  One said "see, your nose didn't fall off" and we all laughed.  Someone took a photo of me that night - the only photo of me taken during that period by my so-called friends, because I was back on their program and in their expectations for me.

For some reason, that didn't leave me wanting more, and I somehow managed to fall apart further, get into therapy, find a boyfriend, lose him and that sadness landed me back into the heart of recovery in AA.  From then on, I took suggestions and did the 'steps' - which if you don't know them you can look them up and if you do, the last thing you need is me saying them over again - and then had a spiritual experience I also can't put into words and never drank again...I did however meet my now ex-husband and made him into my higher power, which was a big mistake - obviously - and that sunk me for years into a codependent fog...which I managed to slough off I think through meditation mostly...too long a story to reiterate here, but he left me when my first play got published and that was that.  Won't go into a song and dance about it here as it always sounds too victim-y and the fact is it takes two and all that.

However, now here I am sober, alive and 47.  It is.  Thank you.  As the African prayer goes.  I'm at it is right now.  In and out of thank you.  I am in 'thank you' for my life, sobriety and love in my life, but can't quite get to 'thank you' when it comes to fertility issues and losses there or some other friend's losses of children or their own health.  It is just has to be enough right now for that.  And it kind of sums it up really, because it is the truth.  It is, not fuck all I can do about it.

And this is the crux of where I am today, having grown up considerably over this past year and realized how much in the back of my mind I was/have been waiting for some kind of 'reward' for being 'virtuous' and 'sober' and 'good' and 'helpful' and 'sticking to my creative vision' etc...and you know what, it doesn't work that way.  Duh.  Well, some of us it takes a while...as they say in AA 'sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly' and I'm a sometimes slowly chick.  Always have been, always will be.  I'm just one stubborn motherfucker and will not learn until I have to learn.

But I have.  I have learned.  It's not about rewards but nor is it about punishment.  There is the freedom.  No one has 'done anything' to me to make me pay, etc...no higher power anyway.  I'm not any better or worse than anyone else.  I'm just me and that's that and you're just you and that's that.  And we have to be enough as is because we just are who we are.

No that doesn't mean no one can change, etc...if I believed that, then how the fuck could I have gotten sober and stayed this way?  No, it's deeper than that...Way deeper than that.  And it's freedom.  When I can have those crystal moments of know the whole carrot-stick routine is so much smoke and mirrors, I am free.  Even if sad at times, grieving at times, relieved at others, sometimes giddy and even joyful...and all the usual stuff in between.  This is it folks.  This is the whole show.

And I get to be here for it, that's the gift of sobriety.  It's a gift in the true sense of the word gift.  It's not a reward because it's not earned.  It's a gift.  I show up for this completely unearned gift by not taking a drink a day at a time, and I get to experience life, all of it, taste it smell it, touch it, hear it, see it, love it even when it fucking sucks.  And oh oh oh I do love it and I love so many people, it hurts.  And I never felt that when I was drinking, not this kind of love.  I felt sloppy sodden sentimental crap but not selfless love, it was impossible.  Not because I was horrible but because I was incapable of it...and even in many ways when I was with my ex I was incapable of it, because I had surrendered my will and my life over to the power of him...that is not love it's slavery and slaves cannot love.  That much is true. And nor can anyone who owns a slave either, btw...so don't think I'm spouting some kind of cod Nietzsche crap.  I actually like Nietzsche but not the cod pseudo-Hitler version to justify any number of atrocities no... And the slavery I mean is not involuntary, as in, you've been physically turned into a slave, I mean the kind where you're an addict, alcoholic or in some way addicted to something or someone...you can't do anything else.

I remember trying to open a beer bottle with my hand once, the top needed an opener, I would not accept this and tried and tried until my hand bled and my friend who was driving pulled the car over to the shoulder of the highway so I could open it using the car door.  She asked me before that if I could wait and I looked at her like she was Insane.  Wait?  Fucking WAIT????  What fucking PART OF ME DO YOU THINK CAN FUCKING WAIT????  I didn't say that but she could tell and drove to the side of the rode.  We were doing to DC to protest something at the time.  because I 'cared' so much...sure, sure whatever as long as I can FUCKING DRINK...

I was 18 at the time.

See why I got sober at 23?  I lost my virginity blind drunk to a player, and was surprised when he wanted me out of his life.  Shocked, shocked.  Also 18.  Bad year.  Bad vintage.  Brought Abbie Hoffman to speak at my university tho, he was mad as a hatter and so was I, perfect for each other.  He killed himself the next year, and I felt guilty cause I hadn't taken a job working with him but went to work in a crappy NYC theatre instead.  Felt selfish and unclean.  Story of my fucking life...

And now, now, I am sober, what the fuck?  Do you see, do you see and can you Feel the miracle of that?  It's insane.  I shouldn't be sober.  My so-called privileged friends from my tony schools I went to on scholarship, so many are dead from drug overdoses and alcoholism...I thought they had it all, but all they had was enough rope to hang themselves.  This disease takes no prisoners and is no respecter of class distinctions...it's vicious, cruel and wanted me dead, still does in fact...but I'm alive, against all fucking odds and my ex, bless him, is out there drinking - he took that rode at 19 years sober - it's his life and journey and all that but it pisses me off for selfish reasons...I don't want to have to worry about him and I'd like to be in touch with him but that doesn't work for me.  He's in a weird place and I can't cope with that.  Our relationship was also, as mentioned above, not in any way shape or form healthy so perhaps it's all for the best.  But still, seems sad to me...also sometimes it can make me jealous, which is insane, but it can...like somehow the alcoholism won out over me Or even worse what if he's 'getting away with it' and I'm the schmuck who's staying sober?  What then?!

And it goes back again and again to this simple dumb thing: I know me, I know I'm an alcoholic, I know for me to drink is to die and as I've heard before and know is true for me: I may have another drink in me but I don't think I have another recovery in me.  This is brutal stuff and I've walked through so much, I don't want to let that go.

Last night, at a meeting, a guy talked about getting sober in prison because when drunk at 16 he almost killed his father who had prior to that almost killed his mother.  He got sober, eventually got out of jail and then watched his 9 year old child get killed by a car last year and his twin sister and 19 year old daughter die of this disease.  And he said 'and I don't have any excuse to drink' and he meant it, and I know that because I've said similar things and that guy, that guy was my hero last night.  And that guy, my friends, is truly hardcore.  I really believe this, there is n blessing like sobriety if you are a drunk and there is nothing more hardcore than living in this world - the one we are in right now, right here - sober.

No windshield.  Indeed.

Thank you all for reading and for those of you who know who you are, thanks for keeping me sober.  I wouldn't trade it, even now.  Even Now.