Deer and Whales
I am happy today.
This morning my friend Laura departed and this afternoon my friend Virgil arrives.
People are getting vaccinated in my life, and I am overjoyed because how I have missed my people. During Laura’s visit, I scarcely even looked at my phone or computer, but when I had to teach/assist students, and this was glorious. We talked non-stop for two days. Free form. No point necessary.
Tomorrow, I will be 50 days sober from alcohol.
I do still use cannabis socially, and sometimes for sleep.
I am being honest. For me, the problem is the drink.
If I drink, I will die. Period. End of story. It’s really
that bleak.
But the last 50 days have been some of the best
of my whole life and not just because I’m “off the sauce”
but because I’ve started getting real comfortable and real familiar with,
as they say in AA, “life on life’s terms.” And sometimes life’s terms
are decidedly not my terms (like I could really do without this metastatic
breast cancer bullshit), and sometimes, if I show up for it with a clear head,
in good faith, with compassion life gives me miracles.
Not miracles like Paper Money and cures for cancer, but
miracles like feeling my feelings and letting myself cry
when I’m dead ass sober just because I’m moved by something astonishing
or moved by something beautiful or moved by a student’s kind words or
a Favorite Former’s gift of flowers and chocolate or because I know
some of the best Americans on Earth: female and male, old and young,
from all walks of American life. I’m lucky.
And for today, my health is good. I feel good in my body.
I am on day 2 of my 7 day break from Ibrance. I am migrating
my cancer care to Mayo clinic (this is a job in and of itself), my eyeball
is healed and soon I will be getting new glasses.
Life is not hard today because I’m not allowing it to be. This weekend is for me, for Sarah, for Virgil, for Abe. The people in my “hula hoop.”
As of this publication, I am “off-the-clock” from work and a free agent
until Monday. The jobs Sarah and I currently work have allowed us
to continue building a really nice little home for ourselves. My studio
gets dreamier every day. Today, I am comfortable with where I am
and who I am. For that, I am grateful.
Now I’m off to journal, work on currently-untitled-book-three,
and plan for Virgil’s visit wherein he and I will surely laugh too much,
stay up far too late, and go in way too deep on certain American Subjects.
My two favorite creatures, currently, are deer and seals. (Whales are
easier to doodle — hence my journal doodle above.) However, there is
a mural here in Tucson that I love that depicts whales above the Sonoran
Desert.
Today, my Sonoran Desert has deer and seals floating in the sky above it.
Today, whales, also.
