PTO, sobriety, T-Rex

Today I took some PTO so I could spend the morning in some AA workshops and do extra Big Book work with my sponsor.
When I woke up this morning, I felt grumpy,
and the last thing I wanted to do was talk about my alcoholism,
but sometimes being an Actual Adult means ironing out your Shit (capital “s” intended) even when you’d rather ignore said Shit
altogether.

I so do enjoy a good moment of Shit Ignoring.
I indulge such moments, albeit far more sparingly so these days.
I am living in a more purposeful, deliberate manner than I’ve ever known,
so I don’t really “space out” a lot, but when I do I might,
of an evening enjoy some cannabis and/or watch a space movie and/or
listen to some music and just totally “check out” for an hour or two before bed. Or during the day, when I’m working and cannot “check out”
with cannabis or any substance outside of caffeine, for that matter,
I will sneak in a stretch in the sun.

I don’t mean this ironically. For some people this is sadly very true. For many Americans this is very true about alcohol specifically. I have never yet met a white American whose family was “destroyed by marijuana.” The only families in this country really “destroyed by marijuana” were not at all “destroyed by marijuana” but WERE DESTROYED by being Black or brown in the racist American legal system!

Yesterday, between classes, I snuck in a two-minute sun stretch
including the mantra,
“God, spare me from the madness of this world.”
(Yesterday, in my Actual Adult life, felt that great.
In such moments, I sometimes miss alcohol.
Actual Adulting — fellow Actual Adults, am I right, or
am I right? This Actual Adulting shit is a drag. I don’t want to
read emails and think about bills and shit. Ugh.)

I am lucky in that Tucson is nothing if not abundant with sun on virtually every day — regardless of season.

I am from this land. I am certain the seasons rather “disordered” proclivities shaped my mind and the mind of my ancestors. Also, I drank a lot of beer when I lived in Chicago. Frankly, I think I drank all the alcohol in Chicago circa 2001–2010 (after which point, I took my drinking to an even better city for drunks: MILWAUKEE).

Oh-my-God, I just referred to “God.”
Higher power level unlocked . . . sort of.
See, “God” is linguistically simpler in my native (and only) tongue of English, so I say “God” because I don’t feel like saying “Universal-Wisdom-Without-Form-or-Shape, keep me from drinking today.”
It’s just fucking easier to say, “God.”
And if Christian or Jewish or Muslim friends
take offense at my using the name “God”
to refer to my God-Universe-Nature-spirit-deeply-personal
understanding of something greater than myself, greater
than this brief, difficult, fascinating life? Then please,
help me find a better word than “God” that is
just as concise, and basically means
the same thing.

My sponsor and I spent some time, this morning, talking about grace.
How did I live? I find myself asking. How do I live?
“Grace,” my sponsor said. “By the grace of your Higher Power.”
And my Higher Power, my “God” is not anything my Christian,
Jewish, or Muslim friends have been able to present me with.
Their stories, the stories of all major world religions, are beautiful to me,
but they all feel like virtually every beautiful story I’ve ever read:
at best, rife with lofty purpose; at worst, heavy on an agenda.
Even my stories, my life, has its own agenda.
Sometimes I am cognizant of the agenda,
and sometimes I find myself on the agenda, unawares.
(Mike, my brother by another mother, if you are reading this,
you will know exactly what I mean: the fuckin’ river.)
Like breast cancer. That was most definitely NOT on my agenda.
That was nowhere in the cruel, riveting, and absurd plan I had concocted for my American Life. In fact, last I checked, nobody in my family line consulted me before placing fucking breast cancer on the agenda.
So this was something outside of human control/understanding.
This was in my God’s agenda for me.
I was on my God’s agenda.
Sometimes I understand.
Sometimes I don’t.
Sometimes I get really fucking angry about being on God’s agenda.
I have an aversion to all meetings in which I have little to no control (which is to say most meetings in my life) over the agenda.
Frustrates me.
Scares me.
Often bores me.

Sister Act is a quality film. Also, I am not talking about this kind of God because I had to spend most of my childhood being fucked up by this flavor of Christianity’s “God.” Still, I like the art, the music, the ridiculous Catholic pagentry.

I spent the first four hours of my day working, expressly, on my own sobriety.
I showered, brushed my teeth, put on comfy clothes and got on the guest bed — that’s in my Spaceship Home Office — and settled in for a morning of tea and discussion of alcoholism by way of poorly written American prose from the 1950s. (The principles of The Big Book are very solid, but the prose needs work/updating. Just saying.
I do not speak for AA.
This is just my personal opinion.)

Sarah got home early, just as I finished up with my sponsor,
and my spouse and I cuddled on the guest bed in my cozy Spaceship
Home Office, laughing, remarking on how very cozy and “me” my office is,
and talking about our respective days and how exhausted we both were (seriously, these Dog Dayz of The Plague are becoming . . .
well, tiresome).

In about ten days, I go back to Flagstaff to rescue a few personal items from my former classroom, see some friends, and most importantly,
spend some good time with my graduating seniors
who I have come to know and love so well in my past six/seven years at FALA. I never had children of my own (if you don’t follow Mildred Wellinever on FB, you really should), but the FALA class of 2021 is about as close
as I’ve ever come to raising a few children.
I do not believe there will again be a cohort of young people
quite so dear to me.
Then again, I have said this before — about the classes of 2020, 2018, 2017 . . . But no, seriously. Class of 2021 is extra special to me and they will belong to a special class of Gruber’s Favorite Formers in that I will know them as Gruber’s Favorite Formers (Real Maternal Instinct Reactions Edition).
Stop raising my maternal levels, Class of 2021. I do not need
this kind of estrogenic (is that a word?) activity happening
in my sick, tired body. Matter of fact, ESTROGEN causes my kind of cancer,
so it could be argued that the Class of 2021 is not just proverbially “killing” me . . . I’m kidding. The Class of 2021 has brought me more joy than I could ever express in this wild American time.

I seriously feel like I have this conversation at least twice a week with my wife in re: my feelings about the FALA Class of 2021.

My post title promised I’d talk a bit about T-Rex.
I was referring to the band, which I quite enjoy as far as British 70’s glam rock goes. I have been playing, while my students wait for Zoom class to start, “Children of the Revolution” — a fine T-Rex tune,
and an apt one for my FALA Class of 2021
because although singer/songwriter Marc Bolan’s lyrics
are largely nonsensical,
my students are the Children of the American Revolution
if an American Revolution is ever to take place in this country,
truly. (And no, don’t get hyper, I’m not fucking talking about guns
and guillotines and shit. I’m not a total fucking psycho, and I am
a trauma survivor who is not a fan of confrontation,
much less violence.) I think the American Revolution
could be one of poetry, prose, and good-faith human progress.
One could easily say, “Now, Gruber.
You’re sounding kind of ridiculously optimistic.
Are you sure it is not all the AA/God shit talking?
Because you are talking craziness right now.”
And one could say that and I would respond,
“My thinking may in fact be influenced by my work in AA.
This is true. Admitting to my own alcoholism
was one of the most important confessions —
more important than coming out as lesbian, more important than any bullshit confession I was forced to make, as a child, in the American Catholic Church’s dark, dark closets.
One could say that it’s my “AA talking”
and one would not be entirely wrong,
but when I say “Revolution,”
I am coming from a place of rage
that could only ever be known by
a stage-iv-cancer-having-lesbian-feminist-Gen-xer
who has been lied to by White Americans
since the day she was fucking born.
I am angry. And that I express my deep,
profound American fury with language
and not bullets
should be considered a blessing
from me
to my nation.