Truth Be Told

Thirteen years ago I quit drinking and this past week I celebrated a very different life, a sober life, a truly happy and authentic life. 

My journey in sobriety has been scenic and full of adventures. I’ve done some cool shit like hike the Camino de Santiago and climb Machu Picchu. I’ve become a writer and artist. I’ve traveled the world and actually remembered what I saw and who I met. I met a life partner and together we converted a school bus thinking we would one day live off grid. We compromised on sticks and bricks in a small rural haven in Oregon instead. 

Sobriety hasn’t been all sunshine and roses though. Being awake, being sober is facing truth, accepting reality, and diplomatically when appropriate calling out shit that is wrong. I’ve felt a lot of feelings on this sojourn and many have been tough to accept. I’ve fallen in and out of love. I’ve endured another profound heartbreak with wrong guy #2, and suffered through PTSD and disillusionment with the election of trump. Yes, trump is in the top three of shitty events that have happened during my sobriety. This is the curse of feeling my feelings and caring more about the planet and a country and its people than many seem to care about either. 

I recently read an article that said that Americans are among the most stressed in the world. I believe this is an accurate assessment. We work too much and make too little. Housing prices are exorbitant, causing many to be forced from their homes. Student loans are drowning young folks in a lifetime of debt. Many people can’t afford sick insurance. Veterans are committing suicide at higher rates than ever before. Farmers are being ruined first by Monsanto and now trump’s tariffs. Tax returns are dwindling. Gas prices are going up. Meanwhile, record numbers of animal species are going extinct because our consumption habit is killing the planet and we’ve installed an authoritarian government that is looting the country, turning a blind eye on climate change, violating human rights, and sleeping with other dictators. This is not making America great again–it’s demolishing democracy one day at a time and the cult following is not only pleased, it’s complicit. No one is coming for your guns. Immigrants are not stealing your jobs or your money yet we are kidnapping their children. This, in a country founded by immigrants. Shameful.

You think I’m stressed? I am beyond stressed. I’m angry, disgusted, and ashamed by what we have become in the country. Where is the uprising against hate? The fight for equality? Where is the constitutional mandate to put country before party? When are we going to get rid of Citizens United and take money out of politics? When are we going to start doing the right thing, America? What we are doing is wrong. The way we are living is unacceptable. Our government is abhorrent and needs to be brought to heel. 

I’ve held my tongue on these issues for many reasons that I cannot state. I’ve avoided politics on this blog. I’ve been focusing on mindfulness and am doing my best to be at peace with world. I’ve moved 3,000 miles away from DC to place distance between myself and the embarrassing shit show on Pennsylvania Avenue. But there is a time and place to speak out, and on the anniversary week of my sobriety, I choose truth, honesty, and compassion. 

We must care for each other and do for each other and the planet what our federal government is not and will not do. We cannot count on our federal government to save the planet or provide us health care or give us raises and lower housing prices. We must do it ourselves. We must turn to our local, county, and state governments to make right what is being doing wrong by this administration that cares only about lining its own pockets with OUR money. We are in crisis, despite what it looks like on Wall Street. Sitting by and watching it all happen like a slow moving train wreck is unacceptable. Voting is not enough. I implore people to get involved in their communities to do what is right for the planet and for each other. 

We are a young country and we make mistakes. Like a stubborn teenager, we insist that we know best. Our European brothers and sisters have already been where we are. We should strive to be wise beyond our years and look to them for guidance because what we are doing now, isn’t working and its not who we are. Four years can be forgiven. Eight cannot.

Spring Dalliance

Grass grows at an epic pace now that the sun has appeared. Dandelions sprout every other day. Birds call to one another and flit through the bushes and shrubs. Squirrels chirp as they scurry across blossom covered branches. The warmth and light chases the winter blues away in one afternoon and I have already forgotten how long the weeks of rain felt.

The deer have returned and snacked vigerously at every urban salad bar within reach. The cat is mesmerized by these big creatures and discovers that he, fierce cougar that he imagines himself to be, is capable of running them off to protect the garden that he cares not to share. Insects and birds are no longer safe either, nor is the bully cat down the street who is dwarfed by the kitten turned big fat beast! 

Quiet, still mornings evaporate into bustling days with people puttering down Main Street just over one street more. Hikers and backpackers traipse through town and tourists have returned. Children run down the street to the candy and ice cream stores after school. Landscapers are back to work—mowers humming and chainsaws buzzing to make beautiful the yards neglected through fall and winter. 

Spring is a mischievous mistress; flirting with summer while winking at winter, making everyone keen to how unpredictable she is. I hold on to these moments in the sun like precious gifts and hurry about to finish my boring indoor chores when it rains. Once summer wins spring over, there will be no going inside until it’s time to escape the blazing heat of August. For now though, a few more raindrops will give me time to finish up projects that I will neglect til the rainy season starts anew.

Time Gone By

The wind rolled over my body as I slept in a bed of wildflowers that teased the clouds and rose only after my skin had pinked the shade of the loveliest tea roses you’d ever seen. Near the great oak a wild horse stood doing whatever horses do and I stood enchanted by the verdant hills that I’d only ever known to be a dull brown covered with dust.

The rains had drown the drought and now a lush field of thick grass existed where there had been none before. I marveled at the land that had once resembled death but now satisfied like drink to a parched man’s lips. The trees burst with flowers and the bees danced across the pedals, buzzing a great harmony to ears that would later feast upon the fruits of their labor.

Earth appeared as a different place. Even the smelly bog had reformed and instead of striking depression became a reflecting pool for the great cyan sky and booming white clouds.

We passed orchard after orchard until we were stopped by a passing train. It could have been a long time ago and for just a moment, it was.