leap of faith

Believe it or not, I'm getting on a plane tomorrow morning and heading to another roundup.  In Atlanta.  Where I know no one (in recovery).  By myself.

I'm very curious to find out what my higher power is up to... 

Learned about it Tuesday night.  Last minute.  No one else could go.

Should I do it? 

I debated.

All the doors opened...one after another, after another, after another.

Hotel had rooms.  Airline had a last minute cheap flight plus car rental.  Registration was less than last week's--in Atlanta, no less--everything  just happened.

Of course, I had to freak.  Just a little, though.  It all seemed to come together so effortlessly, I was a bit taken aback by how little control I had over the situation.  And you know I have this thing about control...

Too many coincedences.  Too many synchronicities, alignments, connections.  Too much to ignore or really resist in any meaningful way.

I wanted to go.  Apparently my higher power wants me to go.  And so I'm off, first thing in the morning, away down south to Dixie...

Apart from visiting an old friend Sunday night, I have no idea what the weekend will hold.  I sort of like it that way.  Expectations screw everything up.

It is what it is.  It will be what it will be.

I'll be there, along for the ride, hopefully with some gratitude and serenity, and a smile on my face.

Who knows?  Maybe I'll see you there.

Honesty, serenity, and joy, folks--24 hours at a time...

round up low down

I'm just back from Dayton, OH and my first ever AA roundup.

It was a GLBT round up and the event's 25th anniversary.

1982- the onset of the AIDS crisis.  Some amazing folks in Ohio (and other places as well) got together and decided that if they were going to get through things, and get through things sober, they had to hang together.  Against all odds, an event was created for gay folks in recovery.  Pretty astounding.

Then after the horror of the that first crisis, there were more, intentional horrors to follow in the years after--cocaine, crack, meth, bug chasing, and (of course) drunk after drunk after drunk--it's incredible the ferocity with which we gay men wage a war of self-hatred against ourselves.  Yet through it all, there have been brave souls haunting rooms with flint-hard glimmers of hope.  Folks who know there is another way.  Folks who are willing to share razor sharp honesty and unconditional love.

And though you can find such groups and roundups around the world, Ohio was where I was this weekend, and I'm grateful for the experience.

I have to laugh.  I was wigged out by the whole event. 

Very intense stuff:

I felt brilliant, expansive, open love.  Tears welled up in my eyes, sometimes for no apparent reason.  I laughed and hugged and kissed beautiful friends and strangers.  I got anxious and nervous.  I got turned on and spent the entire weekend half horny.  I wanted to know everything about everyone, and I wanted to run away and hide.  I met people whose very presence rocked me to the core of my soul, and there were people who freaked me the hell out.  In fact, the whole experience was so intense, I really wasn't sure what was going on.  I felt exhilirated, profoundly touched and transformed, and at the same time pretty beaten up...

When I got back home, I called my sponsor, who gently reminded me that this phenomenon is what most folks in the normal world refer to as "feelings".  Given the fact I've spent the past 18 years burying and running from my emotions, it was quite a cluster fuck to be feeling so many of the little buggers, so strongly, all at once.  As always, I felt a great sense of relief after talking with my sponsor, and decided I should tackle writing something down more or less in the heat of the afterglow.

It was then that I really laughed.  In thinking of a title for my post--how to explain this wild, rangy flood of emotions, this barrage of thoughts, this explosion of feeling, understanding, openness--I recalled the title of the round-up: "Thus We Grow".

Wow.

That's some higher power stuff at work if ever there was...

In so many different ways the weekend was extraordinary.

I got closer to some of my home group.  My unexpected roommate, the unbelievably fabulous R.  The graceful and elegant C. who held my hand as a room full of drunks talked out the terror and sorrow of our shared grief and loss.  An old acquaintance who has become a new friend and who played masterful chauffer for the weekend, C.  Cake master B.  "Old timers" R. and J.  And too many others to name, even though I could go on and on and on...

I also met a host of new folks.  So many I can't keep the names straight.  The faces, though, the smiles, the hearts, the laughter, the wicked grins--those will be with me for a long time.  Groups from Cincy and Columbus.  Our hard-working hosts from Dayton.  Further flung folks from Canton, Akron, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Indianopolis, Louisville...  For one weekend the Marriot became mecca for a dazzling menagerie of recovering drunks and addicts.  The Crayon Guy and the guy who hadn't colored since grade school.  The Guitar Gang on the smoking patio, strumming out every die-hard sing-a-long known to man.  Dancin' B and the Euchre Boys, who taught me how to play a new game of cards when I was so sleepy I could barely hold my head up.  The chairs of the workshops, the speakers, the knowing smiles in the hallway...

If you've ever been on one of those 5-day tours of Europe, where you see three countries and ten cities in less than a week--that's sort of what the round up was like.  1400 years of sobriety (yes, they counted) compressed into a little less than 72 hours.

Now that I'm back, and the flood of emotions is sinking into my hard-packed, dry drought, soul soil, serenity is returning.  Deep, profound, peaceful.

Strange how it feels so much an honor to set down my recollections of this weekend.  Gratitude is flowing from my heart...

To all of you who were there (especially to D, who of his own accord was promoting my blog!), thank you.  To my home group, my thanks and my love.  To my sponsor, so much thanks (and next time bring the tambourine).  And to my Higher Power, who shall remain nameless and inconscribable, thanks for introducing me to Life--on Life's Terms.

There's one other thing that I have to include, for the benefit of a select few.  From a conversation at Panera:

"417."

"417? Who's in 417? Is he cute?"

"Page."

"Paige?  Paige who?"

Honesty, serenity, and hope, folks--24 hours at time...

"follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness" --alan ginsberg

Every morning my sponsor sends a quote by email.  The title of this post was today's quote, and it spoke to me.

For so long I was sure there was something existentially wrong with me.  Something intrinsically flawed, alien, impermissible.

Today, I've exchanged endless fantasies about what kind of person I should be for an honest curiosity about who I really am.

You'd think that would be a simple thing, but it's not.  Stories are powerful, and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are the most powerful of all.  Like most stories, those tales get passed on and added to by folks far removed from the source...

I'm quirky.  A bit of a geek.  Terribly over-educated.  Surreptitiously sentimental.  Inconsistently romantic.  Inappropriately passionate.  And amazingly enough, okay with it all.

I used to be sure there was a handbook or manual that everyone on the planet had been given except me.  My way of thinking about things, my way of looking at the world seemed completely different from all the "normal" people I knew.

Now I've met a fantastic menagerie of folks whose thinking and behavior is equally or more extravagantly bizarre than my own.  Rather than feel alarmed or embarassed for them or for me, I take peculiar comfort in the fact.

The evangelists of political correctness exhort us to 'celebrate diversity'.  They have no idea...

What a zoo, what a wild faerie circle we humans inhabit on a daily basis. 

I have a favorite game I play where I turn myself on by imagining hot men I pass during the course of a day naked, writhing in the throes of sex.  Now I've expanded the game.  I get turned on by thinking about the fact that every sack of flesh contains universes of stories, memories, madness, sadness, loss, laughter, and yes, perennially, love...

There's no way I can begin to communicate how much my life has been transformed in a few short months.  Not that everything is perfect or even close to it.  No illusions there.  I've had an intense week of work already.  I'm exhausted, swamped, and still up at midnight blogging.  But in the midst of it all, I feel daily more and more grounded and free.  I catch myself laughing sometimes, softly, to myself, at the wonder of it all.  Even when I'm totally stressed out by shifting deadlines, irrational client demands, and my unruly bank balance, there's a profound peace that assures me everything is as it should be.

That's what it's all about, I suppose.  (They say it often enough in the meetings I attend.)  Living life on life's terms.

Perhaps what I'm feeling is just a 'pink cloud' moment (doesn't that term remind you of drag queens twirling chiffon in a Busby Berkeley vehicle?).  Perhaps tomorrow I'll be bitter and full of venom and spite.  Who can say?  What will be will be (more drag queens singing Doris Day numbers).  I'll have the opportunity to resist reality, fight the flow of things, or accept the hand that's dealt and do my best to play it well.

On that note, I'll tip my hat to all you fine folks in cyber space and bid you each a good night.

a road less travelled

I'm finally breaking the silence. 

It's been a long time since I've written (bad blogger, bad...)

A lot of amazing things have been happening in my life.  Profound mysteries.  Deep transformations.  Alchemies of the soul.

I must express gratitude to my higher power, the twelve steps, and the supportive folks who keep me sane on a day-to-day basis.

Last week I turned 37.  For the first time in 18 years I didn't get blitz-faced drunk.  I had a fantastic birthday weekend--one of the best in memory.

Perhaps the best gift of all is one I've been dreaming about for a while.  Starting tomorrow, I'm a free agent.  I'm taking my show on the road.  I'm going to be my own boss and take responsibility for this life I've been given.

There's so much to be thankful for.  I've had a profound shift in my personal, spiritual geography.  I've moved from worrying constantly about every little thing in life to pretty much not worrying about anything.

I'm making friends with fear.  Learning to accept my dark side.  I'm much more peaceful these days.  I laugh deep laughter, and often I'm moved by simple, beautiful things.

Acceptance and surrender have become my bywords.

Not to be off-putting to those of a less-than-religious persuasion, but I have found tremendous strength and serenity in "turning my life and will over to a higher power as I understand it".  I have become a Child of the Universe, a Servant of the Secret Fire, an Aspirant to Heirophancy.

And acceptance.  Wow. 

Amazing the amount of time and energy I've spent in my life resisting The Way Things Are.  Growth, journey, change--it's almost impossible if you refuse to believe there is a road.  If you are constantly wishing you were somewhere other than where you are, someone other than you are, some time other than your time.

I've discovered deep magic.  Magic that comes from a natural curiosity about life, people, myself and my own twisted thoughts.  I've discovered my own rapacious and insatiable self-centeredness, and I'm realizing how keeping a constant, rigid, razor focus on myself has prevented me from knowing at all who I am.

How funny that all the things I tried to get past, overcome, tone down, or dumb down have become the very things I embrace as making me uniquely me.

And oh, humanity.  The beauty, the pain, the absurdity.  When I have enough presence of mind not to try to manage, fix, and control the lives of all people on the planet, I get such rare, glimmering glimpses of beauty.  "Wonders are many, but none the more wonderful than man."

I feel the poetry these days.  I feel the love.  I'm sure hard times, dark times will come.  I'm sure good times and sad times will as well.  Today, though, I am at peace.  At peace with myself, with the world, and with the Spirit of the Universe.

There's lots of work to be done.  Much still left to learn.  But I feel like I'm building a foundation, one step at a time.

This weekend is the Ohio Roundup.  It's my first roundup, and I'm excited although I have no idea what to expect.  If any of you folks are there, look me up.

As you've probably noticed, I've given my site a new look, yet again.  It's really the reverse arc of a pendulum swing.  As a good alcoholic, everything I attempt--even recovery--I have to attempt to the extreme.  I'm learning the wisdom of moderation though.  Consideration over impulse.  This new look represents a bit more of my true tastes and proclivities.  It's dark, mysterious, titillating...

Now that I'm on this new journey, finding my own path through the wilderness, I hope to spend a bit more time writing here.  Sharing with all of you fine folks my ups, my downs, my confusion, and hopefully, just a little experience, strength, and hope.

The road goes ever on...