And then there was one...

One moment.  One day.  One life. One.  Just one. One breath.  One heartbeat.  One earth. One love. One people.  One.

One.

I forget sometimes.  I forget that I am one.  A synthesis of thought and deed.  Though the thoughts may wander and wreak havoc upon the world and her children, the body may be still and silent, laying in the sunlit grass, breathing and being.

Two distinct "bodies" - one, a body of thought and desire, trapped 'tween the ears.  The second, a physical manifestation, eating, shitting, procreating, dying.

I believe this twisted, braided journey is the whole kit and kaboodle - the answer to the mystery.  Our wills and thoughts and consciences are torn endlessly between the spiritual truths and lofty values of our teachers and the clear, undistilled pleasures that are borne of the flesh.  To lust is one thing, to chase it down to the end, grabbing that tiger by the tail and drawing blood are two very different things indeed.

But, in the end, we are one.

If we do not act, are we not still guilty of the sin?  Are we inherently meant to carry those sins as human luggage?  If God allows me to feel it, want it, NEED it, it must certainly be ordained, right?  RIGHT?  If he wanted me to be clean and sober, he would have removed the urge from me.  Right?  Christ, I know I would have if I were God!

I label myself an addict.  This is ostensibly done to remind me of my penchant for forgetting that I am unable to have "just one"...  I don't buy it anymore.

Like my friend Percy tells me, "You're not a crackhead.  You just THINK you're a crackhead."

I used to delay my work - my REAL work - songwriting, prose, writing plays and stories, etc. - because I wasn't "sober"...  I used to think that my truth wasn't distilled properly, that my writing was convoluted and twisted, that it didn't accurately capture my soul or my true heart; that I needed to be clean for "undisclosed duration of time" before I could write in a good way.  Always waiting.

Waiting for that day to come.   Maybe after one year clean and sober, maybe 6 months.  Who would know? Well, I thought I would know when the time was right.  Then never writing, and always relapsing.  Stymieing my chances at literary success or songwriting legend.

Fuck that paradigm.

The time is now.  This moment. This breath.

I am a writer.  Sometimes business plans and organizational development documents, or proposals and reports, sometimes songs and prose.  But always A WRITER.

And a writer that doesn't write is a dumbass.  I am also a singer/songwriter.  I haven't sung for months.

I love this life.  And so many who share it with me.  And what else is life but a celebration of who we are?

I need to celebrate.  Right now.  Right now.  Right now.  This moment, this breath, this heartbeat.

Time is becoming precious in this world.

I have a dear friend, a relative, who says, "just you wait, one day I will be truly where I deserve to be..."  and he waits, sadly, forlorn, he waits.  Not realizing the time is now.

The time is now.

So, onward and upward.  Let us sally forth.

I recently celebrated 59 days of sobriety by picking up.  Not purposely, not like "hey, I deserve this.."  but sneakily, more insidiously.  Like I had allowed the tiger to slip out from under the careful watch he had been placed.

I left the gate unlocked, and placed several large, tender steaks around his cage, in order that he might find his way out.

Sabotage.

Dummy.

I don't want that life.  I dangled my toes in the water of the streets again, normalized behaviours of couriering mules and pushers around for a blast, driving through deathly slippery conditions in near whiteout in order that the prying eyes of "THEM" wouldn't see me in my shame.  Silly goose.  Thankfully, the God that I know to be there, always, held my hand, stilled my truck, held it to the icy, salted asphalt. "QUIT pushing your luck there chum, and challenging my love for you," says He.  "Trust in me.  Trust in you.  Listen to your true self."

Simple.

I picked up a guy outside the Mustard Seed on Saturday morning.  Asked him where I could pick up.  He came with me in my truck, looked around, saw the little mess, the little bit of self loathing mockery I was sitting in, and asked me, "so are you Indian or what?"

I answer yes.  He takes pity on me in my lostness.  He has been there.  He has the jewel eyes of a gaunt tiger.  He also has dope.  I tell him I only have ten bucks, and it is in change.  He laughs, "you're worse than a panhandler."

I laugh too.  This is true.  He says, "well, give me a ride over to the co-op by Boyle St. and I'll hook you up good."

Then, when I've poured the handful of quarters into his hands and he's given me the goods, he looks at me and says, "hey."

I look back at him.

"Make sure you get home," he says.  My heart just warms and I awaken from the tiger's hypnotic pull over me.

The gatekeeper that leaves raw meat lying outside the tiger's cage is a liar.  A selfish little self pitying liar that was borne from dysfunction and chaos, reared and raised on porn and instant gratification.  "I want my cake NOWWWWWW!"  Sometimes he leaves the key in the lock, and sometimes he unlocks the cage entirely. The tiger will always be there, gaunt and hungry, wily and strong, pacing his cage till eternity.

The soft, quiet me, the one that I love, wants him to stay in there.  The loud brash charmer, he thumbs his nose at the fear and dares that tiger to slip out.  Fucking dares him.

And what is irrevocably twisted is that all are part of the one.  The me.  The Sheldon.  The Dude.  Lone, but never alone.

To what should I aspire?  A comfortable circle jerk with a tiger, a liar, a gentle spirit, sitting in counsel together, harmonious?  I don't know that this is a real picture.

My heart tells me that I have to meditate, sit still, listen to my heart and allow those disparate voices and characters and bullshit dissipate into the wind, until only one remains.

Now is the time.