To Wit, to Woo...

My thanks today to Paul Weinhold; his blog answered me a pressing question and also directed me to the narrow gate through which I must pass, by annotating the immortal words of one of the greatest writers in history, Hesiod.

Encouragement from Hesiod

σοὶ δ᾽ ἐγὼ ἐσθλὰ νοέων ἐρέω, μέγα νήπιε Πέρση.
τὴν μέν τοι κακότητα καὶ ἰλαδὸν ἔστιν ἑλέσθαι
ῥηιδίως: λείη μὲν ὁδός, μάλα δ᾽ ἐγγύθι ναίει:
τῆς δ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν
ἀθάνατοι: μακρός δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἶμος ἐς αὐτὴν
καὶ τρηχύς τὸ πρῶτον: ἐπὴν δ᾽ εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηται,
ῥηιδίη δὴ ἔπειτα πέλει, χαλεπή περ ἐοῦσα.

For your own good, I tell you, Perses, you silly fool,
Badness by the barrel-full one can lay hold of
Easily; the way is smooth and quite close at hand.
But the immortal gods have put sweat before excellence.
The path to that is long and steep
And rough at first, but when one nears the top,
Then it gets easy, though it is still difficult.

Sheldon, you silly fool.  This is beginning to not hold water anymore.  Less a silly fool than a hurtful ass. 

We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.  But really, is there anything really other than spiritual perfection?  Our spirits are perfect.  Our bodies' abilities to house them perfectly are less than average. 

Selfishness.  This came rising to the fore again.  I had worked it down till it was barely noticeable, but then, like an old unwelcome friend, the dreadful knock on the door, that at once awakens fear and queasy feelings, but at the same time, a little perverse excitement. 

So many exhort me to make recovery a full time job.  I am beginning to think they are right. 

My brain is bruised today and my face is sore from the oral surgery the other day.  I need to heal.  My spirit is also sore from being misused and maltreated.  Today is one day. But it is one day.  The saint with whom I share my life grows weary of my bullshit.  There was supposed to not be anymore bullshit.  I sincerely thought I was through the woods.  There was my biggest failing.  Never through the woods, only one day reprieve from the insanity of active addiction at a time. 

Fuck me. It is from the self hate from "same ol', same ol'" that the desire to dig in and persevere wanes.  The frustration of failure, the immensity of the wreckage that can form in such short fashion.  These things conspire to keep me lost, blind and broken. 

No, I say.  No.  Today is for me.  Today is for my heart and soul and my children.  Today I live.  Today I will give love to those who stand by me, and love to me too. 

I had attached myself so firmly to a program of recovery and a fellowship, so firmly to a feeling of being done, of being committed to a life of sobriety and health.  Then, I stopped moving forward.  I stopped helping others.  I got busy again, jumped back into work, being a multitasking ADHD doughhead, smooth talker and crazy homelife.  Recovery took a back seat and so did my sobriety.  Asshole selfish druggie jumped back into the front seat, and I never even put up a fight.  I just let him slide in.  And once in, he has a hard time relinquishing the wheel. 

I've taken it back.  Today,  with a vengeance, and with some soft love for my hurting soul and my hurting family.

Today, and God willing every day.

The owl's call.  To wit and to woo.  My friend Paul Weinhold describes the possibilities of what Shakespeare may have meant with the owl's call in Love's Labor Lost here.  I think this is the choice I am faced with - to succumb to my wit, to the place of my ego, where my rat-a-tat-tat smarty pants sense of humour and manipulative wordsmithery live, or to woo; to that place of love, which is sincere, real and borne of love and all things of the heart.  The former is a slippery slope for me, where I may be prone to my own bullshit,  The latter is a part of me that I love.  My soft, chewy centre, and one that is safer for everyone.  To wit, to woo:  If that is a question, then certainly I must to woo. 

Much love.
S.

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.

It's all about me...

I have this little four word phrase that I find myself saying over and over again.  It shows up at the most painful of times, it show up at the best of times.  It's a soft little admission that feels so good to type and feels even better saying.

"She's right you know."

So often my better half quietly keeps her truth to herself, while I remonstrate or jump up and down, explaining with vicious and unabashed judgement how "so and so" just judges everyone, or "you can't trust that guy, because all he does is talk behind peoples' backs."  Blind to the simple, beautiful truths.  Blind to my own blowhard, self-seeking bullshit.

And there she sits, quietly letting me make an ever bigger fool out of myself, still loving me, still nodding once in a while at the right moment, careful not to bruise my puffed out feathers or interfere with my "cock of the yard" strut.

But then, when all of my pomp and circumstance has dwindled, and my self important speeches have ended, and all the hot air has been retired from the balloon, she takes a careful breath and very simply, adeptly and honestly lets me know what the fuck.  Not to hurt, but to enlighten.  Not to admonish or belittle, but to expand and teach.

She is a real beauty, a real example of shining love stuff - borne of heaven and delicately stuffed into the physical being of a supermodel.  Sometimes she is a Cree princess, not afraid to rough me up or anybody else for that matter, to make her point.  Her sense of justice is impeccable.  Her views on truth and psychology and philosophy and social contract and empowerment and growth and all that is interesting and real in this world are nearly always bang on true and accurate (I say nearly because to be right all the time would be maddening; I should know!).

She is mother like no other.  A friend to all who need one.  A beacon of truth and gentle compassionate understanding.

And I love her, till this heart beats no more, I love her.  From beyond this mortal coil, I will love her, brush her hair from her face as the wind; caress her cheek as a gentle rain drop; hold her close as a mist, rolling in off the lake.

And for now, I must love her from afar.  Slowly plodding through the baby steps that seem so great.  Through the paces of early recovery.  I want so badly to run to her, to hold her, to be her man instead of her sad broken addict boyfriend.

Patience young feller.  Do a little work young feller.  Get through a day or two, then perhaps a week or two, then maybe a month or two without picking up; without sabotaging your growth, healing or recovery.  Pay a few bills and rebuild some of what you tried so desperately to destroy.

Then, show her some of your moves:




That oughta do it!

I love you baby.
S.

Small world after all...

It's a world of laughter, a world of tears...
It's a world of hope and a world of fears...
There's so much that we share, and it's time we're aware,
It's a small world after all...

Grade 3, during the blur that was my elementary school years.  I think it was St. Edmund's Catholic School where I spent all of four or five months.  I was dressed in my buckskin, and even a little moosehide headband with black yarn braids.  I was the Indian.  Among little Dutch girls, boys in liederhosen, and all the colours of the rainbow.  Was I the only one who felt shame?  How terrible that I was ashamed to be Indian.  How fucking terrible that a seven year old has to feel those feelings.  Where did they come from?  How does the purity and innocence of childhood become tainted by asshole things like shame and fear and the need to be liked over anything else?

Who knows...

Singing became a big part of my life.  Always, always.  My family were all musical - Kokom "Mother Maybelle" Edna, Uncle Vic and his lap steel patent and professional session time and road trips with the likes of Ferlin Husky, Anny Murray, and a bevy of country stars; Uncle Jimmy and his banjo, mando and fiddle, brylcreem pompadour and a smile that shone brighter than a National steel guitar.  Uncle George, who I remember dancing in pantyhose and skirt, front partial plate taken out, but whose fiddle playing rose above his fashion sense and penchant for drunken showmanship.

My mom taught me my first song - how fitting that it was a Hank Williams tune, Blues Stay Away from Me.  My uncle Rocky showed me some chops - a Carter family riff, a little Ghost Riders in the Sky,  and these things sent me on the way to discovering a talent for song.

Soon, Dwayne Arlidge shared a little Black Dog with me and thus a love affair with Zeppelin was forged.  Rob Wingo introduced me to Major Pentatonic scale and some 12-bar blues. 

But it was my mom's record collection that really created my love of music.  Jackson Browne - Running on Empty - a record recorded entirely on the road, some in hotel rooms, and one even on a bus (this is obviously not the bus recording, but such a groovy tune; the bus recording has the drummer playing a hi hat and a cardboard box with a footpedal as a bass drum, and you can hear the ol' Silver Eagle gear down in the background as it approaches a downhill turn).

Music transported me.  I remember lying on the floor with some big ass Dolby headphones just sitting there listening to Jesus Christ Superstar, "I don't know how to looooooooove him..."

How I longed to be soothed by Jesus like Mary Magdalene.  How he could touch her heart, this woman of the street.  How he could rattle her to her core...  I could relate.

I remember feeling so ripped off by the world.  How could we continue to kill, stockpile arms, hurt our children, drink, fight, drug and steal when clearly the truth was laid bare before us by this humble Galileean some two thousand years before.

Music used to make me cry.  Softly, gently, laying on my back, all of nine years old or ten or seven or even six:  Warm salty tears sliding down my cheeks, ears and ragged mullet, finally gently laying to rest in our myriad shag carpets.  Comforted me so deeply.  Brought reason and timing, stories with starts and finishes, middles and denouments.  Brought order to my chaos. 

Funny, we sometimes had pretty meagre fridge contents, but shit we had music.  Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Nana Mouskouri , Beach Boys , Charlie Daniels Band.

Lots of music, all kinds. All flavours.  Rock, country, blues, classical, Indian Music - AWESOME Indian music  I loved this band, this album, this song.  Idyllic lifestyle, being one with the rivers, the woods, the deer and fish and sky and sun. 

Even my dream last night.  I was diving into crystal clear waters.  Swimming with my crazy step daughter while her mom was all worried, chiding us from the bridge.  Free.  Alive.  Tears and laughter.

I awoke to a sickness in my chest and a pain in my heart, fear and loathing in my brain and hurt in my stomach.  All these beautiful things within this world, and I choose crackdens, the paranoid highway - eyes in the rearview, scoping the countryside, looking for cops, people following me.  What the fuck.

I missed my trip to the mountains this weekend.  So sad for me.  How I treat myself. Fucker.  The guy that's driving this train is really starting to piss me off.

I was just listening to that song from the last link:  XIT, Plight of the Redman, At Peace, and watching the video.  At the end it says, "For You Native Americans Looking for Peace.  Just Go Home. Where Home is.  And Peace Will Find You.  Mother Earth is Waiting. Grandfathers are Watching."

So I cry yet again, knowing full well the words are true.  How I could have dove in crystal waters.  Friday night I sat in my truck, me and my little asshole friend hiding somewhere in the hood, alone and broke, yet again.  I looked up at the moon, knowing she was shining down on my friends in the lodge out in the mountains.  In my home.  I knew the grandfathers were sad for me, that they missed me, but that the show would go on for those whose moccasins took them there.  And then, I looked above, as my thoughts were strumming around all guilty-like and self loathingly, I realized the northern lights were dancing in a circle right above me.  Despite my level best effort to hide from life and responsibility and spirituality and what is real in this universe, there they were, the Grandfathers and Grandmothers themselves, dancing like I've never seen them before.

I thought of my childhood and the pain and the poverty and the shit and the scum, but I remembered only the gold and the happy days and the joy and the laughter.  I thought how amazing my life was.  How blessed I was.  What a gift was my miserly little life and the amazing gifts I have been handed to steward and share.  How could I keep thumbing my nose to Creation and flipping the hurtin'est bird to my Creator and ancestors.
What is beautiful, is that they still love me.  So dearly.  I know it.  I want to share my vision of the world with my family, with my kids. 

For so many, this has been an amazing summer.  I read my Facebook; I creep friends' pages.  I see what fun you're all having. 

For me, this  has been the summer of shame. 

But watch out mofos:  It's going to be the Fall of the Fall of Selfishness and the Winter of my Contentment.  And heretofore, a life of Hope Springs Eternal.

I'm not ashamed to wear the buckskin anymore you know...  I love it.  I'm ashamed of something else, and I don't know where it is or what it is, but I'll find it if I have to. 

I was just offered a nice little fulltime job from someone who knows my shitty ass truths and has seen my shine.  Someone who believes in me.  I think I can follow his lead and believe in me too.

Love to you all.
S.

Father... Oh Father. Part II

Hm.  What a day.  Two or three days of positive choices and a little bit of food and sleep, and so quickly we forget.  Forget what travesties we have committed.  Forget what pain we have felt or caused or both...

We forget.

Tonight I went down to a fellowship meeting to remind me.  It comes flooding back, real and visceral and painful and sad, but then the obligatory dance step comes a rushin' to the surface.  Shuck and jive, shuck and jive... A yadda-ta-dadda-ta-dadda-ta-Da... A-yadda-ta-dadda-ta-dadda-da-Da...

Maybe one more time... One more ride on the crazy train.

Fuck that.

Some amazing things came flying out of the woodwork today.  Work stuff, personal development stuff, spiritual stuff, truths, admissions of guilt and shame, realizations of what is real and what is fucked and what is beautiful and true.

And all I have is three days under my belt.  Well, in a row that is.

My friend is not home right now.  Likely drinking.  I smudged his house yesterday.  Beautifully from bottom to top, closets, drawers, haunted rooms and coked up rooms; he was so scared the other night.  Bleeding ulcers is my diagnosis but what the fuck do I know.

"Stopping drinking man; that's the only way I think," says I.

So yesterday he has Diet Pepsi.  Good on you D.

Today, nobody's home, and his truck's here.  Door unlocked too.  Weird. Hope nothing terrible happened.  But alone I am, facebooking, chatting, planning, plotting secret birthday celebrations, getaway spiritual weekends; just me and the cats.

And yet... Smudge notwithstanding, I still am uncomfortable in my own skin.  My babies are not here with me due to my DIRECT FUCKING ACTIONS...  guiltguiltguilt... shameshameshame...

Alone, in a basement with a cat staring at me like I'm a chocolate covered turd and I feel like a big shithead.  Feel.  Don't want to feel.  Maybe I should...  Hm.. I still have twentyseven phone numbers committed to memory; I can be euphoric (for two seconds) in ten minutes. But then paranoid, delusional, fearful, scared and fucked right up in a minute shortly following my crash.

Then I have stepped in and circumvented the Hand of God.  The guiding hand of Creator is not good enough for me, and I self medicate yet again.  Then likely wake up tomorrow late, miss my morning meeting, feel jittery and guilty and bomb my afternoon meeting, then miss my wife's birthday, and deny myself the chance to walk into the mountains with my spirit guides and snuggle up with 68 indians and spirits and teachers and helpers and all that is beautiful and humble and real in our culture.

And all I have to do is spend twenty bucks on some more street bullshit.  All this and more self loathing, shame and blame on self.

Hm. How bout "no".  How bout I show myself that I can tough it through this little ripple in the pond and step proudly and humbly into the light this coming weekend?  Shine and smile and cry and sing and eat and laugh and cry some more...

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine.  Would you hear my voice come through the music?  Would you hold it near as it were your own? 

Jerry, RIP and help me make it through the night without using.  Help me make it to the mountains tomorrow and to the sweet gentle hand of my love and her family.

Tonight, a father's responsible decision.  A broken child's old pattern breaking.  A battle of tears and pride and softness and protective arms.  That path is for your steps alone.  No simple highway between the dawn and the dark of night.

Fuck me.  This ain't easy shit.

It's not what you do when you're on stage that counts.  It's when no one's looking.  I love you baby.

Happy birthday to the most beautiful woman I know.  I am blessed by your love.

S + T forever... TL4Ever

xox
S.

Father... Oh Father. Part I

I write today from the bottom of a long steep hill that I have allowed myself to tumble down.  I write today, alone, away from my family, my children, my love.   I write today because no one will talk to me.  All they have ever heard from me are words.  I write today as though I am speaking to my love, because she can't bring herself to hear anymore lies and excuses from my mouth anymore.

So much happening in the world around me, the world that I keep ducking out of.


Life.

Simple sometimes.  The best things in life are so simple.  Like becoming a father.  Simple.  Being one?  Not so much.

At least not for me.  Not right now.  My heart is just fucking broked...  Just fucking broked all up because of how I have treated my kids.  Every single one of them.  I have done everything possible to strain the ties between us all.

All I ever wanted to be is a dad.  I remember being small and my dad not being there, how alone and afraid and unworthy I felt.  How I thought, "If I was a Dad, I would hold my son so tight..."  or "I will never leave my kids... Ever..."

Bullshit.

At least my dad only ever left once.

I keep leaving, over and over again.  "No really, this time I mean it...  I will be right back."  Poof.

Fuckin' guy.  What kind of fuckin' guy have I become?

I respect all those men out there who are there, day in and day out for their families.  Men who sacrifice of themselves, give of their hearts and bodies so that others may live better, easier.  Real daddies.  Not dickheads.

I'm pretty sure I have it in me.  Reasonably sure.

I will write this evening to you my love.  Because I don't have to you speak to right now.  Because you are protecting those you love and yourself...  Protecting them from a wolf in daddy's clothing.

I will write some more tomorrow.  I am so sleepy.  Running and running and running from responsibility and truth and honour and faith and love and all that is good in the world really takes its toll on a body.

Love to you.
S.

Today: I love, therefore I am...

Hi.  Been a while.  So the smartypants expectation that I would and could sustain a daily sober counter accompanied by some prosaic wisdom or poetic weaving has been proven wrong.  Once again, I have proven that my words can very easily outweigh my actions.

Oh well.  Shit happens.

I could get all "oh, the sorrow of it all..." or "oh, poor Sheldon let himself down again..." or even use it as an excuse to imagine myself a failure and keep on keepin' on in a downward direction until I have taken a final pull on the devil's dick and this unbelievably strong heart just rolls over in exasperation and quietly says "Ekosi maka."

Strong heart indeed.  The things I have done, the things I have seen, the things I have put myself through.  <sigh>  Oh my.

I yearn today, this moment, to be kind to myself.  Looking outside, the blue sky, the green grass, the ringing sound of children's voices:  These are the things I would long for when I was at the end of yet another rope.

Or these were the things I chose to ignore when I was en route for another score, from my dark, lonely hiding place in the bush in a beeline to the inner city, then scurrying back to my hole - truck on fumes, smoking cigarette butts from my ashtray, picking up and tasting sesame seeds, snot particles or styrofoam from the carpet of the Chev, checking to see if they were more of that bogus, smelly rock that's being passed off as crack...  Nice...  way to cherish the universe and spread the love Mr. Hughes.

Well, I am here, I am clean and I will write when I am able, inspired, feeling too much, wanting to share... et cetera, et cetera.

I don't need any more pressure in my life to expect to sit down and carve out an hour each day to wax on and on, shedding light on the trainwreck that I had been trying to live and call a life.  It's only part of the story anyways.

I won't show you all my scars, all my fears... I won't tell you all the hardwired action stories or all of the sad, painful or insipid truths.  This is not a barometer from which you can gauge all that I am or all that I want to be.

This blog was started because I thought having a thousand eyes (or even twenty) on me would help keep me accountable, help keep me home.

Wrong.

It is the love that I feel and allow to flow through me that keeps me here, keeps me from calling all the dealers that pretend to be my friends and then sell me horse tranquilizer laced bullshit, or some concoction that tastes like transmission fluid and rubber gloves mixed together.  Death in a baggie.

Bleah.

Life is a blessed event that is ever transformative, ever fluid and dancing, and can be missed if you blink.

Today, God willing, I will not blink.  I will not avert my gaze from that which is real, true and suffused with love and light.

Today I will live and walk with Creator as my guide. Today I will hold hands with a big, juicy family who loves their daddy/hubby and we will allow our steps to be guided by a Heritage Festival food map!

Bring on the sheepkebabs!

hearts and smooches,
S.