One Day of Sobriety

“For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today is Thanksgiving at the Lewis/Nichols house.  Jimmy and I are leaving Tuesday to spend the official Thanksgiving Holiday with our friends Cyndi Lee and Brad Bateman in Lynchburg , Virginia.  My ex-husband, Jackie and his wife, my friend, Leah, are coming tonight. So is my daughter Katie, her husband, Greg and their daughter, Amelia.  My son, Jordan, and his partner, Travis, will be here as well.  I set the table and the turkey is ready for pop in the oven.  We really did a number on this little turkey.  We brined it, we put a herb butter under the skin, and we prayed over it   If all goes as planned,  we will cook it and eat it.  I am grateful for the abundance we have in our lives.

There will be nine of us in all.

I started cooking last Sunday and I am still at it today.  Cranberry sauce, whipped sweet potatoes, Southern style cornbread dressing, roasted carrots and parsnips, and sautéed brussel sprouts.   Jordan will be here in a few minutes to make his famous apple, cranberry crisp.  We will have more than enough to eat.

Of course, there will be wine, lots of wine.  Katie dropped off two bottles of red earlier today when she brought the roasting pan.  I am sure Jackie will bring red as well and I have two bottles of white on ice.  We also have a growler of Plisner beer from the new Wiseacre Brewery on Board Street here in Memphis.  I have to give them a plug.  Wiseacre is a fantastic operation, well run, great product, good energy and a boon for the Broad Street revitalization.

I did not drink yesterday.  I thought about it, but decided to take a pass.  We took our grand-daughter, Amelia to see Peter Pan at Playhouse on the Square.  My son, Jordan, directed the show. His choreography made this production, the best I have ever seen. And Nana, the dog, exuded personality.  As a result of Jordan’s direction, Nana used human gestures and related to the children as if she were really their nurse and not just an animal.  Peter seemed more boyish than I remember.  I loved that.  Everything about the show was wonderful.  Anyway, I chose not to drink. I had a wonderful evening with Amelia and my husband, Jimmy.  I noticed that I felt relaxed, at ease.  When I drink, I feel edgy. I woke up a little tired, but ready to great the day.   I wonder what tonight bring?

One day at a time.  I am stone cold sober and loving every minute of it.

I want to plug my friend, Susan Wait’s new book, Another Round, a Story of Addiction, Forgiveness, and Transformation.   Buy it on Amazon today.

The Creature I call Sadness

Knot in my throat..tears welling from a deep internal rumbling.  May I be happy. I hear the words cross the terrain of my mind and I sigh. Sitting at Starbucks in Evanston, Illinois, trying to read USA today, trying to be objective, non-obsessive, not plagued by a sense of loneliness, whose partner, sadness, lurks in the shadows.  What did I expect when we planned to come here for Thanksgiving?

The questions lingers, pushing into my ribs, pressing my heart.  I want to be held and loved until I no longer feel afraid of being abandoned.  I brush the tear from my left cheek.  I am getting close to what fuels my malaise.  Lonely but not alone.  Surrounded by those I love, I want to run and hide.  Perhaps I am most afraid of intimacy, whose fingers reach beyond the temporal superficiality of cocktail banter and touch, actually make contact with my soul.  I fear what I most want, deep, unshakable connections with others, those with whom I can share this longing.  

An unnamable, inescapable, retractable desire for belonging.  We all have it.  May I feel safe.  Childhood Thanksgivings….now there is a memory.  I tiptoe through the house praying not to step on an emotional land mine.  Elaine, my stepmother, stands over the turkey.  Her hand buried in its belly, pulls out a sack of red organs.  She tosses them in the sink.  I watch her, appalled by the gore of this ritual.  She strives to portray her part in the American dream, the Norman Rockwell family sitting gleefully around a perfectly appointed table.  The smiling father stands like a general at the head of the table, knife in hand.  He has the power to give life and we all sit anticipating the forthcoming blessing.  Who will get the biggest piece of turkey?  Who will be served first?  Like Isaac watching Abraham, I know there is something sinister in the air.

Post traumatic stress in children manifests in fits of rage, competition, and jealousy. Our family motto, “strike before being struck” waits in the wings of the feast.  We are children of the same family, but we are each, in our own world of torment, totally alone.  While others may celebrate Thanksgiving with laughter, games, stories, and meaningful conversation, we, I, my brothers and I, prepare for an eminent drone attack.  It will come.  Of that we have no doubt.  We are crippled by anticipations.  Some of us nibble at our food, stomachs surging with fear.  Others of us, gorge hoping to be numb when all Hell breaks loose.

I am no longer numb.  I feel everything.  My therapist say my range of emotions are appropriate for to my life experiences.  Wow.  Appropriate.  Really?  In a world numbed for 20 years by the use of prozac, what is appropriate?  Is there any wonder I feel sadness.  Thank God I am alive to feel anything.  Thank God.