Thursday

I've been a bit incommunicado the past week –
gardening my arse off now that we've had a break in the rain.
The past few weeks of warmth and light were long overdue,
and my days of late have been filled to bursting with the riches
of living in the backwoods.
I shared this morning’s cup of coffee with ravens, hummingbirds,
a hawk and several evening grosbeaks, while a couple of pileated woodpeckers
traded drum rolls back and forth across the ravine.
One of them currently prefers pounding on D’s iron truck rack,
and the noise is ridiculous at 7 a.m.
From my front porch, I look out into a world of green,
interrupted here and there by hot pink salmonberry blossoms,
and pendulous, creamy clusters of red elderberry blooms.
My honeysuckle, lilac and sweet cicely are also flowering,
and at the end of the day, the evening air is heavy with a perfume
that is positively intoxicating.
Speaking of intoxication, there are few things that make me miss alcohol
like spending the day in my yard, because that is where I did the majority of my drinking.
Trust me when I say that nothing takes the edge off of being poor and isolated
like swilling wine from a coffee cup while working like a mule.
It was almost perfection: hot sun, cold wine; a mental vacation
from every last thing that made me unhappy or stressed.
And the alcohol worked like jet fuel, allowing me to push myself
beyond my endurance while making even the most mundane chores
seem almost like fun.
But, do I miss everything about it?
Hmmmmmm…
How fun was it the day I overshot the refuse pile,
plummeting into the ravine along with a wheelbarrow full of blackberry canes?
The day I jumped off the porch and tore all the ligaments in my ankle?
Or that time I ran over myself with my own car (not an easy thing to do
no matter what your mental state)?
Well hell yes, some of that was fun – and funny – but none of it can compare
to the wholeness of my days as a sober woman.
Seriously drunken time does not flow, it is jagged,
and breaks down into bits about the size of each glass you pour.
And while it seems to be about freedom and the loosening of inhibitions,
there is nothing more inhibiting to a good time than constant reliance
on anything you must procure, conceal or measure out to manufacture ‘release’
(unless you count being tanked while gardening topless and looking up
just in time to see the Jehovah’s Witnesses backing down your driveway at 60 mph).

Well.
This is not at all what I sat down to write.
Normally, I avoid even the most basic “back when I was…” stories because,
I suppose, they still sting a little bit.
And perhaps because – no matter what side you come from - alcoholism is a touchy subject, complicated as it is by shame and humiliation and judgment and regret.
But ultimately, it is what it is.
And like the dirt I dig in and the life that teems around me, it changes everyday.
Which is a good thing.
A suprising thing.
And of all my current riches, the one I prize the most.

Oh - tomorrow at 6 a.m. (good god), I crawl onto the train to Vancouver.
Once there, I'll step aboard my first ever cruise ship, where I'll be until Saturday morning.
My tune may change after 24 hours on a floating gin joint...


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