Oranges and Figs #135

Big things come in small packages, and  I am greatly blessed for these great little gifts of today:

Jazz piano, bright golden hot sunshine, my eyeglasses without which I can hardly avoid walking into walls, my cigarette-smoke-free lungs, my tongue and teeth, the character strength that I am building (measured in millimeters) as a result of my recovery and sobriety, the oranges and dried figs I ate yesterday while walking around the city, Neil Young’s twangy voice, my little sister who is pregnant and healthy and glowing, that I can feel the cold air of winter which has been waking me up and keeping me alert and feeling alive, for good hearty belly laughs that I shared with a friend yesterday, for homemade macaroni and cheese, the hood on my jacket, for my first sponsor who kept me from drinking while I was in crisis on a Philadelphia train platform, and that I am alive today.

It is sometimes difficult to find the good things of the day when certain moods surface, but once I do the search I am always so much happier.

Peace.

Complaining Voices #134

I don’t always feel the gratitude but I try to immerse myself in the off-putting things anyhow, at least with lips giving thanks for them.  Here’s today’s odd ball stuff of life:

Slimy chicken parts, books with split spines, razors that aren’t quite sharp enough for a good shave, uneven pavement, clocks that are set too fast or too slow, cob webs on the ceiling and walls that dangle down and that I can’t reach to remove, the complaining voices of my coworkers, mild indigestion from Rice Krispies of all things, lukewarm coffee, pilling on my old wool coat, gaudy faux-diamond  jewelry, everything Disney, cheap socks, paper cuts, cold AA meeting rooms, my own bad writing, being made fun of for my way too serious demeanor and my intellectualising that drives out spontaneity and joy, gum and pigeon s**t on the sidewalk, skim milk, dyed blond hair, untrimmed beards, steamed windows, the life-long compulsion to bite the quicks of my nails, leaky basins, living rooms that are too clean or too dusty,  spotted blinds, flowers that are past their prime with browning tips on the petals, mold, and alcoholics.

These things drive me nuts because I expect a perfect world.  But the world is as it is, and I need to be grateful for all the things that I take the wrong way because I am ill, an alcoholic struggling to be well.

Blood Oranges #133

“[W]hat the deuce is the good of a jewel except that it looks like a jewel?  Leave off buying and selling, and start looking!  Open your eyes, and you’ll wake up in the New Jerusalem.” Innocent Smith, from Manalive by G. K. Chesterton

Today I have many great privileges:  to be alive, to be able to breathe in stinging cold winter air, to have sight and to be able to see the radiant orange of the sun and to eat scarlet blood oranges, to be able to run and dash around in the wet green grass, to sleep in a warm bed under heavy warm blankets then to leap out of bed in the morning for a hot cup of coffee, to light fires in a fireplace and to have a pile of wood that is going to last a few more week.  Nothing is  more fantastic than the living jewels and streamers of flames leaping in the hearth, and the blazing crackling kicking hissing flicker of the glowing explosion three feet from my flushed face.  I am not quite yet be in the New Jerusalem, but I am walking everyday closer to the magnificence of the brilliant city.

Today I am glad to have a seat at the raucous table of life, and this is more and more my state of mind.  And that is enough for today.