in praise of archeologists & Kate Vargas

Just a brief update to say I continue to work steadfastly on my grandmothers' book.  The research part is taking a huge amount of time.  I keep thinking I see the end, then...it's nowhere near the end.  I ams sometimes told that I should "just write the 50 pages" and send it to the agent, etc. but I keep feeling I must continue reading all that my grandmother, Jani, wrote before I do so.  While it is sometimes a slog, in the middle of that a gem will pop out, a connection will be made, another idea shines through, some structural understanding, some emotional penny will drop.

I am trusting, for better or for worse, in this weirdly methodical (for me) organic process.  That may seem like a contradiction in terms, but as I get older, the more respect I have for archeologists.  The people who just sit there patiently brushing dirt off things ever so delicately layer by layer in hopes of finding another piece of a gigantic puzzle - one that most of them know they will never definitively solve, but move forward nonetheless.  You can't just go ransacking around ancient sites and hope to find a treasure.  Because, even if you do find that treasure, it will be out of context and you might have damaged other perhaps less obviously valuable bits of information that - if discovered - would have been more valuable than the glittery object you're holding in your greedy, impatient hand.

As someone who spent so many years working with cut-ups and random chance operations (which I still love by the way) to be working this way seems so strange and yet in some other way weirdly healing.  Like there's a faith there is something to find after all.  Not that it'll be 'definitive' or The One Great Truth, but it's there...this understanding of another human being...or two...and a different time period in which I did not live.  It feels weirdly - dare I say it - mature.

If nothing else, I am getting a much greater sense of my grandmothers, and in so doing have found myself reaching back further to their grandmothers...the sense of feeling backwards towards history, finally embracing my heritage, which is not without some big dark holes (visible, invisible, palpable, almost like air).  Linking historical events and people, finding common threads, realizing how close we are, so much closer than I suspected.

When I do give myself the permission to write, it feels fabulous.  But I am keeping that in check, so I can continue the reading and the notes and the perambulating in my brain and heart.

Throughout all this my lovely husband, John, has been extraordinarily supportive, even when I've kind of lost it, which I do...on a fairly regular basis.  Sometimes crying, sometimes just acting in an um well not so great way and sometimes just exhausted...and sometimes, even, well, happy.  He is the true love of my life because he can handle this.  I've never been with anyone who could.  My gratitude for him in my life is beyond all else.  (And happily his visa process is moving forward...finally...so in a couple months, hopefully, we'll be in Montreal for his green card interview - which will be almost the end of a way longer than expected road...)

I have two Ganesh statues, one brass, small on my computer base (from my mother) and one larger, reddish color, a writing Ganesh looking at me with piercing eyes in the corner of my desk.  Ganesh the trickster, the creator and remover of obstacles...of course he's writing.  I just wish I had those extra arms....

***

On a different note, my friend Kate Vargas debuted her album Down To My Soul at Rockwood Music Hall in NYC on Thursday and damn but did she kick ass.  But don't take my word for it.  Here is a link to one of her songs 'Throw the Devil Back' here.  You can get the album at that site, too.

Also playing with her was the lovely and talented Andrea Wittgens, another extraordinary singer/songwriter.  Below are two photos John took on Thursday.  Give yourself a treat and listen to these ladies' music.

The divine Kate Vargas at Rockwood Music Hall (photo © John Barclay-Morton)

Andrea Wittgens playing with Kate (Andrea's got a Pandora station: check her out!)
© John Barclay-Morton

So, like, do I have the most gorgeous and talented friends or what?  Yet another blessing in this life.

David Foster Wallace, Philip Seymour Hoffman and the perils of long-term sobriety

Update (8/12/14)

Sadly, I need to update this post to include Robin Williams on the roster of people who had experienced long-term sobriety and killed themselves. There are others who you don't know and never will. It is a sad fact of life for those of us who live in this strange world of suspended animation known as recovery - attempting each day to live rather than die. Robin Williams also had other issues, but addiction was one of them, so sadly his death, another loss of someone too young, who gave us so much, is added to this post from last February, which was written when Philip Seymour Hoffman died.

***

(original post 2/9/14)

There were two things I had in common with David Foster Wallace and Philip Seymour Hoffman before they died - both tragically - in their 40s: like them I got clean and sober in my 20s and in my professional life use my middle name.  (Unlike them, I have not been burdened with fame, though that hasn't been for lack of trying - not so much for fame as much for recognition as an artist that can lead to a sustainable living as same...which I think is what DFW and PSH wanted, too, neither seeming very happy in the Fame Light - because like who Would?  It must be terrifying, especially in this country.)

What is scary to me - and to anyone else with long-term sobriety who also spends a lot of time thinking, creating and putting themselves out there in the world - is that these two men who spent so many years clean and sober in such a dedicated way both ended their lives prematurely.  One on purpose (DFW committed suicide by hanging himself and left a note) and one whose death is still being examined, though it appears to be a drug overdose, most likely accidental.  However, as anyone who has been sober a long time knows, any use of drink or drugs by an addict or alcoholic is, generally, a form of short or long-form suicide.

The reason this is scary is because as much as I would like to think I have it down, or am somehow immune to the disease of alcoholism or addiction, the sorry fact is I'm not.  Not only that it confirms that nothing in terms of recognition, talent, intelligence, general goodness or wisdom, love from a partner or children - nothing external can keep me clean and sober if I decide to go out and drink, use or off myself in some other way.

To give you an example of how slippery this slope can be, here's a personal story.  When I hadn't had a drink or a drug for 23 years, my father died.  I 'dealt with it well' - did all the right things, showed up, felt forgiveness, acted well, felt my feelings, grieved real grief...etc.  Then after all that, there is this voice in my head (which I have named the disease as double-agent CIA guy - who sounds ohhhh, so reasonable at the time...so suave and calm...so intelligent) "Hey, you know you dealt with your father's death so well.  You've obviously healed so many wounds from your past.  You know, that emptiness, that void you were filling with alcohol when you were younger.  It's not there anymore.  You could probably drink now...oh, I'm not saying you should drink, but you could...and of course if it scares you, then don't...but you could."

For real.  That voice.  And that voice will kill you dead...or at least make you drink, especially if, like me - and of course this voice is designed for me - any talk of me being afraid is a red rag to the bull of my alcoholism.  My throat starts getting dry and I feel thirsty.

After Philip Seymour Hoffman died last week, my throat felt parched.  My tongue felt swollen.  That combined with the anniversary of my alcoholic grandmother's death (about whom I am reading and writing)...was horrendous.  Part of it was fear, part of it thirst.  As George Bataille once wrote "a wound desires nothing more than another wound."  The siren call of death.

So seductive, so scary....but here, my friends, is the irony of all ironies.  I am so embarrassed to ever be called out as afraid and yet it is my fear that is my friend.  Without my fear, I would probably go out and drink again, thinking, "yeah, I can handle it."  And that would be death for me.  I know it.  Which is why indeed I am afraid. Thank God/dess.

For those of us with long-term sobriety the final irony is: it doesn't get any easier.  In fact, there is some element of the whole enterprise that is not unlike Wiley E. Coyote having run off the cliff before looking down.  We are in some sense defying gravity.  So, after many years, one's arms can get tired and it's hard not to look down...to strain this metaphor to death...

I attribute my long-term sobriety to one thing only: grace.  I don't deserve it any more or less than anyone else. I certainly don't deserve it any more than Philip Seymour Hoffman, David Foster Wallace or some very close friends and relatives who have died of this disease.  I have taken some suggestions.  I pray and meditate every day, do attempt to be as honest with myself as possible, try to help another person suffering, etc.  But so do a lot of people.  And so did PSH & DFW in their time.

The fact is the desire to stay sober and stay alive is also a gift.

So, this post is a long way of saying how grateful I am: to the gods and goddesses and forces of the universe and Whatever else for giving me this gift.  I hope I help others sometimes - by example rather than advice (God help anyone who I begin to 'advise').  I hope my life on this earth means something to somebody.  That I do something in terms of service, art, something that even begins to give back this undeserved gift to the world.  I try pretty hard not to be a waste of space.  I am trying to do this writing project about my grandmothers that sometimes feels like it is driving me close to crazy.  I think I am doing this so that their voices, and the voices of women like them that have not been heard can be heard.  Am I?  Is it just ego?  WTF knows...but I'm moving forward with it.

I do know there are powers greater than me at work, greater than you, greater than any of us.  How they work, I don't know.  I just know they do. I have felt them.  I have seen them.  I forget them a lot.  When I remember them, I feel like I have a right relationship with life and - as a good friend never tires of telling me - "Your life is none of your business."

Indeed.

Gratitude to you all out there reading this, with a special shout out to my friends who spend time with me and others in uncomfortable chairs, under fluorescent lights in church basements and community halls.  Stay alive, don't pick up and don't give up on yourself or anyone else before the miracle.

Peace out.

For the record...

I believe Dylan Farrow.  Anyone who is a survivor will recognize her story as true.

Here's a link to Nicholas Kristof's article in the New York Times that links to his blog post with Dylan's letter: kristof-dylan-farrows-story

She has never before spoken out about the abuse claims against Woody Allen.  She has now.

She will probably be judged for this.  Those her judge her are like the people who sheltered Sandusky & such other 'heroes' of sports and entertainment.

Believe the survivors.  Only once this hidden scourge of abuse comes out in the open - including when girls are abused in their own home - will we have a bat's chance of sanity.

Until then, we are living in a dangerous delusion.

No "genius" is worth this.

For the record, too, I stopped watching Allen's films after he married his own stepdaughter, was a physical repulsion more than a decision.  Now I know the full extent of what I was feeling and why.