The war is over...and I don't know how to live outside a war zone

I have not written here in a while. But as I was walking along in Inwood Hill Park tonight where the Harlem and Hudson Rivers meet, and watching the reflection of the setting sun (the sun itself was behind the cliffs that rise up here on the top tip of Manhattan between the park and the Hudson where the old growth forest still grows), I could hear someone play an electric guitar...not particularly well, but enough to evoke the 1970s and evenings as a child, sometimes riding in people's vans or old cars, and the odd comfort of that, teenagers or young adults playing Led Zepplin and me in the back somewhere doing whatever, but not in charge and knowing somehow for that moment everything was OK.

I then remembered this realization I had the other day when I was meditating that yes indeed the war is over, but I have no idea how to live outside a war zone. I don't mean that literally in the sense of being in the middle of an actual shooting war (aside from the time we lived on 106th and Amsterdam back in the early 1990s when in fact there were many gun fights outside our window - some with automatic weapons - so bad the police would not show up because - and I quote - "we are outgunned")...but as a child, not guns, but other war zones - some violent physically, some mentally, some verbally, some emotionally, but it was always a crisis and starting as a very young child I had to have my shit together. For instance, my mother has told me, when I was a baby and she and my father would fight violently, so I would hold my breath until I turned blue, which would finally make them stop.

That kind of thing. Rinse. Repeat.

Shift characters, locations, details but the out of joint song in which I had to keep my shit together, be vigilant at all times, and therefore could rarely be a child remained the same.

So, yeah, no, I'm not what you would call laid back. All the yoga and meditation in the world can't undo that shit. It can Help. A lot. It can keep me from inflicting it on others, and at times if I'm lucky myself, but it's not precisely a good run up to peacetime living.

I'm not going to recite my childhood. Anyone who knows me or has read this blog or my plays can catch the gist, but the point remains: no tools to live in peacetime.

Which means all the time living on overdrive. Shocking that I became an alcoholic, I know (ha!). But what is a miracle is that I got sober at 23. And still am. At 54. That shit is weird. But even so, still, no windshield and not really, you know, laid back.

BUT the difference is - when I had this realization while meditating, this time I didn't think OH NO, I HAVE TO DOOOO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS. I HAVE TO HAVE A 10-POINT ACTION PLAN TO DEFEAT MY CRAZINESS. No. I did not go through that. Instead, I just breathed and heard a gentle internal voice say: and that's all you need to know right now.

You don't have to DO anything about it.

Just let it settle in. And I am. And just this. The NOT doing, the letting it settle in, is changing my life. It's kind of a miracle. Not by trying to change my life. Instead by Not trying to change my life. The miracle of acceptance. You accept a thing, hold space for it, and voila, it changes. With no effort. If I resist it, it just gets bigger and more intractable.

And so now, somehow, when feelings I usually find excruciating come up - certain types of sadness or boredom or anxiety or whatever - instead of trying to run away, I just breathe them in. I hold space. I witness. I allow the feelings. I look and see what's there for me to see, feel, experience. And then, yes, it all changes. By not trying to change it.

It's bizarre.

Which is all by way of saying when I heard that guy playing the guitar, I let the pleasant kind of nostalgic memory of those peaceful moments in my childhood wash over me. I felt the nostalgia, the desire to be young again, to have life ahead of me instead of at least more than half in the rearview mirror, and also the knowledge that there were these moments of respite - for all the crazy and the crisis. And that while I might not know how to live outside a war zone, I can allow myself these moments and don't have to judge or overanalyze.

Of course it doesn't help these days how much actual crazy there is in the world and violence and rampant injustice and plain old meanness and cruelty. But the fact is in one form or other that's always been there. I can allow the feelings of powerlessness in and rage and all of it. I can act as I can act, which I do, politically. I can write sometimes, create theater, do my little part. I can spin out, I can step up, I can step aside, freak out, be calm, get angry, cry, wonder what the actual fuck, have a moment of calm, take a walk, stay under the covers, call someone, meditate, stay alone, go be with people, dance, do yoga, write, take a nap, watch stupid things on Netflix, write in this blog, submit work, get rejected, get accepted, feel accomplished, feel like a failure, feel loved, feel lonely, wonder again what the actual fuck, and then breathe and let it all in - when I remember to do so.

This is the gift of getting older, staying sober for a long time, meditating every day, doing yoga when I remember (not as much as I should in other words) and trying to be a decent person - I begin to be able to accept the whole package.

I was also thinking walking home: I want to live long, because I need to figure it out, and then I laughed when I heard an internal voice say: that'll only happen when you stop trying to figure it out. Which, like, of course. But what a seduction it is. For someone such as me anyway.

At night when lying down going to sleep with crystals on me (yes I've turned into That person - try not to hate me), and I sense, my God/dess, so much energy in my head, my mind churning and churning Trying to Figure It Out. And so little energy in the rest of my body. So then breathing into that mysterious rest of me - the part - pretty much all of it - that I routinely ignore. Letting the crystals bring me to those parts of my body. Wondering will I ever allow my body to be fully animated? I don't know. Part of the war zone thing, levels of dissociation I'm not sure will ever go away. It's waaaay better than it used to be. At least I know my body is here. I can even feel it sometimes. A number of years ago, I woke up more fully to my actual emotions (as opposed to the word facsimile cover story that masqueraded as such). But I have a feeling my physical body is the most resistant to my awareness and acceptance. I am only aware of Problems - either physical aches and pains or with How I Look (always wrong) etc. Not sure I will ever be able to embrace my corporeal self, but that's got to be Ok. I don't want to doom myself to this dissociation either. We'll see.

I can breathe now. I can at times be touched. Sometimes easier than others. But I have always been "touchy" - kind of prickly in a somewhat sneaky way. On the surface, I am warm, but it's a patina, something to a certain degree I taught myself how to do. But underneath there is the shrinking away scared little kid, never sure anyone or anything can be trusted and always ready to pick a fight. It's complex. I certainly don't think I'm alone in this.

I'm afraid to even write any of this and publish it in public. What will people THINK?! GASP! As if...but still.

So, here I am. This is me today. Tomorrow or the next day I will post a bunch of things with schedules of events, a staged reading and two readings, all in June. But this is a different post. So be it.

As the African prayer goes: It is. Thank you.

Even if that means I never do know how to live in peacetime. I am here. And there is beauty - and even moments of peace - in the midst of the ever whirring chaos in my brain and sometimes heart.

31 years of not killing myself one day at a time....

I have not been blogging much because I've been working on some new writing, something that may in fact never see the light of day but seems to be important for my psychic survival.

Somehow this relates to being 31 years sober as of yesterday. Because while I do talk about this process periodically, it's mostly something I do in private.

I can say this about that however: it requires a continual excavation of the self and a commitment to helping others do the same, to find a way to walk through each day without a drink or a drug to dull the pain. Or whatever else one might want dulled.

I am exhausted and not sure why I am writing this now, but today was a gift, was able to share some of what I have learned with a dear friend, go to yoga and feel my heart and how tight it is right now, how my shoulders are protecting it, how they probably always have been, how painful that is and how compassionate I need to be with myself even so. There is good reason for that protection. It is tempting to be disappointed in myself that I still hide out, still fear people, still fear a lot of things. But that is as ridiculous as being disappointed in anyone else for being afraid, which I rarely am, not if they are aware of the fear anyway.

Sobriety is a paradox of both having to become aware of my darkest and most vulnerable parts, but also somehow give them space, not reject them, because that causes denial or dissociation. It seems to be for me these days about holding space for infinite complexity including massive contradictions and conflicts within myself. I am committed to not exiling parts of myself because they are not convenient or are embarrassing or whatever. This can be challenging and sometimes a pain in the ass to be honest.

However, as I walk through this journey day by day, both internally and in some cases within my writing, I feel I land more firmly on the earth, touch down even to the ocean floor of my own psyche, that vast silence filled with strange creatures and detritus thrown from the surface that just kind of landed there.

I have some deep frustrations with some external situations over which I have limited control, some shame over certain career achievements not having been reached. So much shame I don't really want to say that out loud, fearing judgment. But since this is all about being transparent with myself, it seems absurd not to say it.

But the larger fact is for all this, I don't want to drink or take any substances today, and I'm not acting out in other ways to ease the pain or confusion. Sometimes that seems like a ridiculous thing to say out loud after 31 years, but since I am aware of people who have gone out drinking after 10-20-30 years sober, and some who have died as a consequence, it's not a small thing.

Long term sobriety is not glamorous, it's life experienced - everything all the time - with the volume turned to 11. As I have said before - life without shock absorbers...and no windshield.

However, there are moments like today when I can talk to a dear friend such that my experience of this walking can give relief, maybe shed light, or other times I can talk to someone who is new to this life and help them stay sober another day. Then all the muddling through and the seemingly at times absurd lengths I go to be honest with myself and others that frankly at times seems to verge on self-destructive, has meaning.

I wish I could say which way to go forward with my life was crystal clear. It's not. I have lived one day at a time for so long now I don't think I know any other way. Each day is about being more or less in tune with a sort of internal divining rod that I let guide me.

I do meditate every day. I try to do some yoga and walk. I write most every day. I try to be a decent human being. This year I'm also doing a fair bit of political work for obvious reasons, like - you know - survival, but am grateful for having found a way to do that that is both relatively simple and incredibly effective.

I hold space for others who are going through tricky changes and who are discovering their voices - in life and art. I spend a lot of time - that I love - working with other writers - as a teacher, coach, editor and friend.

I wonder what has happened to my theater work as a director, I seem to only be writing now for the most part. I kind of miss the rehearsal room but my internal divining rod has led me away from that for the lasy while. Will it lead me back? I don't know.

So much I don't know.

But I am sober. I have walked through a lot of life this way, more years than I was alive when I hit my bottom at 23 - a horrifying sense of not even existing in some way - not to mention not being able to even get drunk anymore. I wish I could tell you it's all been a glittering triumph or that I was a paragon of mental health, but that would be a lie. It's been a journey, one that still continues. A bumpy ride at times, other times exhilarating and seemingly effortless, some years full of grief and low level depression, and some moments even now, 31 years later, when it feels like there is a trap door that has opened up beneath me that I tumble down wondering when I will hit a bottom, seemingly lost and thinking: wait, what? I'm 54, shouldn't I be you know More Together Than This?

I try not to take these moments of confusion, which at times are painful, out on anyone, but sometimes I do, mostly the people closest to me of course. One of the things I am examining so closely now is how I navigate such things and why. Imprints from a chaotic childhood as an only child amongst multiple caretakers most of whom had wildly different value systems from one another and most of whom were not really meant to have kids but there I was - the proverbial inconvenient truth. Sometimes consequently, I feel safest when alone, because only then do I have to account to no one. That is an illusion of course, because it's not like all those people and experiences just vanish when I'm by myself.

Alcoholism amongst other things is a disease of isolation, it wants you alone in a room and dead. So, this is one of my primary conflicts, both desiring being alone and knowing at times I need to resist that urge. To allow others to see me in more vulnerable states, which I find so shameful, especially fear.

I was told when I began recovery: you need never be alone again. I did not understand it then. But I do now. I might feel lonely. I meet be alone, but I am not alone. I am connected to so many people and to whatever powers this internal divining rod and a sense - astonishingly enough and more and more - of a place amidst the cosmos. Hard to explain that and won't even try at close to 4am, but it's a great piece of knowledge - not as in facts but as in something far deeper.

Finally, also, a sense of happiness seeing people younger than me agitating for a new and better world. I remember so vividly being that age and agitating my heart out, but it was the Reagan era and no one listened. What a joy it is to see these young people be heard. It gives me great joy. My friend Spencer once said he felt that those of us who don't have our own children have a certain love to offer the world and young people specifically that those with children have to reserve for their own kids, and I feel that now more than ever. I feel an optimism for the future that I have never felt before. I don't know if I'll be alive to see it in full flower, because when I mean future - I mean Future as in 30-50 years from now, but there is hope.

I mean to do my best to help keep the world alive for this new generation to take over. I used to joke with my theater work I felt like those medieval monks who hand copied the Greek and Latin texts in monasteries to keep them alive until those ideas finally fueled the Renaissance. And I see now it's not just the theater, it's my whole life that is this, living and creating, in hope for this new world that now seems possible - a tiny glimmer on a horizon - one that I will make whatever is left of my life's work to not see extinguished.

What does this have to do with sobriety? A lot actually, because in staying sober and helping others do the same, it's the same kind of thing. Passing on what I have been given, keeping alive something that is only kept alive by free action of people who are never paid, except in the gift of our own sobriety, our own lives.

But now I have rambled enough for the time being. Thank you for reading, for bearing witness, for holding space.

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.

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(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.