ICE STORM

ICE STORM

As I try to approach my car I catch a glint on the dull ice and glean the treacherousness of the enterprise that I am intending to embark upon. It looks much more foreboding than I had anticipated. I had just finished my shower when I heard the brrriiing of my phone which indicates a text message and at this early hour that is usually a request for transportation to an AA meeting.

And it is A.. who has called having exhausted his normal avenues of transport on this winter ice squall morning. He says that his usual ride has failed in his attempt to get out of his driveway and his sponsor has not even challenged his exit strategy so in either desperation or some hope in the knowledge that I do not usually let any weather stop me from getting to a meeting, he called me. And ordinarily I would be flattered except that I am running late and I am anticipating a bit of time to get out of my driveway with this ice out there. So as I hastily go out to start the car I note this evil sheen on the ground which gives me pause to stop me in my most Lewis and Clark enthusiasm.

That first step causes my right leg to demonstrate the tectonic plate theory by an attempt to separate my legs from my torso. The result is a right gracilis strain which is only bad when you realize that we normally call that a groin injury and I fear that I will be walking or rather hobbling around for the next week holding my crotch.

I felt like a down fluffed cartoon sail skating across a parking lot in a Talley-ho! posture awaiting the inevitable crash at the end of the line. Wiley Coyote in mufflers and gloves!

And when I finally hit the driver’s door and clung to the handle for dear life I could hear the laughing clucking of this flightless bird going 'beep beep' in my ear.

That's when I decided that for the second time this winter, I would not tempt fate and allow myself to miss the meeting in full knowledge that tonight I will be leading another at H B Hospital if I can survive the day. So having given it the old AA try I decided to live another day in order to live another day.

This got me to thinking just why and perhaps how it was that I was able to attend so many meetings regardless of the weather, my health, my mood and a host of other variables which during the rest of my life have certainly held me to a less constant life style than I have lived during this past year. I cannot attribute this to jaw gritting determination because I am no more that kind of a person now than I was a year ago.

Yet, there is a determination there, but it is less involved with just the self than with the complicated relationships that I have formed between me, my friends in AA, my daily needs and my obligations to all of those individually and collectively . When I show up every day I make a pact with myself to do something RELIGIOUSLY.

I don't do anything religiously. I don't pray or meditate or even read anything regularly; but the one thing I do daily is come to a meeting. And not just any meeting but the same meeting each week each day, predictably week in week out. If it is Tuesday, you know where I am at 7:30AM. That is just a promise to myself and to anyone in the program who needs to know that.

In a way, that is my service to the program and to any other drunk who needs to know that. On Wed at 7:30 AM I will be at the Saug Congregational Church Early Bird Meeting of AA, IF YOU NEED ME OR IF YOU WANT TO SEE ME. Because I was never that reliable before and now I am because I can be and I want to be and perhaps I need to be. I only now realize the importance of that statement and how its evolution has become something most important for my sobriety.

It is like my commitment of taking on the chairing of the meeting at H B Hospital on Wednesday nights. If you want to know where I will be on Wednesday nights, I will be running a meeting of AA at HB Hospital's clinical inpatient ward because that is what I do.

I have never been able to say this kind of thing in my entire life. Except for my job commitments you would never have been able to know where I would be at any time or place. I just never wanted you to know. I wanted to be invisible. That was part of the persona of who I was. When I drank, I wanted to wash away fears, not face them; wash away anxiety, troubles and woes, all the things that add depth, color and dimension to life. I wanted to have a monochromatic, mono dimensional life so that I never had to dig below the surface.

So you never needed to know where I was going to be because what you saw today was what you would see tomorrow and what I was yesterday; a never changing monochromatic, mono tonal one note Samba. Even less interesting than a Jobim construction.

So I am waiting for a bit of a temperature rise to occur before challenging the ice again. A bit of surface water to add to the surface friction so that some purchase can be gained on the ice to get into the car.

I just want to be able to stand there and allow people to notice, not whizz by without making a mark. No 'beep beeps' of joyous triumph or warning to get out of the way. Just an acknowledgment that 'if you need me or want me I'll be at this place at this time. Just show up. We can go for breakfast after the meeting'.

© res 2/2/2011