Friends of Bill W.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 29


Inertia

in•er•tia
n.
1. Physics. The tendency of a body to resist acceleration; the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in straight line motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force.
2. Resistance or disinclination to motion, action, or change
This force is real; the laws that govern it act on me for well and ill. When I’m on a roll it’s hard to guide me and like the girl with the curl; when I’m stuck, I’m very, very stuck and it’s awful.
I am bound by this reality and go or stay according to what is set in motion or stopped, but what about ‘the outside force’? Am I in charge of summoning ‘it’ or is ‘it’ summonable at all? Will ‘it’ obey like the dog, or obey like the cat? Or is ‘it’ more random than the rain? Can ‘it’ be lured or tempted or does ‘it lure and tempt me? And the biggest questions on my mind: Is ‘the outside force’ also subject to inertia? Are we in this together? What is ‘its’ outside force? Might it have something to do with me?



Wash one pain at a time


*

NURSE

What if the word God is like the word nurse?
What if the person is only the simple meaning?
The actor doing the service
The plain act, uncontrollable from my end.

What if my active part of God,
Is the same as my active part of nurse?
What I draw down, how I schedule myself
To be ready when the milk arrives.

How I pull and am satisfied
Digest and draw again.
Like the sea laps at the shore,
The moon tugging it all the while.

What if God is about my hunger,
Satisfaction dependent on finding a suitable teat?
Maybe this is why, when it comes to God
Much of what I do, is cry.

When faced with my need, I open my mouth
Finding only two possible responses,
Suck or Scream.
My aching consumes me and I don't know how to calm myself.

I look for the caretaker, the person, the deed.
I need sucker but never look for the breast.
I am the child of God.
I must learn to draw God in

[KCBUTCH]

meeting day 1230 away. have a grateful day

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 30


The Was and the Is


The Silent Scream that existed as a placeholder for my G-d was incomprehensible to me. I entered AA and was informed that understanding my Higher Power was required not just some far distant goal. In true alcoholic form my first move was to shun G-d. This made room for my rage which was in much need of the space. After a few fine years of dissipation I lost interest in incendiary devices no matter how large their detonation capacity. Having cleared the room I brought in G-d as potted plant. I talked to it occasionally, watered and fed it, mostly ignored it. Growing in spite of lacking ministrations G-d was an unobtrusive force living in the corner changing gas into air and demanding nothing. As I quelled my apprehension and lived with the Presence I looked, listened, probed and questioned the subtle Force sharing the room. “Add it up,” chanted the children in my ear, “run the numbers, settle the accounts.” I calculated proofs and discarded the faulty and inaccurate. What was left, the whole, not the remainder was mine to keep, but it was not everything. I haven’t an everything G-d, because I am not a nothing person. I am something and G-d is something too. We are complimentary, like pairs of angles who come full circle.



Show the sun the souls of your feet


*

TRUST

You can trust people to be who they are.
I am a different being in relationship to different people.
To some I am the center of their constellation,
The sun burning bright, I 'm all they can see.

To others I am the moon,
Orbiting them, silent and dedicated.
With another group, I am a comet streaking through the sky,
Seldom seen but well remembered.

For many I am a distant star.
One among the multitude, blending in the night with the other signs.
Then there are the folks who see me in a more down to earth way,
I am the dirt beneath their feet.

The farmer sees me as a plant to be tended.
The cowboys view me as a horse to be broken.
To fisherman I'm a catch.
I am what people want to see.

So what can I trust them to be?
Wrapped in their own worlds
Yes, mostly I guess,
None of my business in the end.

I watch them and learn what I want to do, who I want to be.
In large part by avoiding what I see them do.
I do trust people to serve as bad examples, often
And good ones infrequently.

[LeftWriteFemme]

January 31

Principles before Personalities............and gratitude!


As with everything I have to be careful of how I infer meaning. You say ‘Principles before Personalities’ and I hear, Their principles and Their personalities, immediately I’m on a tear. How different if I think of ‘my’ principles and ‘my’ personality. When I face it this way it is reflexive; I embrace my principles and my personality falls into step. I am safe and sane therefore gratitude follows just as the topic suggests. Good orderly direction is elegant when I don’t reverse direction. There is an obvious way to pet the cat when I accept that we get along fine, when I don’t………well, need I say more?




Books open minds, music opens hearts


*

WHEN I WAS YOUNG

I'm sure it will come soon
A time I can be carefree, innocent.
Worn and weary, I slog through the painful
Over awareness of what was considered my childhood.
What can I do but hope things will get simpler as I age.

My sobriety takes years from my face.
Lines slip from me and I feel the weight lift from my shoulders.
My tender branches twisted with the constant force of wind
Bud and flower in the shelter of recovery
Holding them in their own embrace.

Colors seep to the windows of my mind
Forming pictures and carrying me to a new world.
Limpid pools, a place I dive, as I look to the mirror.
Serenity a rebounding of life fills me
And I am the gentle girl I missed so long.

Longing for my loveliness, I cry at the sight of my baby one.
I have not yet taken my place on the swing
But I have been down to the edge of the playground
And run barefoot in the sand.
I will be who I was to be, it's late but it's better.

I know well enough
To enjoy it as it comes
Treasure it for every sweetness.
I will come into my youth

Wow! One whole year and looking forward to year two.







I shall be back later.

[oksoftbutch]

Congrats....Here's to the second year one day at a time....

Originally Posted by Daktari

Wow! One whole year and looking forward to year two.







I shall be back later.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 1


Know Enough to Clap




If I know I’m happy I can clap my hands, but if I’m happy and I don’t know it, what then? Will my face display tell tale signs without whispering a word of it to my mind? Will I whistle a happy tune therefore revealing my inner state? If I can’t demonstrate my reality does it cease to exist? Does my retarded ability to reflect my emotion condemn me to remedial society? Is there any other society? If I become well enough to reflexively feel and exhibit my mood will I graduate to the advanced class or be forever alone no longer having a place amid the emotional head bangers, hair twirlers and cobweb pickers? Is it a choice of knowing happiness in isolation or confusion with a crowd? Could I know? Should I know? Would I know? Who knows?


Iron your will



*


THE DIFFERENCE

Falling and flying are the same, save the landing.
No matter what you do in the air, how well or how poorly
In the end, if you don't land, it's a fall
And if you do, a flight.

How we begin seems of ultimate importance
But is seen as a farce in the face of ruin.
The most promising of starts can be sucked ground ward,
Compass and instrumentation rendered useless, through lack of humility.

Piteous starts, starts without plan or goal
Are viewed as triumphs when safety has been captured from defeat.
Willingness is my aileron
It contributes to my lift in ways I cannot explain.

It smoothes the gusts of life which forever blow in my face
And willingness brings the ground up to meet me.
All I have to do is be willing
And stick out my feet.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 2



The Inside Half


I have drunk deeply from the glass set before me. I’m not entirely sure that I am half way through, but I am into it a goodly bit. I would be happy to have another 19 years; nineteen more hours would be a gift, too. That glass might be half empty but I am at least half full and I am amazed! I am regularly stunned by the prodigies this half trek has born to term; equally dazzled by how quickly the generations compound in this painstaking construction. Development both internal and assembled surpasses my wildest imaginings. Amazement is my most constant companion, more than gratitude and as of late even outstripping willingness my most trusted ally. Shock has been replace by wonder, bewilderment with surprise, I am fortified with these feeling realities and look happily to finishing the rest of what is in that glass.




Turn left into your right mind




*



DUCK TONGUE

Trying to get out of myself, I travel to an Asian fish market and grocery
I had heard has very fresh fish.
Greeted at the door by thirty large and lively tilapia
Swimming in their tank,
I felt my mood lift.

The captured beauty gave me pause.
Shiny and silvery, the faces banged at the glass
As they tried to get a better look at my entrance.
Like passengers packed on a subway car,
The fish jockeyed for position near the glass.

Further inside, I see the wonders we have extracted from the sea,
Cuttlefish, conch, squid, mussels, clams,
Whole fish of every stripe.
My belief in a power of diversity strengthens
And I smile.

Leaving the seafood section, I head forward,
To the refrigerated cases of other types of meat.
Frozen pigs tail, fowl with feet on, the novel variety pleasing.
When I approach the trays neatly filled with rows of chicken feet
I break out in a grin.

Thoughts of soup and days gone by flutter through my mind.
Finding formed foam piled with layer after layer
Of ducks tongues was my limit
Spinning in my mind,
Who? Why? Oh no!

But in the end I came to care
About how these minuscule flaps of leather
Were placed.
The person whose job is done well
And to the fact people are just people.

We do what we do.
For reasons unimagined to the rest
And we do it,
With full faith
And hopeful breath.

[LeftWriteFemme]

February 3


Today’s Math


Today is 12/06/06 this is an equation to me, 12 = 6 + 6, simple; not everything is, but math always works for me. My Higher Power is math based and one of my major decision making tools is to run the equation of the presenting situation. There are many constants in my life and those numbers are easier to calculate the variables often prove more difficult. Scalable problems allow for my Geometry. Proofs are a comfort when I can get them. Set Theory is what I settle for when I can’t. I try to show all my work and have others check my calculations. I can’t tell you how often a simple error in addition or subtraction has fouled my whole equation not to mention my equilibrium. In conclusion I would like to say it is now 12= 9 + 6 and somehow I’ve lost three days, or did I gain them? See how tricky the signs are.



Put misconception up for sale


*

HOW LIKE THE MOON

I show the shining bright face to the world
But cannot enumerate the dark.
I change and turn for all to see
Glowing sliver, to full fledged smile.

I inventory all phases
Can tell you from wax to wane
But the darkness, the anchor to my lonely life
I can only guess.

I feel my way across the unknown topography
Searching with fingers and faith
To find the secrets
Of this magic nightmare.

And What? What is the thing to break it?
Hope, Reverence, A detailed map
Or is the darkness just a fact,
Part of the big equation, the equalizer of the light?

If this is so, how best to live with it?
Continue the search or post barriers,
Go ever forward looking for an answer,
Endear myself to the void?

The choices are always mine
The way seldom clear.