Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved
Fear of Writing/Creating: Finding Your Footing
"Walking in the dark is like writing. When I first came to Hedgebrook, I was afraid to go out after dark. I feared many things--bogeymen, monsters, some psycho with a grudge against women writers, even the other women who I thought might be psychos in disguise--but mostly, it was just not being able to see that bothered me.
"I wanted to confront my fear so after a while, I ventured out at night, first in a group and then by myself, wielding my flashlight as a weapon against the dark. I didn't go far from my cottage-- to the bathhouse and back again. One night I got very brave and turned off my flashlight. I stumbled at first, but then found my footing. I felt the gravel beneath me and I knew I was on the path. I followed it to the bend by the pond. Then I felt for the softness of grass. If I stepped on a bush, I knew I'd gone wrong, or, I was about to forge a new route home. I realized I'd become too reliant on seeing and less reliant on feeling.
"When I quit panicking, I knew the way. Just like when I'm writing, I have some instinctive sense of where I'm going even if I can't see beyond the blank screen. I've walked this path before. My imagination has gone ahead of me and charted the way. If I pause and listen, i can hear her footsteps on front, guiding me. If I listen even closer, I can hear other footstpes of the writers who have come before me and the writers, like you, who are still to come.
"We are not alone in the woods groping in the dark. We are wlking on paths that have been walked on a thousand times before. We are saying things for the first time that have been said a thousand times before."
from Hedgebrook Waterfall Journal #5, Lynn Dixon
Showing posts with label fears. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fears. Show all posts
Friday, April 3, 2009
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Meditations VI: Twenty Years Sober
Copyright 2008 - All Rights Reserved
Twenty years ago, on June 14, 1988, I walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and I was terrified.
Every night and morning and afternoon, before I’d walked in, I had prayed feverishly that A.A. would work for me. Prayed. Because I knew that it was the “last stop” for me. Knew it was the last house on the block. The last one that I’d ever see before I tumbled over the cliff and took that long, long fall to the rocks waiting below.
I looked around at the room I was standing in. People were everywhere. Sober people living without the bottle. Now that I was here, in 12-step recovery, I had to be without it. Without my crutch…my lifeline…my alcohol.
How would I do it? I didn’t know.
Didn’t know how I could get through. Couldn’t see my going through more than twenty-four hours without drinking. For the bottle was—I thought then—the light, the lamp that always had showed me where the path was. Showed me a way to get to the place where I could be safe. Where I wouldn’t have to feel….anything.
Beginning that June day twenty years ago, my constant companion for many months to follow was a kind of low-level terror. I was terrified of the sun rising on each new day. Terrified of its slow ride into the west each evening. Terrified because I couldn’t drink each day into night. Couldn’t drink each night into dawn. Terrified because, in my mind’s eye, all I could see those first sober months, was me standing at the entrance to a black-as-night tunnel. What lay ahead in that tunnel waiting for me? Darkness hid the path that would lead me to wherever it was that I’d have to go. And I was afraid of having to go there without my crutch.
I stood at the mouth of the tunnel and wondered: What was going to happen to me now? How was I going to be able to walk this journey?
I didn’t know.
What I did know was that I’d been drinking for 27 years. And though I’d tried so many times and so many ways, I couldn’t stop drinking on my own. I had, finally, come to the place where I desperately wanted to stop, but the fear of living without my crutch was so great that it paralyzed me…subverted every effort…showed me smoke and mirrors tricks that beguiled and persuaded me to stop thinking about stopping. So I had stopped because I’d thought it was shielding me from every emotion that had left me at the well of despair: abandonment, shame, guilt, loneliness, derailed expectations that cause the deepest, gut-wrenching kind of pain, hurt, anger and resentment.
The bottle had always said to me: Just pour the liquor and pick up the glass.
You can depend on me, it had faithfully whispered. I’ll protect you and you won’t have to feel the feelings you’re terrified of feeling.
But, finally, I came to realize that it was lying. Knew long before the court ordered me to A.A. meetings. Still, I clung to the delusion of the bottle as I stepped inside the rooms of A.A. Because I wanted life to be easy. The bottle kept promising me it would. And although I had long ago realized it never really kept its promise, every time I took a drink, I kept hoping it would.
In A.A. meetings, I listened. And when the other alcoholics talked about how you have to live without the bottle… have to step out every day on that smooth-looking stretch of land, hiding any hint of possible danger or misfortune ahead…how you have to keep struggling to climb those kick-ass hills planted in your path at every turn in the road…how—when life drops you into valleys so endlessly deep that you think you’ll never be able to climb out—you just have to keep going instead of running straight for the bottle, I shuddered.
How could I do that? How?
The only way out is through, they said. Whatever it is that you’re going through won’t last forever, they said. This, too, will pass.
The tunnel, which turned out to be my life, terrified me. The thought of taking the risk, of stepping forward blindly, without my shield—the bottle—of leaving myself entirely open, naked and vulnerable…how could I do it?
The only way out is through, they said.
No other choice. I’d have to take the first step. And the next and the next and go on walking through the tunnel. Go on through one day at a time. Go through. Sober.
I did as my days of sobriety turned into weeks, then months, then a year. A year became two, then six, then eleven, fifteen. And now, twenty.
So many things were revealed over the years. Like the fact that I’d spent my life, not living, but running. Or the fact that I habitually future-trip, believing that I can peep around corners to see the worst that is surely coming, and prompting the paint brush in my head to always draw scenarios of bloody disaster on the canvass of my mind.
So many tests have been presented to me over time. And the tests, not the lessons, would always come first, I came to understand. Furthermore, a test was always about the lesson. Did I see the lesson within? Did I understand it? If not, the test would inevitably be presented again. For sure, a whole lot of times, I flunked the test. Had to retake it again and again until I saw what I needed to learn. As time, as sobriety, went on, sometimes, I’d pass a test or two the first time because I discerned and understood the lesson.
How did I get through twenty years? I’ll give you the short version. Honesty. (Admitted to myself deep within that I am alcoholic and that I’d made a wreck of my life.) Open-mindedness. (Acknowledged that A.A. had the answers I needed.) Willingness. (Tried a new, changed way of living that A.A. proposed.)
I had to do house cleaning using the steps, the fourth step in particular, so that I could find out why I had done what I had done. So that I would not repeat it expecting different results. So that I would not live in pain, resisting change.
I had to give up my secrets because secrets will take you back out. And because secrets make you sick, make your life heavy and dark, and make you want the bottle.
I learned how to connect. Connect with other alcoholics at meetings. At meetings where their voices mirrored my feelings and fears and hopes. Where they gave me messages of witness about what a changed life might lead to. Where they told me to try relying on Something Greater Than Myself to get me through. Sometimes, I didn’t understand the messages. They sounded like garbled words coming in through static. Sometimes, they were bright revelations. At those times, a light went on for me…a mystery was solved.
Twenty years ago, I started a journey with fear as my companion. Through all of it, the fear began to lessen as the void within me slowly began to close. The void that I’d tried to fill with alcohol. In time, I began to feel a Presence within where the void had lived. In time, I risked trusting it.
Sobriety, I heard early on, is not a destination, but a journey. My goal—progress as I journey, not perfection. Today, though I have twenty years sober, I acknowledge that I’m going to make mistakes. What I hope is to learn from them. Twenty years has taught me that each time I reach a plateau, there will surely be another ass-kicking mountain around the bend to challenge me to reach higher, go further, climb to the next level. As my partner says: “It’s always one thing after another.” She’s right. What I must keep reminding myself is that I’m grateful to be meeting the next thing, whatever it is, sober.
Twenty years ago, on June 14, 1988, I walked into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and I was terrified.
Every night and morning and afternoon, before I’d walked in, I had prayed feverishly that A.A. would work for me. Prayed. Because I knew that it was the “last stop” for me. Knew it was the last house on the block. The last one that I’d ever see before I tumbled over the cliff and took that long, long fall to the rocks waiting below.
I looked around at the room I was standing in. People were everywhere. Sober people living without the bottle. Now that I was here, in 12-step recovery, I had to be without it. Without my crutch…my lifeline…my alcohol.
How would I do it? I didn’t know.
Didn’t know how I could get through. Couldn’t see my going through more than twenty-four hours without drinking. For the bottle was—I thought then—the light, the lamp that always had showed me where the path was. Showed me a way to get to the place where I could be safe. Where I wouldn’t have to feel….anything.
Beginning that June day twenty years ago, my constant companion for many months to follow was a kind of low-level terror. I was terrified of the sun rising on each new day. Terrified of its slow ride into the west each evening. Terrified because I couldn’t drink each day into night. Couldn’t drink each night into dawn. Terrified because, in my mind’s eye, all I could see those first sober months, was me standing at the entrance to a black-as-night tunnel. What lay ahead in that tunnel waiting for me? Darkness hid the path that would lead me to wherever it was that I’d have to go. And I was afraid of having to go there without my crutch.
I stood at the mouth of the tunnel and wondered: What was going to happen to me now? How was I going to be able to walk this journey?
I didn’t know.
What I did know was that I’d been drinking for 27 years. And though I’d tried so many times and so many ways, I couldn’t stop drinking on my own. I had, finally, come to the place where I desperately wanted to stop, but the fear of living without my crutch was so great that it paralyzed me…subverted every effort…showed me smoke and mirrors tricks that beguiled and persuaded me to stop thinking about stopping. So I had stopped because I’d thought it was shielding me from every emotion that had left me at the well of despair: abandonment, shame, guilt, loneliness, derailed expectations that cause the deepest, gut-wrenching kind of pain, hurt, anger and resentment.
The bottle had always said to me: Just pour the liquor and pick up the glass.
You can depend on me, it had faithfully whispered. I’ll protect you and you won’t have to feel the feelings you’re terrified of feeling.
But, finally, I came to realize that it was lying. Knew long before the court ordered me to A.A. meetings. Still, I clung to the delusion of the bottle as I stepped inside the rooms of A.A. Because I wanted life to be easy. The bottle kept promising me it would. And although I had long ago realized it never really kept its promise, every time I took a drink, I kept hoping it would.
In A.A. meetings, I listened. And when the other alcoholics talked about how you have to live without the bottle… have to step out every day on that smooth-looking stretch of land, hiding any hint of possible danger or misfortune ahead…how you have to keep struggling to climb those kick-ass hills planted in your path at every turn in the road…how—when life drops you into valleys so endlessly deep that you think you’ll never be able to climb out—you just have to keep going instead of running straight for the bottle, I shuddered.
How could I do that? How?
The only way out is through, they said. Whatever it is that you’re going through won’t last forever, they said. This, too, will pass.
The tunnel, which turned out to be my life, terrified me. The thought of taking the risk, of stepping forward blindly, without my shield—the bottle—of leaving myself entirely open, naked and vulnerable…how could I do it?
The only way out is through, they said.
No other choice. I’d have to take the first step. And the next and the next and go on walking through the tunnel. Go on through one day at a time. Go through. Sober.
I did as my days of sobriety turned into weeks, then months, then a year. A year became two, then six, then eleven, fifteen. And now, twenty.
So many things were revealed over the years. Like the fact that I’d spent my life, not living, but running. Or the fact that I habitually future-trip, believing that I can peep around corners to see the worst that is surely coming, and prompting the paint brush in my head to always draw scenarios of bloody disaster on the canvass of my mind.
So many tests have been presented to me over time. And the tests, not the lessons, would always come first, I came to understand. Furthermore, a test was always about the lesson. Did I see the lesson within? Did I understand it? If not, the test would inevitably be presented again. For sure, a whole lot of times, I flunked the test. Had to retake it again and again until I saw what I needed to learn. As time, as sobriety, went on, sometimes, I’d pass a test or two the first time because I discerned and understood the lesson.
How did I get through twenty years? I’ll give you the short version. Honesty. (Admitted to myself deep within that I am alcoholic and that I’d made a wreck of my life.) Open-mindedness. (Acknowledged that A.A. had the answers I needed.) Willingness. (Tried a new, changed way of living that A.A. proposed.)
I had to do house cleaning using the steps, the fourth step in particular, so that I could find out why I had done what I had done. So that I would not repeat it expecting different results. So that I would not live in pain, resisting change.
I had to give up my secrets because secrets will take you back out. And because secrets make you sick, make your life heavy and dark, and make you want the bottle.
I learned how to connect. Connect with other alcoholics at meetings. At meetings where their voices mirrored my feelings and fears and hopes. Where they gave me messages of witness about what a changed life might lead to. Where they told me to try relying on Something Greater Than Myself to get me through. Sometimes, I didn’t understand the messages. They sounded like garbled words coming in through static. Sometimes, they were bright revelations. At those times, a light went on for me…a mystery was solved.
Twenty years ago, I started a journey with fear as my companion. Through all of it, the fear began to lessen as the void within me slowly began to close. The void that I’d tried to fill with alcohol. In time, I began to feel a Presence within where the void had lived. In time, I risked trusting it.
Sobriety, I heard early on, is not a destination, but a journey. My goal—progress as I journey, not perfection. Today, though I have twenty years sober, I acknowledge that I’m going to make mistakes. What I hope is to learn from them. Twenty years has taught me that each time I reach a plateau, there will surely be another ass-kicking mountain around the bend to challenge me to reach higher, go further, climb to the next level. As my partner says: “It’s always one thing after another.” She’s right. What I must keep reminding myself is that I’m grateful to be meeting the next thing, whatever it is, sober.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Meditations III: Sappho's Daughter
Copyright 2007
I can’t say that my being aware of my Lesbianism was the sole cause of my drinking…that being a Lesbian propelled me into alcoholism. I cannot because it wouldn’t be entirely accurate. There are no simple answers here.
I am Sappho’s daughter. And I knew it early on. Inside me, for years, a fierce struggle between fear, desire, and shame had bound me. Had strangled me. Their ceaseless struggle for domination tortured me. Tasked me. I was their prisoner.
Then came alcohol, holding out a promise, a false promise, but a promise, nevertheless: If I would drink of its soothing liquid, I could have peace. If I would but drink, relief from this anguished struggle would cease. And, perhaps, I could forget who I was. My fears had made me a traitor to who I was. My fears had helped drive me into alcohol’s velvet arms.
But soon, I began a new and different kind of struggle: to break free of alcohol’s treacherous currents. For it had betrayed me, finally…had trapped yet another of Sappho’s daughters. Trapped this daughter for twenty-seven years.
In my book, The Mee Street Chronicles, you'll find stories of me and my struggles with alcohol, as well as stories of recovery. Order it from amazon.com, barnes & noble.com, or borders.com.
I can’t say that my being aware of my Lesbianism was the sole cause of my drinking…that being a Lesbian propelled me into alcoholism. I cannot because it wouldn’t be entirely accurate. There are no simple answers here.
I am Sappho’s daughter. And I knew it early on. Inside me, for years, a fierce struggle between fear, desire, and shame had bound me. Had strangled me. Their ceaseless struggle for domination tortured me. Tasked me. I was their prisoner.
Then came alcohol, holding out a promise, a false promise, but a promise, nevertheless: If I would drink of its soothing liquid, I could have peace. If I would but drink, relief from this anguished struggle would cease. And, perhaps, I could forget who I was. My fears had made me a traitor to who I was. My fears had helped drive me into alcohol’s velvet arms.
But soon, I began a new and different kind of struggle: to break free of alcohol’s treacherous currents. For it had betrayed me, finally…had trapped yet another of Sappho’s daughters. Trapped this daughter for twenty-seven years.
In my book, The Mee Street Chronicles, you'll find stories of me and my struggles with alcohol, as well as stories of recovery. Order it from amazon.com, barnes & noble.com, or borders.com.
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