Things Tell Stories

Amid the myriad of books on my desk and shelves, at work, is a white box next to a tiger.  The box is made from a poem I wrote titled "I Folded You;" a student literally folded it into this box while I was sharing it during writer's workshop.  

What strikes me most about this memory is how much the student taught me about my own poem. What I mean is that the poem was all about a failed relationship and the need to control the feelings by folding them into a safe place to heal, but I did not fully understand this until my words were acted upon by this intelligent young person. Ironically,  I could not see what I had said until he showed me what I had said.

I think that this complex marriage of ideas and actions is how Recovery works. 

I have found that my books lead me to my writing just as working the steps lead me to emotional sobriety.  For alcoholics, of course, we have the Big Book as our true guide that leads us from our reading to "right living."  I have learned with each reading that these instructions ask me to go beyond the words on the page. They foster in me a need to build sustainable relationships with a higher power and other alcoholics.  When I get sidelined by life's twists and turns, I return time and again to the Big Book to sustain my faith just as I do with the books on my desk at work.  

When I look at these titles, I see how they are about reading, writing, and knowing the world around me in my daily life; Borges, Palmer, Tagore and many others sustain me until I can act.  The gift I received from this young man, however, was the understanding that "of myself, and only books, I am nothing." Isolation's cure comes when I share with another person, alcoholic or not, my goals and ambitions, ideas and plans, and fears and successes. Self-knowledge is limited to my own confining perspective, my "thinking disease." If the box reminds me I was trapped, dad's tiger reminds me of the courage I receive from a higher power. My hungry, intellectual curiosity can only be satiated by my spiritual quest.

Personal Journal | Published March 2, 2013