I’m not bragging.

I’m just saying that being sober for close to 20 years is like living 2 separate lives.

When you’re afraid all the time and I was… fear brings you to being in the moment. The edge! The horrors! The nightmares and exhaustive sleeps…

The ability to surrender to something that requires faith is as liberating as anything I’ve experienced.

Change is required and possible. I sometimes need to be reminded that I’m not the only one who has taken this on. Others came before, and others will follow. I really have left the meetings…

Hindsight is 20/20. The saying goes…

I met George towards his end before anyone he worked with knew he was suffering and in rapid decline.

All I knew was he was the voice screaming at me for making a joke… Even in my diminished capacity, I knew his reaction was way over the top. Hindsight would say that this was the first clue that something was wrong. Which is interesting because if I hadn’t stood up to him, it would just be considered another moment of brilliance by the great alcohol and drug Councilor!

What I said was, “If I’m going to turn out like you? Hand me the bottle now!”

They found him weeks later alone at home near death. Now that I know he was dying, I don’t know what I feel…

It’s all about timing is another saying: When you meet someone. What are they going through?

The Devil is in the details…

Saw this photo of a young man.

Whom I only knew as old.

Before he lost the ones he loved.

That took much more than he could hold.

Harold in the cornfield.

With Father Henry and the clan.

Standing tall and in a suit.

Like he almost had a plan.

It makes it all so clearer.

All Apologies to you, I owe.

It brings it all much nearer.

We reap now what we sow.

See this Red Sky, grey horizon.

All that light they could not bend.

Too much truth is our minds now.

So much love we can not send.

All the power we could muster.

Leaves us empty, feelings bland.

In the end, there was a Custer.

More than him had their last stand.

We are still now, we are thinking.

All the ducks are in a row.

We aren’t learning from the teaching.

There’s no plan, no need to know.

There is still, and there is wonder.

There is Red Sky before the night.

If we don’t stop this rape and plunder.

There’ll be no one left to fight.

I have 3 things on my mind: Her safety, laundry, and coffee.

She is sleeping while I drop off a bag at the Queen and Jameson Laundry. Across the street, I order an Americano from the Asian lady wearing a mask at the Tim Hortons. A crystal meth addict slides blue sad eyes away from me as I scan the scabs on her cheeks.

Cigarette butts line the wet sidewalks and the night rains, now halted are still holding the bums at bay.

At the liquor store, the old man with the gruff voice yells for spare change as a woman with a little girl B-lines around him.

Back home, I sip Americano and wonder how much longer I can stay here watching these streets of broken dreams.

The April Showers finally came in the night of early morning, and I dreamed sweet dreams while Ned the cat purred and chirped in her bed beside mine.

I dream of the gorgeous Vietnamese model Vanessa who stalks grocery shelves down the street and pretends I don’t exist. In the parallel universe of my dreams, she is mine, and she is happy.

I saw Gigi yesterday, and she gave me a massage, and after I left, she sent me a text that said thank you, my friend! With a little heart and kisses emoji.

I had dinner at Mother of India with the kid and later had an Epson salt bath, and I am writing again. The world is an interesting place now, and I am alive in it…

I wrote the outline and shared it with The Editor, who offered his usual 5 cents and then 5 cents more.

“I love it!” He said. “You’re really getting good at this… Is this a novel or a screenplay?”

The working title is The Chances Store. My first novel, Look Them in the Eyes, will be published in weeks.

This is the career I want…

I got out early, and it hadn’t been a bad day, so I picked up the kid and asked her if she wanted to go for Chillie Dogs and Ice Cream at the Dairy Queen.

She smiled and jumped in the car. The first DQ had one employee, which is never a good sign, and she smiled after I ordered and said. “I can give you cheese dogs. However, I’m out of Chillie.”

I thought, ‘How do you run out of 1 of the only 2 food items you have, but kept that to myself. I looked at the kid who moaned a face of disappointment without words, and I asked ,”You want to try the other DQ?” I didn’t have to ask twice.

We got what we wanted at the 2nd place and satisfied we went home. As I backed into street parking, the young man directly behind me backed his car up to give me more room. I was surprised/shocked. It had been so long since I saw stranger kindness that it’s given me a strange sense of hope and optimism…

I am not confused…

However, the world does seem a little complicated. This is no doubt in my mind intentional.

I remember a simpler time, and I know those days are gone.

We are mostly isolated from one another now. Separate yet, somehow, all connected by a technology that some fear will destroy us. It’s bound to happen. Why worry about the how? We control so very little.

And yet so little talk about God…

All I know is I don’t have the answers. I have some questions.