Being Three - 33

Morning Friend,

Bitter are the tears of a child: Sweeten them.
Deep are the thoughts of a child: Quiet them.
Sharp is the grief of a child: Take it from him.
Soft is the heart of a child: Do not harden it.

Pamela Glenconner

If you've visited the "blog" site, ( which is not really a traditional "blog" per se, as it is the "Musings Repository"), you might be wondering who the outrageously cute child in the picture, "Angel Ashley" is?

The extent of her beauty obviously excludes ME in her parental genetic mix, but to MEET her, is to discover a goodly inherited portion of her Uncle Tim's frenzied passion for all things "WACKY", "FUN" and "FAST" !

She is my God-child and the youngest of my brother Marshall and sister-in-law Gwen's three beautiful daughters.

Janelle and Angela are in school all day now, so babysitting opportunities now involve just me and the... "Little Dynamo"..."Three Foot Nuclear Reactor"...."Giggling Girl"...."Monkey Girl"....or most appropriately, "FLASH-ley" !

When there are two or more of the girls to look after, they INTERACT nicely so I'm often simply supervising them at play.

But when it's just me and Ash, I AM the "play", and BOY!...do we EVER! ( exhaustively !)

And you know what my friend?

I've come to believe that my little God-daughter not only "loves" and "listens to", and "trusts", and "respects" and "feels safe" with her Uncle Tim......she LIKES me!

And while LOVE may bloom and die with the seasons on the vine of life, the roots of FRIENDSHIP run deep and eternally through the soil and soul of earth.

And as mutually forgiving and uncompromisingly agreeable as most friends are, I never dwell on such things as her lapses in continence and she never fusses too much about the limits of both my culinary and hide-and-seeking abilities.

We're just like two burrs on a donkey's tail.

Ashley turned 3 on March 20th which just so happens to be the very same age as me.

***I have done THE MATH and discovered that it is highly LIKELY that "the FLASH" was CONCEIVED on the very same day I was "reborn".

The parallels in our three years of growth and development are remarkable, exquisite, delightful, and in some ways, miraculous.

The very sight of her face lighting up when she first sees me is enough to make me weep with joy; my heart fluttering like an Angel's wings...my resolve, a Heavenly firmament.

She truly IS representative of the "Angelic" beauty that adorns the wondrous and magical kingdom that my world has become.....a world where me and Ashley will always be the same age.

I wrote a little something to commemorate my friend's third birthday, to celebrate my own, and to acknowledge the grace and love of the Good Lord who is of course the THIRD party...when WE were THREE

When WE were THREE... by Uncle "Teeem"

...you were my “Angel Princess” and I, a “King”

we could make a “Royal Mess” out of just about anything!

...we had both just learned to walk upright

you had a blazing “pamper scamper” and I was strolling in new “light”

...you liked to draw and I liked to write

while lacking in “pure” talent, we had my enthusiasm and your delight

...I was bigger than you ( a bit of a “lout”!)

but you had WAY more energy, so it all evened out

...we sure knew how to “tear”

like bikes in the house when Mom wasn’t there!

...we were as curious as kittens in clover

finding life just as wondrous starting out – as starting over

...we made quite a “fashionable” pair

scuffed knees, runny noses and flyaway “crows-nest” hair

...we sang songs with soulfulness and flair

like the “A.B.C.’s” sung by Sonny and Cher

...the light in your eyes lit a fire in my heart

that no despair, doubt or fear, could ever put out

...I kept you safe and you made me strong

though I had trouble saying “no’ we never went wrong

...we discovered we’ll ALWAYS be that way

Ashley, Tim and Jesus...forever in love each day

20/03/09

Ashley/Tim ( 36/45)

Love, uNcLetImMy:)

Laugh as much as you breathe

Love as long as you live (playing)

Counting - 32

Morning Friend,

I've never been a real "Math" kind of guy..."English"; ( or the butchering of same), has always been more my forte.

I was told early on in sobriety by more than one A.A. member that it was NOT a good idea to COUNT the days, as in, " I haven't had a drink in 11 days....that's about as long as my worst bender!"....or "I haven't had a drink in 3 days....that's how long it's taken me to recover from my last 11 day spree!"....or "I've just beaten by old record of 11 days...time to celebrate with a 3 day tilt!".

I believe the reasoning behind such a suggestion is that it takes one's focus AWAY from the all-important TODAY; which I can say from my experience in "early" sobriety, was about the only thing my "shell-shocked" brain and shattered countenance had the ability to focus ON.

And that makes perfect sense really.

What good are "a thousand wonderful yesterdays" to a man strapping himself aboard a Hell-bound hand-basket TODAY?

When the sun sets on TODAY, will I have frittered it away, selfishly patting myself on the back for yesterday's "glory"?

Who besides war heroes and crazy people get a "free pass" TODAY to do whatever they want due to "past considerations" ?

The truth of the matter is that a recovering drunk with a thousand sober yesterdays having a drink TODAY, is nothing more than a drunk, ( again), and those thousand days won't even get him a "free one".

I get it.

I also get that TODAY, spent bettering the world and myself, is preferable to a day of self-aggrandizement.

Lord knows there's no shortage of work to be done in both cases, but the area of "self improvement" is probably the better starting point since I'm about the only one qualified ( and interested), in correcting my own annoying habits, personality flaws, and all round garden variety character defects.

When you think about it, one more "better PERSON" makes a "better WORLD" , so the "global ramifications" of human activity are not ALL environmental. ( I suppose you could say I'm partly "responsible" for GLOBAL SOBERING !? )

Alas my friend as you might have suspected from Yours Truly.... the "helpless convention flaunter" that I am. I do...COUNT my days.

I count the days, each like a precious gift; each more wondrous and beautiful, and less daunting and uncertain than the ones before it.

You'll note I've said it was "suggested" that I don't, and I can see how some poor soul who is constantly "slipping" and "re-starting" and "relapsing" and "re-counting" and losing count and over-counting and not counting a sip of wine in the count, and count on the count....end up getting COUNTED OUT!

But for me, counting WORKS....and that's really the bottom line.

For a "recovering incorrigible liar" like myself, who on any given day - back in "the day" - could tell ten different people, ten different stories about how much I had or hadn't had to drink, ( and they'd ALL be B.S.!), I carry around the knowledge of EXACTLY the number of days I've been sober like the "priceless treasure" that the TRUTH is.

For a "recovering coward" like myself, who wallowed in drunken self-pity and fear for over 9,000 days, I count each day as another in a series of humble but hard-fought VICTORIES.

For a "recovering fool" like myself, who squandered God-given talents and opportunities until my very dignity was but a crumbling shell, I can now look eye-to-eye with anyone and rattle off the count with deep gratitude, dead reckoning, and immense PRIDE.

For a "recovering alcoholic", who at one time couldn't manage ONE sober day, I think it's worth mentioning that today the count is at 1,400.

Not an OVERLY IMPRESSIVE statistic by any standards, and I only really mention it because it's a nice "round" number and it happens to coincide with 46 MONTHS which happened to coincide with "Musing Monday".

If you do nothing but sit back and tick off your "sober" days on the calendar, you might end up improving your math skills, but little about your heart and soul will change for the better.

It's been said that if you sober up a drunken horse-thief, you're still left with a thief. ( and probably not your horse !? )

So hand in hand with each day of sobriety has been, and MUST be a conscientious and ongoing effort at "Tim-improvement".

Each numbered day is a granite boulder of the foundation upon which I construct my TODAYS.

For ME, the size of each new day's construction "project" is directly proportional to the foundation I've laid, and in 1,400 days I've gone from bird-houses to CASTLES!

Never forgetting of course the ONE fundamental rule of the "global" job site.....

....NO "inconvenient FIFTHS" !

love tImMy:/

Laugh as much as you breathe

Love as long as you live ( adding up)

Good Orderly Direction - 31

Morning Friend,

Would it surprise you greatly to learn that my grade 2 Catechism teacher once invited our Parish Priest to answer some "theological questions" posed by a precociously skeptical student which she herself had been unable to properly address? ( at least to MY satisfaction?)

To the good Father's credit, he surely did the best he could in trying to explain to an 8-year-old, the Great Flood and God's "justification" for wiping the human slate clean and starting fresh.

The poor fellow looked about as uncomfortable as I'd ever seen a Priest, with sort of a "no one at the Seminary ever said there'd be days like this?" look to him.

Not that I was feeling particularly "buoyant" myself wondering if this opportunity to pose my questions to someone "higher up" the chain of Catholicism might be merely a prelude to determining my candidacy for an exorcism?

I worried also whether such borderline blasphemy might not get me booted as an Alter Boy; AFTER I had been pilloried, stoned and racked of course. ( This would also doubtlessly throw a wrench into my youthful designs on the Priesthood as a career choice which at the time had been a "serious" consideration !)

I wish I could tell you the meeting was a rousing success; a profound moment of enlightenment in which the STEEL of my FAITH was tempered!

Had that been the case, this forum might well be entitled "FATHER Ab's Miraculous Meanderings" !?

The truth is, I STILL don't understand God's "reason" for the Great Flood. ( the gist of my dilemma was, and still is, that there had to be at least a FEW "innocents" among the millions that were drowned ? )

Whether intended or not, what the good Father DID manage to convey to a fearful and impressionable lad that day was the notion that whether you are a nappy-headed 8-year-old or an eighty-year-old Rhodes Scholar, it is a MISTAKE to try and define, interpret, justify, contemporize, humanize, illuminate or explain GOD, especially through the flawed writings of flawed and mortal men as found in Biblical tales.

Just yesterday, Christians celebrated Easter; based on a STORY of "redemption", "re-incarnation" and "rejuvenation" of "God's only son" who "died for our sins" and "rose up from the dead" as sign of "His love for us" and the "eternal life" which awaits in "Heaven" for all those who "ask for forgiveness".

I ask you this my friend:

- Will a bank robber grab a quick read of the Bible on his way to the crime scene, or is he more likely to be able to recite scriptures by rote when he's before the parole board?

- Does God "hide" in the pages of the Bible waiting to be "found" by death row inmates?

- Is "going to church" once a week worthy of forgiveness for a week's mayhem?

- Is God's word "unavailable" to those needing the strength to overcome evil intentions BEFORE they are acted on?

Without getting into theological hot water, I'll instead slog through some moral muck here and suggest that the most basic principle of ANY religion is NOT a "literary interpretation" of some thousand-year-old tome, but rather the practice of choosing a life of Goodness before and instead of Evil?

Except to the more Sociologically impaired segment of society, the difference between RIGHT and WRONG is not a state secret.

The very harmonious balance of life in the most secular of societies is reflected by the choices made by its' citizens.

Do we not have to make such choices dozens of times in the course of our days?

Don't MANY if not MOST people generally make a habit of making the "right" choice, whether they own, have read or even heard about the Bible?

Couldn't it be said that such people act in that "right" way because GOD "Lives" IN them?

Aren't the true "Acts of God" found in the valor, sacrifice, forgiveness, love and morally "right choices" of everyday "Good People"?

Here I am now 8 years and several scores old and still asking questions about God.

At least from my ceaselessly inquisitive but more finely honed perspective of late, they are mostly rhetorical.

Living on a FLOOD PLAIN as I do, the "moral" high ground is about as safe as I can get.

Love "Father" tImMy:/ ( that DOES have a nice ring!?!?)

Laugh as much as you breathe

Love as long as you live ( high and dry)

"Fan Mail" - 30

Morning Friend,

Today is a milestone of sorts for the old Monday Muser....my 30th "episode" !

The words of encouragement AND the "constructive criticism" have been welcomed equally and warmly. ( Keep them coming folks ! )

A dental appointment early this morning has left me feeling somewhat "creatively challenged", so I think I'll share some feedback along with the responses, to some of the comments and "constructive" criticism I've received in the past 7 months .

- Dear Ab,

Where do the ideas and inspiration for the musings come from?

signed, LEFT BRAIN

Dear LEFT BRAIN,

I come by the modicum of writing skill and the "passion for prose" I possess honestly, having obtained a Creative Communications diploma from R.R.C.C. in 1981. I always knew I COULD write but was never consistently sober enough to make a living out of it. ( I was offered a full time reporters job at the Winnipeg Sun before I had even graduated College, but turned it down knowing full well that between the rigors of a newsroom and those of a heavy drinker, there was room for only ONE set of rigors....I would have been sacked in no time !) Monday Musings is simply an attempt to "get my feet wet" again in a small, semi-structured "deadline oriented" literary fashion. Nothing is "pre-written" or even thought about. I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. and whatever comes to mind as I float in bed listening to the coffee maker do its' thing on Monday morning, becomes the THEME....and away I go for 5-6 hours till she's done and spell-checked and with a mighty sigh I push "SEND" and go back to bed. As far as "inspiration" and "ideas"....I have a MILLION reasons to love life again and each one of them is a story idea....that I have the strength, clarity and peace of mind to be able write them is inspiring in itself.

- Dear Ab,

Besides the OBVIOUS inference, what is the origin of the pseudonym "Abraham Stainer"?

signed, WHATSINANAME

Dear WHATSINANAME,

I was actually staining my brother's fence all day, one summer day early in my sobriety and as I am wont to do during such endeavors, I ended up as "Sienna Brown" as the fence itself. Covered in stain from head to toe and chit-chatting with Marshall and sister-in-law Gwen it was remarked that I'm an "Stained Abstainer" and an "Abstaining Stainer", and behold....ABRAHAM ( "Ab" ) STAINER was wrought upon the literary and home-decorating world.

- Dear Ab,

You look fairly "shredded" in recent pictures, what's your secret and why aren't you married off?

signed, LETTUCE-HEAD

Dear LETTUCE HEAD,

While I do cycle every day to work, and spend my coffee break doing a few sets in the gym, the KEY to my physical conditioning lies in what I've discovered through doing basic PUSHUPS and SITUPS at home EVERY single day.

Such basic exercise requires NO gym membership or fancy equipment; just the ability to CONTROL the weight and mass of your OWN BODY, in measured repetitions of activity.

Being able to control and maximize myself, and FEELING strong physically is the perfect compliment to how I feel mentally and spiritually; like a Warrior !

As to the second part of your question, I have been in several "near-marital" relationships which were derailed unquestionably, and sadly-so by my drinking. ( I would have made a TERRIBLE "husband" !) You might think I'd be "good to go" now, but the process of learning to live without alcohol also requires learning to "LIVE" with a renewed sense of honesty and a commitment to address my own plethora of character defects. Many like myself have found meeting and interacting with members of the opposite sex difficult because all of our "instincts" and "strategies" were honed and refined in our teens with "Liquid Courage" and "B.S.". Nevertheless, before I even consider "setting up house" with someone, I have a ways to go in getting my OWN, in order. Did I mention by the way how great exercise is for tension relief!?

- Dear Ab,

In some of your blog pictures you dress like Klem Kadiddlehopper and in others like you just finished a G.Q. shoot...why the disparity?

signed, GIORGIO

Dear GIORGIO,

I have the odd, "slightly threadbare", favorite old item of clothing that I'm reluctant to part with like anyone else, although there are one or two which even the moths won't waste their time with anymore, but I DO benefit greatly from having the same body size and type as my "lanky" but athletically sinewy and horse-shouldered brother-in-law Dr. Marv Goossen, who's fashion-conscious wife - sister Cheryl - keeps HIM in the latest fashions and ME in the "next-to-latest" hand me downs. Therein, lies the rub...and the reason why I can now be both "dressed up" AND "taken out".

- Dear Ab,

How do you deal with the CRAVING?

signed, HAIR O' THE DOG

Dear HAIR O' THE DOG,

If you mean Reese's Pieces, I don't....I keep a good few pounds of them around at all times. But as to alcohol, I don't have to "deal" with cravings because I've never once been even the remotest bit inclined to have, sip, sneak, buy or steal a drink from day ONE. When I speak of "God" and "Miracles" as I often do, the very fact that my OBSESSION went away COMPLETELY - along with a whole HOST of life-sapping grief, sickness and fear - is my own personal encounter with the saving Grace of God and all the "proof" I need that miracles DO happen. My grateful heart aches with prayers for the many alcoholics who still suffer through a daily battle with cravings, setbacks and "slips".

- Dear Ab,

I think I want your parents to adopt me?

signed, O. ANNIE

Dear O. ANNIE,

I can understand full well how anyone would want to experience the absolutely amazing love, patience, faith and courage of my Mom and Dad who literally saved my life and who are beacons of light and God's mercy upon me. While they are both officially "retired" from the workplace, the work of raising their own seven children, as Mom says, "...never ends.", so unfortunately they cannot at this time take on any new clients.

- Dear Ab,

Why do you use such big werds sumtimes?

signed, EGGBERT

Dear EGGBERT,

I like to throw at least one "$5 word" into each "two-bit" Musing as an "added value" feature, however some trains of thought just simply call for less COLLOQUIAL sentiments ? ( I can see how it might be frustrating though...for those without access to a dictionary, Eggbert !? )

- Dear Ab,

I "think" I might have a drinking problem and you might have the answer?

signed, RON BACARDI

Dear RON,

The fact that you are even thinking about it is a good sign, unless you're drunk while you're doing all the thinking. It's EASY to swear off booze "tomorrow" when you're half cut and the fridge is full, of beer, but when your mind ( and throat) are clear and dry, and it's 5:00 on a Friday after a LONG week and the wolves in your head are howling the Call of the Wild, the very idea of quitting drinking is right up there at the top of your Priority List, tied for first with putting sharp sticks in your eyes !

I have NO answers for you Ron. I only know what works for ME. Without going into EVERY reason I KNEW I had a problem, I'll simply say that when the CONSEQUENCES of drinking outweigh the full and free ENJOYMENT of life, then you have a problem. And the answers to that problem can be readily found at an A.A. meeting. You might not like the answers you get or even the personalities of the people there ( which is why it's nice that there are so many groups in major centers to choose from), but the answers will hold the TRUTH you seek, based on life experiences of Honest and Open-minded people who are more than Willing to share in a journey of hope, recovery and redemption. Never mind the "God Thing" that many people use as an excuse not to go because it "conflicts with their beliefs". To them I say, "you're life is a cesspool WITHOUT God...how much "worse" can it get WITH Him?!!! The only other piece of advice I ever care to give besides "go to a meeting" is ...SOBRIETY EQUALS FREEDOM.

- Dear Ab,

You're a brilliant writer and you're wonderful, but you need to stop smoking!

signed CONCERNED

Dear CONCERNED,

Yes Mother, thank you.

Love tImMy :/

Laugh as much as you breathe

Love as long as you live ( editorially sound)