I LIVE HERE

Re-Post from December 31, 2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2011

Frequently, in getting to know blogger-Peeps, 

I wonder, "Where do you live? What does 

your house look like? Your yard?"  

This is where steveroni lives...

WHERE DO YOU LIVE?

And I am so ever grateful to have a place to live. I do know what it is, to stand in the cold at midnight, snow swirling about howling winds. And I am there shivering with runny nose, fever, wet feet in soggy socks and shoes, feeling OH! so sorry for myself--you know the drill--"Nobody loves me...nobody cares!" I wish I had a hat.



Yeah, right. Boo-hoo-hoo! It is snowing so hard, several inches have accumulated while I'm standing there waiting for a bus--hopefully, heated. My ears are freezing, and my fingers also. If only I had a hat. "Achoo!"


Must remember to get my violin out of hock, and see if these fingers will still do the thing. Where did I leave that hat?



NOTE: I had pawned  my violin (worth $950 at the time) for $5...to buy a quart of "good" vodka. Two weeks later they wanted $17 for it's retrieval. The vodka, with my system of rationing, had lasted seven hours.


Ten more years of this kind of life brought me to my knees--literally--in 1974. I have not had a drink since. My gratitude is ongoing, characterized by activity in the groups of Alcoholics Anonymous. There I found, in twelve steps, a way of life...which makes life worth living.


Many of you Peeps are friends who I never have met, and probably will not experience that face-to-face joy of meeting. But I love you--ALL of you. And as we trudge this road of happy destiny, this road of Poems, Paintings, Music, Love and SOBRIETY, I am humbled. God has granted me SO many gifts, temporal, spiritual, and certainly not the least...YOU Peeps, who I cherish. And I now own eight hats!



Love.
Steve E


HAPPY NEW YEAR!


(See you in 2011)

MICRO-FICTION MONDAY "LOVE"

Micro-Fiction Monday is hosted by Susan 
at Stony River. Go here to learn about 

and read more Micro-Fiction Monday.

TWO IN LOVE

Greater than any known force

Is that which binds together
Two living souls
LOVE

God is the source
Did you know His
Real true name Is
LOVE?

 steve E 

STARS AND A STAR

This little poetry is inspired by a pleasant early-morning phone conversation with a favorite Peep, and a blog post by another Peep, new to me  Jozien  and it is imaginary imagery for me, a further pushing...this one did not simply roll itself onto the keyboard, as most of these do for me. 

TOP OF THE WORLD

Above tree line of mountain
I discovered earth-top lake
And in austere and beautiful
Starkness, a perpetual fountain.
At once I knelt there to slake
My need.

Swimming naked in lofty waters
Climbing, frolicking, in this heaven
Above most of the earth, even
Then, I--a "warm-everything" guy
Realized nothing else matters
Than need.

First, descended bleakness.
Next, I felt dark itself bless
My many gifts from God: Humanity,
Sobriety, Love, Freedom from insanity
And also the gift of you...you who
So feed my need.

I know the dark had a vibrant need,
A longing from the first-ever Seed
Of Creation...for light, sight, and right!
Unveiled now, midst this very night,
Stars--so many--lacking yet-named number.
Ne'er now do I need slumber!

Covered with this blanket of blips, blinks and twinks
I lay viewing world's largest Christmas Tree
My thoughts turned (naturally--OMG!) to blogs and links
But before long, as usual, I was linked to Thee.
One who, when ever inward I look--I see.
And need.

Do you know? (You do not!) that each star's Light
reflected your sweetness; your love-light, your lace,
Your talent, your giving nature--your hair, your face,
Your body, your heart, even your soul. And a fight--
I was witness as stars pushed one another, 'til bright
Was indeed, a need.

With day, morning-shining sun-star
Brought you into clear focus once more--
Into my world...one of warmth, not war.
One of forgiveness, not resentments of wrath from above.
Needed now--the tendrils of tenderness, the freedom of life, of love,
Sweeter Peacefulness and purer Joy.

Amazing, I Still
Even now feel chill,
As I swam in those lofty waters,
Above most of the earth.

Though I'm a warm-water "warm-everything" guy,
YOU were the first to make it seem real fine
To climb, swim, frolic, love...above the tree-line.
Let's do it again and again...some time....

--steveroni

SO MUCH TO DO, I CANNOT KEEP UP WITH 

READING, BLOGGING AND COMMENTS.

SO FORGIVE ME PLEASE, PEEPS!

2009 TAX PROCRASTINATION IS...OVER!

I MAY LURK A BIT...OK?

BE BACK IN A WHILE

WITH A SONG AND A SMILE

BUT RIGHT NOW

REALLY GOT TO GOOOOOOOO!

RETURNING NEXT SUNDAY

WITH THE SEQUAL TO

LOTTA LOTTO

A "MAGPIE" STORY!

NEXT will follow an update about 

"SOBER FREEDOM RIDE #2", 

my solo scooter ride, 

3,000+ miles round-trip. 

Beginning in Miami August 16-17.

My only goal will be to

meet and greet blogger Peeps 

in Miami, Orlando, St. Augustine, Charleston SC, 

and on up the east coast

SPOOFERINO VIOLINO

SEVENTY-TWO YEARS TOGETHER

NOTE:  A POST ON  JULY 10, 2010 INSPIRED ME TO 

"COPY-CAT" AND I WISH TO THANK YOU THANK YOU (echo?)

CLAUDIA FOR ALLOWING ME SOME LICENSE IN USING 

YOUR IDEAS AND A FEW OF YOUR OWN WORDS. 

I HAVE IMMENSE RESPECT FOR YOUR 

TALENT AND YOUR BLOGGING.

VIELE UMARMUNGEN!

Your were age nine, I tender five
So young we, but very much alive
My mother gave you to me
And me to you. You see
It was not a marriage made in heaven
Me only five, and you...eleven

I touched you... I lovingly smelled.
(Relationship in doubt for several years)
You vibrated, and "OH!" you yelled
'Til screaming hurt Peeps' ears
Eleven was heaven
Five--still alive

They said it could never, ever be done
My hands could not fit your body
I touched your smoothest neck--and you were won
Over. I drank of your muse like a toddy
Unseemly to most--this marriage in heaven
When one was five, the other eleven

As I rubbed my hair over your rounded top
You had never, ever said "Stop!"
Ribs on  your sides, they loved my touch
"Maybe", said the Peeps, "Way too MUCH!"
Heaven and earth had waited
Eleven and five finally mated

My fingers slide over your body, pluck your strings
Slip around your neck, to do just those things
Which drive you to rhythmic shaking
Vibrating.

My lips brush slowly over sanded slopes
Kiss cherry-stained covering of God's wondrous art
The rest of me standing there...still...feet apart.
Whilst all of nature with me hopes

So good to spend time with you
We've spent lots of time together...
Hours of holding you, now not so new
Bliss'ly tied with our hearted tether

I fell in love with your smooth sound
You stole my soul from first moment.
I held you then, under my arms
As if to shield you from harms

Since, I tried countless others
But none ever to compare
With you, here, next to me
While those others just stare

You react quickly to what I suggest to do
I love to express all my emotions through
You, always true to your word
Forever gone wherever I lured
You are a mirror of my soul
You are earth, I am the mole.

When we perform, we love
And the Peeps below and above
Share with us All the Joy
Chords, Sounds,
Notes, Melodies.

Now at the end
It is now
We bow:

You, then
Only eleven
I merely five
Many, many winters ago
On a farm far, far away
Amid flying snow

I love you
My violin....

--fiddlemn aka steveroni

Inspired by, and a few of her 

own words used from 

Blogger-Friend CLAUDIA  

Of Gratitude and of Love

WE FLEW HOME

Thankful for all the blessings of the International Convention of AA

Indebtedness I owe to the hopeless, suffering alcoholic, whether 1 day or 36 years--sober.

Rejuvented by 65,000 smiling and very happy sober faces--day and night! OMG!!!

Entering a new phase in sobriety--of Recovery, Unity, and Service

Dismiss self and personally welcome all who step through this door of Alcoholics Anonymous

Just a few thoughts. Of course you noticed--grin! that taking the first letter of each line spelled "TIRED". And that is certainly what I am tonight--we just arrived home in Naples to a thunderstorm of the "magnitude" variety. That is the standard "Summer Welcome" in late-afternoon SW Florida.

Others have reported with much eruditeness convention news to the blogging world. I must say it was TRULY FUN to meet, even if ever so briefly, some of the Peeps of "blog" acquaintance. That's enough about that.

But I DO have an apres-convention short story which will no doubt be lengthened here to ungodly proportion:

This has nothing to do with alcoholism or the convention--or maybe anything at all. Sunday night I was sitting in the lobby of our hotel after midnight.  Blogging, and writing Emails was on my agenda, as usual every night, into the wee hours.  I was dying for a cup of coffee, Starbucks had closed. All alone, in semi darkness I sat writing, when a young girl smiling all over the place, popped out of seeming nowhere and stood before me.

Her words:  "Hello, I see you sitting here every night alone with your computer and a huge cup of coffee. And I see you  have no coffee tonight. Would you like some?" 

OBOY! My angel Flex is with me, and I said that she reminded me of Florence Nightingale.

Lesson to me (again): No person or group owns the monopoly on kindness to strangers. I still feel all one with people, and connected with all creation, no matter how loosely.  Whether I respond or not to that is up to me. The benefits of interconnecting far outweigh any semblance of tranquility in lonely self-aggrandizement.

Not only coffee, but some Apple-cake, water, and that genuine lovely smile all were delivered to this little computer table in the empty lobby. Marissa, born in Spain, told me she worked in the hotel bar--which had all but closed during the AA convention!

I verified for myself again, peeps, that love is everywhere. It is giving, it is an action. It is exemplified frequently in the bestowing of grace, favor, empathy and service to another/others. It can be the trading of a smile, an eye-to-eye connection, an understanding. As with any gift, the nature of love demands not only one who gives, but one who receives--and in beautiful reflection...gives back. When that happens, isn't it just WONDERFUL?

See...I told you I'd drag this out to a length far greater than its worth.

Sober Today.
Love you bloggers.
Wishing for us all--PEACE!

--steveroni

MORE THOUGHTS ON LOVE--FREEDOM

So the graphic here is titled "PEACE"

I liked the picture a lot....

And are not "love"  and "peace"

Close relatives?

PEACE IS THE SISTER OF LOVE

A POEM OF

LOVE

The First Great Love simply HAD to be

A mystical "Somethingness"

Greater than us, you,or me .

More a Perfect Love, Union,

Almost analogous

To willingness

Together

Something and Something Else

Gifted and Gifting.

Each!

All that is created
All which has form
Was once mated
And then born

Few happenings solo

Are anywhere.

Anymore

But love, ahhhh!

Yes, unique at every turn,

Each instance

Of the gifting, receiving:

Sharing, and not fearing

Freeing, but not unseeing

Over, in, up and about

Neither silent we, nor shout.

Love is synonymous with free.

Freely given by he to she

And she also, back to him

Intently...not on whim.

As "Somethingness" gave love--life,

Also given was a will of freedom,

To choose, to act, and to be

One in love who is also free!

As man gives his life, his love

To another...at times mindless:

While saying "Love is the only thing"

He clamps in her nose that ring.

She'd be treated all so wrong,

For only on her finger

Does ring belong.

Selfish love shoves true love

Complete out of existence

Why suffocate, choke, repress

When heavenly bliss be so near?

Why such a jealous brat be, unless

Overcome with paranoiac fear?

Each within boundaries, must abide

Lines which have been set aside.

Allowing "live and let live" to be our motto

So love may be our garden, our grotto

Transcendental understanding becomes

Our code of life, and, too--

Our mystery of peace, happiness,

Calm acceptance..."Hey, YOU!"

Together we are alive

Together we are--yes--FREE!

Together we are greatly "in love"...

Together--you and me.

--steveroni, 

What A GREAT RIDE on a Saturday morning, 

returning Monday, late afternoon. My scooter

and I get along SO good--No jealousies, no

"furiosities", no shouting, just--well?--LOVE!

PEACE

Last weekend I rode to a city 3 hours north from Naples to visit my daughter, 'K. What a grand two days and nights we enjoyed, lots of laughing, some serious stuff, and a bit of crying. It became an opportunity for which we each had hoped. I called it NINTH STEP weekend.

Both of us got to re-live one final time many memories of our lives, and our relationship with each other, and with my former wife, her mother, who recently, gratefully...gracefully and mercifully died. It was a  "Double-Amends" Saturday and Sunday. Our mutual forgivenesses included mainly SO many misunderstandings, unbeliefs.

'K spent her first eight years of life with a completely unpredictable, undependable drunken father (me). However, in review, we each realized that the MOST difficult times occurred later, in early sobriety--the first fifteen years.

At this moment--never too late--'K and I have reconciled our differences, said our sorrows. Years of self-centered, prideful hurt were washed away in tearful acceptance of each other just as we are. (Hugs and Kisses! Thank You, God!)

On this topic, two thoughts remain: Forever so grateful I am to Alcoholics Anonymous, which has gifted me with away of life, producing good health, plus (a touch of!) tolerance toward (most!) others; second, I am compelled to let others know what happens when I trust fully in God and His Power, to take care of things over which I have no control. "Let Go And Let God"!

And that bottom line is, was, and always will be.......LOVE.
I am sober today, friends!
I love you Peeps!
And...a feeling of peace is in the air as I write this 9PM Tuesday. 

STILL ANOTHER PO-EM

 Eureka! "Poems by Peter"

Peter's posts (what I have read so far) 

are brief thoughts, exquisitely sent out 

to the world in words understandable. 

AND I do not need all afternoon to read one--

then try to figure out 

"What does he mean by that?"

IF you enjoy

fine-writ poetry

visit him. OK? 

 THE SPIRIT IS MOVING

AND IS BLEST BY LOVE

Poetry is blessing in motion
Across oceans of airiness.
Sea wind pushes all aside--
Water, clouds of cotton, sky.
Communication reigns!

Poems--words which maybe rhyme or not.
Shove away me from me, myself,
Those petty daily thoughts which blot
Worthy long-saved ones on the shelf
Of memory.

Places? Events? Surely so. Although
Every poetic language can bestow
What every selfish one--and all lovers...
Every reader, listener must know:
"Nothing is, ever was--but LOVE"...

Thence TRUTH uncovers.

--steveroni 
Sober today!
Love you, Peeps!

A POETIC ATTEMPT...

A POETIC ATTEMPT.  

If JINGLE installs me in her WEEKLY 

poet blog (21st or 22nd week? I do not know!) 

it could get to be a habit for me--because I DO 

enjoy writing out innermost thoughts 

in a lightly shrouded manner. 

Is that  F E A R  again?
Or possibly PRUDENCE!--grin!

Nevermore. Evermore......

Is it become so clear, that
Single bar to loving is fear
I must believe God above
Will reveal to me the Ever, Never
Of love. True. Forever.

Oh how I am missing you
Who might with a single word
Heal my soul...is it so true
That the voice I had heard
Was real, or was it not?

Oh yes, how I miss. Miss the bliss
Of daily greetings--meetings--in parks.
What I really miss most, is this:
Mixtured songs of canaries and larks
Blended, teleported so beautifully!

Angels, you who flew so low
As to finally reach my plateau--
Did you choose to come to this
Place--before I minded to go
Jump from limb of tall tree--

Manilla strap't tight round me
Where head joins this body?
Oh yes, how I miss--miss the kiss
Of rejuvenation. Elation. I wish
Only that time might have stopped!

For what are such things
As minutes, hours and days?
Time is but a belief, which stays
On and on until the ring
Of a clock at morning's light

Wakens us and the day
Full of promise-sounds which say
"Bring together once more
Those two souls, whose love before
Knew no bounds." Day and night

Were as one and same. Each
became space for love.
Love, loveliness! Loneliness
Never...
Or forever

--steveroni

ANOTHER POEM

A POEM

A sunken vessel...only the timber is floating
The gods are gloating
Emoting

I had been bowing on my violin
Blowing loudly my horn
Boating on the oily
Slippery sea of life

Now singing
Now thinking
Now wanting
Now sinking

Must out of myself
Must help others
Must comfort, not comforted be.
More thinking--yes
But not now about...ME!

I still sink
On the brink
Of despair
Atop the mare.

Now rotting on the shore
But still a part of
Every other thing
Nor to be apart
From the rest of the world

Ostracized? Yes!
Unique? No!
Solitude? Yes!
Isolation? No!

One day soon again
Over my little island
The sun will shine
On perfect sand--and
Thou be mine
And I...Thine

--steveroni

"GOOD-BY" MEANS "SEE YA LATER"

A LOVE POEM

I CANNOT SAY IT
Loves....accords...
Nothing will fit
There just are no words
For "Good-by"

Write here I must again
For I never know when
It will be all taken away
--As it will some blackened day
The moment of "Good-by"

God, oh why did You not see?
Why did You do this to me?
Why did You let me stay
When told so often "Go away"
--But not "Good-by"?

It was--you know--"My will be done"
As it would be still today
Because--you know--I am the one
Who refused to simply say
"Good-by"

Inventor of new math:  "one equals six"
And even later, "five equals ten.
Honored to've been one of your picks
First choice--out of all the men
I will never say it ("Good-By") again

 Even years from now I
 May look back and cry
 And then, ensconced above
 I will yet watch over you...
 With love.

So long.......

CRAZY? WHO? ME?

One week ago I created another blog, and tried it for four days. 

It did not work, because It was (click) NOT ME. This post is stolen 

from that blog, from myself.  Wonder if that is legal? 

Maybe I can sue myself and buy a new HARLEY!

BREAKFAST FOR TWO BY THE SEA--

BY THE SHINING SEA

We met to break fast
In shaded sunlight
Of a coastal morning.
It would not be our last
Together time.

Long years passed since
The beginning friendship
From our first "Hello".
Our first "Yes!"

Then it happened
An immediate smile
As her laughing eyes
Searched my own.

Now, our pair of two peepers
Peered one into the other
In a manner of seeking, learning.
Happy-faced others were leering,
Their knowing brows all arching.

On a wire high over,
Tweeting birds were marching
In orderly fashion
To the rumbling beat
Of distant rolling drum.

Thunder of an approaching
Storm...

Wonderfully pleasant, that view!
The birdsong, coffee and cake
All our enjoyment. We saw
Ducks, swan, fish and lake,
And beyond that the deep sea...
So colorfully covering all its treasure.
This not the time to measure pleasure.

We shared love which told
One to one, oh! so bold
What our minds thought
What our souls desired.

As rain began gently dropping
Onto the deck, the place beneath,
We spoke on and on
--Smiling, loving,
Until all of time wrapped itself
Into this single, blissful moment

And we allowed all who found
Us--we, who found a happiness,
A joy in our meeting,
To make their assumptions,
Live their own lives.

As if they really cared.
As if we care.
 

We care!

--steveroni

FINI

YEP, I TRULY HAVE FOUND WHAT 

IS AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW

steveroni Post # 569....

This posting is sad for me, but a necessary action--that is to declare this my final blog post. NEVER could I express what I have learned here, the love I have found here, received and given.


Thank You, thank You, thank You God, and thank ALL YOU Peeps, through whom God has spoken and continues to speak to me and one another.

For allowing the blogosphere to take over my very life I alone am responsible. Blogging has become my intoxicant, and there is only one way to deal with that. 

These "AA" words apply here: great obsession, compulsion, abnormal, persistant illusion, delusion, fully concede, control, smashed, pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization, insanity, DEATH!  (I love their message of the  powerfulness of this disease!)

As the result, this is my final blog.

Hopefully, you do not realize how much you have positively affected my life, my thinking, because I wish you all not to become too proud--grin! 

I am turning off comments on this blog. Not because I do not enjoy reading your comments about what a great guy I am...but I am neither sane enough nor humble enough to handle those kinds of remarks--

Sober today.

Feel good today.

Praying for you today.

LOVING you ALL a LOT today.

PICTURE CREDITS:

Top:  Deviant Art  End_by_kris_wilson.png.jpg

Bottom:  Deviant Art  The_end_by_mappol.jpg

ARTISTS AND ANGELIC BREEZES

This poem is dedicated to the many artists, painters, poets, writers of prose, recovering addicts/alcoholics and story-tellers who day after day inspire me to try...try to become a better person. 

From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

IN THE WIND IS ANGELS' SONG

The blowing breeze

Carries messages of love
Around the world
By creatures angelic
While I simply be.

And I observe
Churning waters of the sea,
Winded...and seeming
Directionless.
Also part of Thee?

I look at nature, painting Herself above
And below, quite colorfully
Beautifully, Vibrantly
I am part of it all--
"One plus one are always three".

I see many have been sent;
God's Creation of love continues.
God's gifts--so freely lent.
Artisans and artists, poets and Peeps
And on these blogs, they write to meeee?

Yesssssss!!!--grin!

Countless angels are singing
During wind's caressing of those
Sweet chimes of mine, to ring
As music. I HEAR!
And Oh! Now I SEE!

So blow wind, go wind, slow wind,
Push your own way this and that.
Since I have surely sinned
And since I have paid the fee
Come you angels!  Sing me FREE!

--Steve E. 3/14/2010

LOVE today!
PEACE today!
SOBRIETY today!
Willingness to CHANGE...today.

LIFE LINE

 

LIFELINE

 LIFELINE

My father was sightless from the age of 4-5, and became a mute at age 50.  He was a farmer, who with my mother spent some of their winters visiting us in sunny, warm (Yeah...right--grin!) Naples, FL.

Deaf-Blind Pop just loved, REALLY loved to swim in the Gulf of Mexico.  He could tell by the sun and the breeze which way was the shore--when he swam out to a sandbar.  One time he swam out there, the sun hid itself, and the breeze decided a siesta was a good idea. So he determined which way to swim, and he wrongly chose to swim west, toward Corpus Christi, TX...800 miles across the Gulf.

Someone did swim out there finally...but nobody including himself knew he was "in trouble".  One of my sisters, visiting for a week, bought a 500-foot boat-towing line at a marina, and from that day, Pop was tethered to my mother who sat in a chair on the beach collecting coquina for soup-making.  And so whenever Pop wanted to swim back to shore, he just followed his lifeline.

I make the analogy here of a Peep swimming around in the life of an alcoholic.  There is no way to discover the direction for the shore of sobriety.  It just does never occur to the Alkie, that if he doesn't take that first drink, he will never, NEVER get drunk.  Somehow, an outside force (Higher Power?  God!?) intervenes in any number of human ways/forms. The lifeline of Alcoholics Anonymous is hooked onto his belt at first.  The Steps, which he learns about from a sponsor, become a way of life which he works at following...never perfectly.

Eventually--it happened to me--that lifeline of sobriety in AA became wrapped around his heart, and a love which cannot be expressed in words, grew (slowly in my case).  Only in actions, behaviors, mistakes, amends, a knowledge of self, a willingness to grow along spiritual lines, and helping others to live God's Will, can I show my regard, my respect for, my LOVE of this program which has given me an extra 35 years to live.

Peeps, let us stay sober and help one another today.  Let us please not be spiteful.  But let us in forgiveness, grow in the grace of humility...and SOBRIETY!  Allow me please to lovingly try to understand those who show disagreement with me, and just Let Go and Let God!


Photo in Deviant Art:   life_lines_by_werol.jpg

THE WINNING NUMBER--THREE!

Counting the days,
For whom or what?
Marking the time. WHY?
Whether monthly, daily--by the hour.
Be not so dour.
For even so--it is LIVING
Which we are all still doing.
 

And where there is life...there is, yes........

.......HOPE!

A fellow I have known for years received his 14th anniversary chip this morning.  Jerry sponsors, and does it well, almost like the old days.  In his kitchen, singly, and in a once-a-week small step-group.  He does not "teach" people, he allows them to "follow" himself and others into strong-and-long sobriety.

Jerry.  From a know-it-all drunken slob, to this--busily walking the walk, and staying humbly sober today   What a thrill to have witnessed such growth in a Peep!

And where there is life...there is, yes.......

.......FAITH!

With each breath, I anticipate the next.  Without thought it is always there, as far back as I can remember, even before that. And at the final breath,  following will come the real breath of the real life.  I believe that, I know that.  I try to live that.  It is difficult.

With sobriety came the ability for me to become willing, to accept what is truth.  I am able to view evidence, make judgment, and follow that with a faith that cannot, must not, be shaken.  My own Faith is that there IS a Creator of all things, Who loves me...ME!  Imagine!  And God's greatest desire is for me (and you all!) to love HIM!  Of course, for me sobriety is a given, for without that, I have nothing.  NOTHING.

And where there is life...there is, yes.......("...the greatest of these...")

........LOVE!

There was not a beginning (actually, there was not even a "was"!!!), there is not ever to be an end.  Between those parameters (of course, "eternity" is not a parameter) there is but one underlying, or maybe overriding characteristic.  It IS love, the reason for everything I know, touch, "feel", perceive, yet have little understanding.  Whatever I call my Higher Power (God), I know that the whole of His creation, from angels, to mankind, to firmament, animals, and nature itself, is a Divine Act of Love.

In many forms that love is expressed in humanity and nature, but the bottom line is His love for me, and my love for Him.  Without God's great gift to me of sobriety and our Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, I could not be here, would not have these thoughts, and could not write them.

Peeps, this post was about as serious as I can be at this time, and in that spirit of seriousness, I wish you all Love, Peace, Hope, Serenity, and the capability to cope with whatever might be troubling you--for today.  May we pray for one another today?

Take Care!

Photo, Deviant Art:  Love__Faith__Hope_by_tranhonglien.jpg

HOME ONCE MORE

Just how do I sneak back in here to greet personally once again these Peeps who I have dearly missed for a month?  Jump right in, I suppose...

A lonely sound, shrillingly accurate, silenced the bedlam-like cacophony of the symphony orchestra.  An oboe player had stuck his face on the thin reed, and produced a perfect 440 "A".  The pitch is one to which orchestra players have for many years tuned their instruments, matching the oboe note.  The oboe is awarded this honor because it's tone can pierce even the most noisy of environs.


And it was in this setting in which I found myself all day Wednesday, and will be involved in over the course of the weekend.  I play a violin, and all my life I have listened thousands of times to the oboe player doling out his "a" to the string and wind orchestral musicians.


I have been retired from active orchestra playing for a couple years, but get called periodically to play (it's really work, do not know WHY they call it "play".)


Fraternizing with musicians--old friends and new--and the sheer enjoyment of being "back in the saddle" is one joy usually reserved for sports teams,  music makers of all types, some congregations, and recovery meetings.  I felt like saying to myself, "I am home again!"


I am!


It is the same I feel when I step into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous--"I am home again...welcome home".  Most societies are built around a nucleus of helping others, sharing talents, goods, and services.  So when I say to myself in the morning AA meetings "Welcome Home", I refer to being at one with others, being of like mind.


It is a mostly comfortable feeling--true--and one which has changed my life totally.  It is the "trying to practice" a set of  principles, a way of life.  In music it is practicing my violin.  At work it is practicing diligence and faithfulness...and tolerance. It is not perfect.  It is practicing restraint of pen and tongue during every waking moment, at home and away. It is practicing the Golden rule. Again, it is never perfect--or even close!


And so this week we are performing Gounod's "Romeo and Juliet", and selected parts of Bernstein's "West Side Story".  And I LOVE it!


And I thank my God and AA for allowing me to stay alive...and to stay sober--for today. 

A Special note to those blogger-friends who have been so patient with me (on-and-off-and-on-and-off-again!).  I am so VERY grateful for your kindnesses and loving understanding and support, I am literally without words--another miracle?  I have missed this blogging "home-away-from-home" for far too long.

From now I intend to blog when inspiration or "my will" (Ha!) demands instead of committing to a daily excercise, which became a job for me.  And, being a recovering alcoholic, I have to be ME always, and no matter the topic, somehow it will relate to recovery of some sort, because that IS me.


Blogger-Peeps, I thank you all, and LOVE YOU ALL!

MY EARLY "55"

BLISSFUL DENIAL

Nobody told me sir
So I did not know
That it is now winter
Where is the snow?

No one said to me
Come now...now go
Yet down to the sea
I followed river's flow

Of age I am not aware.
Life happens, speedily
So to live and love readily
I am guiltless....happily


LOVE, Peeps...and PEACE! 


If anybody wants to play, write a story in exactly 55 words, visit G-MAN (Mr Know-it-All) for more info, and to let him know ya DID it!