Day 61: On gardening and tipping the scales

Another image of a drunken memory popped into my head. Remembering the moment felt like pulling barbed wire from my throat. The insanity of my actions stuck like a fish hook and I had to pull myself through the pain to complete remembrance. I don't remember the start and I don't remember the finish, but I do remember the utter idiocy of crawling around in my garden during a rainstorm, shouting to my enquiring neighbour: "I'm Gardening" - like this wasn't obvious. This was 7 years ago.

Perhaps the image was stirred up by the fight my husband and I had over redecorating the back garden. I want to use this project to unearth the un-level paving, covered with weed and create a sanctuary of dripping water, singing birds and catch the afternoon sun. I want to fill the air with the smell of lavender, Jasmin and oleander and enjoy a cup of tea while I listen to my vegetables grow. I want to walk on crushed gravel and hear my footsteps resonate. I want order, yet filled with colourful courage and chaos. I want the sun to reflect on broken mirrors and rusting ornaments to eat away the past. I want the wind to chime a new melody for my heart to hum to.

Why do I need to explain this? Why must I justify desperately wanting to unleash who I really am? Why is this so important to me and yet so incomprehensible to my mind and those around me?

Koos told me that one's drinking years are like a pound of lead on one side of a tipping scale and every sober day or emotional deposit is like one feather on the other side of this scale. You will probably never balance the scale since you cannot remove the lead - it is reality - and you would need a seemingly impossible amount of feathers to even move the scale. I am so willing to try. Because this is sobriety, one feather at a time.

Today was like a tornado through my feather heap. I wanted to change some of the lead into feathers by replacing my drunken 'gardening' memory with the perfect gardening project. And I can't. I can make a new sober memory, collect a couple of feathers, but not from an old drunken memory. I cannot change lead into feathers.

I have been thinking allot a bout trying to meditate and read about a Yogic mantra Ham Sa, or "I am That" which means one of God, as God created, Special, Devine. My mind immediately changed it into "Am I  that?" A drunk crawling around my garden? And No, I am not. I am someone who apologises humbly and explains without anger. I am truthful, persistent and committed to sanity. I am sober. I am the Gardener of my soul. I am That...Hahhhhm Sahhhh