The Auspicous Coincidence

Today is the autumnal equinox and the full moon. It is also the day that I'm handing my manuscript over to my editor! Did you hear that? My Editor! I'm sure that just means that there's a lot more hard work ahead, but that's not going to stop me from reveling in the moment for a few hours at least.

I met Sue through a regular guest who's been coming into the restaurant for years (for those of you that don't know, I'm still a bartender; there are plenty of incongruities to that, and rationalizations too, but we'll get those some other time). It was a casual conversation.

"So, how's the photography going?"

"Great. So do you do anything creative outside of work?"

"Yeah, I'm writing a book."

"Really? Well my wife's an editor. You should talk to her about it sometime."

And so here we are, six months later, and I have to think how truly perfect and amazing all this is. I was talking to my sister-in-law the other day and she was amazed too. We both laughed, relieved, as we remembered that only a few years ago the only coincidences in my life were scoring a bag of cocaine when I was broke or simply waking up with my heart still beating.

So all I have to say is that today is a pretty wonderful day. Is it fate? Is it coincidence? Will anything even come of this at all?

I don't think it really matters. But it does seem to me now that when you align yourself with the truth of yourself, magical things start to happen all the time...

Uncertainty

Today I am angry. I am afraid. I am lost and confused. What am I doing here? I feel goalless, directionless, planless.

I am afraid because I know that I could die at any moment when I have only just begun to live. I'm afraid too, because I could easily break down and have a drink, or a drag or a line. And that would be worse than dying.

I am lost because it feels like I don't understand the dharma at all. Instead, I feel that I am really, really self centered, that the amount of time I spend thinking of others is so minuscule as to be almost immeasurable.

I am angry because I don't want to feel this kind of discomfort, this kind of uncertainty. I want life to be smooth, predictable. I want my goals to be shining bright on the horizon, calling me always forward.

But it's not like that. Not today anyway. Some days are just like this.

So when I feel this way I have to come back to the center, to the root, to the foundation, to the beginning

I am alive. I am sober. I am out.

And that is all that really matters.

Naive

Made a comment on the Tricycle blog yesterday, just an experiment to see if it drove any traffic to this one. It did: three hits. But it was a childish comment, not too well thought out and I blushed when I read it again.

Caring for myself is a continuous effort. Caught myself again this morning being too hard, too rigid, too unforgiving.

"You should know more about this thing called Buddhism!" I was screaming inside. "You have been studying this for over three years now! Why are you making childish comments on serious blogs?"

No, that is not very realistic or helpful at all. That is a sure ticket to falling off the wagon. That is a sure ticket to breakdown and collapse.

Then I realized something. I am naive and that's ok. I don't know everything. This society is missing naive. We are cynical, we know everything there is to know, yet still we are very, very sad. We lash ourselves with barbed wire tongues. We are never good enough. The conditions for our happiness are always just out of reach. I know this is true for me. I see it in others too.

It's ok though. It's good to just see that. I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to cultivate this bit of naive today. I'm going to coax it out until it turns into love for myself, simple and fresh.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Do I Really Have a Choice?

I just finished reading Natalie Goldberg's Long Quiet Highway (I am a couple of decades behind the times!). In it she talks about an experience she had where she finally chose being a writer vs. being a Zen student. I can see the value in that, in needing to clarify the essence of oneself. What am I really going to do with these few breaths I (may or may not) have left? What do I really want to dive deeply into to the exclusion of all else?

But for me, I don't see the need to make that decision just yet. Though maybe I already have...

Speaking of Fear

It feels weird to be not actively writing the book. Yesterday was my first day off from work that I didn't spend hours hunched over the keyboard, breathing the life of me into all those pages until my lungs felt sore and raw.

But it was a good day. I found a great book on self-publishing at the library, spent hours reading it till I felt the rush of information overload pressing on the insides of my temples. Before I knew it the sun had gone down and by dinner time I knew what a pica was and leading and "perfect bound" and 50# white offset bookstock. Knowledge really is power.

It makes me feel like I'm really going to be able to pull this off. There's still lots of rewriting left to do but the bulk of the task is done. I even think that there's every possibility that I can fulfill my goal of finishing the book and printing it by Christmas.

I did a little bit of looking into promoting myself at local bookstores, pride centers, recovery groups and Buddhist centers, too. That will be so exciting! To actually get out there and meet all the wonderful people who I want to read my book.

"Hey everybody," I'll say. "This is how I made it through. How did you do it?"

But, still, there is an underlying fear. What if I alienate people instead of making new friends? My story is anything but conventional. In the closet since I was twelve years old; total and complete denial for twenty four years after that; thirty six years old and almost over-the-hill before I could even utter the words: I am gay. In the mean time, two decades of drunk and high on speed and ecstasy and porn and crack cocaine. Two marriages to two women in hopes that no one would doubt my cover story.

Yes, I'm afraid. Afraid of being ridiculed. Afraid of "you don't know what you're talking about!". Afraid of anger and hate. Afraid of being accused of not being gay enough, or Buddhist enough, or committed to recovery enough (I didn't even go through twelve steps...).

I'm afraid that I've shared too much, that people will laugh at me because I talk about dressing up in women's clothes and wanting to be a girl. I'm afraid that my friends will take a long quiet look at me thinking: "That is way more than I wanted to know about you..."

Then I'm afraid that people won't even read the book at all, that somehow I haven't done my job, that it won't compel people or help them through their own struggles.

I'm afraid that even if people do read it they'll say:

"Jeez! Yeah, I watched Will and Grace. What was your problem?"

But you know what? I'm going to go ahead with putting this thing out there anyway. I'm going to lean into the fear and the discomfort and the uncertainty. Maybe I will fail. I don't care. All I care about is putting out the best piece of writing that I possibly can. It will be authentic, completely truthful and from the heart and that's all I can ask of myself right now.

Breathe!

So I finished the third draft of my book yesterday. It's called The Narrow Way: A Memoir of Coming Out, Getting Clean and Finding Buddha. The title pretty much sums it up.

I'm not sure what this blog is going to be about yet. I'm actually just happy to let it be whatever it wants to; no need to form it or shape it into any hard and fast purpose. Let's just say for now that it will be a place for me to share how the book is coming along, how I'm doing with staying sober, my experience as I continue to come out.

So I finished my spellcheck and saved my backups to a hundred different locations. S, my editor, is out of town for the week so I'm going to let it rest for awhile. And I mean really rest. I don't even want to look at it for at least that long. I want to give the thing some space, some time. I want to come back to it after S has given me her opinions and suggestions and be able to see it fresh and new.

I've been pretty much whipping myself along for the past sixteen months or so (longer if I consider the writing class I took at Pikes Peak and the outline dated 12/20/08...only 18 days after I got back from India!). I don't know if it was in a good way or not. I just didn't know any other way to get a project of such enormity done. So I just kept pushing myself.

No, I take that back. I do know. I did do it the right way. I was firm with myself, not cruel. I was disciplined, not obsessive. Heck, I only wrote for an hour a day for the first six months, just enough to keep me taking those little steps forward.

Still, there were many times when I felt like I was squeezing my whole being too tight. Some mornings I felt like I was going to pop!

But today I took my time doing my stretches. Took my time being in my body, loving it, giving it little massages, following my own advice from the book.

Last night, watching an old Laurie Anderson concert at a friend's house I thought: Wow, I can do anything now! I can read voraciously again. I can learn and study again. I can go to the library and hike again. I can expand myself again!

I've poured my whole being into this book, emptied myself out, tried hard not to let too much spill out over the edges. Now, or at least very soon, I can pour the whole world back in again, pour the Dharma back in again, stir it all back into my life and my practice! How wonderful!