Friday Flash 55 — Amado

Maybe a little grace will pass my lips by Paul Armstrong



Around the time Amado learned to spell his Latin name (meaning “loving deity”),
his capacity to love anything was shed along with remaining baby fat.

Now he collected some desired temptations, including booze from his parents’
collection. Like Proust, he padded his walls and windows for isolation and, in his
case, to cushion the blow.

Written for Friday Flash 55 - My post in exactly 55 words - for the G-Man. 

.

FormForAll: Clarion Sonnet • skinning genes

Being And Seeker by Elena Ray


skinning genes

Watching this happen to you from afar
is not just distressing but right on par

with not watching me when it happened here.
Caused by stress you might say but I do fear

that, like our height and our brown hair, these screams
pulsing inside us came straight from our genes.

You can choose, of course, to just let it ride
but depression can't be taken in stride--

nor the despair of the weakening soul
that searches for the elusive loophole,

nor the task of the body to survive
the booze and the pills flying this nosedive.

Come back to yourself, sweet being of Light,
before you succumb to your last midnight.

                                                            MLydiaM ~ May 2012


Written for dVerse Poets Pub FormForAll, where Samuel Peralta's (aka Semaphore1) stimulating prompt inspires us to compose a Clarion Sonnet  (please click link for description and information, along with links to other Clarion Sonnets----and certainly do not miss the one written by Semaphore himself).

 .

Poetics: Awareness of the Experience

Image by Walter W. Smith III

 Crosser

One of her problems
is that she is the type who will
cross that bridge
when she comes to it.
She crosses the bridge and then
turns around and crosses it again,
and then doubles back and
each time she crosses the bridge
she remembers who she believes crossed her
and she becomes unhinged, crosser and crosser.
She takes tightrope trips
over the span to scaffolding
that could give a different view of
the bridge, but her views never change.
I fear she will slip one day soon,
falling onto the tracks below,
to a place I passed long ago.
My train of thought then was as it
is now: you structure your own journey--
if you mold yourself into an I-beam
that is your cross to bear.

                                                              MLydiaM ~ March 2012


Submitted for one of the most powerful (for me) prompts ever: Poetics - Awareness of the Experience at dVerse Poets. Sheila's prompt has four remarkable images by digital artist Walter Smith and she asks us to:

• Choose one of Walter’s pieces and write a poem about how it speaks to you – what thoughts, emotions, and images it stirs within you. As you process and write, be aware of what you are experiencing in that moment, and channel it into your writing.

.

On Quitting Smoking

Tomorrow marks 15 years since I quit smoking. I am so grateful that I was able to do it, since I'd tried and failed a few times before my actual quit date.

I quit drinking over 22 years ago and it's a testament to the power of nicotine addiction that I was unable to stop smoking in conjunction with getting sober. My older brother, Tony, a recovering alcoholic for ten years longer than I, hasn't been able to quit cigarettes. I worry about him. He has been a faithful participant in AA meetings for decades; those meetings usually have blue air. There are some smoke-free AA meetings out there but the majority are not. I attended AA meetings every day for my first six weeks after leaving treatment, per agreement with that facility. I haven't been to an AA meeting since, and, for me, that has worked best. I realize that it's not for everyone, however. I just couldn't handle the smoke (and I was a heavy smoker in those days). I also rejected living my new life in flogging reference to the one I was blessed to leave behind, which is how the meetings felt to me.

One December day in 1984 I was having a smoke break with a co-worker out back of the building where we worked. One of the assistant directors, returning from lunch, breezed past me and said, Stop by my office on your way back to your desk. At his desk he turned his 18-month planner around to face me and barked, Pick the date you'll quit smoking and write it here on my calendar! I needed the night to think about a commitment that heavy but the next morning I returned to his office with my decision to quit the following March 19. It happened to be the birthday of my high school best friend, Bob, a non-smoking, non-drinking, sex-addicted Mormon. It seemed as good as any day and it gave me about three months to defer the misery.

Another work contact told me that he had been successful in quitting smoking through hypnosis. He had already lost part of his tongue and his taste buds to mouth cancer so he had a big incentive. His story added strength to my own incentive. I tucked away the name of his psychologist/hypnotist in Portland, Oregon, and that is who I called for an appointment when March rolled around.

I took a day of vacation from work and asked my mother (a heavy smoker until some years later when she went cold turkey) to come along for the drive and lunch after my appointment. The hypnotist's office overlooked the Willamette River and his suite was professional and relaxing. I swear that I was awake the entire time and I remember what he was saying as my arms felt heavier and heavier. It wasn't creepy as some might suspect. I was feeling extremely relaxed when I heard my own voice in my right ear chirp in a demanding way, I want a cigarette! What a strange thing that was. I internally shouted NO. And the main struggle was over. The $150 I paid that day was so worth the cost, and whatever inflation has increased similar treatment to these days would still be worth the cost for anyone seriously ready to quit.

There were absolutely some difficult times after the hypnosis when the craving was strong. I have found that, all these years later, there are moments of high excitability when I have a sense that things are all wrong -- then I realize it's that old craving. I find it remarkable, the hold of addiction. But I never cheated, not even one puff, since the day I quit. I knew I didn't dare because that was my one best chance. (As they say in AA, There's only one first kiss.)

If anyone reads this who is thinking about quitting smoking (or drinking/drugs) you must know that you have a right to good health. You can do it.

For those who don't smoke, the dying plea from actor Yul Brenner should be enough to convince you (or someone you care about) never to start. Paste this link into your browser -- http://youtube.com/watch?v=JNjunlWUJJI

Image above courtesy of: Royalty free stock photography for websites, PowerPoint, newletters, forums, blogs, schools and homework - FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Lydia #1

This is Lydia Margaret McKee, my maternal great-grandmother.

She married Henry Marshall on December 28, 1871. Soon after the birth of their third child, a son named Harry, she became ill, and, as was common in those days, her doctor prescribed morphine for her pain. What a tiny woman she was. It must not have taken the drug long at all to grab hold and run away with her.

Lydia did, in truth, run from her family somewhere around 1882. She left the little white-washed house there on the Missouri plains. Henry, daughters Jenny and Nellie (my grandmother, then a tot) and the boy suffered the knowledge that her decision must have been made to spare them from her tailspin down into addiction and a certain hideous death.

There was a report from someone who knew the family that Lydia had been seen wandering the streets of Chicago, alone. That was the last they knew of her.

Not surprisingly, my grandmother, Nellie, grew to become a wonderful, loving wife and mother to her husband's two daughters from a deceased first wife, and to their own three boys, their daughter (my mother), and to the infant girl they adopted when the boys were grown. Nellie was a tea-toadler her entire life. The addiction gene that was passed down from Lydia hid and waited ... waited for me.


.