Dearest Readers,
In 1997 I began working on a play called cityzenjive about a rock ‘n’ roll couple whose marriage is breaking up because of addiction and grief. It’s a surreal play with sparse settings, cryptic dialogue and characters named Doggerel, Trade and The Bobber. I wrote it while I was wrestling with my own addiction and grief issues, which, at the time, necessitated answering a deeper call to explore the Spiritual Life.
At one point in the play, Earle, the addict-husband is having a conversation with Real, the father of his wife Doggerel. They get to talking about having faith and hope and Earle is basically saying he can’t since their two kids were murdered in a school massacre.
Here is an excerpt of their conversation:
real
Doggerel and I have been experimenting with the notion of turning the tragic into the triumphant. Imagine that everything that happens is ultimately for the good. Even the blackest and most sinister. I’m not a religious sort of fellow, Earle. But I like this idea that out of the horror is good forced. Therefore the occurrence.
earle
Yeah, well all that keep-trying jazz don’t-ever-give-up it’s-worth-it-to-fight shite is just not my religion. It’s like, I’m telling you, if I ever got my legs cut off or something man and had to be in a wheelchair? I wouldn’t join the handicapped basketball team, you know what I’m sayin’? And there’s guys that would. But I’m glad as hell there is guys out there like that ‘cause it means I don’t have to be. And it’s fine to me, okay? I live with it perfect. Nothin’s missin’. I don’t feel the need to fight.
real
Did you once?
earle
I’m livin’ selfish. That’s what you think.
real
I think you would find the strength to live in that wheelchair, son.
—
At one point yesterday when I was feeling particularly sorry for myself and focusing solely on how this burn has limited my lifestyle I remembered that conversation I’d written all those years ago. I see it now as a dialogue between the two sides of the person I was at that time. I so wanted to believe in the inherent Good of Higher Guidance and yet I was stuck in the despair of the Old BS (belief system: negative).
So there I was standing on the street overwhelmed by It All and letting the dark thoughts have their way with me. You know exactly what I did, Dearest Readers. Yuppers. I prayed. Help me. I’m f&#ked. And you also know what happened next. A miracle.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman I know slip into a nearby shop. This woman just happens to be a Mystic. She just happens to be someone I used to visit with at the very beginning of my Healing Journey for strength and solidarity. Uh-huh. Yeah. I followed her into the shop.
Our encounter was intense, which was to be expected. This woman lives on a plane which is not entirely of this Earth. Meeting her gaze zapped me right back into Right Thinking sending the Old BS flying and giving me the strength I needed to to move forward.
To live in the proverbial wheelchair.
Inspiring Message of the Day: I will continue to shift my thinking from the negative to the positive. I will continue to look for and see the Good in everything that happens.
