The Universe Is A Minimalist

 

One of the biggest themes of my addiction, towards the end, was profound isolation. Even in a room full of people, I could feel incredibly alone. I read recently that loneliness comes from feeling that you have nothing in common with anyone, so often that feeling is worse in groups, in public. I think that is part of what drove me to isolate- at least I had something in common with myself.

What it was like..

I recall waking up and reaching over for pills- I couldn’t leave the bed without them. The person who provided me with the pills would not put them there if he was angry with me, and on those days I would writhe in agony. He didn’t do that a lot, though, and I would take my pills (vicodin, narco, soma, xanax) and then look at the bleak day ahead of me. The best thing I could think to do was to find a movie on television; sometimes I would bid on stuff on ebay. At some point I had to get to the store for vodka- towards the end I didn’t eat much, and would drink when I felt hungry. Not to mention, I had kids to get to school and when they came home, they would run off and play with friends as I lay comatose on the couch. I had checked out of life completely, and would soon formulate a plan to check out entirely, although I clearly didn’t follow through, and that is another story. I was a zombie in the most literal sense of the word, and I felt like the only zombie in the world, no other fellow zombies to talk to. All the party buddies all end up in a room shaking by themselves. That party doesn’t last forever and never ends well for ones like me.
I recount this because I love to look at how it was, and what its like now.

What Its Like Now
Yesterday, at 15 days shy of my 5 year sober anniversary, I was killing time in South Pasadena while my daughter visited some friends. I had spent about an hour looking at old photographs and old issues of Mad Magazine in a vintage store, and then perusing books in a used bookstore- the kind that you don’t see much of anymore- scanning through volumes of poetry, and psychology books. It was a really peaceful way to spend an afternoon. I decided to buy a volume of Rumi, and a copy of Women Who Run With Wolves, which I always buy when I see it to give it away to friends. At the checkout counter (Which was really an old school desk where a girl hand writes the name of each volume and the price) I overheard an older woman talking about Kabbalah and the 23 volume Zohar, which I have. I saw the books she was reading, all of which were books I either had or wanted. I jumped into the conversation, I had to know this woman. I offered to help her carry the many books to her car and she asked me if I wanted to get tea. So we went to a lovely coffee shop situated by the metro tracks as the sun went down, and I got to hear her incredible story.

Apparently someone had gotten mad at her over a business transaction and had sent a letter about how she had hundreds of old European paintings and that she had bragged about being the grand-daughter of a Nazi warlord, and he suspected that her art collection was Nazi loot. This went to trial, almost to the Supreme Court, one of the first landmark cases of internet libel. To clear her name, she went looking into her genealogical background, and discovered that she was actually Jewish. Her family had come to the Free World and chose to pretend to be Christian Germans, to avoid prosecution and trouble. She had never known of this, and she continued her search, curious about what else might be revealed. She found that she came from a long line of rabbis, in fact. And going through those rabbis, she even came to discover that one of her ancestors was supposedly there when Moses came down with the Ten Commandments.

Being a spiritual person, she came to see this situation as incredibly significant. The libel trial caused much strife for all involved- people were fired from jobs, she had to sell her home and move back to the west coast. But what she was given in return was a connection to her ancestors, her family, her blood lineage. She looked at me as a metro train whisked by, as I drank my chai tea, as the sun was setting,  and said, “Moreover, I get to make amends for my family, for the fact that they hid their religion and faith to survive, I get to bring the truth to light and release them all. They can not have a portal in me without my knowing they are there, that they existed, that they are part of who I am.  And so I learned Hebrew, and I read the 23 volumes of the Zohar in its original form, in their honor.” She said, “The universe is a minimalist. It burns everything but what is essential away.”

This whole afternoon is obviously a far cry from five years ago. I was hardly able to leave my house, much less make a new friend. To me, that afternoon was a little adventure, full of old photographs from other people’s lives and memories, and wise words from Rumi, and the story of my new friend, the sunset, the clanging bells that alert that a train is coming…all of these took effect on me in such a subtle way, and yet profoundly so. Five years ago nothing subtle would have penetrated, would have ever registered with me. Things either had to have a numbing, zombifying  effect or be a wild roller-coaster-rock and roll-Hunter S Thompson freak out. But a gentle afternoon like this? Never would have happened.  Yet I wouldn’t trade this scenario for 50 nights of drunken debauchery.  And I get to walk away from that with such an elegant, eloquent phrase that will stay with me forever. “The Universe is a Minimalist, burning all but what is essential away.” If its here, its meant to be here, and if it goes, it was supposed to go. That phrase was a great gift, yet another gift that my sobriety has allowed me to be blessed with.