I want to talk about white-knuckling. Because I had a dream last night that showed me exactly what it looks like, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it so I figured I would share.  I find writing it down, letting the words flow, and then rereading shows new perspective and lessons.  And the act of sharing brings it to a whole new level, and hopefully not just for me.  So here we go….

I am driving a motorcycle through a dark parking garage. Dad’s motorcycle, big and heavy and completely unfamiliar in my hands. The garage is in Santa Monica, California, my childhood home, a place I know well, except in the dream it is pitch black and shadowy and nothing like I remember. I am not falling apart with fear, but I am watching every corner, eyes sharp and adrenaline on high.

Here is the thing about that motorcycle. Some of my earliest memories are on the back of it, on Pacific Coast Highway, sandwiched between my parents, mom behind me, dad in front, me the bologna in the middle.  A time in the 1970’s before seatbelts and helmets.  The blues and greens of the ocean are endless to the left of us, waves crashing frothy white. Wind. Engine roar. Pure joy. It was freedom and connection at the same time, which honestly might be the whole point of being alive.

So here I am with Dad’s bike underneath me, and it is not flying. It is dead weight. And I am dragging it forward on my own, feet scraping the ground on both sides, legs burning, one dark ramp at a time.

(Sound familiar?)

A figure steps out of the shadows. Frightens me. He says he can help. I don’t trust him. I drag the bike away from his voice as fast as I can.

He said he could help. And as I flinched, I turn and ran in the opposite direction.

(I want to sit with that for a second because I think that’s a key moment. Help showing up in a form I didn’t expect or trust. A meeting I wasn’t sure about. Fast forward: A community of women, Sober Sis, on the internet who talked about something called the Wine Witch. A hand extended from somewhere unfamiliar and telling me “You are not alone”. How many times did I drag my dead weight away from the very thing that could have helped me?)

I find a spot and I stop. I use my phone as a flashlight and I actually LOOK at the console. And holy carumba, it is NOT complicated. It looks like a scooter you’d rent on holiday. I push and click. The blinkers come on. And then I see it.

A start button. Right there. The whole time.

I had been dragging a machine with an engine through the dark on my own two legs. I had been doing it by pure force and sheer will when the power was sitting at my fingertips, waiting for me to stop being too scared or too stubborn or too convinced I had to do it alone.

I press it. The bike roars to life. I recognize the sound all the way back to PCH and being a little girl with the ocean wind on my face. It has motion and power and life.

I drive forward. And I hear music around a corner. Loud, joyful, RAUCOUS music. R&B and jazz and spontaneous human celebration. I feel the smile stretch across my face before I even get there. People line up alongside me and I am no longer fearful; all of us pulled toward the same corner, none of us able to help it. I ask the man ahead of me: can I join? He sweeps his hand forward without hesitating. Yes. Come. Always.

And then a broom appears, hovering right beside me. Ordinary looking, dull brown wood and straw. But when I wrap my hand around it I feel the energy pulsing through it immediately. Same as the motorcycle the moment I found the start button. Power. Contained inside a plain, unassuming thing. Waiting. 

End dream; enter reflection, analysis, and words.  Lots of words flowing out of me at 4:30 this morning (as you can see, by joining me here kind sister).  And just to side note: mornings are now MINE, not an alcohol sidekick in pants of insomnia, but hours of reflection, meditation, and study (can I get a shout out for Stoicism!  I am a proud member of this awesome ‘Fight Club’ and cannot express enough gratitude for the strength it has given me).

Here is what I’ve got, and please pardon the switch from ‘I’ to ‘We’, but in my effort to walk this sober-minded path in a way that might help younger Iris, and maybe a few of you out there still looking for your people, here I go.

We spent a lot of time dragging our own dead weight through dark places on our own two legs. We were convinced the machine was foreign and complicated and too much for us to manage. We ran from the hands that reached out. We white-knuckled it because we thought that was the only way.

And then we found this. Each other. A community of people no longer alone. We stopped, we looked at the console, and we discovered it wasn’t as complicated as we thought. There was a start button. There was power available to us, right at our fingertips, waiting.

The music is around the corner, Friends. It is loud and joyful and it is absolutely calling your name.

Come forward. You can always join.

Energy contained within.