Smug (or Snug as a Bug in a Rug?)

I turn over my fears as I’m walking down the street one cloudy day. The autumn leaves turn over themselves on the sidewalk before me.

And then I hear something. Far away I hear a literal bird singing. And then it hits me. This is what turning over my fears and my addictions has finally given me. My hearing. My unfocused hearing. After three years sober I turned over another addiction, my addiction to cigarettes, and here’s what I noticed: Not that I would live longer, but that I could live more fully in the present. Yes, I could taste better and smell better without the tobacco and liquor in my mouth and on my breath. But the real reward is not delayed for some unforeseen future, but lived in the present, because I was not focused on the next drink of my addiction and the next smoke of my addiction.

I could live more fully in the now.

I turn over my fears as I’m walking down the street. The autumn leaves turn over themselves on the sidewalk before me.

I live more fully in the now.

 

 

from All Drinking Aside (Rough Draft, Chapter 79)