V's Version

Dear E - I am so sorry that I haven't written back sooner. I was so glad to hear from you. I've been ill this week but pushing through to be the busy mother and crazy quilter that I am. Emails have fallen through the cracks.

I don't even know where to start...

... maybe the garden is the place to start my story. It was 1997 in New England when last you heard of me. I had been married for 6 years and was managing a bead store while continuing to restore antique quilts. We were lucky enough to live in a duplex with a gardener who taught me a lot about vegetables and flowers and seedlings and patience. Her name was Colleen and she took pictures of me throughout my labor when the rhododendrons and lilacs were in full bloom. Pk was born in May.

When our son was four months old, we moved to Albany, New York so that my partner could take a temporary position at a church. We moved into a huge pre-Civil War farmhouse that came with a century-old tulip and rare bulb garden. We moved in when the quarter-acre vegetable garden was at peak harvest. It was all I could do to put up hundreds of those tomatoes. And even though I made quarts of pureed sauce, the pear tree remained heavy with fruit well into winter. I later took that sauce from the freezer in my first attempts at introducing solid food to Pk, who refused it. He ended up nursing for four and a half years! But I get ahead of myself.

When it was time to leave the New York post in 1998, we smuggled many of the bulbs from the old garden (which was being plowed under to put in a new septic system). As you may know, it is illegal to bring fruit or plants into the state of California. When the Agricultural Checkpoint Officer asked if we had anything to declare, I offered the red herring of an orange bought somewhere in Nevada. I neglected to tell him about the daffodils stashewd in the cooler.

Our California home was a block from the beach in a town called Aptos, just south of Santa Cruz. I had a lot to learn about California gardening. Fog, although dreary sometimes, is a friend to the garden. The concept of “drought-tolerant“ was learned the hard way as I watched trees and shrubs die under my New England watering habits. And the first time I actually saw a gopher take an entire patch of flowers down into its tunnel, I could hardly believe my eyes. I thought that was just for the movies!

The first four years there were really just full of gardening experiments: how much sun does lavender need to get really huge? What flowers in the middle of winter? What eats aphids off the lemon tree? Is there ever a natural solution for slugs and snails that doesn’t include beer? I had three kinds of berries, table grapes, lemons, peas, carrots, really tall corn stalks and lots of flowers. I couldn’t get too ambitious, though. I was so busy with the baby and with being a church youth group leader and a quilter and the minister’s wife. To my great joy, the smuggled daffodils came up year after year.

All gardening came to a screeching halt in the harvest of 2002. The inexplicable lesions in my mouth and eyes lead to tests that ultimately showed that I had both cancer in my abdomen and a rare allergic reaction to it. As I lay helpless and burning (my skin was coming unglued) on the couch, I stared blankly through the pain meds into our front garden. The picture window framed the slow motion crawl of weeds and bolting flowers. I could only watch with regret and frustration.

In the aftermath of the surprise announcement notifying me of the end of my marriage, there was chaos. Good friends and church folks helped me pick up the pieces. My house was packed around me, things got sold, things got lost and there are things that I have just blocked out. But I remember clearly asking repeatedly (almost desperately) if someone could please, please dig up the daffodils. In the winter of 2003, I stood in the yard in my pink pajamas, pointing to the places where I knew the bulbs were hidden. I remember being overwhelmed at what to do with them all– so vulnerable and exposed and up-rooted. I put them in paper grocery bags and hoped they would weather the transplanting.

I remember being overwhelmed at what to do with them all– so vulnerable and exposed and up-rooted.

I was too sick to transplant anything that spring. I had no idea where the paper bags were and any thought of gardening gave way to mere survival. I had reluctantly begun my second round of chemo. It was the week before both my son’s 7th birthday and our 20th class reunion (did you go?) I had a dangerous infection in my port-a-catheter and a very high temperature and not much fight left in me. When I left the hospital, I was given an estimate of three days before I would slip into a coma and die so I tried to say goodbye to my family and friends who gathered from afar. Except for Pk’s sake, I was not afraid. I was weary. Very weary.

In the same way that some plants make it even when every leaf and branch looks dead, I made it. We will never know exactly why. All I know is that my family brought me back to New England and the bulbs traveled back too, driven by my youngest sister (Kathleen) in the back of my Ford Escort wagon. Because I did not want to be in Maine (as grateful as I was for my sister Jennifer’s generous offer) and because I could not even consistently dress myself, let alone dig in the dirt, there was no planting, no garden at all. Well, there was the lush vegetable garden of my good friends Scout and Susana. I stayed there for part of the summer as they invited Pk and me into their own brood. Miss Susana would bring vegetables that I had never eaten and make food even I could eat. After two years of mouth lesions and vomiting, I had lost half of my body weight so eating anything – especially delicious home-grown vegetables – was a rare event.

When I was strong enough to act on my gutsy Molly Brown-instinct, I moved back to California. My son and I glided through airport security checkpoints in a wheelchair while the bulbs lay hidden in the Ford Escort among my life’s possessions as our friend Brook brought them back on their third cross-country trek.

I landed just north of Santa Cruz in the sunny mountain home of a friend where we found that our roommate situation was mutually advantageous. Our families blended together very well and there was a whole lot of laughter. Aaron and I called each other the Q.S. Twins – separated at birth in different states. The Q. and S. could stand for quiet and shy (not!), quick and sarcastic, queer and straight. I was definitely getting stronger, regaining a sense of humor. If it weren’t for the fact that I was going blind, I probably would have managed to get the bulbs in for the fall season. Still on a break from the chemo, I was able to eat and regain some muscle but the glands that produce lubricating tears in both of my eyes had disintegrated. I could no longer keep my eyes open longer than it took to get a quick snapshot and every moment was hideously painful.

Pain does funny things. For me, it makes me stronger. Emotional pain has shown me that I am hearty and can withstand killing frosts. Physical pain has made me spread out roots. We are all interconnected and helpless pain just brings that simple fact into the light – like dew on a spider web. I learned how to manage an army of angels who drove me to church and to the doctor’s office, who drove Pk to and from school. People helped with almost every aspect of my life and, in return, I gave them hope. If I could do this – if I could survive all of this – there was hope.

People helped with almost every aspect of my life and, in return, I gave them hope. If I could do this – if I could survive all of this – there was hope.

In the early spring, when others’ daffodils were in bloom, I fell in love. I hadn’t meant to. But spring does that sometimes and love rushed in with the brilliance and warmth of sunshine after an unspeakably difficult winter. I had known Dani for almost ten years but I had no idea that she loved to garden. Throughout the beginning of our courtship, there were many flowers: Cecil Brunner roses from the oncologist’s office where we discussed monogamy, three daffodils on her Buddhist altar to represent the three of us, elegant orchids in her Victorian San Francisco apartment, an arm full of celebratory lilies and roses on the day we got the CT results confirming that the abdominal tumor had shrunk – even without chemo. My conscious plan of using the alternative medicines of love and laughter had paid off!

On the day I flew back from fitting and receiving my new prosthetic lenses from the Boston Foundation for Sight, I brought tulips given to me by Boston friends who wanted to help me with a little scheme. On the plane, I got people in the cabin involved. I told them to look for the woman with spiky brown hair wearing a leaf green shirt and standing next to the baggage claim. “Your friend can’t wait to *see * you,” each person said as they handed Dani the tulips until she stood there with two dozen of them, surprised to see me on the escalator, grinning and gazing at her with my new eyes wide open.

I wanted to see everything, go everywhere. I wanted to quilt and see Pk’s baseball games and volunteer at church and give back to everyone who had helped. I wanted to travel and spend time – precious time that has a completely different depth of meaning for me now –with family and friends. While we were apart during the summer, Dani and I sent cell phone pictures of yellow flowers to each other. Pk and I filled the little antique wagon at our summerhouse in Rhode Island with colorful annuals. It was with great disappointment that I found out and relayed the news that the cancer had spread to my lungs.

In the fall of 2005, we embarked on another round of chemo, as ready as we could be to face the challenges we knew would be there. Our beloved friend Brook came to help Pk when I was too sick to get up. My housemates on the mountain continued to make me laugh while Dani commuted from San Francisco to love and care for me with a green thumb that can make anything grow. She is a nurturer at her core. And in the face of all of it, we dared to dream of a garden. We made pictures in our minds as we chanted Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. The pictures were of a house that could hold all of our love, one where we could laugh and garden and cultivate a family.

In January of 2006, a few weeks after moving in, I found the paper bags of bulbs that had crossed the country three times. Every one of them turned to dust in my hands and I grieved for a life that was gone even at the same time that I rejoiced in one full of happiness. But that is how nature is: things die and compost to make fertile soil for something altogether new.

But that is how nature is: things die and compost to make fertile soil for something altogether new.

And so, now, as I write you, I am looking out onto my garden. Actually, with wireless computers, I often sit there to type. It is full of color and experiments. It benefits from our Team Go-Go efforts: Dani’s lifetime of California gardening and what little that I have learned. We often look at each other – while pruning or watering or handing over a trowel – and our eyes meet in disbelief. How is it that we are so lucky to be in love, to be alive, to be parents of Pk and gardeners together among the roses and rosemary and raspberries, the poppies and pansies and sweet peas? How lucky are we to be quietly enjoying the ancient art of training dichondra around my heart shaped rocks? No one could ever have predicted something like this and yet it is as natural as if it were the plan all along.

Having just finished round four of chemo, I get a CT scan next week. In some ways, it matters. And in others, it doesn’t. All I have is now. All any of us have is now.

I hope this letter finds you well. I would love to hear how yoga has come into your life, how you and T have maintained a relationship for so long, how you came to decide (did you decide?) not to have children. I realize the effort it takes to get into it all – but I too wish for the volley to continue.

With much love, V



.
.

Labels: V journey into blindness chemo hope garden beauty love divorce family lesbian

......................

Mrs. Sanders is retiring. My vision for Parker’s teacher is that, in her retirement, she is able to curl up with the books she has put off reading. My vision for Parker’s teacher is that, while curled up with her books, she is wrapped in a quilt. My vision for Parker’s teacher is that her quilt expresses the love and gratitude that we all feel.

Mrs. Sanders is easily the best elementary teacher that I have ever known (besides my own sister!). Maybe the best teacher of any kind. She is amazing and we have been blessed to have her in this, her last year of teaching.

I wanted to do this quilt on behalf of Parker. His attitude toward education has been forever altered and I couldn’t have asked for a better situation going into this last round of chemo. I wanted to do this quilt on behalf of every child for whom she has come in on a Saturday to help one-on-one, every child who has been on the other side of her patience and humor. I wanted to thank her on behalf of every parent with whom she has sat, discussing education and life. I wanted to thank her on behalf of every educator who has been influenced by her enthusiasm.

I want to quilt the heck out of it. I want to put in thousands of stitches. And even so – it will never be enough. I want the stitches to represent every kind deed of hers, every softball game she has attended just because she wanted to, every letter of recommendation she has written, every hug she has given, every student council meeting, every hour of yard duty, every loving finger touch on her nose to remind a child to focus. I can only hope to give back a fraction of the love she has given the children in her years of teaching.

The quilt theme is "Mrs. Sanders Loves Birds." She does love birds. And she loves books and baseball and mice and children. It's all in the quilt. Some of the parents made quilt squares with their children, some did them without the kids. A couple of the squares were done by staff members. Of the 49 10-inch squares, 13 were made by others and they each have a story. The rest, I have made with the sponsorship of the other parents who generously let me run with the art. I found antique fabric with life-like naturalist drawings of birds - like the plates in one of Mrs. Sanders' ornithology books. There are those 5 birds on white fabric in the center of the quilt. Most of the other squares are red - many of them with birds drawn or stitched into them. There are song birds, ducks, chickens, 2 phoenix (phoenixes?), 3 cranes and a few parrots.

After sneaking into the third grade art class, I came out with children's hand prints, their drawings of birds, of hearts, of smiling faces and flowers and mice. I cut them into cloth and appliqued them onto a variety of red fabrics. I even stole the baby socks off the wall so that her favorite baseball team could be represented. Then, in the way that I do, I put pictures into the quilt. Pictures of red things from her classroom (which will be dismantled over the summer.) Forever captured in cloth are the little red reading chair, the red star that holds pennies for counting, the box of beloved rubber balls, the collection of stuffed beanie birds, the nutcracker from the play.

When I was almost finished with the quilt, Parker came home with the sad news of Mrs. Sanders’ father’s death. Knowing what I do about death and grief, I could not let this passage go unmarked. I incorporated a heart and made it a memorial with forget-me-not flowers and a symbolic swallow flying upward.

I hope she likes it. I hope she isn’t mad about the socks. I hope I get it done in time. The thing is that we can never repay her. But that’s not what this is about. It’s about letting her know that she has made a difference. Her life’s work matters and we will be forever grateful that she followed this path.


check out the quilt at www.alotoflife.com

.......................

The B-day festivities were so much fun! Pk had a very good time and the weather was beautiful! I had the unforgettable experience of looking directly into Pk's eyes (as he was directly across from me) when we were suspended completely upside down about 100 feet in the air. It was the among the first "big kid" rides that he has been on and it was the first time he dared to open his eyes on one. I met his gaze and we both laughed that kind of shocked laugh that one hears from those suspended upside down 100 feet in the air. Precious. What an amazing blessing!

This weekend we are going camping. A late spring storm series will make it a stay in the shelter and play dominoes kind of camping trip. I think I will get a puzzle and it can't rain every minute so we'll get a few hikes in, I am sure. Rain or shine, there will be s'mores. (But we have to brush our teeth right away because this last dentist appointment was a fright!)

We are bringing along a friend who has never been camping. I can't imagine! Never! I mean it's different if one has not much family or lives in the city - but he has 6 older brothers and siters. We live within a half hour of 5 state parks. ? It boggles my mind.

So - I've been thinking a lot of my past. Maybe you have noticed.

I believe in redemption. I have made significant changes in my life and have made ammends whenever I could. But, what is it all about if I can't learn from it? Part of what I thinkI can do with my past mistakes, at least, is to make stories of them. Maybe someone will learn from them. Maybe someone will relate. I'm not going to preach or turn them into parables. My life is just what it has been. Do with it what you will.

Here is a piece I wrote about growing up in Hoxie Four Corners.

We moved from the basement apartment in urban East Providence to our very own little suburban house in 1970. The rough and tumble kids near Hoxie Four Corners in Warwick, Rhode Island didn’t know what to do us. They were fort builders. They played “Cops and Robbers”, “Cowboys and Indians”, “Freeze tag” and “Flashlight Hide and Seek.” They fished in the pond behind our new house and played hockey on it in the winter. They ruled the neighborhood, on foot, on bike, on roller skates. When asked what games I liked to play, I suggested “House” or “School”. There were blank stares. Why play “House?” Why play “School”? But it was pretty much all I knew.

For much of the time in the basement apartment, I played “House” or “School” a lot. With “House”, I was the “Mommy” and either my doll or my sister was the “Baby”. Jenn was born when I was two and a half and was a fairly good prop to play with. I was just mimicking the dynamics that I saw in our own home and in the neighbors’ homes on our occasional visits. I vividly remember the first toy that I saved up my very own money to buy. At the age of 5, I took a bag full of rumpled dollars and unrolled quarters to the Ann & Hope discount store. I knew what I wanted and searched the aisles until I found it: a miniature iron that heated up to just the right kid-safe temperature and was made of real, shiny metal. What kind of child buys herself a mock appliance for a toy? It’s no wonder that I felt a duty to become a wife and mother. Women may have been able to vote, but this was 1970. The Equal Rights Amendment hadn’t yet been introduced and Snow White was still singing with the dwarves. I was hard wired for service. In terms of our play, someone had to be the “Daddy” but it was cameo role. When we were very young, our real Daddy left the house in the wee hours of the morning and didn’t come home until very late. We weren’t too sure about what bakers did all day so whoever played “Daddy” either had to leave for work or come home and lay down on the couch.

It’s not like Jenn and I never got to see our father in real life. We did. We were blessed by his adoration and his genuine interest in us, but the man worked his butt off out there in the bakeries. By the time he got home, he was exhausted. Even so, there were plenty of fun times playing “Horsie”, a game where Daddy carried us around on his back, whinnying and rearing up just like Black Beauty. But eventually (and all too soon for us), he tumbled onto the floor.

“Horsie dead,” he would declare just before he went rigid, arms and legs sticking out.

As tired as he was, Daddy sometimes fell asleep in the bathtub and ended up very pruney. That gave us a good laugh. And sometimes, on the nights that Mom went off to work, he would let us stay up, but only on the condition that we massage his aching feet. Jenn took one foot and I took the other. Pretty soon, he was snoring and we could just relax and watch TV for as long as we could keep our little eyes open.

“School” was a game somewhat like “House” except that Mom usually played too. For years, it was just Mom and me playing at home together. “School” is how I learned to read and write and calculate simple math. Thinking back on it now, it makes perfect sense. My mother was still in high school when she got pregnant. The majority of her world was “school”. Mom was the teacher and I was the student. When I was 4 or so, I became the teacher and Jenn was the student. Poor Jenn.

In our new neighborhood, we broadened our horizons. Among other things, we learned to play “muckle ball.” What a crazy game. Each kid stole a bit of tin foil from our mothers. We put it all together to mold a giant ball of foil which we proceeded to hurl at each other with all our might. Whoever caught the ball, for some idiotic reason, tried to keep it while the rest of the kids tried to tackle and pig-pile upon the one with possession.

We did our share of stunts in that neighborhood. We rode our bikes out to the sand dunes at the edge of the airport where we drove at breakneck speed off the cliffs into the sand below. We brought our salt shakers to the late August fields of a nearby farm to eat tomatoes right off the vine, juice and seeds running down our chins. We put frogs into Tonka trucks so that they would look like drivers as they sped down the hill in front of our house. The boys went further, of course. They put lit firecrackers in the frogs’ mouths so that it would look like the truck driver was smoking. What a mess.

Although I cannot say as much for the frogs, the trucks always managed to get fixed. Louis and Robert Sanagata lived across the street. Big Louis, their father, worked at an auto-body repair shop. I secretly suspected that they were a Mafia family (there are so many in Rhode island) but I’ll never know for sure.

Anyway, Louis got bondo and sanding paper and auto body paint from his father to fix the trucks. He loved to fix things. He loved to build them too. He built me a little Swiss A-frame house once. It was so cute. He detailed it with shag carpeting and windows made from that ‘70’s avacado green and mustard yellow plastic stained glass stuff. It had two floors and a little balcony in the front, complete with flower boxes!

When I was 9, the clubhouse was our home base for criminal activity. I was Bonnie Parker. Louis was Clyde Barrow. Bonnie and Clyde was one of our favorite games. Inspired by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway’s movie characters, we rode Louis’ bike to the Ben Franklin (a local five and dime store.) I waited for him outside the glass door, watching for him, watching for the man behind the counter. Louis ran in, snatched as many model airplane supplies as he could hide under his shirt and came out running. I was ready with our getaway vehicle and off we went, peddling like crazy back to the A-frame.

It’s kind of spooky how our young lives mirrored the true lives of our favorite criminals. Crime is fun for a while (or it was in my life) but eventually, something goes wrong. Not even Bonnie and Clyde wanted to continue thier crime spree. In our case, something did eventually go wrong - but, unlike Bonnie and Clyde, we did not get caught. That probably would have been the blessing that could have altered my future life of crime. No - what went wrong was Louis' anger. But still - the coincidence of how our life of crime ended is not lost on me. Just like the car of the real Bonnie and Clyde on that fateful day in Shreveport, our hide-away A-frame house ended up riddled with bullets. Real bullets. Little Louis just got mad one day. He took one of his father’s guns and shot that little house all to bits, thereby ending Bonnie and Clyde.

Tragedies of different proportions but sad nonetheless.

The boy is officially 9 years old!

..................

We had a fun day from French Toast ala iPod before school to classroom cupcakes to post-B-day dinner a Mexican Train Dominoes game. A shocking and fabulous surprise was Brk walking up the hill at 7:30 last night. She hitchhiked from Utah and walked from Santa Cruz in time to smear his face with chocolate before bedtime!

And the celebrations continue!

10 - count 'em TEN - kids tonight for a sleepover & then a (free!) day at a prestigous summer camp tomorrow. On Sunday what better way to celebrate both his birthday AND a double Mom Mother's Day than to go to a huge amusement park?! Woo hoo!

Coming up on my 17- year clean and sober anniversary, I thought I would share a little piece I wrote about the subject:

-------

I am such an addict. Like so many others, my drug of choice is “more”. If I ever need to be reminded, all I have to do is go back to New Year’s Eve 1982. It was our Annual Mom’s-Gone-Away-to-Florida party. Most of the kids had stumbled off for the night but a few die-hards remained slouched around the kitchen table at 2 or 3 in the morning. There was a knock on the door and in walked Jonathan. He was an odd one. I mean, what kind of 30-year-old guy shows up to hang out with a bunch of high school seniors in the wee hours of the morning? Only one kind of guy and because he had access to really good drugs, I, for one, was glad to see him.

“I’ve got some new stuff.”

“ Yes!” I exclaimed with victorious glee. Whatever Nancy Reagan was telling us to just say was far, far away from my thoughts.

“But I don’t know if you can handle it.”

He reached teasingly into his inner coat pocket.

I was 16. Was there anything that I hadn’t been able to handle? Was there anything that I didn’t want to try, if given the chance?

“I can handle it.”

My friends shifted in their chairs. Beer. Tequila. The worm. That was a good time. This was different. Someone may have murmured, “ Hey-I don’t know about this.”

“It’s strong stuff.”

“How strong?”

“Curiously strong.”

I was more than a little intrigued.

“I want two.”

More shifting of chairs. My friends were nervous at the prospect of witnessing an overdose. They knew how wild and crazy I was.

Jonathan pulled the tin from his pocket. He opened the lid to reveal so many little white pills! He handed me just one and I popped it in my mouth immediately with no hesitation whatsoever. Before I could swallow it with the last of the champagne, I felt the heat in my nose. I instinctively spit it out.

“What the hell?!”

My tongue was on fire.

“It’s an Altoid. Haven’t you heard of them?”

Obviously, Portland, Maine was sheltered from the advertising world of fine mints.

Oh – yes – my friends all had a good laugh on me. And I got a glimpse of just what a dangerous drug demon I had become.


-------------

That piece stands alone, but I wanted to mention what an honor it has been to have my dear, long-time friend Joe stay with us this week. She is a recovering junkie and a self-proclaimed loony person who has managed to recently get off the heroine AND the methadone. Because the surgeon won't remove the golf-ball sized tumor from her !heart! before her liver functions are normalized, she has recently given up “drinking poison” as well.

It might be easy to write off someone like Joe if all you saw was "crazy junkie." Sure, she's lived on the streets and sold people's trash on the sidewalk. Sure, she has been convicted of crime and is, indeed, mentally unstable. Sure she has stolen and lied and seen people OD next to her and so what if she is HIV positive and has both Hep B and Hep C but hardly any teeth? She is probably the most brilliant person I know. She is funny and talented and nurturing and kind-hearted and fascinating. I think she is beautiful - even if the drugs have made her look many years older than she actually is.

She remembers EVERYTHING. Everything, except, sometimes, what she just said. Her short-term memory is kind of shot. But she can remember every lyric to every song she has ever heard. She can give me a conversation verbatim from 25 years ago with all the surrounding details to boot. She can put Emily Dickenson poems to the tune of the Yellow Rose of Texas and she knows feminist herstory like the back of her hand. Even the dirt.

She owns rats and volunteers at a bird rescue center, feeding fledgling eagles and sparrows. She has tattooed herself with both a sewing needle and her own tattoo gun (which, unfortunately, was confiscated during a police raid). She takes milkweed extract for her liver and she likes to garden. She sings ballads from the 17th century and has a way with animals. She draws funny creatures and tells me stories of her fundamentalist upbringing that make my hair stand on end even while I am laughing hysterically at the delivery.

Her battle with addiction and the diseases it has brought with it is both heart breaking and inspiring to watch. I am so glad that I never gave up on her. I am so glad that she never gave up on me. I am so glad that, at this point, we have each other in our lives.

In addition to being a good friend, she informs me about myself and has helped me to see the places where I have slid in my own sobriety. I don't even know if I can actually say that I am clean and sober for 16 years. I have joked about being a benedryl junkie in the chemo clinic. Benedryl is what they gave me when my skin was falling apart, hoping to keep allergic reactions from happening and to just knock me out of my misery. Mixed with the pain meds, I got pretty loopy - nodding off in classic smack addict fashion. I stay as clear away from any med as I possibly can now. It’s just safer that way – even if it means dealing with pain. I would rather be in pain than be dulled.

But as I watch Joe nod off (some of her meds still cause this loopy in-and-out-of-it state) I definitely remember being there. And what is the difference between something I cop on the corner to shoot in my arm and something my insurance paid for and was put in my central line? A prescription? A doctor? Is that enough?

Obviously I still wrestle with those drug demons. Any addict does.

How spectacular it is that I can wrestle them with a clear mind and an open heart. How amazing it is that I can wrestle alongside my friend Joe.