lust, wander

I don't believe in drugs.

Okay, let me start over, I know that drugs exist.

I'm just not a fan. For the sake of clarity, the drugs i am referring to here are of the prescribed pharmacological variety.

I'm not a fan of the recreational variety either. Never used them, never understood the attraction. The other day I discovered that a friend of mine, a bright intelligent young man, had a hernia operation. To make a long story short- the hernia was caused by drug abuse, oxy contin.  A drug he had been abusing (at 50 dollars a pill!)

I suffer from a familiar laundry list of maladies-  Middle aged, lapsed Catholic,depression, overweight, nearsighted, peter pan syndrome, bad knees, etc..........

On occasion I have been known to have the random panic attack (in a book store about 10 years ago! that was a doozy).

I won't bore you with details, but recently I was becoming the poster boy for general anxiety. It had gotten to the point where everynight for a week I was having full blown nightmares. I never have bad dreams, My dreams are usually  of the puppies and kitties and  rainbows variety ( and occasionally , hot dogs chasing donuts thru the Lincoln tunnel)

What to do?  Years ago, I had a  guy who helped me thru some rough times, but he has long since gone to that big 45 minute hour/ august vacation practice in the sky.

As stated earlier- no interest in "better living through chemistry"

Hmmmmm. So I got in the truck and went on a road trip. a short hop, 4 days. I hadn't been able to do that for years and now I had that opportunity.

I feel incredible. Better than I have in a looooong time. Behind the wheel, I would turn off the radio and just drive. Upstate. No traffic. Open road. 65 mph. And the weight lifted. And balance took it's place.

Oh, I still have all the same problems, but now I have perspective, now I have..........grace.

Driving. Moving. Is it a Man thing? Is it an American thing? I do know that ever since I was a little kid I have loved getting in the car and going. My Dad worked in schools so every summer we would get in the car and go. Still love it.

I have been having some very agreeable  dreams since I have returned, thank you very much.


(I'm sure some of you will have paused at my use of the term grace in the above- I have been meditating on that word for the past few years.  Lots of time dedicated to the idea.  Then on my road trip I saw the movie 'Tree of Life' and the idea of 'grace'looms large. A must see)