HOME ONCE MORE

Just how do I sneak back in here to greet personally once again these Peeps who I have dearly missed for a month?  Jump right in, I suppose...

A lonely sound, shrillingly accurate, silenced the bedlam-like cacophony of the symphony orchestra.  An oboe player had stuck his face on the thin reed, and produced a perfect 440 "A".  The pitch is one to which orchestra players have for many years tuned their instruments, matching the oboe note.  The oboe is awarded this honor because it's tone can pierce even the most noisy of environs.


And it was in this setting in which I found myself all day Wednesday, and will be involved in over the course of the weekend.  I play a violin, and all my life I have listened thousands of times to the oboe player doling out his "a" to the string and wind orchestral musicians.


I have been retired from active orchestra playing for a couple years, but get called periodically to play (it's really work, do not know WHY they call it "play".)


Fraternizing with musicians--old friends and new--and the sheer enjoyment of being "back in the saddle" is one joy usually reserved for sports teams,  music makers of all types, some congregations, and recovery meetings.  I felt like saying to myself, "I am home again!"


I am!


It is the same I feel when I step into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous--"I am home again...welcome home".  Most societies are built around a nucleus of helping others, sharing talents, goods, and services.  So when I say to myself in the morning AA meetings "Welcome Home", I refer to being at one with others, being of like mind.


It is a mostly comfortable feeling--true--and one which has changed my life totally.  It is the "trying to practice" a set of  principles, a way of life.  In music it is practicing my violin.  At work it is practicing diligence and faithfulness...and tolerance. It is not perfect.  It is practicing restraint of pen and tongue during every waking moment, at home and away. It is practicing the Golden rule. Again, it is never perfect--or even close!


And so this week we are performing Gounod's "Romeo and Juliet", and selected parts of Bernstein's "West Side Story".  And I LOVE it!


And I thank my God and AA for allowing me to stay alive...and to stay sober--for today. 

A Special note to those blogger-friends who have been so patient with me (on-and-off-and-on-and-off-again!).  I am so VERY grateful for your kindnesses and loving understanding and support, I am literally without words--another miracle?  I have missed this blogging "home-away-from-home" for far too long.

From now I intend to blog when inspiration or "my will" (Ha!) demands instead of committing to a daily excercise, which became a job for me.  And, being a recovering alcoholic, I have to be ME always, and no matter the topic, somehow it will relate to recovery of some sort, because that IS me.


Blogger-Peeps, I thank you all, and LOVE YOU ALL!

HANG OUT--AT THE OPERA?????

LA BOHEME (Puccini)

LET'S HANG OUT!

Several days ago I met this fellow (2 yrs sober) at a morning meeting. We 'connected'--you know how that is--and so we now sit together when we attend the same group. This morning we had breakfast after, and it turns out he'd been 'looking for' someone to HANG OUT with when he is in Naples. Lives in Chicago, but his elderly parents live here. I'm already enjoying this friendship.

Another guy was here couple weeks ago, and we somehow 'connected'. He is now back in Pennsylvania, but called me yesterday. How honored I was to be chosen as one of the recipients of his time, trust, and man-to-man talk. He'll be back down to Naples in December, and hopefully we will again HANG OUT for some hours.

Another man I met last week, (Isn't it funny? Wonder why none of these men have names? -grin) who will be in Naples until mid-February. He, well...he also wants to talk and HANG OUT, until he goes wherever he needs to travel. NOTE: I call HANG OUT..."working our 'beautiful' God-inspired, Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous". The men I know usually don't realize that when they use the expression "Hang Out" -grin!

Of course, most of you blogger peeps know that I am not in that group of "GLUM LOTS Anonymous". Where I would put myself would be in a group called the "Smiling Enthusiasts". Our MOTTO: "We absolutely Insist On Enjoying Life". We might regularly meet, but I believe we'd be one of those "LOV-NMM" Groups "Lots-Of-Visitors...Not-Many-Members" groups.

Anyway, I am really happy that God sends me people to be with, to talk with, and to share breakfast. NOTE: We went this morning to the restaurant where a group of about sixteen long-timers regularly eat after the meetings. One person--whose program I respect and admire--calls them the "INVENTORIES-R-US" Breakfast Club. (OUCH!) I hope one of them is reading this, YEAH! -grin.

ANOTHER TOPIC: OPERA

This week I'm really tied up in opera rehearsals and PEOPLE...I'M LOVING IT!!! Years have passed since I played Opera, in Cincinnati, Ohio during the summers. This one is Puccini's LA BOHEME, and is a very NON-boring type of entertainment. But I will see little of that from the orchestra pit (I play violin FYI).

Performances are Friday night and Sunday afternoon. Sunday night I PROMISE to blog about this experience, and a little bit of what role Alcoholics Anonymous had to play in my enjoyment of this new slice of life--which I thought was never again to be within reach. (BTW, I got comp tickets for Prayer Girl and a friend for Friday night.)

Between now and then, I'm sure gonna miss reading most of your blogs, and commenting in my (ahem!) usual one-or-two-word fashion...BIGGEST GRIN!!!

ONE SOBER HAPPY ALCOHOLIC is signing off for now, with L.O.V.E. for all that is God, all that is AA, and all that is YOU, my blogger FRIENDS, and, like it or not, I truly mean every word I write to you. SO THERE!

REALLY, I'm dying to meet f2f with some of you at Annie K's home 12-14 June, and crash some meetings together--and get a few hugs {{{}}} along the way -grin. And talk, and LAUGH, and talk some more, and...oh, yes, EAT! I'll bring my violin, unless there is an objection...

Who posted this?...and WHEN, did you say?