Lurch and the Matchbox City

One of my favorites toys as a child was my Lurch doll from the Addams Family. I liked him so much I made a stop action movie of him walking across the top of my desk. Lurch and that movie got lost somewhere during the years. I keep looking on ebay for a replacement, but they sell for over $100 and I am not willing to pay that much yet. The Addams Family was one of my favorite TV shows and I had a really cool model of their house, complete with sliding ghosts. This was my house when So and I made our Matchbox (car) cities and I had an ongoing fantasy about living in a big city in a big house. The model was the perfect place for me to live. I had a Burgundy Rolls Royce Matchbox car for fancy going out times and a dark cobalt blue HotWheels Cougar for the fast times.

The best Match box city location was the planter that ran against the back of the house. It was framed with 4" wide limestone that functioned as the highway to our city. The begonias and petunias had since died and we pulled the remnants of the dead plants and sculpted the dirt into rolling hills and smooth streets complete with banked curves so we could let the cars loose and they would follow the course. We once lined the bottom of the creek that ran through the city with aluminum foil and poured some gasoline into it. We then staged a car wreck using a die cast green jeep and lit the gasoline on fire. Neighbor boy Geoff had an ambulance Matchbox and it came racing from the city to try to save the driver and passengers, unfortunately they were burned to a crisp along with the little wooden bridge we had built.

I made other houses out of Pop Tart boxes and covered them with construction paper making a quaint little town. We played in our Matchbox city many days and got lost in our little world. One day, being a bit bored with it all, we decided to make another city far away--the front yard. There had to be a highway to get from our little city to the new one so we set out to pull out the grass in a line that ran from the rear of the house to the front yard. It must have been at least 100 feet long and it took an exhausting day to build it. We ran the cars in one direction once. It was too much work and I got way too dirty crawling around on my knees. So the highway fell into disrepair and was eventually covered up by new grass.

I often see places that remind me of that little city. One is on the West Loop North just after Woodway. There is a trail that moves off to the right of the road and slips down in between the trees. You lose sight of the trail until you pass this little grove. It would make a perfect setting for real life Matchbox city. I got part of my fantasy after all. I live in a big city. The big house has taken shape as a small 350 square foot studio and I am perfectly comfortable here. I even have a yard where I could make a new little city, but I would have to get dirty again so I think I will just leave it to memories.

Hump Day

Hump Day means it's time for a speaker meeting. Yeah! I love to hear people tell their story and today we had the privilege of hearing Norris speak. I love Norris, and this is the third time I have heard his autobiography. Each time it's the same story but told in a different way and always with aplomb. He spoke of his childhood and the fantasy world he created to escape the real world. I, too, had a reality of my own creation and it often times co-starred my sister. We created Matchbox Cities, played with our troll dolls, had adventures in the Forbidden City and played fire gods when we burned the trash in the incinerator.

Being the sensitive and artistic gay youngster I had to find outlets in which my mind could wander so I would have a better feeling of security. I never felt like I fit in with the traditional American ideal of masculine gender. I wasn't athletic like my brother who was two years younger. My dad used to constantly compare me to him, asking me why I couldn't be more like him. The very odd thing about this is that I have no memory, at all, of Dad saying these things to me. It is only through reports from my sister that I know this happened. But it explains a lot. She did not tell me this until I was, I think, in my mid-thirties. Feeling like the outcast and knowing that I just didn't add up had a definite effect on me. Today one of the main things I struggle with is the feeling that I am not worthy. There have been very few times in my life when I felt like I was apart of, I have usually felt apart from.

But today I am feeling more a part of. This is due mainly to the fact that I am living my life with a purpose and with honesty and integrity. And this is not something that came to me out of the blue, it came to me as a part of getting sober and truly wanting to stay sober. For me to stay sober I had to get humble. I had to get to that point where I had to let go. Let all of IT go and turn all of IT over to a power greater than myself. I really have to practice turning IT over and letting IT go because it is far from natural for me to trust that what I need will be provided. There has never in my life been a night when I put my head down on the pillow that I have not been given what I need for that day. But I could never see things that way. I truly believed that if I expected the worse that this somehow would ward off the worst happening. Today this seems pretty fucked up.

I try hard to work the program of Alcoholics Anonymous as suggested. I have a hard time sharing at the group level but I do talk to other alcoholics and to close friends that truly get what I am doing and that support me unconditionally. I am continuing to come to believe that a power greater than myself can and is restoring me to sanity--soundness of mind. And since this is a WE program I don't have to do any of this alone and that gives me great strength.

I want to let go of that hurt child that grew into an adult body and at the same time hold on to that child that was full of wonder. So every day it is one day at a time. That's all. Just one twenty-four hour stretch at a time. Then there is sleep time, so take about eight hours away from that. So that's sixteen hours. Then take away a couple of hours of meeting time and fellowship and that leaves fourteen. Take away some more for reading my daily meditations, some prayer time, some time really enjoying food, and the time I spend laughing. Every day I truly relish the sober life. I have a lot to be grateful for and I don't discount it one bit.