Funny thing about hitting bottom – when you’re down there, you’ve got two options: stay down or get up. On this particular day, I chose to get up. I was sitting in an AA meeting in Midtown Manhattan. A basement space with hard, florescent lighting and bad coffee. I’d been up and down with the idea of sobriety for a couple of months and wasn’t in a very good space on this day. It wasn’t denial. I was well aware…
I hate saying goodbye to July – with its laughter skipping across the shimmering sea. And its fireworks. And sun-kissed cheeks. I hate saying goodbye to July – with its late nights carrying little girls to bed. Little girls who wake up as young ladies. And who wake up again as women with every July that passes.
July 1991. Flushing, New York. I was roused awake by a hammering at the door. I jumped up, and quickly fell backward onto the couch. The clock in the corner flashed 9:21. I stood again, took three steps across the room, and opened the door to find a mountain of a man in the doorway. “Jimmy!” the man said, pushing open the door and walking inside. “Howa you doin’ this morning Jimmy?” It was Jack, my sponsor from Alcoholics…
The year was 1976. America was celebrating its 200th birthday. Rocky was in theaters. And the Summer Olympics were on television, live from Canada. I was 11 and it was the last time the Olympics meant anything to me. We cheered on Edwin Moses, Bruce Jenner and Sugar Ray Leonard. We were star spangled with pride. Sure, we lost to the Russians in the overall medal count, but everyone knew that Russians hand-selected their athletes from birth and manufactured them…
A thick, motionless July evening. The cicadas in full voice. A yellow leaf wafts onto the lush grass from a canopy of green above. It’s a gentle reminder that the solace is a few weeks behind us and that summer is bound to end again this year. *** Jim Mitchem
Before I got into blogging I used to keep an electronic journal. A few times a week I’d open up a Word document and write about things that mattered to me. Then I’d save that document and place it in a folder labeled by the year. Never to be opened again.Sometimes I’d write poetry. Sometimes short fiction. Occasionally I’d share the stories with my wife. Before I had a computer, I used to keep these journals on notebook paper – written…
