Tears in my eyes. Biopsy of my left breast yesterday to see if it’s cancer.

This morning, crying, scattered. In meditation it occurred to me to go to an AA meeting. Went to Fireside. First AA meeting in two years that isn’t the Little Room or the Park.

(I never did Zoom. I stayed with the alcoholics who wanted to sit with me in the dirt. So that ended up being only about eight of us from 96th Street a.k.a. the Little Room. Word was that we were the last remaining room open for recovering alcoholics in all the five boroughs. Because I guess we’re the craziest, most stubborn sober drunks in NYC. Some sort of protective blessing suffused our little church basement and kept the authorities from shutting us down, but finally they installed a new bolt on the door to lock us out. So we met in the Park. Obviously, we never wore masks.)

So I went into Fireside, thinking to myself, if they tell me to put on the mask, I’ll point out the law has changed. I need to speak my truth.

They were all wearing masks but nobody told me to put one on. They were just glad to see me.

The kindness of AA.

Then afterwards, talking on the sidewalk. Brian was there; Fred miraculously showed up. My brothers who stood by me every night during the pandemic, our candlelight meeting at 10 PM in Riverside Park. They just literally showered me with love as they smoked cigarettes. Then I was laughing hysterically. I felt so utterly comfortable. Laughing all the way up to Sixth Avenue with Brian, both of us are howling with glee. He hands off three cigarettes to an old beggar on the sidewalk, telling me, “It’s not right just to give somebody one cigarette. I always give him at least three. That dude is so smart, so well read, he always sees me walking up this way after Fireside.”

I had tears in my eyes over the miracle of AA. How much they accept me. The familiarity of the stories, the raw humble wisdom. The striving, the earnestness, the naked honesty.

Ha ha! I said I wasn’t gonna write about it. It was just too damn emotional.

The wide-open sobbed-open AA feeling. How many times have I felt that, over these two decades?

The tender embrace of AA. There’s nothing like it in this universe.

Sweet unconditional acceptance. How AA heals you, breaks you open, and suddenly, you’re so much better for everybody in your life.

Here’s a picture from the sobriety part of my vision board:

My soul is so damn thirsty for the authenticity and laughing unbelievable friendship of AA. To feel that I am enough, so much more than enough, just to be sober, just to be there. Without it, I turn into a blushing people-pleasing servant, separated from my own heart, not cool enough, not good enough, not anything enough. And I forget who I really am.

A drunk. A person who takes it one day at a time. A person who needs others, a person who needs to laugh, who needs to be free. A person who can say out loud, in a roomful of people, whatever she feels. Not caring what they think. Because deep in her heart she knows that they’re gonna accept her no matter what she says, no matter how corny, no matter how crazy.

A person who does not have to do things correctly, or politely, to be loved, to be needed, to be held.