November in Canada can be a dark month. Night comes early, and the trees are bare, leaves having gusted to the ground. Winter is around the corner, inbound for the next several months. We hunker down, bundle up, nest by the fire. My best friend, a talented, creative writer, whose birthday falls on the 15th, often finds herself under the covers, overwhelmed by the grayness of it all. More often, she leaves town, escaping to the light of Oaxaca or, as in this year, Bhutan. Not me. November is a month when I make room for joy. This is a precious time for me: my sobriety date is November 3rd, a day I celebrate . It usually starts with a walk with my first sponsor and “serenity sister,” followed by an hour of writing, a reflection on the year just passed. Often, I spend the evening with loved ones. In Year One, I took five friends and my sister to dinne r, the people who played a pivotal role in getting me through those first tough 12 months. Year Eight, it was Alexandra Fuller, the brilliant author of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight . She—my writing tutor--and I had had many long conversations about the pinking of the alcohol market and the role of wine in women’s lives. She was test-driving sobriety. We celebrated with sparkling water at a diner in Jackson, Wyoming, her thoughtful 10-year-old daughter in tow. And here’s my secret: each year, I buy myself a gift to mark the occasion. That Fuller year? A slim gold ring, with eight small stones. Fourteen years in, I may buy a red cedar canoe, to mark all the joy I want to embrace: the vibrant coming years in my young granddaughter’s life . I first found out about Frances, aka Frankie, mid-hosting a Hola Sober meeting last fall . With her birth, I made a simple decision: I want to make more room for joy.
And I will do just that: on November 25th, I will celebrate what we Canadians call “Yanksgiving,” now known as “Frank’s- giving, ” as she careens into her first birthday. Making room for joy means feasting on the moment. We ditch the rear-view mirror; we put down the binoculars. I remember a particularly bad stretch of life when I was 18 months sober: my dad was dying of end-stage alcoholism, my sweetheart had ditched me, and my son had left to study in another country. My 12-step group was tender and supportive—especially since I hadn’t picked up a drink. But still, it was a tough season. One evening, a man I knew well asked if he could share the Taoist parable of the Chinese farmer. Here is how he told it: Once there was a farmer whose horse ran away. All the neighbors said, “That’s too bad.”
The farmer said, “Maybe.”
The next day the horse came back, bringing seven wild horses with it. The neighbors said: “Wonderful!”
The farmer said: “Maybe.”
Days later, the farmer’s son fell off one of the wild horses and broke his leg. “That’s terrible,” said the neighbors.
The farmer said, “Maybe.”
Soon, the army came to conscript all the young men, rejecting the farmer’s son because of his broken leg. “How lucky!” said the neighbors. And the farmer said, “Maybe.” With that, my friend just smiled, gave me a hug, and walked away.
HOLA SOBER | MADRID
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