recovery
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I read this in a book I checked out of the library: out of all the stations on the New York City Subway, 275 are fully underground. that’s 59%. add a couple more percent and you get 61% riding beneath the surface. the rest — elevated, embanked, open-cut — see sky. but most of us…
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four days a week. almost every week this year. I’ve added up the minutes — over 3,000 of them so far — in the recovery support group, in the chair across from my therapist, in the waiting room at the clinic with its flickering light, the hum of an old vending machine, and an odd…
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I have developed a habit of sneaking out at night to the apartment rooftop. it’s kind of surreal to crawl up there right to the edge and hover above Brooklyn. I can spot the schoolyard in the dark, and the dollar tree store, our laundromat and the local diner, all blending into a swirl of…
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this is a new song called laundromatic. the tactile nature of going there, the act of washing and cleansing, the feeling of warm clothes and the smell of fresh laundry, I find comforting and soothing. and transforming, particularly on the days that I am low: the city on hard days. riding my bike past so-called…
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one of the new people in group is Angelique, who went to a music and performing arts high school on the upper west side where a lot of the kids are on drugs I’ve heard. she used to drink but then she began using opioids because she says it’s not as easy to track missing…
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in group we tell each other you can’t recover if you don’t know what you’re recovering from. I don’t know exactly what I am recovering from. hurt, maybe? hurt is almost always telling me a truth. all this week I was thinking about the times I stood on the toilet seat holding the stall door…
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when I am talking to myself, I often wonder: who is talking and who is listening? because someone always is, talking and listening, and it’s still me. the fearful, compliant voice I hear comes from the part of my head that isn’t particularly good at making music. but it’s really good at drawing horrible pictures.…
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today I am coping with the loss of a friend who was in recovery. he was 26. this isn’t the first time someone in group didn’t make it. when it happened before, a counselor came and told us a bunch of things I wrote down in my notebook and recite each day. she said we…
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I’m riding the Q train, crossing the bridge. I’m leaving Manhattan, on my way back to Brooklyn to play a set for the recovery group. but the train stops because something’s on the tracks ahead. from my place on the bridge, I can see people in their apartment windows. their lives are on display as…
cookie nieves 