Saturday, December 21, 2019

This Holiday Season, Humans Are Counting on Us


It’s time to talk about our problem with alcohol.

In August of this year Obi Ndefo was putting groceries in his car outside Erewhon Natural Foods Market in Los Angeles after teaching a yoga class. As he stood at the back of his car, a car swerved at 40 miles an hour and hit Obi pinning him against his own car, reversed and drove away. Remarkably Obi lived through the next few moments and is “in a new body” now learning to live without his legs. His survival has been called a miracle. His resiliency is the evidence of that miracle. The driver was arrested the next day in Los Angeles and booked on a DUI charge. Obi holds no anger or hatred for the driver and has moved on. He says “I don’t have time for negativity in my life. People are counting on me.”

Two weeks later, in the twisting mountains outside of Taos, New Mexico, country singer Kylie Rae Harris crashed into 16 year old Taos high school student Maria Elena Cruz.  Maria’s father, Pedro Cruz, is Deputy Chief of the San Cristobal Volunteer Fire Department. He was among the first to arrive on the scene. Both young women were killed in the crash. Kylie Rae Harris toxicology reports showed .28% blood alcohol content. The data recorder on her truck noted she was traveling 102 miles an hour at the time of the crash. Kylie Rae, 30, from Wylie, Texas just outside of Dallas, had a prior DWI conviction in Collin County and had been ordered to install an interlock device on her car.

Last Tuesday on a crisp winter morning in Dallas, Nancy Dennington, a 72 year old woman, just returning home from her walk, was struck by a 30 year old in an Audi. The driver, Ryan Crews, stood blankly staring at her while two of my friends tried to save her life: comforting her with their words and blankets until the paramedics could arrive. She died somewhere inside of those moments.

Crews is believed to have been intoxicated from either drugs or alcohol. He failed a sobriety test and pills were taken from him at the scene. Five years ago, Ryan received a DWI for running a red light in the same neighborhood. Two years ago the interlock device on his car was removed. His booking photo was taken by police in his hospital bed. Police plan to charge Crews with Intoxication Manslaughter.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, accidents from drivers under the influence kill about 30 people in the U.S. each day. While fatalities from DWI accidents are down 13% in the last ten years, I sense our alcohol culture is on the rise. A recent marketing campaign in Dallas offers locals and travelers The Margarita Mile: an experience where you can 1) download the app; 2) explore the margaritas; 3) drink and check in and 4) explore the rewards.
In our parking garage at work, a billboard promoted the new wine bar where you can “Be Happy”. Alcohol is pervasive as necessary entertainment, a path to happiness and the place to be. Messages to drink responsibly feel lost in the small print. What is our responsibility in this space of popular culture? 
I asked myself this question the other night when I, with my two boys 12 and 13, and our small dog came upon three teens smoking pot at the park across the street near White Rock Lake in Dallas. “Is that what marijuana smells like?” my twelve year-old queried (too) loudly. As I watched them head to their car, the cold foggy air thick with the scent of weed, I weighed three options: 1) call 911; 2) call 311; 3) do nothing. I did nothing. But this question “what was my responsibility in this” weighs heavily as the air did that night. For Obi, for Maria Elena and for Nancy. What did we see and not say? Who do we watch and wonder, “are they safe to drive?” and how often do we dismiss the thought, turn the cheek and move on into our “complicated enough” lives?

I posted a brief story on a neighborhood page, briefly. Within minutes the comments section was filled with a frightening tone of tolerance and a resigned complacency: "get over yourself" one person wrote; another said "it's just pot". The comments worsened and I took the post down. But here's the thing. I can't get over myself. And is it...just pot? Is that what Maria Elena's father would say? 
This holiday, let’s stay in that uncomfortable space a little bit longer. It may be the gift we weren’t expecting to give.

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Today is A Very Important Day

One, I am back on the Blog. Nice to be here with you, thank you. 

Two, today is the first of December and the first Sunday in Advent: a four-week period of "waiting and watching" for the birth of Christ. It is also the month of Hanukkah in the Jewish tradition and the close of the year. Hallmarks of beginnings and endings are all around us. 


And, three: I will be almost 50 in two years. Remember when Meg Ryan said through her sobs in "When Harry Met Sally", "I am going to be 40!" and goes on to say..."In 8 years!". While it's not possible Meg Ryan was so young, it is possible I will be 50 in two years. So I designed a two-year program of re-imagining, re-invention for this half-century on the planet. It is time. 


In November I celebrated two years of sober living --from alcohol. I have studied and learned how to change a behavior and feel like I am ready to expand this sobriety to the other "comforts" in my life: food, spending, social media. 


I am imagining this human, my human, in two years following this design of self-created seven agreements, I am calling these agreements the Secret Seven: 



1. Continued Sobriety from Alcohol and weekly meetings 
2. Daily exercise -30 min-1 hour any kind (walking/ yoga) 
3. Anti-inflammatory diet (no white items: sugar, gluten, dairy) 
4. Church weekly 
5. Meditation Daily 
6. Writing Daily 
7. Financial Partnership with Scott and the Boys (weekly meetings and savings plan)

This future human feels great on the inside and the outside. She is strong and powerful and embodies the commitments she's made to herself, others and the environment. This human tells the truth about herself and leads from her heart. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is feared: I will work on the mindfulness it will take to "be with" the challenges of these new practices. I feel like I've been training for this since 2011. I have everything I need to meet my future self. 

This is what it feels like to design a future: I am in this future, just a few hours into the first of December, watching and waiting. Attending. Listening. Sitting with the desire to comfort myself in all of the ways I know best, but this year, next year and the year after: consciously choosing something different: a new future. 

I am trying this future on beginning with this day in this moment. It is time.