It's Official !

     I did it! 

     Last week, I published two e-books. 

     A friend and I wrote Up the Rebels! together. It is a fun story about a fellow named Jesus born in Newark, New Jersey, Ed SnowD -- I mean Dree RainCave-- hiding in plain sight, the people who are helping him hide, a few mental patients escaping from their oppressive outpatient day program, a fourteen year old who is rescued by some homeless people, and more. Featuring several cats in its pages, Up the Rebels makes for a good read on a rainy day afternoon. You can find it at:  http://preview.tinyurl.com/njy4vm2


      The cover features a picture of a funky bus that I took on a visit to San Francisco:

    



     My second book I wrote without a co-author. It demonstrates how an atheist can work the twelve steps and remain clean without any higher powers. I had to re-write the steps in order to do so. Recently I celebrated thirty-four years of continuous clean time. If you are in recovery, you may want to take a look at Another Atheist in Recovery at:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/m37wmhv

     The cover is of a trail that my dog and I enjoy walking:

     
sapphoq healing brain damage says: In my determination not to allow my disability to beat me, I decided that if I want something different, then I have to do something different. It took over ten hours for me to learn how to format my e-books. And countless more hours to write and re-write them. Risk-taking is risky. Endeavoring to achieve a dream took hard work. I had to battle my severe fatigue while doing it. I did it. And I am still writing. 
     Remember: It takes courage to dream new dreams. And yes, I believe in you.

I can be found at Twitter(tm): https://twitter.com/spikedupfrog

Today is a Good Day to Live

Immediately after the accident that addled my brain into thousands of broken and misfiring pieces-- and for some time afterwards-- I was not focused on living or even on surviving.  I wanted three things:  coffee, sleep, and the classical music station playing 24-7.  I cried when the mate would try to shut off the radio.  The classical music stayed on.  I insisted.  I ached.  I couldn't see right.  I was tired.  I slept 22 hours a day unless there was a medical appointment or physical therapy which I barely managed to drag myself to.  I woke up only to eat, go to the bathroom, and drink coffee.  I was unable to walk the dog.

The ability to do laundry [but not to iron] came back first.  My ability to curse became pronounced.  Since there was no rehab for me, courtesy of fighting insurance companies, I found a t.b.i. chat room online.  It was there that I learned that I had to be in charge of my own rehab.  Gradually, I became able again to compose typed sentences that made sense.  That was big.  I joined an e-mail brain injury support group [and was summarily dismissed for refusing to change my e-mail address!  The word "witches" in the domain was problematic to the good Christians administering the support group].  I found some other people around here who were also living with brain damage.  Life went on in spite of the side effects from the head-bashing.

I was leaning heavily toward atheism before my accident.  After the accident, I lost any feeling for any gods but not my wonder at life.  I don't miss that feeling.  That particular feeling led me down many paths prior to the brain drain and some of those paths were uncool.  To say the least.  I don't feel any anger towards any of the gods that I no longer believe in.  I feel nothing about it.  It is a piece of my old life pre-injury.

It's almost a decade out for me.  Some things have changed and some haven't.  I've changed.  We all change.  I've embraced the truism that yes we can be "good" without any gods telling us to.  But I no longer strive for "goodness" in and of itself.  "There are very few altruistic acts in nature," is the axiom that I apply to living life on a practical basis.  I have a joie de vivre, a celebratory anticipation of living.  The quest to be "good" is limiting.  I'm done with that.  

This summer continuing into the fall, I've spent hours upon hours sitting on the back deck studying the birds that come to the feeders, the bees that surround me, the plants that grow in my gardens in spite of my ministrations.  And I've spent some time in the woods on simple walks with the now geriatric dog.  I've learned a lot just by observing.  Those lessons are mine for now.

I've been thinking about spirituality.  Or so-called spirituality.  I'm not sure if it exists.  I have awe.  And wonder.  And I do feel inspiration.  But this spiritual stuff-- seems to me that the words "spiritual" and "spirituality" are catchalls-- I'm not really sure that this spiritual stuff actually exists.  Religion in the public discourse has become a bad word and the word spirituality has subsumed it.  I think that this is all there is.  I think that this is enough.  I don't need any supernatural or preternatural beings to help me define my morals.  

Spirit is from the Latin espiritus [I believe] and that word means "breath."  Spirituality is perhaps the stuff and the essence of life.  No more and no less.  When people talk about a state of being spiritual, I look for the evidence.  They appear to be regular humans to me.  Humanity is both fascinating and terrifying at once.  Life is enough and humans are also enough.  I don't feel spiritual.  I feel deeply alive.  And that too is enough for me.

It's good to be alive, yo. 
~ sapphoq healing traumatic brain injury and atypical neurology