Darran Days: Out of the Mountains

To Eat.  To Sleep.  To read and talk shit.  To shit-talk and read and eat and sleep.  Day in and day out.  And day in.  Red, yellow, black, and blue.  Slugs rolling around on the upper tier of the cave fortress.  Phil’s Bivvy.  Day in and day out.  And day in.

Until.  Until the food stores run low, and we collectively decide that it is time to go.  That the rain will not stop.  That there will be no more climbing on this jaunt into the mountain country.  And on this morning when we have the revelation, on this morning after we have resigned ourselves to the inevitable retreat, on this morning the rain stops and the clouds clear.

We exit together.  Out of the cave and into the sunshine.  Dancing beneath blue skies.  The scene spread wide open.  Immaculate.  The four of us dressed in socks and polyprops and hopping through the dew.  Everything visible.  The far away walls of the basin.  The glaciers perched between the peaks.  The mirror Lake Adelaide below in the valley.  The rugged country between here and there.  Turn in circles, arms outstretched.

And hope returns.  We have enough food for a few more days.  We can hold out.  We can climb tomorrow.  After everything has dried.  We can climb tomorrow.

And as the waterfalls shrink, as we talk about summiting the Sabre, the rain begins to fall once again.  Back into the cave like mice.  The cat clouds sweeping over the Adelaide Saddle.  Wet claws outstretched in dripping tendrils.  Back into the cave as the wind picks up, as it whistles down the granite.

And it is all over.  Pack up and get out.  The rain will not stop.  There will be no more climbing on this jaunt into the mountain country.  The revelation revisited.  And it is time to go.

Pull the clothes off the clothesline rigged.  All of them drooping damp across the entrance of the cave.  Tape the feet.  Stuff the backpacks full, and strap them to backs.  And once we are suited again in our semi-wet gear, we file out of Phil’s Bivvy for the last time.

Through the rugged country.  The ragged country.  The thigh-high grass and the uneven ground.  Back to the marsh and through the marsh, and up the steep walls to the saddle.  Clinging to tussock, placing the numb toes of the plastics on wet edges.  Up the waterfall way.  Up to the tarn and past the tarn.  Up the rock jumble to Barrier Knob.  Battling. 

The rest of the boys cruising.  But I’m battling.  Stepping at strange angles to prevent the plastics from cutting into my shins.  Falling behind.  Breathing heavily.  And making noises that I don’t mean to make.  I feel like a tourist on a guided trip.  This is not what I signed up for. 

But the boys are helpful.  Encouraging me onward and upward like good camp counselors.  I vomit twice in my mouth.  Choke it down.  In their eyes am I struggling student?

Onward and upward to Barrier Knob.  And down the snowfield on the other side.  The terror rising when we realize the path is not as stable as it was a few days ago.  The snow shallow and a sheet of ice underneath.  Chester shows me how to “arrest.”  How to fall on my ice axe if I slip and start sliding.  A quick tutorial and then it is down the steepness.  Down the snow and ice.  Hearts in our ears.  Down to the rocks on the other side. 

And down.  And down we go.  I can keep up.  More or less.  Down to the Gertrude Saddle.  Milford Sound visible through the valley.  Visible through the flitting mist-wigs, through the cloud-hair blown wild by the wind.  A group photograph there on the saddle.  And saddle up for the last push.  Down.

Past Black Lake and pick up the gear that we stashed on the first day of the trip.  Down the Gertrude Track and past the point where Carl and I—the Gertrude Gurus—turned back on that first day.  Yes, this is my second descent into this valley.  And I am still falling behind.  Again.

But the end is in sight.  Back across the scree pile at the base of the mountains.  To once again teeter-totter over the pointed rocks.  Back into the flatland.  And across the river crossings.  The boots stay strapped this time.  Splash through and know the end is just around the corner.

Wet and tired.  Stumble back into the parking lot.  Pull off the boots.  Strip off the layers.  And pop the tops of beer bottles waiting.  Smile as the clouds part.  As the sun shines down on the Darrans. 

Late afternoon, shirtless and shoeless in the parking lot.  And what a trip it was.        

Darran Days: The Waiting Game

The rainfall.

An early alarm once again.  And once again we wake to the rain.  The cloud curtain drawn tight across the mouth of our cave.  We wake in the wee hours to the sound of water.  Turn off the alarm.  We are not climbing today.

Re-awake between nine and ten o’clock.  And we sit slugged in our sleeping bags.  Inching this way and that.  Observing where the water drips.  Where the wet threads hang in moving stings from the ceiling to the floor.  Observe and move slowly into action.  Butterfly skeletons emerging stiffly from cacoons.  Cold and damp and flapping lamely about the cave.  Positioning the bottles.  The communal pot and the bottles beneath the running strands of water.  This way we don’t have to leave. 

Shut-ins.

And shrink back into the down.  To zip up and wait.  To read from the communal book.  To wait for the water to fill.  To wait for the rain to stop.  To wait.

And this is the way the day goes.  This is the way the days go.  While we play the waiting game.

I am a human tape player.  The votes tallied.  And it is unanimous.  Nate will read aloud from the one book that we have between the four of us.  We will shoot the shit when the shit needs to be shot.  But when we tire of talking Nate will read aloud.  Nate, the human tape player.  He will talk, and all will listen.  A dream.  Press play.

Away.  And away.  The time tics away on the Casio calculator watch.  The drip-drop constant in the corners.  The gray wall rolled across the entrance of this: our humble abode.  The lower level of the floor—below the stone bed terrace—fills with water to form a lake.  The waters rising always.  And always away and away.

The sound of a single voice in a cave.  The Bone People better when read aloud.  Fluid from the tongue.  Fluid but for the Maori words and phrases.  And when I come across these—across these alien addendums—I become a chop-shop butcher.  Cleaving syllables at awkward angles and hanging diphthongs where they need not be hung.  

But move along, move along, move along now.  We need not dwell on the swell of red cheeks.  Sound it out, boy.  Yes, stumble through the rocky-word-patch.  Until.  Until you find the familiar flow waiting on the other side.  Farther down the page.  Words in a line on the page.  Words in a line printed palpable here.  And line by line the story unfolds.  Line by line, and page by page.  Flip the page.  For no one pressed pause.  Read on.

Ka pai, e hoa.

The rain forever dribbling.  And on-again off-again pouring forth from the sky that is somewhere out there.  Out there.  The saturated world.  Out there. 

We leave intermittently.  One by one emerging throughout the day.  Throughout the days.  Between meals, between readings.  To take note of where we are.  Out of the hole in the valley like a primitive people.  Out of the shelter of rocks in the basin. 

And the steep stone walls surrounding.  And the waterfalls enumerable falling from them.  And the white rushing.  Beneath gray skies, the white rushing.  In the dribble, the white rushing.  And it is almost too much to take in.  The waterfalls everywhere.  Everywhere.  Thick strips of Adam’s Ale down the Granite.  Lake Adelaide below. 

And through the always rain is this scene of rugged beauty.  Water falling and silence.  Secreted away in the steep-walled basin.  We are alone.

But it is raining, and individually we slink back into the cave.  Day by day.  Back into the cave to play the waiting game.

To Eat.  To Sleep.  To read and talk shit.  To shit-talk and read and eat and sleep.  Day in and day out.  And day in.  Red, yellow, black, and blue.  Slugs rolling around on the upper tier of the cave fortress.  Phil’s Bivvy.  Day in and day out.  And day in.

Darran Days: The Rainfall

Pack up and pull out.

Up the slick slabs surrounding Black Lake on the tips of our toes.  Traverse across Gertrude Saddle and already we are within the clouds.  This is a water world, up here in the clouds, and we are alone with the rocks beneath us.  Not a scene to be seen.  As we begin snow-stepping up to the top of Barrier Knob.  Chester and Carl up front kicking steps through the steepness and Simon and I behind.  Following—literally—in their footsteps.

Careful to avoid the ice sheets that could quickly become the slick-quick death of us all.  None of us have crampons and there are only two sets of ice picks to split between the four.  Stick to the soft snow.  Find a path through the powder.  I will follow you there. 

Through the clouds to the top and then skip down the scree.  Or rather.  Or rather make sure not to face plant in the controlled fall down the pile of large loose and loose-large rocks.  Down to the Adelaide Saddle.  Down Down Down.  To the Adelaide Saddle and a tarn situated between drop-offs on either side.  But we are the cloud people, and the steep drop-offs down into the valleys are glimpsed only between breaks in the drifting gray sheets.

Slither out of the backpacks and crawl to the water’s edge.  Mouths to the icy clear and draw deep from the pool.  Mouths to the icy clear and it is all roots remembered, a communion with the four-legged fauna.  To the watering hole.  The watering hole for the weary.  And while we drink a group of climbers sidles up from the other side of the saddle.

And here we are on the Adelaide crotch.  Between two peaks chatting.  We are travelers travelling in opposite directions.  Helmeted against the drizzle, here.  High in the Darrans.  A chance meeting at a pool in a cloud.  We are the booted minions of Landau Calrissian.  Four of us marching into battle, the other four returning home from the front.  Into the clouds.  Out of the clouds. 

And in parting one of them turns and says over his shoulder, “Well, I hope the weather clears.”  And we smile and echo one another.  “It will.”  “It will.”  “It will.”  “It will.”  As they disappear into the mist.

And we too must move.  Must get going.  Must head for Phil’s Bivvy.  A cave built of boulders beneath the intimidating North Face of the Sabre. 

The hike down from the Adelaide Saddle, down toward the Adelaide Lake, is not so much a hike as a down climb.  A down climb through loose rock and tussock.  Face the steep hillside—toes toward the wet rock—and ladder down using grass patches as hand holds.  Down the water path—we are the stone flies crawling down the instant river, down the runnoff’s run, down the waterfall to the scree strewn across the flat land.

Across the scree and into a marsh, my boots already full of water.  Blisters biting into the Achilles and the insoles now.  Shins dented from the unforgiving plastics, and it feels like the nail has once again ripped off the big toe of my right foot.  Boo-hoo.

Keep on keepin’ on.  The slow slog now.  Into and out of the marsh and into the rugged country.  The ragged country.  The thick ground cover covered in rainwater and clinging to legs.  Thigh-high grass, and the dense green.  The dense green hiding the ground and the rocks in the ground.  And there is no path at all.  But push on toward the rock bivvy.  Toward the hope of dryness and what will quickly become home sweet home.  Push on.

And when we reach the cave we file in and peel off the wet clothes.  Layer after layer.  Like the weeping skins of onions.  Until we are bare-chested and bare-legged beneath the rock roof.  Pale and dew-damp before re-adorning ourselves in the dry stuffs stuffed into the bottoms of packs.

Rig a clothesline with tat and begin the waiting game.

A big feed of tortellini and tomato sauce and cheese.  The communal cooking and eating of we cave people.  Of we troglodyte.  And we take turns reading aloud from The Bone People until we turn in for the night.

Drift off one by one on a stone floor covered in hay.  We cocooned in nylon and down.  We dry in our rock fort while outside—in the dying light—the rain falls.

The rainfall.

Darran Days: Into the Mountains

We crash in and around the Homer Hut that first night.  And according to the Hut Warden Rachel—“Rach-the-Mus”—the forecast for the week looks A-O.K.  In the hut and surrounded by the Rock Jocks of this island country.  Casual cool.  But there it is late.  And we are tired.  So we sleep.  And we sleep sound.  And we wake at the work-week hours between six and seven o’clock.

Pack up the packs in the pale light and set off toward the Gertrude Saddle.  The goal for the day is the J.C. Crack.  Situated high on Mt. Talbot and visible from the Homer Hut parking lot.  The early morning sun lighting up the tip of Talbot like a rock-top light bulb as we set off down the trail.  The bright pinnacle shining and we are on our way.

And on our way, the first obstacle a series of river crossings.  The four of us with boots slung over shoulders—barefoot and Gollum-like into the frigid snow melt.  Pale-footed through the icy blue and teetering from rock to rock to rock.  Tip-toeing through the deeper crossings in a vain attempt to keep out pants—our pants rolled thigh-high—to keep our pants out of the water.

And as we begin up the trail—boots now tied to feet, packs strapped to backs—I accidentally kick a loose rock with my left foot and the sole of my leather Merrell hiking boot flops off.  Flip.  Flop.  Flap.  I’m a right sorry sap, and the tramp has only just now begun.  Now.  Wrap climbing tape around the toe of the injured boot and keep on keepin’ on.

The injured ankle is beginning to throb as well.  Uphill.  The tape unraveling.  Re-tape.  The tape unraveling.  Re-tape.  Miserable and wondering what will come of the trip. 

But I’m afforded an out when Carl’s Asthma kicks in three quarters of the way up the Gertrude Valley Trail.  And when he decides to hike back down for an inhaler, I opt to follow him back to the car.  To trade in the leathers for Chester’s plastics (a pair of super-stiff boots made for snow tramping and ice climbing).

On the way down.  Down.  On the way down the front half of the other boot-sole flops off of the other boot.  And so.  I flip-flop along behind Carl.  Carl the experienced mountaineer.  I flip-flop along behind Carl with two broken boots—the soles hanging loose like the lower mandibles of twin slack-jawed yokels.  Yes.  Each boot like an open mouth.  Flip-flop, tic-tock, marking our progress down and gobbling up gravel all the way back to the car.

Make the trade and slog back up the Gertrude Track—Carl and I the self-proclaimed Gertrude Gurus.  And I move woodenly.  For the plastics are like plank contraptions of 2x4s strapped stiff around each ankle, around each foot.  Teeter-totter over the river crossings, over the loose scree and up the snow-melted river.  To Black Lake.  To Black Lake at the base of the Gertrude Saddle.

Drop off one pack and pick up the pace.  Let’s try to catch Simon and Chester before they abseil off the face.

And we do.

As we cross the snowfield below the rock tower we first hear and then see the boys topping out the East Ridge.  So we flag the J.C. Crack.  Following instead the foot-prints in the snow.  Steps cut in the snow.  To the base of the East Ridge and up we go.  Up and up and up we go.  To meet the boys sleeping at the top.  To meet the boys sleeping at the top and then down climb the rock on the north face of the peak. 

The down climb just as exciting as going up.  The ropeless descent, tip-toeing down the overlapping flakes.  And then the heel stomp through the snow field.  Stiff-legged scarecrows on the backs of our heels.  Jabbing foot after foot into the soft snow.  And back down the slabs to set up a bivvy above Black Lake.

A communal pot of beans and rice.  Communal utensils for the gypsy commune.  The commune of climbers commuting through the Darran mountains.

To bed to bed to rest our heads for a big day planned for tomorrow.  Tucked away by seven o’clock, and I read aloud from The Bone People.  The Bone People a novel set on the South Island of New Zealand, written by a New Zealand writer, and leant to me by a native New Zealander—the lovely Miss Anna Sintenie.

Conk out mid-sentence and wake in the darkness to the sound of rain on the bivvy sack.  The darkness of early morning.  So much for plans.  So much for the Sentinel.  Sleep-in.  The wetness seeping into everything.  Cold.  Oats and milk powder passed from hand to hand in the drizzle.

Pack up and pull out.

Getting There: From Tip to Tip

Getting there.

After a solid two hours of sleep I board the ferry in Wellington.  January 2^nd.   Caroline is tired.  Behind the steering wheel, a T-shirt and shorts and glasses.  It is good-bye once again and then the tail lights fade into the city streets.  Empty.  Into the dark. 

I board the Ferry as a walk-on.  Find a booth.  And sprawl full length along the wooden bench on one side.  With my backpack beneath my head I conk out before the boat leaves the harbor.  To twist and turn on the wooden pew.  To nap on and off for three hours as the ferry does the slow sway through the open ocean.  Through the Cook Straight.

Jump up once we pull into Picton.  Speed walk down the gangway, past the other passengers and into the sunlight.  Side step down Highway 1—south—with a cardboard sign and a thumb outstretched.  This is my introduction to hitchhiking.

The first ride with a young couple from Scotland who have started a business in Wanaka based around a giant air-filled crash pad.  A landing pad for “whatever you want.”  Extreme sports enthusiasts, these two, who still use terms like “rad” and “far out.”  They drop me off fifty K from Christchurch, and wave out the window.  Goodbye.

The second ride with a sun-bleached surfer dude in a Winnebago who keeps telling me that I’ve got to get down to “Oz” for the “gnarly waves.”  I keep saying “I don’t surf, man,” and he keeps responding, “Yeah, but you got to get down to Oz for the waves, man.”

Back into the city proper to bus my way to 312 Greers Road.  Where Carl and Chester are ready and waiting.  The Fish and the Character lounging in the living room.  In the living room amongst everything that all of us own.  The debris of our collected lives exploded in nylon and leather, in neoprene and nalgene, in Gore-Tex and webbing and wool.  And the two of them sprawled amongst it all.  Gear-heads ready and waiting.  And ready to go.  Let’s go.

A snap into motion at 312 Greers Road, and--in under an hour--we are headed south to the Sintenie House to pick up Simon..  South.  Speeding south and renaming aloud what we’ve packed.  Renaming everything to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything.  Repacking with the mind, and mentally it is all there.  Speed south.

Only to stop at Anna’s parents house for the night.  The forecast having changed in the time it took to drive from Christchurch to Geraldine.  One hour. 

In one hour we are sucked in to the comfort of the finer things.  Magazines on the coffee table, running water, and the crystal clear internet.  The crystal clear internet that keeps telling us there is rain forecast in Fijorland tomorrow.  So.

So at the invitation of Anna’s father Ad, which is really less an invitation than it is an assumption, we stay.  For: A feast.  A feast at the Sintenies’.  Potatoes, beans and baked zucchini.  Beet root and a roast basted in homemade gravy.  A Salad chopped fresh from the garden, and the garden veggies soaking up juices from the meal devoured.  Then fresh fruit and yogurt to finish it off.  Fresh fruit from the farmer’s market and fresh yogurt from Ad’s own Clearwater company.  “The most natural Yogurt in New Zealand.” 

Full bellies and the wave of exhaustion beginning to sweep again.  But first it is beers sipped while sofa-sitting.  Vagabond conversations spanning the gap of generations.  Cathy and Ad well travelled and well versed in the art of travelling.  They are the predecessors.  They are a couple of links in the chain.  And a couple linked forever in the travelling chain.  Respect.  And we sleep soundly in the house that yogurt built. 

To wake ten hours later.  To wake to a spread of fruit, muesli, and yogurt on the kitchen table.  And we cannot say thank you enough.  Re-pack the Corolla to accommodate Simon’s gear and we’re off.

For me it is a venture backwards down short-term memory lane.  Tracing south the route that the sisters Holcomb and I took north.  Just a few days ago.  Past Lake Tekapo—the frost-flavored Gatorade lapping at the tree-lined banks.  Past Mt. Cook invisible.  Curtained behind a brand new wall of gray.  Past Lake Pukaki and on toward the town of Twizel.

And past Twizel.  Mispronounced all this time and laughed at by the boys in the car.

Not Twizzle, Dumb Duzzle,

Take a chisel to muzzle

And carve out the name of the town.

It is “twice,” to begin,

“el” like Elwood, the end,

Get it right you American clown.

Past Twizel and through the brown hills.  The rolling hills.  The golden hills.  Through the desert land.  A California-like country spread on either side of the Corolla rocket.  But a land, says Chester, “ravished by the cattle crews.”  The damage almost invisible to the car-confined passer-by.  But the damage done nonetheless.  There are irrigation stains.  And these irrigation stains, when viewed from above, polka dot green the valleys flat.  Pollution pollution on four legs walking over green stains meant to be brown.

But what is to be done?  It is all about capital.  Dairy farms more lucrative than sheep farms.  So convert.  Convert for capital, and complete the simple equation.  Chester rants.  He raves.  An environmental patriot.  Through the gold-rolling hills, the green coronas hidden at eye level.  Chester ranting.  And the pollutants staring back with a bleary eye and a boring “moo.”  O!  You money making money makers.  You are the pilots, and the world is a sinking ship.

Drive away.   

Out of the brown fields and on to Cromwell and on to Queenstown.  On to Queenstown to pick up emergency blankets, climbing tape, and tat—tat which is webbing to leave behind in the clouds.

A grocery stop before we leave.  And packed to the brim we hit the road south, southwest toward Te Annu and Milford Sound.  South, southwest toward Fijorland.  South, southwest toward the Darrans.

And the promise of fine weather…

The End: A Beginning

I have resolution, but first.

This is a look back on the beginning of the New Year.  This is the end of the trip with the girls. 

There was a night in Christchruch where I had to decide what to do.  Imagine.  

It is December 30^th.  Chester is in Gisborne with friends.  He has a return ticket for the second.  Simon and Anna will be ringing in the New Year with Anna’s family—the Sintenies—in Geraldine.  Marky is headed to Castle Hill with Jordy the Belgian flat-mate, the two of them.  And the girls are on their way to Wellington early tomorrow morning. 

What to do?  What to do?

And is there even a choice?  The logistics of getting to and from Gisborne hold too many variables.  That’s out.  I’m not invited to the Sintenie family New Year, and it would be weird if I was.  O.K.  I don’t particularly want to spend New Years by myself.  That’s out.  So this leaves Castle Hill and Wellington. 

Castle Hill would be easier.  It would be a shit-show.  Lonely.  Marky and I guzzling beer and liquor and yelling at the moon.  Jordy horrified and wondering what’s wrong.  Jordy hiding in the bushes.  Jordy wishing to disappear.  But will I regret the decision when the clock strikes 12 and the only lips available are the chapped smackers of Mark William Daniel?  Yes.

So?  So I go with the girls.  Book a return ticket.  Wellington to Picton on the five a.m. January 2^nd ferry.  I hope to hitch from there—from Picton—to Christchurch in a reasonable time frame.  To meet Chester and Carl at the flat.  Click Enter and the deal is done.  The ticket purchased.  The decision made.  O.K.

So.  On an hour of sleep I put petal to medal.  Speed north to Kaikoura in the early morning light of the last day of the year.  Through Kaikoura and the beach-batch memories.  Up the coast while the girls sleep in the glass-filtered light.

Then we are in Picton.  Then I am a stowaway on a ship bound North.  Stuffed into the crevice between the front and back seats of the Mazda.  Covered over with blankets and bags and boxes.  I am a stowaway on a ship bound north.  On the ferry from Picton to Wellington and north for the New Year.

Get in and get drunk.  The consensus.  But beers pounded on an empty stomach and an exhausted body lead to the land of nowhere good.  And I should know this.  But instead I reason that drinking now will save money later.  Instead I get swept away in the dramatic swig of sending off the old year.  Bottle after bottle, and I am thinking only of sweet lips at the end of the countdown.

So inevitably… 

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have in this corner the welterweight waste of one Nathan Bradford Dixon.  Knocked flat on his ass by any number of liquid opponents during his long and histrionic history in the Sop-sippers ring.  The sultan of slur.  The king of the glassy-eyed lip-sag.  Yes, Mr. Stumbles himself, ladies and gentlemen.  T.K.O’d more times then anyone would care to remember.  And destined tonight to once again lose in the mundane and much too often repeated battle of the bottle.

Well.  I’m over it.  And so is everyone else.

Wake up and argue on the first of the year.  This is not what I wanted.  But that’s not the point.  I didn’t mean for this to happen.  But that’s not the point.  This is not what I wanted.  But that’s not the point.  It happened, and that is the point.  That it happened.

I’m sorry.  I’m sorry first muttered.  I’m sorry first muttered and then said in earnest.  And then repeated throughout the day.  I’m sorry.  And I am.  I’m sorry.  And there is nothing I can do to make it better.  Sit and sit quiet in the living room.  In she shadow of the babysitter’s club.  Eva, Brittany, Caroline.  Sit-com re-runs on the television.  And there is nothing I can do to make it better.  Make promises that ring hollow in the aftermath of last night.  That ring hollow on the morning of the first day of the year.

It was an accident.

And the joke, the joke of the whole thing, is that I don’t feel any attachment at all to the alcohol.  I could drink none, or drink some, or drink a whole whole lot.  I don’t care.  I really don’t.  (I can hear the skeptics scoffing.  And that’s fine.  Because I have given them reason to scoff.  But the tables have turned so the corny cunts sing.  Yes the tables have turned, flipped, and burned)

And in this table-turning turn-around.  In this sprinkling of New Year spirit.  I have a resolution.

I have a resolution.  Not between myself and the girls.  But between myself and myself.  Between myself and the notorious Mr. Stumbles.  A resolution to eradicate this blithering fool.  To push him into the background of my life.  Into old memories where he and his doddering friends black-out together and sing songs in the hung-over mornings of glory.

When the desire is gone, why perpetuate the cycle?  The cycle remembered only by those who were there—by those who were there and who were not as fucked up.  Because who knows how many nights I have lost?  How many nights I have lost sight of through the fuzzy lenses of drunk goggles?  Through the fog of glazed eyes?  How many nights have I sunk to the bottom of the bottle and drowned myself in booze?  How many?

Teardrop.  Nights lost.  Teardrop.  Apologies rendered.  Teardrop.  And fuck.  I sound like a sorry case. 

Let’s put a stop to this dribble right here.  Right now.  But first let’s give each other hugs.  All of us.  Let’s give each other hugs and have a good cry.  Yes?  Let’s pack up the newly resolved alcoholic.  Off to AA after a New Years intervention.  Bye bye everybody.  Thanks for the love.  On the way.  And call it a day.  But forget it.

I am not done drinking.

I have crawled through the minefields of excess.  The minefields treacherous spread far and wide for every underage imbiber.  For every undergrad going off to college.  For every graduate wracked over decisions that must be made.

I have crawled through, and I have made it to the other side.  Sure there are the scars literal.  The scars figurative.  The debts paid to friends and family in apologies and IOUs.  The fines paid to police officers and clerks of court.  The nights spent in jail and the nights spent in the hospital.

And now I am over it.  And I am over it all. 

But don’t get me wrong, no, don’t get me wrong.

I am not above sipping on sweet alcohol.

No.  It is just this: that I tend to take things too far.  A fact.  And a fact that I cannot deny.  And a fact that I do not want to deny.  I tend to take things too far.  And the resolution is that alcohol will no longer be one of these things.  Why?  When the desire is not there, why?

So let me say this.  A new apology.  I am sorry.  I am sorry to all of you who still yearn for me to piss on your belongings.  I am sorry to all of you who wish to re-live the glory days of retching in Max Kirschling’s cul-de-sac.  I am sorry.  I am sorry to all of you who wanted a chance to lead me around by the hand when I am past the point of talking.  When I am past the point of no return.  I am sorry.

But I’m over it.

Plant the flag in the proverbial new-found paradise.  Because “a change is gonna come.”  Like Sam Cook always sang “a change is gonna come.”  And it already has.

Lift your bottles, boys and girls.  Your glasses, ladies and gentlemen.  Lift them up to the light.  Because: here is to alcohol.  A best friend one night, and a worst enemy the next.  Here is to alcohol and the belief that it doesn’t need to be abused.  Here is to alcohol.  A farewell to Mr. Stumbles in all his wretched forms.   And a breath of fresh air for the New Year.

Cheers.