ONWARD & UPWARD! Always : Part ONE

Recently, I witnessed a shining example of the true love of enduring -- albeit, long lost -- friendship, written in a most eloquent manner by a person I hold very dear to my heart. While permission to identify this person has yet to be granted, I would like to take it upon myself to breach the great Zeitgeist of absence that has separated me not only from the blogosphere for quite sometime, but also from this dear friend of mine for far longer a period than ever should have been permissible in the mind's eye.

Rest assured; my mind's eye faces forward, in face of much "trepidation" -- as I call it in my response to her eloquently evocative and poetic enunciation of regret, remorse and respite of rectitude. Or else, be it called turmoil, trauma, terror, torture, and eventual tenacity of spirit sprung up through experience and circumstance, disease and degradation, deflation of ego -- ergo, we marvel together at miracles and pontificate over pain, as a peculiar pernicious passing way to cleanse ourselves of calamity and chaos. 

Hence, I help myself to a heaping dollop of duplication, as if perchance to replicate the immense emotion(s) that teemed deep within my mind at the moment I read and responded to the unfortunate circumstances under which she wrote these words: 

MAY 7, 2010 at 4:22PM EST
Matt, like I asked before, how did we ever lose touch? Admittedly, I used to be awful at keeping up with people -- late email responses, missed phone calls, misplaced addresses, and the like. And let's be honest, people drift apart. Friends go their separate ways. it's a natural occurrence, the inertia of which I didn't fight. But I thought of you often. I wondered where you were and what you were doing. I look back at my yearbooks sometimes and fondly stare at the pages onto which you left your mark. Your artwork, the creativity you applied just to write my name. Yours were always my favorite entries. So colorful and alive. Like you. We were all so awkward back in high school. Armed with the braveness and audacity of youth, yet lost and afraid of the unknown, of our futures, of ourselves. I was especially...weird. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Most times, I felt very alone. But having you as a friend made a difference. You made me smile and laugh. you made the really long days bearable. Then we graduated. It's 13 years later, and I regret not trying harder to stay in contact with you. Hey, it's never too late right? I've seen all of you posted photos and they're respective captions. I am so sorry for what you've been through and for the battle you are still fighting. You are so brave, Matt. Last September, I was in a coma, resulting from complications due to chemotherapy. I'm also bald now. I suppose we all have our own problems, our own sources of pain. But we are fighters, you and me. Keep fighting. I hope to hear from you, my friend.

Now, while retyping her message to me for the sake of perpetuity via the ever so accessible blogosphere and cyberwaves, I realize that I should have responded some way simpler than I initially did respond. My first reply was an abrupt, pointed plea for direct, person-to-person communication, live, over the phone. In many ways, I was so intangibly humbled, honored, privileged, « ou comme on dit en français: bouleversé », bent through and through by the bones of me, dramatically empowered, emboldened, impassioned, and empathetic...sorrowfully, shamefully sympathetic...all in one instance, that I could only find it in myself to call out to her as brashly as a boy could begin the volley and tarry of a new dialogue with an old friend, writing:

MAY 7, 2010 at 7:19PM PST
What's your phone number? I would love to talk to you. I have so many thoughts running through my head, so many things I'd like to say to you, to ask you. And, Facebook would only allow me a pitiful tool for expressing myself. You have always been in my thoughts; now you will remain in my prayers. I love you, and I miss you. Even bald, I'm sure you're just as beautiful as ever!! If you don't feel comfortable giving your phone number over email, feel free to check out the INFO Section of my Facebook profile for my phone numbers, address and emails. I hope you will reach out and contact me again, but this time more directly. Looking forward to hearing your voice. Love, your dear ol' friend... Matthew...

Three days have passed since I wrote that speedy, contrite, emotionally bland and bottom-tight message to my long lost, new found friend, and she has yet to have called me or communicate with me outright in any way, which sure as the day is long, worries me in a weird, weird way.  
I've hesitated even meandering through her Facebook profile, for fear of seeing a more recent photo of my truly beautiful boyhood best friend bald now, bare of her long, lank, straight, sleek, sultry, always beaming so black it blinded you, locks of gorgeous hair.  You know, the stuff of which dreams were made.  Like me, however, I know that even bald, she beams boundlessly of beauty beneath the glimmer of her gaze, within, through and surrounding the ecstatic "Elysium" of her eyes.  

SHAME ON ME, DAMMIT ALL!! What ungodly right do I have to be afraid to bear witness to the shedding of mere remembrances. She, herself, had the courage to view my awfully frightening misfortune of a face misshapen by death and disease through then not yet up to date photos chronicling my demise. So, as if to invite her to be reassured of the myriad of blessings which could/should/would befall us, together as friends or apart as individuals -- suffering through nightmarish parallels of conspicuous calamity and chaos, I today uploaded all of the photo portraits taken of me since my sixth surgery. 

These photos include me with and without extensive scarring and stitches, with and without a forehead flap to nose, remaining left with nothing but a mere mutable, more or less monstrous left nostril and lips: "quasi-motor mouth" lips.  Yet, they all capture my own innate beauty in the framing of my expressive, expansive, joyful eyes.  I want so deeply for my dear friend to see beauty in my eyes, if not in my words, written:

MAY 10, 2010 at 8:17PM PST
It's Monday, May 10. Sitting here rereading your most beautiful message to me, with a dear friend at my side. Wallace (WES) Smith is my replacement you. I wish you could meet him. He's an amazing person; much like the person I know you to be: loving, giving, understanding beyond all measure, funny, and above all, happy at just the right moments, and sad with me when I need him to be.

Chances are odd that I would sob tears of sorrow only after reading your message a second time, in the company of a friend. But with him here to witness your undying beauty in words, in pictures, in memories never lost, never forgotten, he invited me to be as open and comfortable with my feelings of regret and remorse as ever I could be or couldn't without him.

When I first read your message, I was struck with an urgent impulse to communicate with you immediately in person, but as that luxury has not presented itself, I've found time to ponder further the feelings I have around the circumstances of your writing to me.

Above all measure, I feel that yes, in fact, we are "FIGHTERS" (as you so gracefully observed), but I see what is happening to us as entirely undeserved and unjust; for that, I am heart-fully sorry.

However, I remain an eternal optimist, as I am sure you do, as well. And, I see in our enduring strength and almost pigheaded determination to outwit destiny (or death -- or whatever one might choose to call that foreboding intent of our Higher Power to outwit us outright ourselves in our hubris), the stamina and true, free will to survive beyond all odds, beyond all measure, beyond all degradation of our innate, inherent beauties.

I don't know much of your story since our senior year of high school, and I can only grasp at a mediocre mindfulness of your present suffering, yet I hear it in your words, behind the echo of a certain righteous trepidation -- something of which I have the most astute familiarity: the voice of fear. Likely also, the voice of regret and shame and injustice.

So, in your words of stamina, strength, sure will, and willingness to self-expose, I find parallels between us that I only wish could have taken different shape or different form.

How are we deserving of such pain, such suffering, one might ask? I once was compelled to cry out to my God in ever bitter bereaving those whys and wherefores of the ways in which the ill reluctantly survive despite the most awful degree of torture: cancer, coma, kidney failure, chemotherapy, catheters, or the cutting and sawing, stapling and screwing, sewing and stitching (or "re-tapestry") of face through disfigurement. Yet, I have ended my bewildered haranguing of my Higher Power, no longer to ask of reasons for my ruination.

I've accepted the injustice, the undeserved destruction of my body, as a solemn soulful, serendipitous enunciation of my own sacred self.



We are more that just fighters. We are, until the day He takes us from our endless enduring pain into ecstatic everlasting Elysium, always and evermore... SURVIVORS!

Survivors of a shared past, shared shame, shared joy and of our own shared, self-construed, self-conscious, self-structured, surreal but earthbound « jardins de paix aux champs elysées ». We are survivors today, just as we will survive tomorrow, whether tomorrow brings us great misery, pain, beauty of bold undying love. We are together survivors of immense, unfathomable, unique sufferance shared.

Together, it is my hope that we... together ...may cry out in our off-chance omniforce of grace and gratitude the quaint and quintessential hymn of our youth. Today, tomorrow, whatever life may lay at our feet, may we hold hands and stumble forward together, singing life's love song -- a simple three-word phrase: "ONWARD AND UPWARD." Always.

Remembering most fondly every beautiful moment we've shared, and not forgetting the ugly patches either, I worship your grace and pay homage to your truly blessed beauty!

Love eternal & with pride,
Gratefully & graciously yours,
Matthew Blanchard
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF

DEATH IS A FRIEND OF OURS, AND HE THAT IS
NOT READY TO ENTERTAIN HIM IS NOT AT HOME.
-- Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

IF ONE ADVANCES CONFIDENTLY IN THE DIRECTION
OF HIS DREAMS, AND ENDEAVORS TO LIVE THE LIFE
HE HAS IMAGINED, HE WILL MEET WITH A SUCCESS
UNEXPECTED IN COMMON HOURS.
-- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

QHereKidSF's photostream
www.flickr.com
QHerekidSF @ 1/4-Life!! Questions, Quandaries, Conundrums and above
all else, CUTENESS, despite degradation and denigration of face. The
unfathomable fortune and fastidious splendor of spirit shown through the
face of a Fagged-Out Funambulist Freak Show : Mindflux | Matt(e)o |
Mayhem!! Enjoy!

Consequently, I feel most privileged to be able to share this writing with the followers of my blog, and with my Facebook friends. Part of me hesitates to divulge this entirely personal exchange via a blog post, but as I've set out in the past to use this blog as a tool and mechanism for record-keeping, chronicling and creatively expressing my most pungent, potent, putrid and prettily poignant passing pedantry and pontification(s), I will continue down this same route for the sake of posterity and perpetuity.  May these words resound with you, and may they be remembered.  

Who knows? Maybe, with likely permission from my begotten (not forgotten) friend, this dialogue will further develop before the blogosphere, as an intimate exchange intending to touch the hearts of millions. I've so much more to write to this dear friend of mine, as I'm sure she has many more words of wisdom with which to bequeath me in preparation of the inevitable... (i.e., the restoration and rebuilding of our relationship through remembrances, respite and reunification). DOT. DOT. DOT. God Willing! 

So I subtitle this passage: PART ONE, of more to come!!

Hopefully humble,
Humbly hopeful,
Herein and hitherto,
Straight forward to great fortune & fortitude...
Clutching the hands of my best friend(s),
I sing out in privilege and in pride,
ONWARD AND UPWARD! Always.

God willing,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[2010.05.11@00:50PST]

THE DIFFICULTY IS NOT SO GREAT TO DIE FOR A 
FRIEND, AS TO FIND A FRIEND WORTH DYING FOR. 
-- Homer (800BC - 700BC) 

POTENCY OF "POWERLESSNESS!!"

Midweek already and I feel like I’m living a dream. Not a schizoid manic maneuvering or mulling over my own misery and mayhem, but a blessed vision of beauty, betterment & beatitude… “Plentiful Beatitude” is what I see here sat slumped over my computer at an unconscionable hour, a reprehensible hour of late night / early morning rambling rumination and running in circles.  Naw! I kid. For, there is a very distinct clarity to my vision, my dreams, and my self-revelation.

I’ll keep the text of this journal entry simple and succinct, relaying only the remaniés of my ruminations on recovery and reconstructions via an embedding of my most recent YouTube® video upload:

 

Mindflux | Matt(e)o | Mayhem -- Meet ME!! : Matt, Matthew, Mathieu, Matthias, Mattia, "Il MATTO Matt(e)o!!" My sweet enunciation of sacred self : "Gift from God," a story of blessings, beauty, betterment & beatitude -- "Plentiful Beatitude!!" QHereKidSF celebrates six months of sobriety and his sixth surgical reconstruction, ever more grateful of his own once fabled (now forever) fortune, fortitude & FABULOSITY!! -- © 2010 QHereKidSF (a.k.a., Matthew D. Blanchard) | All Rights Reserved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V_-P6n9ZJQ
http://www.youtube.com/qherekidsf

The good humor and clarity with which I express myself in this video is not so sterile that it's striking; but rather, the jovial, unsanctified spirit of this monologue surmounts sterility and vapidity to tend more toward an extemporaneously tender, telling exposé – an elaboratively "sweet enunciation of sacred self," as so poignantly posited in the description of this video upload and post (above.)

But that which was forcedly stricken from my meditation on mis(sed)-fortune – no longer! – is mention of the mindful, miraculous, meditative revelations that came of me subsequent to this seemingly sagacious soliloquy, only after I was ironically able to enunciate an elaboration on this exquisite expression of my unsuspected/(ing) shift in perspective on the Program, its potential and its “promises.”

My realization came quick, pounding my peripheral lobe with the profound potency of powerlessness and the plentiful pretences and possibilities for perfection (i.e., the “spiritual awakening”) of which the Twelfth Step presupposes, after I posted my most recent, previous entry, entitled “May Today There Be Peace Within…”

I came to a timely, telling conclusion – No! I shouldn’t call this a “conclusion.” A word exists, I know, that better evokes beginning, rather than end, for that is what this is: a seedling, a serendipitous sprouting & savoring of spiritual revelation…and yes, perhaps premature “awakening!” – during a group therapy session at my LGBTQ Mental Health and Substance Abuse Recovery Center here in San Francisco, the day after my surgery (i.e., only just yesterday!!).

I must respect the unequivocal expectation of confidentiality in this retelling of my in-group revelation, so I ask both my readers and the well-respected, well-meaning members of my Abstinence Support Group to allow me the liberty and right to tergiversate an equivocation of my in-group pontifications and feedback without any indulgent unveiling of identities through ambiguity and ambivalence.  

Here’s a synopsis of my statements to my Recovery Community that I’d like to make available on the public domain as a testament of the potential for a consummate conclusive curtailing of our old misguidance and of a tendency toward a cyclic sharing of life’s lessons learnt through long-lasting, sustained sobriety:

These past few weeks – especially, the last three days – have been quite transformative for me, and I mean “transformative” both in the literal and figurative sense, in the physical, mental and emotional sense tending toward a complete shift in perspective and a reshaping & saving of face.     

Fortunately, after indulging the heed by my Sponsor of my obligations to the Program to acquire and begin to read the canonical tome of Twelve Step literature: The Big Book, I found that I had been suddenly and spontaneously convinced by the sumptuous eloquence of its words, and that my perspective had suddenly shifted in its logic and leanings.     

I live today in stark contrast to the shape & form of my former perspective, reason, logic and emotion: that of “active” addiction. There has been so much drastic imminent change in my life, both physically and spiritually, during the last two and a half years – particularly, during the last six months, and I owe it all to my sobriety.  That’s an amazing, self-affirming realization for me and a lesson to others.     

For prior to my discovery of the “promises” of the Program, I held such a indomitable contempt for life and for circumstance and for fate and for kharma and for my Higher Power’s so-called “plan” for me.  But now, after so much transformation physically and emotionally and circumstantially, my perspective on the Program (and on my blessings, beauty, betterment & beatitude – “Plentiful Beatitude!”) has subsequently transformed into something distinctly positive and grateful.

This is what I did not mention in my video: an erstwhile realization or discovery to which I have only hitherto come. This is the essence of my share with the Recovery Community, and I sum it up in a solemn spiritually promising message to the Newcomer(s):  Keep coming back! It works!! I am only evidence of this otherwhile indomitable truth and promise of the Program. Thank God for that! Amen. Alleluia!! 

Respectfully submitted,

Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF

Matthew D. Blanchard

San Francisco, CA USA

[2010.01.07@5:03PST]

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WHEN WE HONESTLY ASK OURSELVES WHICH PERSON
IN OUR LIVES MEANS THE MOST TO US, WE OFTEN FIND
THAT IT IS THOSE WHO, INSTEAD OF GIVING MUCH ADVICE,
SOLUTIONS OR CURES, HAVE CHOSEN RATHER TO SHARE
OUR PAIN & TOUCH OUR WOUNDS WITH A GENTLE AND
TENDER HAND. THE FRIEND WHO CAN BE SILENT WITH US
IN A MOMENT OF DESPAIR OR CONFUSION, WHO CAN STAY
WITH US IN AN HOUR OF GRIEF & BEREAVEMENT, WHO CAN
TOLERATE NOT KNOWING, NOT CURING, NOT HEALING AND
FACE WITH US THE REALITY OF OUR POWERLESSNESS,
THAT IS A FRIEND WHO CARES.
— Unknown

"May Today There Be Peace Within..."

As many in this world stand poised foul-footed & faulty, skeptical of “so-soon-should-be” stability and drowning in the dim dark dawning of a new decade of hopes, nope & never minds, some may very well find themselves focused unflinching on the rightful remonstrance of their real, wrong, reprehensible ruination. And, others still may presume themselves victim of obviously obtrusive, abject, awful circumstance, such as so-called “calamity” or worse yet still, “catastrophe.” 

But in sharp contrast to these many multitudes of madmen who moan in misery when met with mindflux & mayhem, I myself stand poised on solid ground, garishly gleaming in the glow of great gifts of good tidings and telling tales of betterment, blessings & beatitude…”Plentiful Beatitude!”

With the arrival of the new year and the end of an old, I’ve witnessed a coalescence or convergence of some commonly, characteristically distinct threads of thought that are now together guiding me toward goodness in the graces of my Greater Power. These thoughts, these systems of reasoning, these philosophies, maxims or mores divergent to a degree in my mind until now, seem today to be bound together by one common cord – a theme best expressed in a simple statement that once seemed to me to be a clichéd convention, but which I recognize now as an almost divine truth: “Faith without works was dead.”

Those fateful words are bracketed and emboldened by the glimmer of graphite marks carved onto page fourteen of the most recent addition to my fledgling “Religion & Recovery” library. This is the Fourth Edition of the Big Book, the Basic Text of Alcoholics Anonymous, the hardcover book reads on its glossy paper jacket.

During the last week and a half, I have made an enthusiastic effort specially to celebrate in proper fashion the blessed spirit of the Holiday Season, having invited many a friend into my home for a festive dinner party and the presentation of miniature stockings stuffed with candy and perfectly well-chosen and appropriate gifts.  

May I boast a bit? Permit me, please! I must say, the satisfaction and appreciation expressed by my guests tells me that I am quite the host and played well the part of not-so-secret Santa.

I am confident that each of the close friends I invited into my home for the holiday were tenderly touched by my gesture of gregarious generosity and hospitality, and that they are indeed grateful.  But more importantly, I am grateful. Extremely grateful! And I’d like to believe that this my guests would most gladly appreciate to know.  

I wish I would have remembered to document the occasions in photos, but I forgot to borrow the digital camera from my neighbor, who was in fact a guest at both events. The two resoundingly intimate and joyful dinner parties I hosted for the holiday were quite the success and a perfect way to end the decade.

While I did nothing of significance to celebrate the actual eve of the new decade, I did however commit the first day of 2010 (in its entirety) to a very significant and commemorative exercise, introducing myself finally to the canonical tome of Twelve Step literature that my sponsor has been pressing upon me to read.  I read from the preface to the final pages of the first chapter of the Big Book, and scribbled copious notes into my recovery journal from them.

In irregular, sporadic intervals I would break from reading and return to the computer to check email or to chat it up with buddies online.  To one particular “buddy,” I ended up elucidating extemporaneously an elaborate plan in which I expressed an interest to involve myself.  

My intention, as I described to my friend this morning and inspired by the seeming convergence or coalescence of certain variant themes on Religion & Recovery in my life at the present moment, is to reinvigorate my efforts to post regularly to my blog during the new year and to coordinate my spiritual and sobriety work into thoughtful written ruminations on these convergent themes.

Coincidentally, this morning a striking, peculiar, and poignant convergence of these themes manifest itself in my email inbox, with a blessing sent from my loyal, loving chaplain, Reverend Father Stephen Barlett-Ré [+]:

May today there be peace within.
May you trust your Higher Power that you
Are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities
That you are born of Faith.
May you use those gifts what you have received,
And pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing
That you are a child of God.
May Thy presence settle in thy bones,
And allow your soul the freedom to
Sing, dance, praise and love.
     Saint Teresa de Ávila (1515-1582)

This blessing is in absolute accordance with the themes common to both the preaching of my pious priest and the very relevant first chapter of the Big Book: “Bill’s Story” (pp.1-16).  The idea that “Faith without works [is] dead” resonates so powerfully with me in this moment of convergence that I must leave my own indelible mark on both the ecclesiastics learnt from my chaplain and the parochial piety of the “Program,” through rumination, reasoning and a reworking of this wide-eyed wisdom.

But, I’ve no talent in comparative literary analysis; or at least, I’ve not the time and energy to commit to such a studious examination of these separate texts and teachings.  I will however simply cite some single passages that cohere conveniently to this wisdom, and courageously collect my thoughts around the words I find most enlightened, revealing and inspirational.

I’ve already presented the text of the blessing of Saint Teresa de Ávila above, but I’d like to draw my readers’ attention (as mine was so drawn) to the specific sentiment similar to the revelatory “Faith” statements of Big Book Bill.  As the blessing rejoices, “May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you,” so Bill’s monstrance of a similar theme is told in his eloquent narrative, as such:

These were revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them, the effect was electric. There was a sense of victory, followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never known. There was utter confidence. I felt lifted up, as though the great clean wind of a mountain top blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, but His impact on me was sudden and profound

…the thought came [to me] that there were thousands of hopeless alcoholics who might be glad to have what had been so freely given me. Perhaps I could help some o them. They in turn might work with others.

My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs. Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. Faith without works was dead, he said. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic! For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. If he did not work, he would surely drink again, and if he drank, he would surely die. Then faith would be dead indeed. With us it is just like that.

(Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition; pp.14-15)

Clearly this idea of “self-sacrifice for others” is the central paradigm of all that I have learnt from my priest, my sponsor, my program and “in the rooms” during the past six months of my sustained and assured sobriety. Reverend Father Stephen often preaches to me that the very real possibility of divine Salvation lies solely in the manifestation of our Faith through an imparting of that faith onto others and through a retelling, a sharing of the glory and love of God. 

In understanding the significance of these words and of the convergence of this common unifying thematic thread of wisdom in Faith, I find myself more readily willing to comply with the urgings and pleas of my sponsor to demonstrate my commitment to the Program through sustained, accountable action and service.

After the cycle of another six months of sobriety, I will soon be allowed to share my story (my “gifts”) in the Rooms, and I eagerly anticipate the opportunity I’ll have received to impact profoundly the lives and perspectives of others through an expression of my faith, love and trust in my Higher Power.  I have a story of such spiritual significance to share!!

And, I imagine that this exercise in rumination, reasoning and rewording of wisdom here and now will greatly influence the shape, structure and spirit of my message to others when the time comes for me to share my story.  I may even use the blessing by Saint Teresa as the prayer of my choosing to adjourn the meetings during which I eventually will share. God willing! And for now, Godspeed!

Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[2010.01.01@21:34PST]

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KINDNESS IN WORDS CREATES CONFIDENCE.
KINDNESS IN THINKING CREATES THE PROFOUND.
KINDNESS IN GIVING CREATES LOVE.
— Tao Te Ching

CONTENTMENT IS NOT THE FULFILLMENT

OF WHAT YOU WANT, BUT THE REALIZATION 

OF HOW MUCH YOU ALREADY HAVE.
— Anonymous

LIFE ISN’T ABOUT FINDING YOURSELF;
LIFE IS ABOUT CREATING YOURSELF.
— Anonymous