To everything there is a season,
Turn, turn, turn,
And a time to every purpose under heaven
Turn, turn, turn………

So a really weird thing has been happening in my head here lately and I have finally come to a place of acceptance with it. I was in the Sautee coffee shop the other day and on the wall where all the events are, there was a picture of a band with a couple of dates. In the picture is an old friend of mine, Ian Shearer. My heart exploded. I couldn’t believe that Ian was in North Georgia! Of all people, he is not someone who I would ever imagine seeing again. Ian is an old high school chum, who turned into one of my drinking buddies when I lived in Atlanta. We have had some wonderful experiences together. He plays the trumpet and harmonica, writes poetry and had a knack for art. I actually still have some of the poems and tid-bits of art he made for me when we were in school together. I have heard him play the trumpet on any number of occasions at clubs and what not. I wanted so badly to see him play this past Saturday night, but couldn’t find anyone to go with me. I was not about to walk into a bar all by myself. I don’t have that privilege any more. It tore me up to know that he was right here and that I couldn’t touch or see or hear him. I began to connive ways to go see him. Then last night, after meeting with friends and talking about God, I realized that I can’t see. Not only can I not go see him, I couldn’t see me. I was just aching to return to my scene that used to pacify me and make my life a living hell even though it had the façade of making me feel better about life. I couldn’t figure it out, until talking last night. There is a passage that was read last night that tells me where I have to leave Ian:

For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good. But no so with us in those last days of heavy drinking. The old pleasures were gone. They were but memories. Never could we recapture the great moments of the past. There was an insistent yearning to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do it.

Ian is but a memory. If I ever run into him again, then it will be in a sober environment, not in me going into a bar. I am no longer able to participate in that area of life. Sometimes I forget that I changed. Apparently, according to my friends it is the nature of the beast and desires can sometimes be cunning, baffling and powerful. I still do want to see him. I hope he goes to the coffee shop or something. Maybe he’ll move to Sautee. He’d fit right in with all the artists and vagrants aka hippies of the valley. Ahh……my home. I find just as much solace in the place I live now as I did in the bottle. I think now, it’s a God thing though. Sautee is definitely a God thing. Thanks God.