Soberly speaking...

[Beer Smile]

So it is, I have two types of clarity : that kind which comes to when I'm wrapped in the gauze of alcohol, and that kind that comes when I feel I'm at the bottom of everything, at the peak of sobriety.

The first type I know many can relate to. These are the men and women who find their ways into bars on weeknights and don't allow their current circumstances to interfere with thoughts of bigger dreams. They know, as they say, that they were meant for a better life than this- but that they're tied - and they will go on dreaming.

They count their accomplishments, the steps they have taken, and despair because they have only gotten them to here. Here, where they can forget about waking up to go back to their crummy jobs for a few hours, and exist in an atmosphere of good times, good music, and other good and disenchanted people like themselves. Not terrible, but not quite what they had in mind.

I flourish in this atmosphere, although I'm drunk as shit and probably being a slob. I have no fear, and as I restrain myself from being the only drunk bitch in a bar with no dance floor, there is an impulse I am nearly powerless to deny.

And so, more often then not, I allow myself to be elated. Although I see that others are hugging the bar, gripping their beers, my feet tapping with not let me be. I cannot suppress it. I want to be free. I can always bury it in the morning and tell myself "That's what drunk people do." So, I dance, and the entire floor becomes a dance floor; I don't care, and neither, it seems, does anyone else.

Of course the other clarity comes in the middle of the day, or worse, during my first cup of coffee in the late morning when I break from the comfort of sleep (which I prolong for as long as I can), so I can get on time, to the job which is getting me nowhere, but that I feel desperately tied to.

During the drive to work along Route 295 a flock of birds lifts into the air like a freshly cleaned white sheet and I am moved to tears. I envy their freedom as I watch them change directions 3 times before they, as one unstoppable force, move towards their destination. I only wish I could steal one second of their determination.

My Morning Jacket - Bermuda Highway (live)
oh, don't carve me out
don't let your silly dreams fall in between
the crack and the bed and the wall