November 22, 2005

• Vigilance

  In our household, the word, “vigilance”, probably gets more usage than
  in most other households.  In the lexicon of mainstream America it
  is almost obsolete.

  The word holds some special meaning for us.    Two and a half years ago, I started going to AA with Greyfox
  even though alcohol hadn’t been a problem for me in decades by
  then.  Then I persuaded him to go with me to NA because the
  attitude was prevalent among those AAs that any sort of drug use or
  addictive behavior was okay as long as one didn’t pick up a
  drink.  I knew that alcohol is a drug and that Greyfox’s
  addictions encompassed more that just alcohol.   I also felt
  more at home among the dope fiends that with the drunks.

  Greyfox said that in that first NA meeting, as someone read the Twelve
  Traditions, these words leapt out at him, “We keep what we have only
  with vigilance….”  That concept, more than anything kept him
  going back, even after he became disgusted and disillusioned with the
  AA group and stopped attending.  The importance to him of
  vigilance can be gauged by how often the word comes up in
  conversation.  It is almost daily.

  Vigilance has kept my darlin’ clean and sober all this time, and he has
  been applying it to other aspects of life such as general health and
  well-being and relations with his neighbors and his cats.  He
  reminds me of the importance of vigilance every time he catches me in a
  lapse.  I can’t complain about that.  He is totally correct
  in his emphasis of the importance of vigilance.  Vigilance
  combines the two personal powers that E. J. Gold says are the only
  things we can truly call our own:  presence and attention. 
  Vigilance is mindfulness in the moment, attentive awareness to the
  all-important NOW.

  I have come to equate vigilance with responsible mature behavior. 
  If I had maintained my vigilance better, I wouldn’t have gotten the
  yogurt on my glasses this morning and burned the pancake as I cleaned
  the lens.  If I was more vigilant regarding my asthma meds and
  nutritional supplements it would diminish some of my physical and
  mental dysfunction.  Staying mindful of where and how we step,
  what and how we lift, and how we handle hot and sharp objects, could
  prevent many of the small but bothersome injuries that Greyfox and I
  both sustain occasionally.

  The latest occasion on which Greyfox had cause to forcefully remind me
  to practice vigilance was an excellent example.  I wasn’t just
  mindlessly inattentive, I was deliberatley tuning out ambient
  sound.  The kittens had been romping and rioting and I was trying
  to write.  Unfortunately, I had forgotten that before I sat down
  to write I had checked the woodstove and found that the fire had been
  neglected so long that it was almost out.  After I put in kindling
  and a couple of split chunks of wood, I left the damper open and the
  door just cracked a bit to let in more air.

  The fire caught and the stove whooshed, rumbled and crackled and all
  that sound was lost to my ears along with the kittenish thumps,
  rustlings and cries.  When it finally impinged on my consciousness
  and I jumped up and went in there, we had a raging creosote fire in the
  stovepipe and it was melting little holes in the steel pipe as I
  watched.  Now, my stovepipe is patched with furnace cement and
  bandaged with aluminum foil, because it’s too cold and snowy to let the
  fire go out and replace the whole thing.

  I haven’t attained the felicitious state of easy vigilance I
  seek.  For me there is always an element of stress and tension in
  vigilance.  I think wishfully of being free to relax
  vigilance.  That’s immature and irresponsible of me, I know. 
  So is the fact that I don’t maintain vigilance flawlessly, that I often
  do relax it to the point of danger or harm.  There is so much to
  watch:  my own actions and words, thoughts, beliefs, the things
  going on in the world around me that have impact on me and mine. 
  How I am going to keep adequate track of all those things, I don’t
  know.  If I am to do that, I may need to “pull in my sensors” in a
  sense:  keep my attention here and now, while keeping those
  sensors on alert.  It’s tricky, and it’s tiring.  Maybe with
  practice it will become a habit and a lighter burden.
  

  • 2:54 pm
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