MARC HAS GRACE AND GRIT

BY MARC LEE SHANNON FOR TDS

What drives you to your daily destination, the approach, the planning and the completion of another 24 frames? Every single one of us hears that inner voice when we fire up our ultra-modern communication device, inhale deeply and face another start of the day. What gets you up to meet this existence as a sensational, yet sometimes perfectly flawed, human being? We are all so much more than what we do; we are complex beings with extraordinary abilities, yet how do we find the daily, everyday ju-ju just to get going?

Is it Grit or Grace?

Most days, for me, it’s just Grit. That dive deep, get it done, desire not to let anything stop me. Not this time. Not like before. Not ever. You see, I had this happen and …

As a person in long-term recovery, I am very aware of my past and often am keen that I need something more better-er at times because, unlike the old days, I am working without the high-wire net that used to be my goto fallback.

Yet, some days require something MUCH more. More than the ordinary teeth-gnashing and anticipatory anxiety. I am that person that is prone to some pretty incredible low-skilled shenanigans when peacock prancing and showing off my fantastic foibles.

A few come to mind frequently, and some of these are hard to forget.

Like the time a while ago when I got mixed up and somehow forgot it was the day of the week I always call my 92-year-old mom in Florida. Every Friday at 7 a.m., pronto. . Sharp as a razor —diligent and on schedule —she had been up, dressed and had her small breakfast of two bites of a donut, bran cereal, fruit and coffee. She’s there waiting for her predictable and constantly reliable every weeksame-time call. Waiting and waiting and looking out to her quiet tropical garden flowers on the lanai from her tiny kitchen table.

There are no self-apologies that can fix that knowing feeling that you have disappointed your mom.

Or that time when I missed a vital work assignment deadline and found myself crashing into the spotlight, and the “everybody look at me” wall at 165 mph— the perfect outline of my pathetic reluctant form. A highlighted, enlarged image of me, arms flailing, and my confused head served up on a virtual public billboard in the midst of my all-star dufus mistake. I was breaking the one rule of survival in corporate life: One must avoid, at all costs, that idiot reveal of incompetence. Don’t be the one, the one that sticks out for the wrong reason. Ever.

How about that time long before I got it together and was rambling lost and distracted in my texting drama walking down a Highland Square neighborhood pavement path at 1 a.m. A not-so-great idea on many levels. My car had been apparently re-parked by some alien entity that was secretly sent this one time to confuse and annoy me, perfectly ending a mistake-laden circus-like day from hell. I must have been a sight to see as I rambled down that dark street lamp-lit lane. “It was going to end well,” I screamed out loud in my best reassuring cheerful voice. “It was going to end well.”

Damned aliens.

Well, maybe when Grit won’t get it, maybe there can be something else.

Grace. Humility and compassion. Sympathetic concern for the suffering that we all share in the world of the living.

Maybe I’m talking about simple elegance, courtesy and goodwill. Having the class to say and do the things that score some ninth-inning runs in the decency department. Maybe move us up a spot or two in the long, sweaty, hot queue in that imaginary waiting room in the sky.

The self-awareness to know that we are all the same human beings and when Grit fails, we can always revert to Grace to remind ourselves that we are capable of significant failure—standing back up and using that lesson to learn and be a little better next time. An elegant recovery after a public sidewalk slip in the rain, coat muddied and trousers damp and our composure tested but not lost. A smile and a laugh at ourselves when it is our turn to fail and everyone just happened to see it and think it’s funny as hell.

Grit is when we get back up, pull out our best mid-60’s debonair dash, brush back our jet black hair, light a smoke and pop a dimpled grin. You know, like Sean Connery’s Agent 007? The problem is that I have none of that in my bag. That’s where Grace comes in. Grace. The simple humbleness that says, “yes, I messed up, but that’s what happens to everyone.” No one is immune to the moments of revealing ourselves as we are — just one of the 7.5 billion imperfect people on this planet.

And yes, you just got to see some of mine.

Grace is me owning my less-thanperfect self. It’s part of the lesson that I needed to learn over six years ago when my life crashed, and I got sober. It has been a long river to float, but I think I am learning that letting go of holding onto things, the treacherous rocks that are my ego and swirling downstream, is more fun and easier on the heart. Yes. I have more Grit. But it's Grace that gets me over the rapids and keeps the raft inflated. It is the lifting updraft that gently carries me over the rougher parts of my day.

It is the Grit that gets me to it and the Grace that gets me through it. It quietly reminds me to remember I’m not uniquely special in my failings and sufferings. The universe, like some kind of spiritual Amazon, delivers some of this to everyone. and in that way, we are all very much the same.

Right. Now to set that alarm appointment in my phone calendar to call my mom...

Steady on.

mls

Reach Marc Lee Shannon at marcleeshannon@gmail.com. Listen to “Recovery Talks: The Podcast” from 91.3 The Summit at: www. recoverytalks.org, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Find his music on bandcamp. com.