This past week, I’ve been revisiting my shack, paring down, and reorganizing. By that, I mean separating the wheat from the chaff and reevaluating my grab-and-go radios and accessories. Before Hurricane Helene (a moment in time I seem to use to benchmark events now), I picked up a few IKEA shelf organizers and was quite … Continue reading A Subtle Shift in My Field Gear: Rethinking the external ATU →

I’m grateful for investing in two different pairs of comfortable sneakers to help protect my feet during long distance runs. I’m grateful for taking in the relatively pleasant weather we’re having before the super chill arrives this weekend. I’m grateful for the veternarian we have in Denver administering solid care to Harper. I’m grateful for a meeting where we talked about the 12 Concepts, something still quite foreign to me, and how money plays into AA’s survival. I’m grateful for letting anger pass through rather than be held onto for no good reason. I’m grateful for the sea of marshmallows floating in my hot chocolate. I’m grateful for thinking about the impact people who have passed continue to have on me, even in ways I don’t yet realize. I’m grateful for a conversation that reminded me of just how tirelessly my parents worked, often in quite thankless circumstances, to provide for me as they did. I’m grateful for the opportunities I have to embrace a healthier lifestyle, both physically and mentally. I’m grateful for driving teaching me how to better practice serenity.

One of my favorite shows in recent memory is on Apple TV+ called “Central Park“. It’s a wonderfully irreverent adult animation musical comedy set in NYC’s most famous park with voice talent that includes Leslie Odom Jr. and Kristen Bell. Of the many great songs in the show, the one that has stuck with me the most is also from one of the series’ best episodes called “The Shadow” (S2, Ep.6). The musical number is “A Moment Forever Ago”.

I bring this up because the song has been on various playlists of mine since I first heard it in 2021. Like any impactful song, it seeps in and out of my mind at random moments, whether what I’m experiencing is related to the lyrics or I simply want to hum a pleasing tune to myself. All this is to say I never dug into the creators behind the song. My assumption was it must be Henry Winkler singing because he does the character’s speaking voice, but that is as far as I got into my “research”.

Seemingly unrelated I remember reading on some pop culture site about a young, Tony-aware winning Broadway actor named Gavin Creel who passed away from a rare type of cancer last Fall. I thought to myself that’s quite sad. Like me he was a NYC gay guy in his 40s (well, I will be in a little over a week) so we perhaps may have crossed paths or have had mutual connections. Fundamentally speaking I had no real relationship to his work and the only thing I knew about him was this tragedy from a random Internet source.

Or so I thought. When I was rewatching the Central Park episode the other day, I decided to hop onto IMDB and discovered it was Gavin Creel who provided the vocals for this lovely little number. The immediate rush of surprise and sadness hit me. Making the connection between song and singer touched me deeply. Here was someone who tragically passed away, will never produce any more new work, but his impact continues to touch my life in a small, but beautiful way. At that moment I was very moved by everything I had learnt. I felt strangely connected to someone I’ll never meet.

Now there is a way I tie this back into AA. I was rereading the multiple Forewords of the Big Book over the weekend with my sponsee, learning about the history behind how our Program has grown. During our meeting I had to take a mental step back. Here are words written in the 1930s penetrating the minds of two South Asian kids whose families were not only on the other side of the world when this text was published, but also our country wasn’t even an independent one at the time. Still the content of recovery somehow found us. Its impact, at least for me, is as overwhelmingly meaningful and current as it was for folks who read it back then. Its message continues to evolve in interesting ways as my own sobriety changes with time.

When I reflect on it, AA overall is an amazing entity. The stories we share take on lives of their own after we send them out into the ether at meetings, over coffee, on Zoom – hoping they linger in the minds of other alcoholics, hoping some wisdom is conveyed to help at least one person in the throes of addiction survive another day. I’m humbled thinking about how beautifully interconnected we are inside and outside these rooms. Whether by discovering that the voice behind a song I love is no longer here or by reading about alcoholics in the 1930s who strived to make this Program a reality during those formative years, it’s amazing how we manage to survive in such a wonderfully disaggregated, yet unified way.

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New Year’s Eve Sand Dune SOTA & POTA by Tim (W8TMI) My wife and I head to Northern Michigan over the New Year’s holiday almost every year. It’s a nice way to wrap up the year and the busy holiday season. Most of our friends and family obligations are met, and we can spend time … Continue reading Snow, Sand, and Solar Storms: Tim’s New Year’s Eve Radio Adventure →

As always there are lots of links within the article. Click one! Click them all! Learn all the things! ? by Vince (VE6LK) Ahhhh, the midwinter get-a-way. Everyone does it a bit differently, but for most of us, when you have only a few days and a couple of nights you don’t venture too far … Continue reading Busted Antenna in Jasper Alberta →

Last week, on Tuesday, January 7, 2025, I finally broke a three-week no-POTA activation streak with a short trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway Folk Art Center. Catching Up on POTA Over the holidays, I’ve been doing plenty of POTA hunting from the QTH (you’ll see some reports and videos surface over time), but I … Continue reading Some Much-Needed Radio Therapy with the Elecraft KX1 →

I’m grateful for an excellent Saturday. I’m grateful for feeling free. I’m grateful for a pretty sunrise and an early morning. I’m grateful for finally seeing what was in front of me. I’m grateful for cozy socks and a fire in the fireplace. I’m grateful to be sober today.

LAST WEEK ON TFLMS:

song of the week:

TFLMS Weekend: Where Sobriety Isn’t Just a Consequence…

(last weekend)

Many thanks to Pedro (PP2PB), who shares the following article about his portable field radio kit, which will be featured on our Field Kit Gallery page. Pedro’s (tr)uSDX Compact and Affordable Field Kit by Pedro (PP2PB) Here’s my new kit. This kit weighs just under 1,2kg and has phone and CW operations in mind. I … Continue reading Field Radio Kit Gallery: Pedro’s (tr)uSDX Field Kit →

I’m grateful for a Friday morning. I’m grateful for a super busy week and very grateful for a chance to recharge. I’m grateful for wifi on navy ships. I’m grateful for seeing what can be. I’m grateful for finally seeing what was. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Mystery ?? Button

song of the week:

I’m just going to say that I had a very hard time selecting a song of the week. Part of the blame goes to a very, very hectic week, which can prevent the proper sloshing around of silly ideas and odd memories that result in this on a weekly basis. Anyway, I spared everyone the 19-minute Egyptian palace-themed music video, which features surprisingly little music.

This is very much a DC song for me. Even when I listen to it now, I can be transported to any of a zillion days between 2011 and 2018 when I was walking to or from my favorite haunts on what I called the “P Street Corridor,” tucked between the Logan Circle and DuPont Circle neighborhoods. There was my main and favorite spot, Logan Tavern, a very basic, very good dive bar called “Stoney’s” and my least favorite of this alcoholic trifecta, “The Commissary.” Logan Tavern and The Commissary were owned by the same people, yet the difference in the food quality was pretty significant. I think part of the reason I really dislike The Commissary is because that’s where I did my morning drinking.

When I think about all of the terrible, dispiriting stuff that happened during that time, it was falling into the routine of morning drinking that was maybe the most soul-killing. Waking up with raging withdrawal symptoms, pulling on clothes and doing a very cursory brush of the teeth and hair and then I was out the door and headed to The Commissary. They opened at 8am and I was usually there around 7:55am most weekdays.1

I’d order my little carafe of sauvignon blanc, chat semi-amiably with the odd political consultant who was often my bar mate on these mornings and matched my glasses of wine with Bloody Marys, yet proclaimed most mornings that he was not an alcoholic, nor did he have a problem, he just liked to drink in the mornings.

I hated it.

Every one of those mornings felt like abject defeat to me. I like to make distinctions between my flavor of alcoholism and the folks who drink perfume, but there I was gulping down sauvignon blanc with my pancakes. I was probably at my most sober during these breakfasts, I’d been abstaining from alcohol for maybe 8-10 hours at that point. Maybe part of the reason I hated those mornings so much was that I was acutely aware of how I was wasting my life, I hadn’t gotten to the magical third stop on the Kim Crawford train, where none of that mattered anymore.

I know the official phrase of AA is “One Day at a Time,” but I think I got sober one morning at a time. Before and after my descent, mornings were a time of excitement and renewal and maybe the time I felt most myself. I’ve never been a good sleeper, I’ve been plagued with insomnia, racing thoughts and an inability to get the hamsters off the f***ing wheel since I was about ten. Mornings felt like a reprieve from the tossing and turning, the anxiety, ruminations and self-remonstrations that marked my Sixth Grade nights.

When I got my Des Moines Register paper route, I not only had a reprieve from my sleepless bed jail, but I got to go outside by myself in the pre-dawn light and best of all, put some cash in a certain pre-adolescent pocket. I loved those mornings because of how I felt: capable, independent, brave (I was 10), kind of bad-ass, to be honest.2 When I think back to those early, dark mornings, me carrying the 36 newspapers that comprised my weekday route, humming to myself as I sloshed through the dewy grass, leaving the cuffs of my jeans sodden and heavy against my ankles.

Those mornings at The Commissary were about as far from that as you could get.

When I moved to New York in 2020, with about a year of white-knuckle sobriety in my wake, and a very, very uncertain set of future prospects. I didn’t really know many people here, it was the pandemic, so that made for even more isolation. Those first mornings, trying to discern my future from the inky black that engulfed me, were pretty terrifying. I felt completely rudderless and alone. I was estranged from most of the people who had formerly cared for me and thought that if something happened to me, it would be quite a while before anyone found out, much less missed me.

Those dark mornings didn’t just feel dark, they were lonely, demoralizing and frightening. Those dark mornings were devoid not just of light, but of hope. Into this dark abyss, my sponsor made the “suggestion” that I try a daily gratitude list, and you know that tired story by now. To cut to the chase: I finally got sober.

One gratitude list at a time, one morning at a time.

Even during a super busy week, where I’m juggling pretty much everything and even compiling the to-do list is a significant effort, my mornings are completely different. I wake up with no alarm most days around 5:30, sometimes earlier, and from the moment my eyes open I’m aware of something, something I didn’t have in the olden days:

The feeling that things are okay.

I don’t necessarily leap out of bed singing “Oh What a Beautiful Morning.”3 I don’t need to. I wake up in a place I love, with views of the beautiful city I now call home. As I pad down the hall to the kitchen to begin the sacred coffee rituals, I feel content and happy and calm. Nothing stupendous is happening or is scheduled to happen. I just finally found a way of living that produces peace and love and calm in place of chaos and fear.

I sit in the dark and drink coffee and think about where I am and how lucky I am to be here. I think about where I had to go, where I took other people, and let the feelings of regret and shame dissipate in the growing morning light. I feel optimistic in the mornings, I feel capable and strong in the mornings. I feel most open to possibility in the morning. I feel most myself in the morning.

I was very happy to see an old friend the other morning.

I was drinking coffee the other morning, aimlessly looking out the window and there was the Red-Tailed Hawk again. He flew right past my window and took up a very brief perch. Do you want to know where?

On the Pirate Balcony, of course.

I was trying to get a picture of him, beautiful, strong, nearly full-grown, perched on the railing directly above the camp chair that is the seating option on the Pirate Balcony. But as soon as I came around the corner, he was off in a graceful arc headed towards 88th street. I don’t know if it was just a nostalgia-based trip to the old stomping grounds, or whether he’s been here all winter. It was just good to see that he’d made it another year. I realized I’d made it another year, too.

It’s funny to read that post, I was about to embark on the great adventure that was 2024 and as I sit here in early 2025, I’m mostly just grateful for another year, for growing stronger, for living the life I was meant to live, being the person I was supposed to be, and letting this beautiful world spin around me.

It’s possible that was my last chance last sighting of the hawk. He’s building a life mostly out of my view and at some point he’ll probably secure his own territory somewhere else. I don’t think the hawk spends very much time thinking about me, maybe there’s a memory of feeling the sun on his wings on the pirate balcony but that’s probably about it, as far as connection goes.

It’s just seeing the hawk turn those lazy circles in the sky, knowing that he’s biding his time, living just as he’s supposed to and waiting for what will eventually unfold in front of him that gives me a sense of optimism about my own life. To be honest, there is very, very little certainty in my life and my future is very, very much unwritten. I supposed I could feel afraid, on my own and building a new life in my 60s. But I see the hawk making his way in his own way and I realize there’s so much beauty in that.

I realize that’s what I get to do, too.

Mornings are a gift, that’s really how I feel. It’s my chance to quietly revel in the life I’ve built, in the life I’m building. It’s where I feel the ease and strength that comes with just being oneself. It’s on those quiet dark mornings that I realize I’m exactly where I need to be and things are unfolding just as they will, moment-to-moment.

I have a feeling I’m not going to see the hawk again. That’s okay. It means he’s going on to bigger and better things, the things that are meant for him. Watching him fly away, I realized the very same thing was true for me.

Happy Friday

Yesterday was one of those rare days where I had no pressing reason to leave the house—other than the temptation of a POTA activation. These days are a rarity, and honestly, staying home often wins out. As much as I love POTA, it’s also nice to settle in and simply enjoy being at home. Yesterday … Continue reading The Best Ham Radio Hack: Re-Reading Your Radio Manual →

I’m grateful for a meeting topic oriented around the phrase “sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly” and the resulting shares. I’m grateful for the fellow who was very vulnerable about where he’s at, reminding me how dangerous and how immediate our alcoholism is at any given time. I’m grateful for the greater levels of patience this Program has taught me to practice. I’m grateful for a super fun and tough run in the snow storm, especially cherishing the moments the sun peeked out to beautifully light the ground like a sea of tiny crystals. I’m grateful for the ever evolving, ever expanding definition of my Higher Power. I’m grateful for the fellow who has been sincerely proactive around getting me to open up, be social, and step outside my comfort zone. I’m grateful for my home keeping me warm and comfortable. I’m grateful for a podcast making me recall the awesomeness of The Lion King’s Circle of Life, particularly the intro which elicits such joy in me. I’m grateful for a sponsee who is already helping me without even knowing it.

Over the past week I got connected with a new sponsee who has been in my orbit for several years. We attended the same meeting and over time discovered that we had a fair amount in common. He finally reached out asking if I’d be willing to take him through the Steps. Of course I agreed.

After our initial conversation, I started ruminating on what the process was like for me slowly getting integrated into this Program. I think the operative word is “slowly” here because the moments I tried to fast track my recovery the results were hollow. “I wish you Slow-Briety” is a cute phrase I’d heard early on that has resonated more deeply with each passing year. The whole “design for living” concept as it pertains to AA is not something that suggests an endpoint to me. It’s a day in, day out practice that yields results through diligent, sincere, daily work.

When I first entered the rooms a big change for me was understanding how to stop judging and comparing my story, my pain, and my transgressions with others. By mentally separating I often found excuses to check out of everything that was shared, further reinforcing my self-proclaimed belief of being an alcoholic unicorn. Honestly it took a while for me to update my proclivities. I’ve been an innately guarded individual for most of my life. Isolating was a preservation tactic because it meant others couldn’t hurt me and therefore I wouldn’t feel bad about myself – even more than I already did. However pushing myself to keep going to meetings, accumulating powerful examples of people being super honest and vulnerable about their lives, taught me how to disassemble those walls I’d constructed. Even if I wasn’t always actively listening to every share or qualification, having the din of AA in my ear meant something was getting through by osmosis. Eventually it was easier to find points of identification with every story. Even if it was the tiniest of commonalities, I developed the muscle around connecting with others, which in turn rebuilt my capacity for deeper, genuine empathy.

Returning to the “design for living” concept, it took a little while for me to realize it’s found primarily in working the 12 Steps. Post-relapse when I restarted the Steps, I finally began doing them for me. Not as homework to get praise from my Sponsor. Not as a way to impress others on how guru-like I sounded. The work was for an audience of one and only I knew whether what I was saying or writing down was fully true. The Steps have become an indelible framework for how I analyze most everything in life these days. If I am honest in leveraging them, then their impact is undeniable. This past weekend I finished Step 5 with my Denver sponsor, who left saying I should now sit for an hour and meditate on what transpired. The old me would’ve been like I have too many chores to complete or I need to move on to XYZ thing to get my day moving. Ultimately my emotionally sober voice took over saying the only person I was hurting by not taking his advice is myself. So I did sit alone for an hour after and reflect on my Step 5, which unsurprisingly gave me the lightness I was seeking. Holding myself accountable to doing the Step work, even when nobody’s around, is a huge shift for me from only a few years back.

I’ve written about this frequently, but adopting healthy routines has been another slow and steady process. At first I didn’t realize that what I was doing, like running in the park, was even related to my sobriety. Then as time went on I started codifying in my mind what those healthy practices are. I discovered when I didn’t engage in them I felt queasy. Thankfully I was clear-headed enough to tie them back to my Program, knowing these activities were a part of protecting my peace. In doing that I realized I needed to be disciplined about them. Doing the math, I know by going through these routines my soul is nurtured.

One of the last points I’ll outline here around my “Slow-Briety” journey is being kind to myself by finding ways to take care of myself. It started off with small acts like lighting a candle and realizing how impactful odor can be to boosting my mood. Then it gradually transformed into bigger actions like setting boundaries. Boundaries with family in particular that had been in certain ways detrimental to my serenity. Nowadays self-care has focused on letting my inner critic voice speak in gentler, more constructive ways. Not simply reinforcing “Sean, you’re bad for doing XYZ“, but reframing the language to, “Well that was a misstep, which happens, so how can you learn and do better moving forward?”. Quickly being able to perform that shift with my inner critic’s tone ensures I’m not lingering in a dark place. Whereas before if even one harsh thought entered my mind it’d be a domino effect of retreading unrelated, super old negative memories reinforcing how bad, how unworthy a person I am. Today that process is less dramatic and more optimistically pragmatic.

I’m grateful that initial conversation with my sponsee sparked my reflection on how I got to where I am right now. Indeed putting myself in the shoes of someone still early in their recovery is reinvigorating. It reinforces old principles I’ve learnt, but have perhaps been lax on implementing, and it opens me up in new ways that I never realized I needed. It all is such a gift. I definitely wish him, myself, and everyone a beautiful journey in “Slow-Briety”.

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