ayurvedium

Although September 20 marks the last day of summer, Labor Day weekend feels like it, huh?

I have 437 days clean and sober now, and it seems as though (after 30 years of addiction) I've been eating life voraciously.

This has been the best summer of my life, spent in the company of the best of friends (like you, A. Lauren) and rocking harder than I have ever rocked.

A year and a half ago, at the height (or depth, depending on your point of view) of my addiction, I told Mol I was a mean old man and I really meant it. Old old old. I was used up and ready to die.

Now, less than a month into being 50, people keep asking me (out of the blue)
my age and then reacting with disbelief.

"How could this be? How have you done this? What product do you use on your skin?"

I have to tell them: "I can't recommend this for everyone, but it was 30 years of drugs and 430ish days of redemption."

Maybe I'm just shining from the inside out.

The absolute high ("heh heh heh, he said 'high'") point was after Patti Smith's concert in L.A. last Tuesday.

I was fortunate to talk with Patti; she signed a second copy of Horses for me.

(The original was destroyed in Hurricane Andrew---when I found it in the debris, the album cover fell apart like so much soggy toilet paper.)

She signed the album I found on eBay earlier this summer exactly the way she signed the first one:

Mark: 'Til Victory---Love, Patti

And I told her that "victory" had whole new meaning to me.

"During this last year," I said, "Your music has seen me through some difficult times, so I would like you to have this."

And I gave her the silver 1-year NA chip that had been given me on June 24.

As she accepted the medallion, Patti looked me in the eye and said, "I will cherish this forever."

I believe she will.

What memory from this summer will you cherish?

xoxox