Sober Day #157: Oxford without Wine

Oxford is an amazing city.  We have been walking and walking, craning our necks to see building details, reading from our guides about the history of this building or that.  To use a worn cliche, it is like walking through history!  And it is so interesting to see this with the flow of students, the blue or green hair, the outrageous costumes, just the vibrancy and energy of all the kids.

Every third storefront, it seems, is a pub.  Yet even the pubs are interesting, even when one it not drinking.  The architectural details, the people, the menu items, the decor.  It is not as hard as I expected not to drink.  (That goodness for diet coke- a habit which I plan to give up eventually, but have decided definitely NOT to tackle during 2014 since I have committed to no alcohol this year).

This is the view from our hotel window:

I have been sitting here, just looking one-by-one at each of the individual elements of the designs, sketching and photographing various elements that will undoubtedly show up in my glass beads and quilt designs.  I know the resolution on this photo isn't great- but if you look at the doorway just above the red van, and just over that, flanking the smaller window- there are two life-sized statues, which are amazing.

Why am I mentioning all this in a Sober Blog?  Because in my prior way of traveling, involving lots of glasses of wine, I might not have seen, really seen these details at all.  I certainly wouldn't have had to patience to sketch design details.  And while I might have flirted with maybe someday perhaps making something incorporating these elements, it would never have happened.  And now it will.

And I really really like that!  I like noticing and appreciating details around me.  This feeds the part of me that used to feel starved, and that starvation is another thing that pushed me toward craving the numbness of alcohol.  I like knowing I will make more wonderful things.  And some month soon, when I am feeling really centered, I will tell y'all the URL of my other main website, which is all about the things I make.

Sober Day #154: Flights and Pubs without Wine

I did it!  My first long flight without alcohol.  Eight hours or so, Chicago to Heathrow.  It was an overnight flight.  I did not head to the bar as soon as I cleared security.  Fortunately, the past 5 months have given me numerous opportunities for domestic flights, and I knew that my past need for wine before boarding a flight had more to do with a 'fear of fear' than with actual fear once I was in the air.

Here is a lovely pub in London, near our hotel in Mayfair.  Notice partial head-shot of 16 year old daughter in the lower left!  Eating in there entailed a diet coke with my yummy fish and chips.

I realized how much my vision of vacations or business travel is built around stopping in here and there for a drink.  This is very different:  Awakening each morning refreshed and myself, full of energy.  I've had a lot of practice with evenings and weekends at home without wine, even domestic travel without wine-  but this sort of travel is apparently in a different category in my wine-mind.  

And yet, I am persevering, reminding myself that is how I used to behave, not what I choose now.

On to Oxford tomorrow!