Northeast Arkansas - grace grits and gardening

Overcoming Meth in Arkansas

February 16, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

A few weeks ago I blogged about Ashlie Tolliver Wilson, a girl who lives in Northeast Arkansas near my childhood home. Ashlie is a day by day recovering meth addict who documents her journey on Facebook. If you missed the original blog post, you can read it HERE.

For six years Ashlie lived the life of a meth addict, hiding from herself and numbing her pain. She also wrote poetry during that time. Writing is great therapy and likely played a role in her recent fight for recovery. Ashlie wrote most of her poetry from a very dark place—she was either high or coming down. Her feelings directed her words, and her poems are beautifully haunting and dark.

Ashlie wrote the following poem on November 5, 2013. On that day she was 59 days clean. Her sober poems are beautiful too.

Overcoming

When I close my eyes

and shut out the pain,

my soul turns inward.

Trying to be perfect,

trying to be right,

I must fight these demons

that come for me.

I am not ready,

yet I must be strong,

determined,

steady in a battle I can’t win.

The enemy is myself,

my demons of sin.

I know I need help

but who can I trust?

Bound by chains of shame

which cannot rust,

I have tried everything

yet nothing has worked.

Do I give up?

Let go of the stress.

Let go of the hurt.

Lose myself to sin

and darkness.

Or do I rise and fight

for what I know is right?

Either way is difficult

yet I recognize my path

to a better world.

I’ll try my best

to win this war

and pass the test.

Although my life has just begun

this is my last chance.

A rising sun spreads

rays of hope over

my dark, cold world.

I am reborn.

My wings unfurl.

I soar above the pain

with nothing to lose.

Everything to gain.

Grace Grits and Gardening

P.S. Today Ashlie is 137 days clean. Go girl!

“The test we must set for ourselves is not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us.”
― Hubert Humphrey

farm girl sledding…

January 9, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

Snow fell during the
night like a secret,
our morning a surprise, a
winter wonderland.

No school for days and days,
sometimes even weeks.
Dusty, bumpy gravel roads
hidden, clean, tucked
beneath flat white sheets.

Conditions too hazardous
for Mr. Robinson’s
school bus proved ideal
on a hubcap sled chained
behind Daddy’s farm truck.

No rules, no roads,
shallow ditches and
summer fields transformed
into our slippery playground.

I couldn’t feel my nose,
but miles from the world
my heart soared.

morgueFile xBlackxCreedx

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:

Hazy Shade of Winter, Simon and Garfunkel

Yellow Brick Road New Year

December 30, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

New Year’s Eve was always a bit depressing to me—what a let down after the end of a magical Christmastime. Plus, the return to school loomed over the frozen cotton fields.

My sister and I spent the so-called most exciting night of the year watching television. We tried to stay up long enough to see the Times Square ball drop.

And what kind of fun was that?

Watching a disco ball drop from a place I’d never been and certainly couldn’t relate to was borrrr-ing. Times Square may as well have been the moon, although even the moon seemed closer to Mississippi County than New York City.

I could see the moon from my bedroom window. I watched it set and rise behind the pump house in our back yard. I studied the moon phases noting when it grew bright and full before shrinking back to a white sliver.

In 1974 I skipped the whole ball dropping thing to lie on the couch in Daddy’s office and listen to the entire Billboard Top 100 Hit countdown on the radio. I knew almost every single song by heart and loved them all. I was twelve years old and had only recently discovered music. Each month I devoured Tiger Beat Magazine and imagined all the amazing lucky entertainers were at glamorous parties dancing the night away (probably in Times Square) while I stared at the ceiling singing along to their songs and eating Jiffy Pop.

Elton John had THREE hits on the charts. That was beyond cool.

I couldn’t wait to be cool.

I couldn’t wait to grow up and be someone else. Someone different.

Turns out, I’m still the same person.

And I’m cool with that.