Photos and other things on Tuesday

  

I'm posting some photos from the oyster roast that I went to on Sunday.  

This is the plantation house on whose grounds the festival was held. You may recognize it from Gone With the Wind. 

 
Here is where the massive oyster cooking occurs.

 

She was one of the contestants in the oyster eating contest. She didn't win. 

  

All the shells get recycled to be used as new habitat for oysters,

  The shucked product ready to eat.

And there was even some elephant ears (guess who is eating this one?) and other great food for those who didn't want oysters. The local Restaurant Association prepares a lot of good stuff for this event.

This year there were about 11, 000 people at the festival.   And the proceeds go to help a number of local charities.  That's a really good thing.

I was still tired from the weekend. So after the conference, I went home which is located on an island next to the one where the conference was held.  I slept for 9 hours which was luxurious.  Today I feel much more rested. 

Tonight I'm going to a meeting and having dinner with a sponsee before the meeting.  We will continue our discussion on Step Four.  This step takes some time in Al-Anon.  He is working through the Step Four work book Blueprint for Progress. I can remember his fear when someone told him at a meeting that "It is too hard to write all that stuff down. These questions bring up things from the past that are just too painful." 

I assured him that it wasn't bad.  And that this inventory is for those of us who are entirely willing. The painful parts of the past are in our heads anyway, whether we write them down or not.  Writing out the answers to the questions is not meant to be a new Stephen King novel but will reveal those things which are already known to us.  This is a “fact-finding and fact-facing process.” (BB p64).

I found that this step helped me to unlock the memories that I wanted to forget.  By letting those old memories see the light of day, I saw that there was a new way to deal with things--without fear and without having to repeat the past.

In the book, Courage to Change,  there is a reference to Step 4 and self-esteem. Any resistance that I may have about this step (or any other) may be something that I need to examine.  I am thankful that my sponsees have been willing and courageous to move forward with this step.  It is not a novel that we are writing.  It is the truth about ourselves.