Last night I was at a wonderful party held upstairs at my favorite restaurant in Charlottesville, Virginia, a town in which I used to live when I was still drinking and using. The restaurant has still got the same understatedly elegant ambiance, the food is still just as creatively respectful of its high-quality ingredients as I remembered, and I’m sure the wine that went around was still just as carefully and knowledgeably chosen as ever.

I wore my black floaty pants (which I love and never get to wear) and a pair of new black, open-toed heels (a real rarity in my closet), let my hair fly loose, and, in general, felt as though I were looking good for an old broad.

The dinner was for public radio people from all over the state of Virginia, so the conversation was wide-ranging—so wide-ranging that for a little while it settled on God. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before. I’m working hard on a new book on how to partner with God (or H.P. or Allah or Alice) without allowing language and social custom to limit the power of that partnership in our lives. Thinking about H.P. so intensively has made me realize that all I, myself, really know about the God is that God is. And I know this, not through thought, reason, or teaching, but because somewhere in my muddled trudge through the Twelve Steps, I became a person of faith.

I talked about all this last night. People were interested, asked questions, offered their own thoughts and experiences with faith. It was a nice conversation that eventually moved on to other topics; yet, all evening, I felt the blessings of my partnership with God (aka, for me, Alice) as I sat eating, talking, listening, enjoying myself—not as an out-of-control wild-woman, but as a regular person having an uncomplicated, nice time at a holiday gathering.

Who knew? When I was growing up, I never dreamed my greatest satisfaction in life at age 60 would be to have partnered with a Higher Power in becoming a regular person.

Well, that and looking good in black floaty pants.