November 3: "Hangover," Addictions, Be Kind

I don't drink much.  Once a week, my wife and I meet friends for dinner and a beer or two.  That's about it.  I'm very aware of my hereditary predisposition to addiction, so I try not to overindulge in anything, except maybe chocolate and poetry.  

I do host a podcast called Lit for Christmas in which my cohost and I drink a little to excess and discuss Christmas literature.  Had to put that show on pause last March for a little while.  I was working on edits for my new collection of poems and a lot of shit was going on in my life.  I'll be starting LFC up again this month now that things have sort of settled down.  

For some people, however, things never settle down, and that crutch of alcohol or pills or whatever becomes an anchor that pulls them down to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, and they simply . . . vanish.  I've seen it happen more than once.

Billy Collins has a rough morning after . . . 

Hangover

by: Billy Collins

If I were crowned emperor this morning,
every child who is playing Marco Polo
in the swimming pool of this motel,
shouting the name Marco Polo back and forth

Marco          Polo          Marco          Polo

would be required to read a biography
of Marco Polo--a long one with fine print--
as well as a history of China and of Venice,
the birthplace of the venerated explorer

Marco          Polo          Marco          Polo

after which each child would be quizzed
by me then executed by drowning
regardless how much they managed
to retain about the glorious life and times of

Marco          Polo          Marco          Polo

I'm not going to talk about my loved ones who suffer/have suffered from addictions.  That's not my story to tell.  But you all know that addiction comes in many forms.  Sure, there's gin and opioids and nicotine and cannabis and meth.  But there's also gambling and pornography and sex and the internet.  It's all about dopamine being released in the brain in smaller and larger amounts and the pleasure, however brief or intense, it brings.

In the past, I have succumbed to certain addictions.  The one thing I learned during those dark times is that addiction can alleviate pain or loneliness or stress or sadness for a little while, but all those negative emotions come roaring back with a vengeance.  It's a pretty vicious cycle.  Feel shitty.  Indulge in addiction.  Feel better.  Crash.  Feel shitty again.  Indulge even more.  Feel better.  Crash even harder.  Feel even shittier.  Repeat.  Over and over and over.

It's like a game of Marco Polo in the swimming pool, but you never find Marco Polo.  You just flail around blindly.

Don't worry.  This post is not some coded confession that I've started taking heroin or doing crystal meth.  I'm in a good place in my life.  (Not that being in a bad place gives me a free pass to start indulging in my past addictions.)  I'm fine.  But the holidays are upon us, and, for many people, it's not an easy time of year.  (No to mention that other thing that's happening in two days' time.)

Be kind in the upcoming days and weeks and months.  You never know other people's struggles.  

Saint Marty can tell you that, after the darkest nights, there's always a beautiful sunrise.

November 2: "My Unborn Children," Piano Lessons, Regrets

Several hours of all my weekends are spent rehearsing and playing for church services.  In my almost four decades as a liturgical musician, I've worked Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, and Episcopalian places of worship.  I started out as a fill-in organist, thinking I'd only be playing for a few weeks.  Currently, I'm the full-time accompanist at a Catholic parish and Lutheran parish.  Plus, several local pastors and priests have my phone number in case of organist emergencies.

When I was taking piano lessons as a middle schooler, I never thought I'd have a whole musical career.  Just like I never thought I'd be the father of two children, one on her way to becoming a physician, the other on his way to becoming a college student next semester.

Everyone makes choices every day that affect their lives in big and small ways.  Some choices lead to careers as a worship musician or college professor or writer.  Other choices lead to marriage or poetry or children.

Billy Collins ponders some of his choices . . . 

My Unborn Children

by: Billy Collins

          . . . of all your children

          only those who were born.

          --- Wislawa Szymborska

I have so many of them I sometimes lose track,

several hundred last time I counted

but that was years ago.

I remember one was made of marble

and another looked like a goose

some days and on other days a white flower.

Many of them appeared only in dreams

or while I was writing a poem

with freezing fingers in the house of a miser.

Others were more like me,

looking out the window in a worn shirt

then later staring into the dark.

None of them ever made the lacrosse team,

but they all made me as proud

as I was on the day they failed to be born.

There is no telling--

maybe tonight or later in the week

another one of my children will not be born.

I see this next one as a baby

lying naked below a ceiling pasted with stars

but only for a little while,

then I see him as a monk in a gray robe

walking back and forth

in the gravel yard of an imaginary monastery,

his head bowed, wondering where I am.

It's late Saturday night.  I've played one church service for the weekend, with two more to play tomorrow.  My daughter is living her best life with her significant other in a city 20 miles east of me.  My son is up in his room, gaming online and swearing at his friends.  My wife is putting together a grocery list.

This life I lead is the result of choices I made a long time ago--to take piano lessons, fall in love (is love a choice?), get married, have children.  Sure, I think about my un-choices, too.  To not teach full-time at a university.  Not have a third or fourth or fifth child.  Not get a degree in computer science.  Not work in the healthcare industry anymore.

I'm not haunted by the ghosts of my un-choices like Collins is haunted by his unborn children.  Regrets are useless.  I can't change the past, and I don't know what tomorrow holds.  All I can do is be present in this moment.  And then the next.  And next.

Tonight, Saint Marty is going to be present in setting his clock back one hour and getting some extra sleep.

November 1: "Memorizing 'The Sun Rising' by John Donne," Funny as Hell, Mariah Carey

Yes, there was snow on the ground this morning.  

It is the first day of November, and that means it's the start of Mariah Carey season.  Yes, tonight I heard "All I Want for Christmas Is You" on the radio for the first time this year.  (Now, I know I'm in the minority, but I think Mariah is overrated.  Her song wouldn't be half as popular nowadays if it weren't for the movie Love Actually.)

Worked at home for most of the day, then went into my library office for a couple hours.  I spent a good portion of that time reading and talking about poetry.  That may sound like torture to some of you, but, for me, it was like Christmas--unwrapping one poem after another.

Billy Collins puts his poetic memory to the test . . . 

Memorizing "The Sun Rising" by John Donne

by: Billy Collins

Every reader loves the way he tells off
the sun, shouting busy old fool
into the English skies even though they
were likely cloudy on that seventeenth-century morning.

And it’s a pleasure to spend this sunny day
pacing the carpet and repeating the words,
feeling the syllables lock into rows
until I can stand and declare,
the book held closed by my side,
that hours, days, and months are but the rags of time.

But after a few steps into stanza number two,
wherein the sun is blinded by his mistress’s eyes,
I can feel the first one begin to fade
like the puffs of sky-written letters on a windy day.

And by the time I have taken in the third,
the second is likewise gone, a blown-out candle now,
a wavering line of acrid smoke.

So it’s not until I leave the house
and walk three times around this hidden lake
that the poem begins to show
any interest in walking by my side.

Then, after my circling,
better than the courteous dominion
of her being all states and him all princes,

better than love’s power to shrink
the wide world to the size of a bedchamber,

and better even than the compression
of all that into the rooms of these three stanzas

is how, after hours stepping up and down the poem,
testing the plank of every line,
it goes with me now, contracted into a little spot within.

I don't have many poems memorized.  Sure, I can quote some lines and stanzas of a few of my favorites, but, if my life depended on it, the only poem I could recite in full is Sharon Olds' "The Pope's Penis"--because it's only seven lines long.  And irreverent.  And funny as hell.

I have a friend who is a breathing/walking anthology of poetry:  he can jump from Shakespeare to Frost to Whitman without so much as a hiccup.  Of course, he spent over 30 years of his life teaching high school English and drama, so it's kind of in his blood.

Me?  I can barely remember what I had for dinner.  When I was younger, I used to act in a lot of plays and musicals, so my memorization skills were much sharper.  I can recite a few of my own poems from memory now, but I don't think that really counts.  You will never catch me reciting John Donne or Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman off the top of my head.

However, Saint Marty can sing the hell out of Kelly Clarkson's "Underneath the Tree"--which should be the anthem of Christmas instead of Mariah's little ditty.