October 24: "Gold," Everything Precious, Appendicitis

It is days like today that really remind me of what's truly precious in my life--not just the silver lining, but the gold lining of my daily existence.

Too often, I get swept up in the worries and stresses of my jobs or teaching or writing.  (Yes, writing can be stressful, but it's a stress I embrace wholeheartedly as delight.)  When this happens, I often find myself spiraling, like blood down the shower drain at the Bates Motel.  Everything precious goes right out the window.

Billy Collins on things that are precious . . . 

Gold

by: Billy Collins

I don’t want to make too much of this,
but because the bedroom faces east
across a lake here in Florida,

when the sun first rises
and reflects off the water,
the whole room is suffused with the kind
of golden light that might travel
the length of a passageway in a megalithic tomb
precisely at dawn on the summer solstice.

Again, I don’t want to exaggerate,
but it reminds me of a brand of light
that could illuminate the walls
of a hidden chamber full of treasure,
pearls and gold coins overflowing the silver platters.

I feel like comparing it to the fire
that Aphrodite lit in the human eye
so as to make it possible for us to perceive
the other three elements,

but the last thing I want to do
is risk losing your confidence
by appearing to lay it on too thick.

Let’s just say that the morning light here
would bring to anyone’s mind
the rings of light that Dante
deploys in the final cantos of the Paradiso
to convey the presence of God
while bringing The Divine Comedy
to a stunning climax and leave it at that.

My wife woke up this morning with severe abdominal pain.  She spent quite a bit of time in the bathroom because she thought it was due to something she ate.  Then she went back to bed.

When I picked her up after work, she couldn't even straighten her body to walk normally.  So, she went to a local walk-in clinic that promptly sent her to the ER.  After waiting for four hours, she got into an exam room, and then they did some lab work and CT scan.  Two hours after that, the doctor told us she was suffering from an acute appendicitis.  After another two hours, she was loaded into an ambulance and transferred to another hospital's ER, where she is waiting to see the surgeon in the morning.  

I just got home.  It's after 2 a.m.  I'm beat.  In a few hours, I'll have to drive my son to school and head to the hospital.

Tonight has been full of stress and worry.  The kind of experience that really does remind me of what's precious in my life.  Sure, my jobs are important.  Ditto teaching.  Writing poetry keeps me sane.  But, when my life is distilled to its elements, here is what remains:  my wife and kids and family.  They are my gold.

Saint Marty is a rich man.

September 30: Flying Fish, Abdominal Pain, Sanderson Sisters

Santiago is a small fish in a large sea . . . 

The sun will bake it out well now, he thought. It should not cramp on me again unless it gets too cold in the night. I wonder what this night will bring.

An airplane passed over head on its course to Miami and he watched its shadow scaring up the schools of flying fish.

"With so much flying fish there should be dolphin," he said, and leaned back on the line to see if it was possible to gain any on his fish. But he could not and it stayed at the hardness and water-drop shivering that preceded breaking. The boat moved ahead slowly and he watched the airplane until he could no longer see it.

The old man is not in charge of his destiny at the moment.  He's at the whim and pull of the fish and the ocean.  Until the wind shifts or the current changes or the fish rises, Santiago must wait and hope.

It's been a strange day.  My sister ended up in the ER this morning with severe abdominal pain.  My daughter drove her.  I was at a doctor's appointment myself when she called to ask to be picked up.  Like I said--strange.  My natural morose disposition had already come up with a scenario in which my sister was having a massive cardiac event. In my mind, she was on the table in an operating room, a surgeon massaging her heart, trying to coax it back to life.

Instead, the ER doc diagnosed her with GERD.  Too much pizza last night, maybe.  I'm skeptical.  My sister was pale.  Diaphoretic.  Her hands were freezing.  That, to me, seems like a heart problem, not a stomach problem.

Why am I writing all this?  Because I'm in a little boat.  We all are.  And the sea is limitless and deep.  If the last few years have taught me anything, it's this:  nothing is for certain.  I woke up this morning with my day all planned out.  Work.  Doctor's appointment.  Work.  Taco Bell for dinner.  Watching Hocus Pocus 2 with my family.  Because I'm that predictable.  I like predictable.

Well, most of those things actually happened.  I went to work.  And the check-up with my doctor.  Had Taco Bell.  Spent the night with Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, Sarah Jessica Parker, my wife, and kids.  My sister is okay.  She even worked tonight and stopped by afterward with a pizza.  And I watched Hocus Pocus 2 with her again.

All of those small things happened in my small boat today.  Some of them planned.  Some, unplanned.  Yet, small things can seem huge.  My sister at the hospital this morning for GERD--huge.  Eating quesadillas with my family and watching the resurrection of the Sanderson sisters--huge.  Doctor's appointment where I arrange to receive a CGM (Constant Glucose Monitoring) system--huge.

In the grand scheme, though, none of those things will solve world hunger or fight homophobia or end climate change or put Donald Trump in prison or lead to Armageddon.  They're tiny, like Santiago's hand cramp or the airplane that passes over his boat on its way to Florida.

But, for Saint Marty, they're Titanic-sized.  

Blessing for today:  Winifred and Taco Bell.