August 27: "Tipping Point," Life Balance, Rain

I usually struggle this time of year.  The end of summer, on the verge of autumn.  Start of another schoolyear.

This August, in particular, the struggle has been fairly acute.  My daughter interviewing for medical school.  My aunt having a stroke and being diagnosed with metastatic cancer.  My son attending Middle College.  My whole life balance has shifted in very big ways.

Billy Collins writes about balance . . .

Tipping Point

by: Billy Collins

At home, the jazz station plays all day,

so sometimes it becomes indistinct, 

like the sound of rain, 

birds in the background, the surf of traffic. 

But today I heard a voice announce 

that Eric Dolphy, 36 when he died, 

has now been dead for 36 years. 

I wonder – 

did anyone sense something 

when another Eric Dolphy lifetime 

was added to the span of his life, 

when we all took another 

full Dolphy step forward in time, 

flipped over the Eric Dolphy yardstick once again? 

It would have been so subtle – 

like the sensation you might feel 

as you passed through the moment 

at the exact center of your life 

or as you crossed the equator at night in a boat. 

I never gave it another thought, 

but could that have been the little shift 

I sensed a while ago 

as I walked down in the rain to get the mail?

It rained today.  A lot.  It's still raining.  A huge change from the 90-degree sauna of a yesterday.  

I wish I could roll with all the changes brought on by September.  The pumpkin spice beverages and shampoos and baked goods, for instance  I'm not a fan of pumpkin anything, for the most part.  The shorter days.  I drove home tonight at around 9 p.m., and it was almost completely dark already.  Frost on the windows in the mornings.  Hasn't happened yet, but it will soon.

Faithful disciples of this blog know my feelings about change.  It ranks right up there with prostate exams and Donald Trump.  I prefer stability, even though many therapists have told me that stability can lead to stagnation.  It's just that most of my adult working life has centered on huge shifts every three or four months, brought on by my livelihood as a university instructor.

This year, however, feels like I'm on the cusp of huge shifts over which I have very little to no control.  That doesn't sit well with me.  While I know it may be false, I prefer at least an illusion of agency in my life.  However, kids grow up, move away, get married.  Summer gives way to fall gives way to winter.  Loved ones get sick.  Not much I can do about any of that stuff.

Don't worry.  I'm not sinking into the Swamp of Sadness.  (Bonus points for those of you who catch that allusion to The Neverending Story.)  I'm just at a tipping point, and I'm not ready to let go of summer's freedom yet.  I promise I will write something completely silly tomorrow.

In the meantime, Saint Marty's going to turn off all the lights, sit in his dark living room, and wallow a little while, listening to the rain outside.

October 2: "August," Banned Books Week, Bubbles

Mary Oliver gets in touch with her inner bear . . . 

August

by:  Mary Oliver

When the blackberries hang

swollen in the woods, in the brambles

nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high

branches, reaching 

my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming

the black honey of summer

into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is.  In the dark

creeks that run by there is

this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is

this happy tongue.

It has felt like late August for almost a week now in my neck of the Upper Peninsula.  Lots of 70- and 80-degree days, sun, moonlit nights, and confused geese, unsure of whether to head south or hang around for a few more days.  I imagine Mary Oliver would still be eating the black honey of summer, if she were in the U. P. right now.  Because summer has finally arrived for us, just after the autumn equinox.

Unfortunately, I spent most of this beautiful day inside.  Didn't get to bask in the warmth and light.  

You'll forgive me if this post seems short on wisdom or poetry tonight.  I'm beat.  I just got home from an event for Banned Books Week at the library.  Yes, in the 21st century in the United States, there are still people who want to censor, remove, and ban books from libraries and schools, astounding as that sounds.  For a couple hours, I sat in a room of like-minded people, listening to the words of John Steinbeck, Toni Morrison, and Chaucer, to name a few.  All banned writers.

I don't understand the impulse to remove books from institutions.  There is one simple solution if you are offended by a book or its subject matter:  don't read it.  Period.  If don't want your kids to read a book, make sure to monitor what they check out from the library.  Unfortunately, some people simply don't want to control just what they read; they want to control what everyone else reads, as well.  And that's a big problem.

I've always believed that the way to foster peace, understanding, and compassion in the world is through knowledge.  Books can be the vehicle for that knowledge.  I get that it's easier to ignore people, places, and subjects that make you uncomfortable.  We all go through our days in a bubble.  We see the same people, do the same things, visit the same places.  Stepping outside that bubble can be scary.

Yet, ignorance isn't the answer, either.  Eventually, all bubbles pop.  They are temporary and fragile.  They aren't meant to last forever.  Just like August or ripe blackberries, they disappear.  Time movies on.  August gives way to September and October.  Summer turns into autumn and, eventually, winter.  The blackberries will disappear until next August.

The best things in life are like that--they provide sun-soaked joy for a short while, sweetening the tongue.  And then they vanish, leaving only memory.  If you keep going back to the same blackberry patch, over and over and over, eventually there aren't going to be any berries left to pick and eat.  Then, you can wait around for the blackberries to return, or you can go find an apple or plum tree.  Fill your mouth with a different kind of sweetness.

So, tonight at the library, people got to taste something besides blackberries.  Some bubbles were popped.  And it was wonderful.

Saint Marty encourages all of his disciples to be adventurous tonight.  Sit by a lake or on a beach or on top of a mountain.  Count lily pads or hummingbirds.  Taste what's out there.  The thick paw of your life may dig up something new, sweet, miraculous.

August 19: "August," My Sister Sally, Eighth Anniversary

Mary Oliver honors her neighbor . . .

August

by:  Mary Oliver

Our neighbor, tall and blond and vigorous, the mother of many children, is sick.  We did not know she was sick, but she has come to the fence, walking like a woman who is balancing a sword inside of her body, and besides that her long hair is gone, it is short and, suddenly, gray.  I don't recognize her.  It even occurs to me that it might be her mother.  But it's her own laughter-edged voice, we have heard it for years over the hedges.

All summer the children, grown now and some of them with children of their own, come to visit.  They swim, they go for long walks along the harbor, they make dinners for twelve, for fifteen, for twenty.  In the early morning two daughters come to the garden and slowly go through the precise and silent gestures of T'ai Chi.

They all smile.  Their father smiles, too, and builds castles on the shore with the children, and drives back to the city, and drives back to the country.  A carpenter is hired--a roof repaired, a porch rebuilt.  Everything that can be fixed.

June, July, August.  Every day, we hear their laughter.  I think of the painting by van Gogh, the man in the chair.  Everything wrong, and nowhere to go.  His hands over his eyes.

I find this poem beautiful and heartbreaking, as most things are in life.  Oliver's neighbor is very sick, "walking like a woman who is balancing a sword inside her body."  Oliver doesn't know if this woman is dying, but the whole summer is filled with children and grandchildren, swimming, and sandcastles.  In August, the last month before the slow descent into autumn and then winter, these neighbors seem to be seizing the days of sun and warmth and togetherness before everything changes and loss sets up shop in their home.

Today is the eighth anniversary of my sister Sally's death.  Hard to believe she has been gone that long already.  Of course, her going from us was long--over a year of ambulances and nursing home stays and hospitalizations.  Up until just a couple months before her passing, we didn't even know what was wrong with her, and that staved off the process of saying goodbye.  We all existed in a space of hope for a very long time, believing she would eventually return to us, whole and loving once more.

Most of you reading this post never knew Sally, but you may have had a Sally in your life.  No-nonsense and generous, always full of compassion and support.  The kind of person who remains calm in a crisis and always makes sure everyone is fed before sitting down to eat.  Not a saint by any means, but always striving to do the right thing, no matter what the cost.

I tried to be a Sally today.  Spent the morning and early afternoon rehearsing for the church services I have to play this weekend.  Then took my puppy for a walk.  Got a haircut.  Tonight, I took my wife and son to see Barbie.

If all of that sounds pretty mundane, perhaps that's the point.  Being a Sally doesn't mean performing miracles every hour of every day.  I don't have to multiply spaghetti to feed five thousand people.  Don't have to kick a demon out a anyone's body, unless you count my surly 14-year-old son.  Being a Sally is more about making the best out of even the quietest, most boring moments.  Fixing what can be fixed, as Oliver says, and accepting what can't be fixed.  

And, above all, feeling blessed, even if everything is wrong and there's nowhere to go.

The night before she died, I leaned over Sally's bed, kissed her forehead, and whispered into her ear that we were all going to be okay.  She didn't need to worry.  And I thanked her for being my sister.

Saint Marty will spend the rest of his life trying to be a Sally for his family and friends.

January 30: Different Code, Santa Claus, Sandra Beasley, "August," Off the Top of My Head

When I was quite young I fondly imagined that all foreign languages were codes for English.  I thought that "hat," say, was the real and actual name of the thing, but that people in other countries, who obstinately persisted in speaking the code of their forefathers, might use the word "ibu," say to designate not merely the concept hat, but the English word "hat."  I knew only one foreign word, "oui," and since it had three letters as did the word for which it was a code, it seemed, touchingly enough, to confirm my theory.  Each foreign language was a different code, I figured, and at school I would eventually be given the keys to unlock some of the most important codes' systems.  Of course I knew that it might take years before I became so fluent in another language that I could code and decode easily in my head, and make of gibberish a nimble sense.  On the first day of my first French course, however, things rapidly took on an entirely unexpected shape.  I realized that I was going to have to learn speech all over again, word by word, one word at a time--and my dismay knew no bounds.

It's a completely kid thing to think.  The whole world, everything that is mysterious and confusing, is a coded message, and, as we get older, we are given the keys to these codes.  Suddenly, speaking Russian and Mandarin is as simple as doing a crossword puzzle or reading a map.  Inevitably, Annie Dillard learns the truth, as we all do:  the world is complicated and, at times, unknowable.

When I was a kid, I believed in Santa Claus a lot longer than most of my contemporaries.  While my friends begged their parents to buy them Commodore 64's and Atari game systems, I simply thought to myself "suckers!" and fired off a letter to the North Pole.  I was unwilling to let go of the idea of magic existing in the world.  Flying reindeer and a jolly Christmas elf with a bottomless bag of gifts.

Long about fifth grade (yes, fifth grade!), I had to let go of magic and, as Dillard, my dismay knew no bounds.  The world suddenly became, at once, smaller and larger.  More confusing.  Death and poverty.  Incredible wealth and incredible poverty.  And languages--all kind of languages--separating the peoples of the world.  I suddenly understood, in a much deeper way, the story of the Tower of Babel.  No code existed to unlock the divisions of country and religion and culture.  Santa Claus did not unite us all.

However, I still hold on to the idea, the possibility, of mystery.  I believe that the universe is divinely, infinitely miraculous.  That is the basis of hope, and hope is why I get out of bed in the morning, go to work, teach, read, write blog posts and poems.  I think that's what Santa Claus is all about, too.  Santa allows kids to put a face to the longings of their lives.  The empty holes.  Santa is mystery with a smile.  Hope with a big round belly, trimmed in red fur.

Yes, loss is a part of life (the burning up of the past, as in Sandra Beasley's poem below).  Phobias and fears are abundant (death, spiders in the shower).  However, each day is an opportunity for newness, for the blossoming of something beautiful and redemptive.

Maybe Saint Marty still believes in Santa Claus.

August

by:  Sandra Beasley

Sooner or later, the thing you value most will beg to be burned.
Trust me, says the phoenix, I'm immortal.  Watch your childhood
home--how the wires fray, how the baseboards splinter to tinder.
Your nights are split open by steam and the writhing of hoses.

Your sister learns to thicken gasoline with jelly, collects cannisters;
the man you love shares a mouthful of smoke with someone else.
Trust me.  Even Joan of Arc, age ten, tanned her arms as she tended
the sheep.  I'm immortal.  Tomorrow will rise to a full boil but still

you'll strip down, lay out, you'll slick the thin oil over your chest.
For six night before the city blazed Nero could not sleep, pacing
the palace balcony.  He fiddled to ease his nerves.  Pretty tune,
whispered Rome:  lips licked with flame, mouth readying to sing.

Off the Top of My Head

August 17: Preparations, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

After I'm done typing this post, I'm going to work on my syllabi for the upcoming semester at the university.  I've already completed a lot of the preliminary stuff.  Looking up important dates, classroom numbers, exam times and days.  Now, I have to plug all those things into my existing syllabi, switch a few numbers around, and Presto!  Instant semester.

It's a tedious process.  Busy work, mostly.  However, it will keep me sane for the next three months.  I can't go into the fall feeling unprepared.  It causes way too much stress in my day-to-day existence.  Tonight, I'm registering my kids for dance.  Once I have those schedules figured out, I'll be able to set my university office hours.  That's the last piece of the puzzle.

I know none of these things is very interesting to any of my disciples.  That's my life right now, though.  I'm at an in-between place in my year.  No longer summer.  Not yet autumn.  I'm not ready to let go of August, and I'm not ready to grab hold of September.  Limbo.  That's where I am.

Today's Classic Saint Marty finds me in that same limbo.  Between chlorophyll green and frost yellow.

This episode aired almost four years ago, before Saint Marty was Saint Marty.

August 21, 2010:  Saint Pius X

Two days before I start to teach for the fall semester at the university.  The weather has been swerving from grey and raining to cool and sunny to humid and hot all weekend.  It is the end of summer, even though there's still two weeks of August left.  These last days of summer always fill me with melancholy.  I know, I know.  No big surprise.  I usually spend this time planning and preparing the next three months of work for myself.  Read this book this week.  Papers to grade the next week.  Quizzes to create that day.  Reading journals to review the following weekend.  I am no longer free to do what I want.  I have obligations, 50 students depending on me.  Lesson plans.  Schedules.  Deadlines.  Less day.  More night.  Basically, everything that is the opposite of May, June, July, and August.  And don't even get me started on Christmas music and programs at church.  Yes, it starts this early.  You thought Wal-Mart was bad.

It doesn't help that I just started rereading Cormac McCarthy's The Road for class, which is one of the coldest, bleakest novels ever written.  The first time I read it, I was sitting by a pool in the middle of July during a heat wave, and I still found myself getting chilled.  If you haven't read the novel, you should.  It's one of my favorites.  It's about a father and son trying to reach the Pacific Ocean in post-apocalypse America.  They're starving and desperate.  They encounter bands of cannibals who capture and keep people like livestock, harvesting them for food.  The father and son have a handgun with one bullet for protection.  Oh, and the father is dying of some ailment that causes fits of bloody coughing.  This all takes place in a landscape of charred trees and baked earth, where sunlight is a memory and everything and everyone is covered in grey ash.  Constant snow and rain.

So, throw that uplifting piece of literature on top of my already end-of-summer melancholia, and you have the recipe for a pretty shitty day.  I know I should feel blessed in my life.  I mean, I'm an English major with advanced degrees, and I have jobs that don't require me to run a deep fryer.  Let's make it even simpler:  I have jobs that allow me to pay my bills.  In this economy, that's pretty damn good.  I'm feeling sorry for myself when some people I know don't have the money to make their next house payment.  That's pretty fucked up.

I used to look forward to fall and winter, the shortening of the days, the long reach of the night.  I waited for the maple leaves to turn yellow and orange, the evenings to ice the throat when you breathe.  I've always been a lover of the dark.  That may shock some of you.  I never opened windows or curtains in my house.  I was the neighborhood Boo Radley, with kids walking by my property and whispering stories about the crazy English professor who only comes out under the cover of darkness.

Nowadays, I look forward to those long summer days, when the sun is in the sky at 5 a.m. and sticks around until nearly 11 at night.  I like the bright heat, opening windows and airing out the dead moats of autumn and winter.  I crave those dog days when just shifting in a chair from one ass cheek to another can make you break a sweat.  The thing is, in the hot months, I don't have to do anything that makes me sweat.  School's out, and, aside from punching the clock at my second job, I have the freedom to simply...do...nothing.  That freedom comes to a close tomorrow.

I don't do well with things ending, especially things that I've enjoyed, like vacations or friendships or movies or books.  It's a selfish impulse, wanting a happiness to continue forever.  In his last will and testament, today's saint, Pius X, who was one of the first popes of the 20th century, made the following statement:  "I was born poor, I have lived in poverty, and I wish to die poor."  Maybe, because of my mood, I read those words as meaning poverty of body, mind, and spirit.  Right now, I'm clinging to the happiness of the last month or so.  It has been a time of stability and relative peace in my usually chaotic day-to-day.  I've really enjoyed that.  But usually, when things are going that well, the earth shifts, and I find myself in poverty again.

Poverty is not a bad thing.  It brings you back to the basics, makes you realize what wealth really is.  Wealth has nothing to do with the tangible--money or possessions.  It has everything to do with the intangible (peace, love, security, hope), because the tangible always ends up slipping away, like sea water through your fingers.

Cormac McCarthy writes in The Road, "All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain.  Their birth in grief and ashes.  So, he whispered to the sleeping boy.  I have you."  It's a father cleaving to his son.  A man cleaving to something pure, something sacred, something intangible.  It's the way, I imagine, God cleaves to us.

Through pain.  Through darkness.  In light like summer.  That's unchangeable.  That's wealth.

Confessions of Saint Marty

July 31: Last Day

It is the last day of July.  For some reason, I entered this month with the expectation that something big was going to happen for me.  I don't know why I had this expectation, but I did.

The "something big" could have been anything.  I applied for a job at the university.  I entered a few writing contests.  Take your pick.

Well, the university job fell through fairly early in the month, and, as July gives way to August, I think my chances of winning any of the writing contests are about as probably as E. L. James winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Not bloody likely.

Of course, this whole month of "something big" is a fabrication of my mind.  Somehow, I actually convinced myself that my life was going to change in a really positive way.  That's sort of like buying a lottery ticket and making myself believe I'm absolutely going to win.  It's delusional.  By association, I am, therefore, delusional, as well.

July is going out with a whimper instead of a roar.

And Saint Marty needs to be heavily medicated.

At least be better than July

August 1: First Day of a New Month, Things to Do

Well, two months of the summer are done.  I've come to think of August as a "let-down" month, sort of like January.  July is always the busiest month of the summer, because of Independence Day.  In the Upper Peninsula, in the city of Negaunee (one city over from me), we celebrate Pioneer Days, with accompanying parade, fireworks, and drunken night on the town.  After that excitement, August just can't measure up, like January can't compare to the Christmas/Hanukkah of December.  It's a let-down, where you sit at home and wonder what happened to all the fun.

My son, chasing butterflies.  A good August activity.

Regardless of the tedium of this month, I still have things to accomplish today.  I have to mail a letter to my daughter at camp.  I have to submit more poems to publication.  And I have to write a new poem to post later.  I also have to call my coworkers from the Surgery Center where I work to remind them about the potluck we're having tomorrow.  Oh yeah, I have to cook something for the potluck tomorrow.  Then there's the normal answering phones, scheduling surgeries, and stomping out fires.

Shit, Saint Marty has a lot to do.