July 15, 2025: “Beyond Harm,” Moments, “Hills Like White Sharks”

All lives are made up of small moments strung together to create an experience, all the experiences strung together to create a day, all the days strung together to create a season, all the seasons strung together to create a lifetime.

That’s how it goes.  Some moments/experiences/days/seasons are better than others.  There are seasons in my life I’d love to revisit.  Other seasons are better off left in the past.  But I know that I wouldn’t be who I am right now without all the struggles I’ve faced.  Adversity shapes a person just as much as success.

Sharon Olds gets some late-in-life love from her father . . . 

Beyond Harm

by: Sharon Olds

A week after my father died
suddenly I understood
his fondness for me was safe – nothing
could touch it. In those last months,
his face would sometimes brighten when I would
enter the room, and his wife said
that once, when he was half asleep,
he smiled when she said my name. He respected
my spunk – when they tied me to the chair, that time
they were tying up someone he respected, and when
he did not speak, for weeks, I was one of the
beings to whom he was not speaking,
someone with a place in his life. The last
week he even said it, once,
by mistake. I walked into his room, and said, “How
are you,” and he said, “I love you
too.” From then on, I had
that word to lose. Right up to the last
moment, I could make some mistake, offend him, and with 

one of his old mouths of disgust he could re-
skew my life. I did not think of it,
I was helping to take care of him,
wiping his face and watching him.
But then, a while after he died,
I suddenly thought, with amazement, he will always
love me now, and I laughed – he was dead, dead!

It’s an amazing moment—Olds’ dad letting his guard down, admitting his love, and Olds holding onto his words, afraid they might evaporate like snowflakes in June.  She recognizes that her father has given her an unintentional gift that she keeps opening over and over after he dies.

We all do it, return to cherished memories in times of struggle or sadness.  These last few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about my kids’ childhoods, when most everything was simpler, easier.  Trips to the Wisconsin Dells and Walt Disney World.  Birthdays and Christmases.  Great moments.

The one memory to which I keep returning is watching Zootopia outside, under the stars, at the Boyne Mountain Resort.  My then 17-year-old daughter and I sat close together on a bench, ate popcorn, and just kind of blissed out that August night.  I rarely use the “p” word, but it really was perfect.

Of course, no moment (perfect or shitty) lasts forever.  There have been some rocky paths since.  But, just like nobody can take away the “I love you too” Olds’ father gave to her, nobody can take away that shared movie and popcorn, our fingers and lips coated in buttery salt while the crickets sang.

I keep reminding myself of this temporality.  I may be sad right now because my daughter moved downstate for medical school, but that sadness will be replaced eventually, maybe with joy or surprise or anger.  Who knows?  That’s how life works.  Nothing is permanent.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for today (featuring one of his daughter’s favorite movies) based on the following prompt from July 14 of The Daily Poet:

Today we’re going to burrow like crabs.  To start digging, set a timer for six minutes and freewrite off a randomly-chosen line or phrase.  Examples:  the donut hole is thriving or a cloud stretching a thousand miles. When the chimer chimes, reset it for four minutes and make the last three words you’ve written the first three words of your next freewrite.  Repeat this process two more times (setting the timer for six and then four minutes).  This slight pause and backing up will allow you to go deeper.  Later, extract the best parts of this exercise and turn it into a poem.

Hills Like White Sharks

by: Martin Achatz

I was too young, had to wait three years to see it, long after the Orca sank, Millennium Falcon blasted out of Mos Eisley, Dreyfuss boarded the Mothership at Devils Tower.  By that time, everyone was back in the water, not remembering Quint’s final moments in the shark’s mouth, kicking, punching, screaming like he was throwing a temper tantrum on a playground.  What do I remember about my first time?  Three guys on a boat, drunk, comparing battle scars, singing “Show Me the Way to Go Home,” Robert Shaw monologuing about the Indianapolis with a smile on his face, as if he was on the cusp of delivering a punchline.  But he wasn’t.  It reminded me of the story where a couple sits at a train station, the man talking about letting air in, the woman pleading for him to please please please please please please please stop talking.  Because we’re all just treading water, trying not to drown, while below us something big and hungry wants to shake us, tenderize us, swallow us whole. 

August 11: The Lamp, Lazy Day, My Timetable

Had you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the Pequod's forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they lay in their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a score of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes.

In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman, as he seeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his berth an Aladdin's lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest night the ship's black hull still houses an illumination. See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of lamps- often but old bottles and vials, though- to the copper cooler at the tryworks, and replenishes them there, as mugs of ale at a vat. He burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore, unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral contrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own supper of game.

I have just come to a realization about Moby-Dick:

This isn't really a novel about Ahab and his monomaniacal hunt for the white whale that took his leg.  This is a long meditation on the vocation of whaling and all its elements--the whale, whalers, ocean, cetology, mythology, history.  Ahab's story is just the vehicle for Melville's examination of all things whaling.  Perhaps that's why so many people get frustrated with this book so quickly.  They go into it expecting a 19th-century version of Jaws.  What they get instead is long chapters on whale anatomy and short chapters on whale oil lamps.

Currently, I'm sitting out on the balcony of my room at the Boyne Mountain Resort.  It is a little past 10:30 in the morning, and, for once in my life, I don't have anywhere to go, anything to do.  I can sit out here as long as I want and meditate on the warmth and trees and thrumming cicadas.  Below me, a few minutes ago, a group of people were standing, speaking French.  It sounded as if they were arguing about something.  One woman was scolding a child in French.  I don't know what she was saying to the child, but I could guess it was something like this, "No, we are not going to the water park right now!  We just had breakfast!  Why don't you go for a walk or something and let me relax!"

There is quite the community of people at this place.  At breakfast, I saw a large Indian family--grandparents, mothers, fathers, grandchildren.  Some of them were talking about going on the zip-line tour.  I wanted to warn them about El Diablo, the line where I ended up getting an ass-full of dirt.  I didn't, though.  Last night, we went to a restaurant and dined al fresco.  I heard several different languages--German, French, Spanish, and, I believe, a Russian dialect.  Like I said, this place is fairly international in its clientele.

I have a feeling it's going to be a lazy day.  Nothing to rush to.  No plans.  Just playing it by ear, which is not a practice I usually subscribe to.  I'm a planner.  A list maker.  Generally, I want to know, when I wake in the morning, exactly what my day holds--the places I'll go, people I'll see, things I'll do.  That's me.  My wife will be the first to tell you that I'm a little bit of a control freak about my time.  Don't like being late.  Hate it when people don't follow my timetable, even if they aren't aware of my timetable.

So, vacations can be a little bit of a test for me.  Forcing myself not to plan things out to the last minute.  At breakfast this morning, I got it in my head that I was going to take my daughter and her boyfriend on a nature hike.  I got back to our room, announced, "I think we should go on a hike."  My daughter looked at me with a furrowed brow, and her boyfriend said, "Yeah, no.  I'm going back to bed."  They are now both asleep.  I know my son will not go for a hike with me--he's probably scheming to get back to the water park as we speak.  He's a lot like me.

It seems, despite my best efforts, that my plans include writing two blog posts.  Vacation is sort of like trying to understand Moby-Dick.  It's an exercise in foiled expectations.

Saint Marty is thankful this morning for the challenges of vacation.

August 11: Albert Garcia, "August Morning," Green Contentment

August Morning

by:  Albert Garcia

It’s ripe, the melon

by our sink. Yellow,

bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes

the house too sweetly.

At five I wake, the air

mournful in its quiet.

My wife’s eyes swim calmly

under their lids, her mouth and jaw

relaxed, different.

What is happening in the silence

of this house? Curtains

hang heavily from their rods.

Ficus leaves tremble

at my footsteps. Yet

the colors outside are perfect--

orange geranium, blue lobelia.

I wander from room to room

like a man in a museum:

wife, children, books, flowers,

melon. Such still air. Soon

the mid-morning breeze will float in

like tepid water, then hot.

How do I start this day,

I who am unsure

of how my life has happened

or how to proceed

amid this warm and steady sweetness?

_________________________

It is 11:20 in the morning.  I haven't really accomplished anything, and I'm not really upset about it.

I woke up early this morning and listened to the sounds of my family in our hotel room.  There was a TV playing downstairs.  My sister is an early riser.  My son farted in his bed.  Every once in a while, I heard my wife shift, her sheets rasp.  No sounds from my daughter's room.

That is what August summer mornings should be.  Quiet.  Filled with a green contentment.

Saint Marty could stay on vacation for the next twelve months of his life.

August 10: The Try-Works, Zipline Tour, Gravity

Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly distinguished by her try-works. She presents the curious anomaly of the most solid masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the completed ship. It is as if from the open field a brick-kiln were transported to her planks.

The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the most roomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiar strength, fitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass of brick and mortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in height. The foundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry is firmly secured to the surface by ponderous knees of iron bracing it on all sides, and screwing it down to the timbers. On the flanks it is cased with wood, and at top completely covered by a large, sloping, battened hatchway. Removing this hatch we expose the great try-pots, two in number, and each of several barrels' capacity. When not in use, they are kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are polished with soapstone and sand, till they shine within like silver punchbowls. During the night-watches some cynical old sailors will crawl into them and coil themselves away there for a nap. While employed in polishing them- one man in each pot, side by side- many confidential communications are carried on, over the iron lips. It is a place also for profound mathematical meditation. It was in the left hand try-pot of the Pequod, with the soapstone diligently circling round me, that I was first indirectly struck by the remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies gliding along the cycloid, my soapstone for example, will descend from any point in precisely the same time.

Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the bare masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths of the furnaces, directly underneath the pots. These mouths are fitted with heavy doors of iron. The intense heat of the fire is prevented from communicating itself to the deck, by means of a shallow reservoir extending under the entire inclosed surface of the works. By a tunnel inserted at the rear, this reservoir is kept replenished with water as fast as it evaporates. There are no external chimneys; they open direct from the rear wall. And here let us go back for a moment.

It was about nine o'clock at night that the Pequod's try-works were first started on this present voyage. It belonged to Stubb to oversee the business.

"All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her. You cook, fire the works." This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been thrusting his shavings into the furnace throughout the passage. Here be it said in a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-works has to be fed for a time with wood. After that no wood is used, except as a means of quick ignition to the staple fuel. In a word, after being tried out, the crisp, shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still contains considerable of its unctuous properties. These fritters feed the flames. Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body. Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible to inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must live in it for the time. It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells like the left wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument for the pit.

By midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear from the carcass; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild ocean darkness was intense. But that darkness was licked up by the fierce flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to some vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the bold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight harbors, with broad sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the Turkish frigates, and folded them in conflagrations.

The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship's stokers. With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. As they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul.

So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at last begat kindred visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to that unaccountable drowsiness which ever would come over me at a midnight helm.

But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable) thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The jaw-bone tiller smote my side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of sails, just beginning to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were open; I was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically stretching them still further apart. But, spite of all this, I could see no compass before me to steer by; though it seemed but a minute since I had been watching the card, by the steady binnacle lamp illuminating it. Nothing seemed before me but a jet gloom, now and then made ghastly by flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift, rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered feeling, as of death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped the tiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow, in some enchanted way, inverted. My God! what is the matter with me? thought I. Lo! in my brief sleep I had turned myself about, and was fronting the ship's stern, with my back to her prow and the compass. In an instant I faced back, just in time to prevent the vessel from flying up into the wind, and very probably capsizing her. How glad and how grateful the relief from this unnatural hallucination of the night, and the fatal contingency of being brought by the lee!

Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp- all others but liars!

Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nor Rome's accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true- not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. "All is vanity." ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jolly;- not that man is fitted to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably wondrous Solomon.

But even Solomon, he says, "the man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain" (i.e. even while living) "in the congregation of the dead." Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.

So, the eagle is in the mountain, soaring over all the other birds.  It never gets low enough for the other birds to touch it.  It stays above the fire and smoke, in the sunlight.  That's what this chapter is about.  Ishmael is piloting the Pequod blindly, through the dark.  It's all about defying death.

Greetings from the Boyne Mountain Resort.  I arrived yesterday, spent most of the afternoon climbing up and down water slides with my son and daughter, and then enjoyed a good meal.  It was a lovely way to kick off my vacation.

In about an hour-and-a-half, I'm heading out to do a three-hour zipline tour through the forest.  My daughter talked me into it.  That means that I'm going to be sailing over the trees like the eagle in the passage above.  I'm not completely sold on the idea of soaring above the ground, strapped to a thin metal cable.  In fact, I think that it's kind of an insane idea.  My daughter insists that I'm going to love it.

I am not an eagle.  When I go on an airplane, I usually have to take something to keep myself calm.  The last long airplane trip I took, I had Ativan and alcohol to help me through the experience.  On the downside, I barely remember arriving at my destination.  I was VERY relaxed.  God invented gravity for a purpose--to keep human beings on the ground.

However, for my daughter and her boyfriend, I will allow myself to be strapped into a harness, attached to a cable, and pushed off a platform at the top of a tree.  It's a test of love.

Saint Marty is thankful this morning for alcohol, which he will be consuming after his zipline tour.

August 8: The Cassock, New Shirt, Flood Relief

Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh the windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have seen there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous cistern in the whale's huge head; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower jaw; not the miracle of his symmetrical tail; none of these would so surprise you, as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone,- longer than a Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and jet-black as Yojo, the ebony idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, it is; or rather, in old times, its likeness was. Such an idol as that found in the secret groves of Queen Maachah in Judea; and for worshipping which, King Asa, her son, did depose her, and destroyed the idol, and burnt it for an abomination at the brook Kedron, as darkly set forth in the 15th chapter of the First Book of Kings.

Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and assisted by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners call it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the forecastle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as almost to double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging, to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet of it, towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two slits for arm-holes at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself bodily into it. The mincer now stands before you invested in the full canonicals of his calling. Immemorial to all his order, this investiture alone will adequately protect him, while employed in the peculiar functions of his office.

That office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for the pots; an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden horse, planted endwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath it, into which the minced pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt orator's desk. Arrayed in decent black; occupying a conspicuous pulpit; intent on bible leaves; what a candidate for an archbishopric, what a lad for a Pope were this mincer!*

*Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariable cry from the mates to the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of boiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably increased, besides perhaps improving it in quality.

A few thoughts this evening coming out of this odd little chapter from Moby-Dick.

First, I sort of feel like the mincer this evening.  I sit typing this blog post at McDonald's in Walmart, while my wife is shopping.  I feel like the mincer because I just bought a new shirt from Kohl's.  I don't often go clothes shopping, but, tonight, I am attending a poetry reading that I organized.  It's a fundraiser for communities in the Copper Country part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that were devastated by floods earlier this summer.  I thought that I should look a little more presentable than normal.  Put on a cassock, so to speak, although I am very far from being a bishop or the Pope.

Second, by this time tomorrow evening, I shall be far from this fly-buzzed table in McDonald's.  I will be downstate, at the Boyne Mountain Resort, for a few days of rest and relaxation.  My family and I have made this annual trek for several years now.  It's become kind of a tradition.  Now that my daughter is a senior in high school, this may be one of the last times for us to do this as a family unit.  School and work and life may get in the way next year.  So, this weekend, I plan to relish the time I have with all the people I love.

Third, I've spent most of this past weekend and week in preparation for this little shindig tonight.  I've done radio interviews, engaged in more than my fair share of social media, and cajoled/pressured friends and relatives to show up.  Basically, I've been a pain in the ass to anyone in my vicinity.  I think people would be relieved if I shipped out tomorrow on a whaling ship for a three-year expedition.

That's what's on my mind tonight.  A whole lot of doubt mixed with a smidgen of self-loathing.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight that his friends put up with his insanity.

August 1: Childhood Memories, Keith Taylor, "Prairie Fire"

I have to say that you can't leave all of your problems behind when you go on vacation.  They come with you.  If you are struggling with money, those struggles come with you.  If you have health problems, you still have to take pills.  If you're an addict, you might as well pack a suitcase for your addiction.

That's a simple fact.  I'm currently at the Boyne Mountain Resort on vacation.  We've been coming here for several years in the summer.  It's beautiful, quiet, and a little old-fashioned.  It reminds me of the places I used to go to when I was a kid.  A little touristy, filled with all kinds of families from different places.  Basically, it's an upscale Mackinaw City.  (Those of you who have never been to Michigan will have to Google that reference.)

Childhood vacations have a tendency to move from memory into myth.  The good times seem even better.  The waterfalls seem bigger.  The mountains seem taller.  The amusement park rides seem more dangerous.  Those sepia times are gilded with all the hope that comes with youth.

Saint Marty hopes he gives his kids some sepia memories these next few days.

Prairie Fire

by:  Keith Taylor

                            i.m.:  Donald Taylor

Uncertain about the difference
between his memory and the myth,
the thing he'd been told and what he'd see,
he kept the image of rising clouds
of black smoke looming like dark mountains
to the west, with a flickering skirt
of fire growing larger, noisier,
dancing through the grass toward home.

July 22: Throng of Praise, Boyne Mountain Resort, Nickelodeon

Under the world's conifers--under the creekside cedar behind where I sit--a mantle of fungus wraps the soil in a weft, shooting out blind thread after frail thread of palest dissolved white.  From root tip to root tip, root hair to root hair, these filaments loop and wind; the thought of them always reminds me of Rimbaud's "I have stretched cords from steeple to steeple, garlands from window to window, chains of gold from star to star, and I dance."  King David leaped and danced naked before the ark of the Lord in a barren desert.  Here the very looped soil is an intricate throng of praise.  Make connections; let rip; and dance where you can.

Dillard is all about praise.  She praises God for the whole universe, from the roots in the ground to cosmic dust expanding through the cosmos.  Everything is an opportunity to dance like King David, shake your booty before the ark of the Lord.  It's all a matter of connecting the dots, seeing the picture that emerges, and then celebrating.

Greetings from the Boyne Mountain Resort.  It's been a day of travel and reunion.  The sun was shining, sky so blue it hurt the eyes.  When we stopped at a rest area, my son went wading in Lake Michigan.  When we were walking up from the beach, a lady who'd been watching him in the water said to me, "That reminded me of when I was a little girl on a trip with my dad."

We picked up our daughter in Gaylord, Michigan.  She's been on a trip all week with a friend's family.  There was a water park, a bowling alley, an arcade.  She went to a music museum and learned what a real nickelodeon was (not the cable kids' channel, but a nickel jukebox).  Yet, when she was sitting next to me having lunch, she said, "I was like homesick on Tuesday."  She missed us.  Amazing.

We are in a condo right now that has a private hot tub.  We went water parking tonight, and then we just walked around.  My daughter got thirsty, so I went up to little outdoor bar and asked if I could have a cup of water.  He didn't have cups of water, but he reached into his refrigerator and took out a bottled water.  I shook my head and said, "I don't have money to pay for that."  The bartender smiled and said, "Naw, man.  Don't worry about it.  Have a great night."

Are you getting the picture?  I encountered moments of grace all day long.

So Saint Marty is dancing tonight, shaking it for all the day's goodness.