March 4: Day One, Spring Break, Walter Mitty, "Rye" Dip

Welcome to Day One of Spring Break.  I have twelve hours of work ahead of me, so it doesn't seem like too much of a vacation at the moment.  Granted, I don't have to leave my medical office job in order to teach at the university.  That is a break from my usual daily routine.  But, as you are all well aware, I'm, generally, a glass-half-empty kind of person.  What is going through my mind right now is this:  if I were full-time professor at the university, I would still be in bed, under my quilt, dreaming sweet dreams without care (to borrow a phrase from Dr. Seuss).  Instead, I'm up at 4 a.m., as usual, preparing for a long day of human interaction.

If it sounds like I'm feeling sorry for myself, I'm not.  Well, not too much.  I'm just fantasizing about the good life.  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post on a Friday in which I exaggerated a great deal.  OK, I lied unashamedly.  It was quite liberating.  For a few blogging minutes, I was able to pretend I had the life I've always wanted.  I felt like Walter Mitty with his ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.

I don't think I'm unusual in my Mittyesque musings.  Most people dream during their days.  About winning the lottery or starring in movies or writing bestselling books or winning the Nobel Prize in Literature or finding an intelligent/compassionate Republican.  Some of those fantasies are attainable (writing a book, even if it doesn't hit the bestseller lists).  Other fantasies are just that--pure, unadulterated make-believe (the intelligent/compassionate Republican).  However, human beings need to dream, because, without dreams, life seems pretty hopeless.

As a Christian, I have an edge in the hope department.  I know that hope exists.  There is always light in the darkness.  While I have struggled at times to find that light, I always have.  Of course, in the darkness, I have prayed for unrealistic things sometimes, such as a distant rich relative dying and leaving me a multimillion dollar estate or the MacArthur Foundation awarding me a genius grant.  In my most desperate moments, my prayer always boils down, becomes distilled, simpler:  God, help me, help me, help me, help me.

You may be wondering what all this has to do with  Rye Dip Monday.  Well, I think the questions I ask in my posts on Monday mornings are, sort of, a form of prayer.  They voice my worries and hopes and dreams.  The answers I get from The Catcher in the Rye are just a way of focusing the thoughts and feelings that already exist within me, put there by a Higher Power.

Today, I'm going to keep my question simple:

Will I have a good day?

And the answer from the gospel of Salinger is:

...One of my troubles is, I never care too much when I lose something--it used to drive my mother crazy when I was a kid.  Some guys spend days looking for something they lost.  I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I'd care too much...

That answer seems pretty obvious.  I need to stop worrying, because worry doesn't accomplish anything.  It just makes the worrier feel lousy.  Give all my concerns up to God, and I will have a good day.

The universe is working for Saint Marty's happiness right now.  He can hear its engine running:  ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa...

January 2: A Good-By, Small Moments, Day One

This morning is the first official morning of vacation for me.  Normally, I would be at the office right now, registering patients, putting together charts, thinking about the upcoming weekend.  When I'm at work, I think about being at school.  When I'm at school, I think about being at home.  When I'm at home, I think about being at work.  And when I'm on vacation, I think about the work I would normally be doing at the office.  It's a strange, vicious circle.

I got my kids off to school this morning.  I was actually looking forward to getting up with my daughter when I went to bed last night.  My alarm went off, and I got out of bed, made breakfast for her, and turned on the TV.  Then I actually woke the sleeping beast.  She was tired and cranky and whiny.  She kept saying things like, "I don't want to go to school" and "I'm not hungry" and "I don't feel good."  I responded with things I think every parent has said:  "Well, we all have to do things we don't want to do" and "It's only a three-day week" and "Once you eat something, you'll feel better."  By the end of our time together, she was screaming at me about her shoes and her lunch and the color of the sky and the injustice of the health care system in the United States, and I was dreaming about being at the office.

Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye is being kicked out of his boarding school at the beginning of the novel.  He's standing on top of a hill on campus, trying to figure out how to say goodbye to the place.  He hates leaving somewhere without feeling a sense of closure.  Then, he strikes upon this:

I was lucky.  All of a sudden I thought of something that helped me know I was getting the hell out.  I suddenly remembered this time, in around October, that I and Robert Tichener and Paul Campbell were chucking a football around, in front of the academic building.  They were nice guys, especially Tichener.  It was just before dinner and it was getting pretty dark out, but we kept chucking the ball around anyway.  It kept getting darker and darker, and we could hardly see the ball any more, but we didn't want to stop doing what we were doing.  Finally, we had to.  This teacher that taught biology, Mr. Zambest, stuck his head out of this window in the academic building and told us to go back to the dorm and get ready for dinner.  If I get a chance to remember that kind of stuff, I can get a good-by when I need one--at least, most of the time I can...

It's a tiny moment.  Simple and unimportant.  But it provides the comfort Holden's seeking at this point in the story.  He's able to say his goodbye with that memory in his pocket.

This morning, in the midst of my daughter's drama, my four-year-old son came up to me and tugged on my hand.  "Daddy?" he said.  I looked down at him.  He was in his winter coat and boots.  He backpack was on the floor beside him.  My daughter was shouting in the kitchen.

"What do you want, buddy?" I said.

"Can you come out to the bus with me?" he said, and he smiled.

I nodded, took him by the hand, and walked outside with him.  His bus was waiting.  He gave me a hug and kiss and climbed the steps onto the bus.  I watched him get buckled into his seat.  Then, he started waving at me and my wife.  He kept waving until the bus pulled away from the front of our house.

That is the moment I'm going to hold onto this morning.  I'm going to try to forget my daughter's back-to-school hysterics.  I'm going to think of my son's face, smiling, and his hand waving.  The trust and love of that one, simple moment of goodbye.

Saint Marty's day is off to a good start.

He made it all worth it