June 9: On My Way, Just Keep Swimming, Dreamers

I could go.  I could simply angle off the path, take one step after another, and be on my way.  I could walk to Point Barrow, Mount McKinley, Hudson's Bay.  My summer jacket is put away; my winter jacket is warm.

It's a lovely thought that Dillard has.  Put on a warm jacket, open the door, step outside, and just keep walking.  She goes as far as Point Barrow (wherever that is) and Mount McKinley and Hudson's Bay.  Her imagined escape does not sound easy.  It's steep and treacherous and cold.  Yet, she would be away from her day-to-day stresses, and that is the point.  (She may also fall off a mountain, but that's a subject for a different post.)

Yes, I'm sure everybody thinks about escaping.  Every day, on my way to work, I think how easy it would be to simply keep driving down to the beach by Lake Superior and staying there to watch the sunrise and wait for a moose or deer to walk by.  Maybe another escapee from life would sit next to me in the sand, and we would talk about our dreams.  "Ralph" would listen to me describe a place with books and a desk and a view of a lake or mountain.  How I would sit in that room and read and write poems or stories or the Great American Novel.  Ralph would nod and say, "That sounds pretty damn good."  (As you can tell, I've put a little thought into this escape fantasy.)

Of course, I will never follow through on this desire.  I'm a little too responsible and Catholic.  I would be tortured by guilt and an overwhelming desire to recite ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys as penance if I aimed my vehicle toward the Big Lake on a workday.  I am the main income for my little family.  A day or two off from work sometimes means the difference between making a mortgage payment or not.  Too many people depend upon me.

Please don't think I'm feeling sorry for myself.  I'm not.  I just finished my first week at my new job.  It was good.  I was surrounded by friends, and I felt needed.  My coworkers kept telling me how glad they were to have me back.  I am not complaining.  It's just my inner Dory speaking.  You know the scene from Finding Nemo, where little blue Dory comes gliding by Marlin, and she's singing, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming."  Unfortunately, I'm more of a Marlin than a Dory, worrying about the possibility of every calamity.  Car problems.  Heart disease.  Kidnappers.  A Donald Trump presidency.

So, as much as I would like to spend a day at the beach with Ralph, I will probably be at work tomorrow morning.  Being the good employee and husband and father.  That's what I am.  Dependable.  Responsible.  Predictable.

Marty, the patron saint of dreamers.

Okay, it's the closest I could get to Finding Nemo

April 29: Lots to Do, Sisyphean Task, "Rye" Dip Monday

Where's the chocolate room?

 I feel like Gene Wilder at the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  I find myself walking around this morning, muttering, "So much time, and so little to do!  Strike that, reverse it."

I have to finish the final edits on my chapbook and get that in the mail.  I know I don't stand a chance, but it's nice to have the hope of publication for a little while.  I have two poems that need a little more tweaking.  Aside from that, I just need to format it, slip it in an envelope, and send it on its way.  I've been living with some of the poems in this little collection for over ten years.  It's time to let them go.

Then I have final exams to grade.  Lots of them.  That is the Sisyphean task preoccupying me today.  That and how sore I am from yesterday afternoon's run.  It's a good sore, though.  It's my body saying, "Oh, yeah, that's what that muscle does!"

Then there's my normal, daily work.  Phones.  Charts. Surgical schedules.  More phones.  Yes, I will be busy today.  Busier than I really want to be.  However, it's on days like this that I'm able to accomplish the most.  To paraphrase from another famous movie character (Dory from Finding Nemo), I "just keep working, just keep working, just keep working."

Today is a Rye dip day.  I haven't really given much thought to any question plaguing my mind at the moment.  I mean, there's the standard questions that are always present:

• Will I win the chapbook contest I'm entering?
• Will I get a full-time job at the university?
• Will we have enough money to make it through the summer?
• Will Hannah end up with Adam on Girls?

Maybe I'll just go totally off-the-wall this morning and ask a new question that has nothing to do with publishing or money or teaching or any of my normal obsessions.  Here goes:

Will I win the chapbook contest I'm entering?

OK, I have a one-track mind.  I admit it.  Let's see if Holden is going to actually answer me today.  Flipping through pages.  Flipping.  Flipping.  And the answer is:

Anyway, we danced about four numbers, and then I turned off the radio.  Old Phoebe jumped back in bed and got under the covers.  "I'm improving, aren't I?" she asked me.

So there you have it.  I'm improving.  That means I've improved enough as a poet to win this contest.  (If it seems like I'm pulling that answer out of my ass, I am.  I was determined to get a positive response this morning.)  That contest is in the bank.  Every other entrant might as well send me congratulatory wishes right now.

Saint Marty would like to thank the members of the Academy...

November 15: Ding, Dong, the Essay's Done

I finally finished the Christmas essay.  I e-mailed it to the radio station this morning.  Now, I just have to wait to hear back from them about a time to come in and record it.  That, of course, depends on whether they really want to air it.  It's a little darker than my previous contributions to their holiday broadcasts.  We'll see.  I haven't heard back from them yet, which may indicate they are trying to compose a carefully worded response to me that basically says, "Uh, thanks, but no thanks."

Just getting ready to head out to teach mythology this afternoon.  The myths of Crete today--Minos and Theseus and Daedalus and Icarus.  It ought to be a blast.  And then on to The Bell Jar for tomorrow.  The hits just keep on coming.

I'm trying to keep my head above water, but, sometimes, I start sinking.  I don't think I'm sinking, yet.  Although I did have a dream last night that I was on the Titanic as it was going under.  I wonder if that's significant?

As Dory says in Finding Nemo, Saint Marty's motto right now is "Just keep swimming."

One of my heroes