December 24: Christmas Eve Poem, Surprise for My Kids, "Good Grief"

Just finished wrapping my Christmas presents.  It is almost 3 a.m.  Heard Santa clomping around on my roof a little bit ago.  I will finally be climbing into bed as soon as I'm done typing this late post.

It has been quite the Christmas Eve.  Started early this morning--7 a.m.--making some Christmas cookies for my kids.  After that, it was last-minute Christmas shopping with my son.  Then, home again, home again, jiggety jig, to wrap some presents before heading off to an early worship service at my friend's church, which was awesome and filled me with even more yuletide spirit, if that's even possible,  Then I rehearsed with my family for tonight's Christmas Eve service at my wife's church.  "Mary, Did You Know?"--one of my favorites.  Afterward, home again for more wrapping.  (Are you sensing a theme?  I had a shit ton of wrapping to do today.)  After I was done wrapping, I wrapped some more.

The Christmas Eve service at my wife's church was beautiful and inspiring.  My family did a great job on "Mary, Did You Know?"  And, at the end, we lit candles, turned off the lights, and sang "Silent Night" by candlelight.  That is always one of my favorite moments of every Christmas season.

After church, it was home and wrapping.  Wrapping, Wrapping.  Wrapping.  The Family Stone on TV accompanied by more wrapping.  And then, when I was done with that movie, Love Actually and wrapping.  It has been a long night, but I can't wait to open presents in the morning.  I have a wonderful surprises for my wife and kids.  Stay tuned.

Below is my Christmas poem from last year.  Enjoy.  Tomorrow, I will post my new Christmas essay.

Saint Marty wishes all of you out there a merry Christmas and a long winter's nap.

Good Grief

by:  Martin Achatz

To call something “good,” you must fall

in love with it a little, the way

you fall in love with sardines

or eggplant, the first bite choking,

filling your mouth with salt, spit,

rimming your eyes with the onion

need to blink.  Then a second bite, third,

until eventually you find yourself

awake at 3 a.m., placing Eucharists

of tiny fish on your tongue, massaging

purple flesh until it glows like new

birth.  So invite Grief to dinner.

Let him sit in your father’s empty

chair.  Fill his plate with extra

turkey and cranberries and potatoes.

Ladle gravy over it all.  Then watch

Grief eat like your father used to,

as if the Stock Market is going to crash

in the morning and all that will be left

in the fridge is an apple you find

at the bottom of the vegetable

crisper, its skin shriveled, soft

as the folds under your father’s arms

near the end, when he couldn’t

even lift a straw to his mouth.

Or think of Charlie Brown, choosing

that twig of a tree, how he carried

it home in one hand, raised

like a banner at the beginning

of a Macy’s parade, its needles dusting

the ground like broken glass.  He loved 

that tree with a single red ornament,

placed near the top like a star

or angel, and it stooped, bent down

to earth, loved the snow and ice,

like the infant Christ loved alfalfa, hay.

Like me, leaning over, pressing

my lips to my father’s smooth forehead

the moment after he died.

March 28: Something Very Odd, Two Strange Men, An Ambulance

Arthur and Ford have just been rescued from certain death . . .

They both sat on the pavement and watched with a certain unease as huge children bounced heavily along the sand and wild horses thundered through the sky taking fresh supplies of reinforced railings to the Uncertain Areas.

"You know," said Arthur with a slight cough, "if this is Southend, there's something very odd about it . . ."

Let me tell you how yesterday evening ended.  It was odd, to say the least.  After I finished my Dr. Pepper and berry-something schnapps, I went to bed.  It was around 7:30 in the evening, and I was exhausted from the events of the day.  Really exhausted.  Like asleep-as-soon-as-my-head-hit-the-pillow exhausted.

The next thing I remember is waking up on the living room couch, and two strange men in some kind of uniforms were leaning over me.  One person kept asking, "Can you tell me your name?"  The other person was pulling medical supplies out of what looked like a black tackle box.  My head was pounding, and I couldn't really speak coherently.  I could hear my wife's voice, but I couldn't see her.

It seems that all the stress of the day caused my blood sugar to dip while I was asleep.  A lot.  When my wife and son got home, they tried to get me to eat something.  I couldn't.  My wife called EMS.  By the time the ambulance got to my house, I was going into seizures.  The paramedics tried to take my blood sugar, it wouldn't register, which means that it was lower than 20.

They started an IV of glucose.  After 30 minutes or so, I was able to respond to questions.  Eat the peanut butter sandwich my son had made for me.  Tell the guys I didn't want to go to the hospital to be evaluated. 

It was a fantastic ending to a fantastic day. 

Because of that little diabetic episode last night, I have had a pounding headache for most of the day, and I've felt like I'm pushing through molasses.  As you can probably guess, I didn't have a great day again.  (There were other things that happened at work which contributed to the general shittyness, but I'd rather not get into those.)

I am ready for something good to happen now.  Good news.  Good morning.  Good bowl of oatmeal.  Good poem.  Good grief.  Good heavens.  Good golly, Miss Molly. 

Saint Marty is going to eat something before he goes to bed tonight.  Just in case.

February 20: Good Grief, Good Friend, Good Jazz Leaps

And now Ford Prefect must somehow break the news to Arthur Dent that he's a hitchhiker on a flying saucer and going "home" (back to Earth) isn't really an option . . . 

"Yes," he agreed with Arthur, "no light."  He helped Arthur to some peanuts.  "How do you feel?" he asked him.

"Like a military academy," said Arthur, "bits of me keep on passing out."

Ford stared at him blankly in the darkness.

"If I asked you where the hell we were," said Arthur weakly, "would I regret it?"

Ford stood up.  "We're safe," he said.

"Oh good," said Arthur.

"We're in a small galley cabin," said Ford, "in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet."

"Ah," said Arthur, "this is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of."

Ford struck another match to help him search for a light switch.  Monstrous shadows leaped and loomed again.  Arthur struggled to his feet and hugged himself apprehensively.  Hideous alien shapes seemed to throng him, the air was thick with musty smells which sidled into his lungs without identifying themselves, and a low irritating hum kept his brain from focusing.

"How did we get here?" he asked, shivering slightly.

"We hitched a lift," said Ford.

"Excuse me?" said Arthur.  "Are you trying to tell me that we just stuck out our thumbs and some green bug-eyed monster stuck his head out and said, 'Hi fellas, hop right in, I can take you as far as the Basingstoke roundabout?'"

"Well," said Ford, "the Thumb's an electronic subetha signaling device, the roundabout's at Barnard's Star six light-years away, but otherwise, that's more or less right."

"And the bug-eyed monster?"

"Is green, yes."

"Fine," said Arthur, "when can I go home?"

"You can't," said Ford Prefect, and found the light switch.

"Shade your eyes . . ." he said, and turned it on.

Even Ford was surprised.  

"Good grief," said Arthur, "is this really the interior of a flying saucer?"

Another long day of packing and pitching at the medical office where I work (for the time being).  Packing up medical charts.  Pitching Christmas trees, holiday decorations, and old manuals.  With the help of a good friend/coworker, I managed to eliminate much that would have filled up my garage and sat unused in boxes for years.  It was both depressing and liberating, in a way.  Depressing because 20 years of my life went into trash bins.  Liberating because I allowed myself to let go of items that were sad reminders of my sister.

Let me explain something about my sister:  she was kind of a hoarder.  She never threw anything away.  (My dad was the same way, but he had an excuse:  he grew up during the Great Depression.)  Therefore, I'm not sure that my sister would have been on my side today as I dumped and ditched and discarded.  When I found something that reminded me of my sister, I held it for a few moments, said a prayer of thanks for the good memories it evoked, and then placed it in the trash bag and let it go.  (My friend/coworker taught me to do this, and it helped a great deal.)

Slowly, but surely, I am seeing the life that I've led in this place disappear.  I can do nothing to stop this process.  It will happen with or without me.  Therefore, I must find moments of joy in my day, whether it's discovering some artifact that reminds me of my sister, which happened a lot this morning, or attending my son's dance open house, which I did this afternoon.

Yes, I was once again at the dance studio, this time for my son's jazz class.  I watched him stretch and kick and leap.  In between, he'd look over at me, wave and smile.  It made the difficult parts of my day recede, like waves after a rainstorm.  It was a perfect conclusion to a not-so-perfect Thursday.  Watching my son do something that he really loves filled the empty cup of my heart.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for good friends and jazz leaps.