April 10: "Violets," Celebration to Cessation, Smell the Violets

Mary Oliver on loss . . . 

Violets

by:  Mary Oliver

Down by the rumbling creek and the tall trees--

     where I went truant from school three days a week

          and therefore broke the record--

there were violets as easy in their lives

     as anything you have ever seen

          or leaned down to intake the sweet breath of.

Later, when the necessary houses were built

     they were gone, and who would give significance

          to their absence.

Oh, violets, you did signify, and what shall take

     your place?

The day after Easter.  All the palms have been waved.  The fires and incense have been burned.  Tons of "alleluias" have been sung.  Chocolates and ham and eggs have been consumed.  Now what?

That's always the question after some big event or occasion has concluded.  It's difficult to slip back into the "ordinariness" of life after something extraordinary.  Like December 26, after two (or three) months of buildup, there's a void that's difficult to fill.  The segue from celebration to cessation is jarring, at best, and incredibly depressing, at worst.

That's what Oliver is getting at with her poem today.  When something you deem important suddenly disappears, how do you find a replacement?  For Oliver, it's violets that have been extinguished by houses.  The sweet breath from Oliver's school truancy days is gone.  She will never be able to reclaim it.  It has become memory, gilded with nostalgia.

That's the way it works.  Experience becomes image.  Image becomes narrative.  Narrative becomes story.  Story becomes memory.  Memory becomes legend.  That's why, walking down a street and smelling orange can immediately transport me to Hanauma Bay in Hawaii, sitting on the beach, eating fresh oranges and pineapple with ocean salt on my lips.  Because that smell has forever become a talisman of that experience.  Orange = coral reef + blue water + white sand + cocoanut sunscreen + wife + honeymoon.  Memory equations can get quite complicated. 

Of course, not all memory triggers are comforting.  My sister, Sally, who passed away used to eat Skittles all the time.  She had bags and bags of them in her office.  When her blood sugar was dropping, she would pour Skittles into her mouth and chew them, and the fruity sugar of them would hang in the air around her.  For me, it's not a pleasant smell.  It brings back too many memories of my sister's last months and days.

I am not particularly nostalgic when it comes to Easter celebrations.  I have few strong associations with the holiday.  Lent and Easter mean extra work for me as a church musician.  Lots of music that I'm not particularly fond of playing, and lots of extra worship services that are complicated with lots of different traditions.

All that being said, I do experience a sense of absence after Easter--all the preparation and anticipation suddenly gone.  Like Oliver, I still feel the need to smell the violets, even if I know they've been picked or cemented over or buried.  

The memory of them lingers on for Saint Marty, like the line of a song that rattles around your head for weeks, reminding you of an old friend, a dead relative, a high school prom.

August 23: Sunset at Stonehenge, Justin Runge, "Travelogue"

Today, I talked to someone who recently returned from a three-week-long trip to Europe.  For one of those weeks, he stayed in Paris and walked to a local candy shop every day to buy fresh chocolates.  He also shared pictures of sunset or sunrise at Stonehenge.  I don't remember which it was, and does it really matter?

I have been to Hawaii once.  Florida a couple of times.  New York City twice.  Big Sur for a week-long poetry workshop with Sharon Olds.  I've seen a California beach carpeted with manatees.  Stood on the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, watching the oil still leaking from the wreckage below.

I guess I've seen some pretty amazing things in my life.  No, I haven't been to Stonehenge or climbed the Eiffel Tower.  Or heard the thunder of Niagara Falls.  Maybe I will.  Some day.

That's Saint Marty's travelogue for this evening.

Travelogue

by:  Justin Runge

The boy
waving
at the train
did not
realize he was
waving at me.
Koi-colored
traffic cones
in the river.
How many
know fowl
go underwater
for a second.
Or know,
but forget.
Ornate tattoo
on the small
of the pregnant
woman’s back
says Beautiful.
I am trying
to keep this
poem on Earth.
The train stops
on a part of it
long enough
that I see rust
and we begin to.
Welcome to
Vancouver.

August 21: Syllabi, Best Man, Classic Saint Marty

I am prepared for teaching.  My syllabi are finished, and my first writing assignments are prepared. 
It depresses me a little bit to sit down with a calendar and plan out my life from today until the second week of December.  Basically the rest of the year is contained in the two documents I created this afternoon. 

Not only that, but I took a trip to my kids' dance studio and signed them up for their dance classes for the entire year.  That's a commitment of six days a week for nine months.  Of course, all I have to do is drop off my son and daughter at the studio.  They do all the hard work.  I just have to somehow pay for it. 

There is a bright spot this Sunday.  One of my oldest friends is in town.  Brian was the best man at my wedding.  I've known him for close to thirty years.  We used to direct plays together at a local community theater.  We were so close that most people thought we were partners.  Not in the business sense.  Can't really blame anyone who came to that conclusion.  We were always together.  We directed plays and loved show tunes.  Yes, I know all of these things are cliches, but, if the cliche fits...

Brian teaches at a university in California, but he's led the kind of life that most people only dream about.  He went to school in Hawaii and New Zealand.  In Waikiki, he lived in an aquarium, taking care of the exhibits, feeding the seals and stuff.  He got his doctorate in oceanography in New Zealand and has dual citizenship.  He's a Kiwi and a Yankee. 

That's my friend Brian.  I haven't seen him for a couple of years, not since his recent move to California from The Shire.  Yet, when my sister passed away last year, he was one of the first people who contacted me.  Offered anything he could.  Told me that I could come to California for a vacation.  (He did the same thing when my wife was struggling with bipolar and sexual addiction.  That time, he wanted me to pack up my daughter and move to New Zealand for a while.  I thought about it.)

I'm sure, when I finally see Brian, that there will be questions about my sister.  He knew her well.  This weekend, however, has not been as difficult as I anticipated, and talking with Brian about my sister's death will feel right, like grieving with a brother.

August 22, 2015:  Sunglasses, Maggie Nelson, Invisible Horse, Confessions of Saint Marty

Walking down the street, Ives could not look into anyone's eyes very long without his inward pain bringing tears to his eyes.  He found himself wearing sunglasses all the time, night and day, and oddly, despite the darkness of his spirit, he wore a large crucifix given him by Carmen Ramirez and let it hang on his chest, visible to all.  He remembered sitting for hours inconsolably in his son's room the night after he had died.  He'd sat there examining a Revell model of a man that his son had kept on a shelf, the outer plastic shell transparent, the organs inside visible.  He remembered when his boy, then twelve and wondering if he might one day become a doctor, had asked him to buy that model kit for Christmas.  And when that Christmas had passed, Ives would find his son lying on his stomach in the living room, with a biology textbook open before him, dipping a brush into one or another small jar of airplane-model paint, trying to capture accurately the colors of the organs.  He saw the miniature liver, kidneys, stomach, intestines, and all the rest set into place, and thought about his son.

Ives finds it difficult being around people immediately following his son's death.  Even the smallest gestures or looks from friends or acquaintances or complete strangers bring him to tears.  He tries to build a wall around his heart, but it doesn't take much for that wall to crumble.  His son is with him always, in people, sounds, objects, toys.

I find myself in a similar situation when I go out in public.  If a friend or colleague gives me a hug or says "I'm so sorry," I can feel my walls breaking down.  It's a strange phenomenon.  I can be walking along, confident and strong, and, in the next moment, I'm an open wound.

I'm sure most of you are tired of me writing about this subject.  But I'm trying to understand grief on many levels.  I'm fascinated how I can switch from incredible sorrow to happiness to anger and back to happiness in the space of a few minutes.  It's as if the wires of my brain have been stripped of their rubber sheaths, and now those wires are pulsing and flashing with energy.

I'm sitting at McDonald's right now, a place my sister came to every Saturday morning before she got sick.  Most of the managers knew my sister.  One manager in particular, whose daughter is in the same grade as my son, came out to give all of us hugs.  And the wires snapped and popped and sparked in my head.  I could feel a flood of emotion rising.

Given time, I know these moments will happen less frequently.  I don't think it will ever disappear completely.  As long as I'm working at the medical center, going to places frequented by my sister, I will find her, in the surroundings and people.  I can't avoid it.  My sister is still a part of my life and always will be.  (When I'm working in the medical office, I still hear her voice in my head, telling me how to do things.)

I don't want people to ignore my loss.  There are a few people at work who have done this, and it feels even more alien to me, like watching the Titanic sinking and saying to a friend, "Isn't it a beautiful night?"  I prefer an acknowledgement, however small or uncomfortable.  Somehow, I find some comfort in those tiny exchanges, as if I'm not alone in my loss for a few seconds.  It's how my sister would have wanted it.

And that's Saint Marty's lesson in the anatomy of grief for today.

100 from Bluets

by:  Maggie Nelson

It often happens that we count our days, as if the act of measurement made us some kind of promise.  But really this is like hoisting a harness onto an invisible horse.  "There is simply no way that a year from now you're going to feel the way you feel today," a different therapist said to me last year at this time.  But though I have learned to act as if I feel differently, the truth is that my feelings haven't really changed.

Confessions of Saint Marty

April 21: Hawaii, Garrett Hongo, "Eruption: Pu'u O'o"

I found my mind drifting during the meeting I just attended at the university.  I started thinking about Hawaii.  My wife and I honeymooned there, and, when I'm stressed or depressed or both, I think of Oahu and Waikiki Beach.  I think of snorkling in a bay of coral.  White sand.  Lava thundering into the ocean.

It's one of my happy places.  I go there when I need a break from reality, because that time I spent on the Hawaiian islands seems like a dream.

That's why I chose the Garrett Hongo poem below.

Saint Marty is going back to the beach.  Aloha.

Eruption:  Pu'u O'o

by:  Garrett Hongo

We woke near midnight,
flicking on the coat closet's bulb,
the rainforest chilled with mist,
a yellow swirl of gas
in the spill of light outside.
Stars paling, tucked high
in the sky's blue jade,
we saw, through the back windows
and tops of ohia trees,
silhouettes and red showers
as if from Blake's fires,
magenta and billows of black volleying.
Then, a burbling underground,
like rice steaming in the pot,
shook through chandeliers of fern
and the A-frame's tambourine floor,
stirring the cats and chickens
from the crawl-space and their furled sleep.
The fountain rose to 900 feet that night,
without us near it, smoking white,
spitting from the cone 6 miles away,
a geyser of flame, pyramids and gyres of ash.
Novices, we dressed and drove out,
first to the crater rim, Uwekahuna
a canyon and sea of ash and moonstone,
the hardened, grey back of Leviathon
steaming and venting, dormant under cloud-cover.
And then next down Volcano Road past the villages
to Hirano Store on Kilauea's long plateau.
There, over canefield and the hardened lava land,
all we saw was in each other's eyes--
the mind's fear and the heart's delight,
running us this way and that.

Been there, seen this...

March 6: Booked the Tickets, God's Love Number Seventeen, Fairy Tale Trip

Surprising himself--surprising everybody--Ives had, as he promised, booked the tickets.  All arranged, it seemed a dream, their journey to begin and end in London, and taking them to Ireland, Scotland, and other parts.  They went by rail and by car in September, when the weather was mild.  Interested in the literary ambience, she planned to soak up the atmosphere and allow it to influence her readings of Fielding, Smollett, and Dickens, whose books she brought along.  And she had been working on a children's biography of Dickens, which she hoped Ives might illustrate, so part of their plan was to make like tourists, and the other to go about with sketchbooks and diary, and to absorb the spirit of those places like young students.  They were happy, buoyant--"ghosts," as it were, finally, it seemed, to be left behind them.

Ives takes Annie on this trip, just at the point in their marriage when things seem irrevocably damaged.  After decades of depression, Ives surprises his wife, and everyone else in his life, by booking tickets and hotels.  It's something they dreamed about in their younger days, before the loss of their son.  They wanted to see the world.  Pretend to be expatriates.  Smoke cigarettes in dark, Parisian cafes.  Paint and write until dawn.  That kind of thing.

The last time my wife and I went together on a vacation that required air travel was a trip to New York, three months after the birth of our daughter.  Our daughter is now fourteen years old.  Next year, she'll be a high school freshman.  We've talked about saving up for trips to Walt Disney World and/or Harry Potter World.  We'd like to go back to New York, see some plays, visit Ellis Island.  We simply don't make enough money to "put some aside."

In a couple of weeks, we're going to Madison, Wisconsin, for my daughter's dance competition.  It's going to be over a long weekend.  Leaving on Friday, coming back on Monday.  We'll go to see a movie, maybe.  Hit a nice restaurant to celebrate after my daughter dances.  It will be a lovely time.  I don't know how we're going to finance this journey, but we will.

Tonight, I'm thinking about Hawaii.  My wife and I honeymooned there.  It was the best trip we ever took.  Full of gorgeous ocean sunsets.  Palm trees.  Fresh pineapple.  Coral reefs.  When we left, I vowed to myself that, one day, we'd go back.  I said the same thing when we left New York.  And Walt Disney World.

Travel is wonderful.  Expensive, but wonderful.  But, tonight, what I'm looking forward to most, is putting on my pajamas, curling up on my couch, and reading a book.  My kids are staying at grandma's house tonight.  My wife is working late.  For a few hours, I will be alone.  No obligations.  No crabby patients.  No ringing phones.  It's one of my favorite nights of the week.

And that's God's love number seventeen.  A mini-vacation at home.  Quiet.  Relaxing.  Maybe involving a nap and a piece of cold pizza.

Once upon a time, a farmer named Otis decided to go on a trip to a distant land he'd read about where mermaids sang and nymphs frolicked and fairies granted wishes every day.  Otis packed his donkey and set out, chasing the sunset.

After forty days and nights of travel, Otis met an old woman on the road.  Otis said to the woman, "Ma'am, can you tell me how to get to the land where mermaids sing and nymphs frolic and fairies grant wishes every day?"

The old woman shook her head.  "That place went out of business five years ago."

Otis turned around and went home.

Moral of the story:  always call ahead for reservations.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after. 

Bring on the mermaids!

May 26: Home for the Holidays, Thunderstorms, "Web" Dip

As I'm typing this, I'm listening to Christmas music.  That's right.  I said Christmas music.  I'm one of those weird people who listen to "White Christmas" and "Sleigh Ride" all year long.  No, I don't have some strange Bing Crosby or Rosemary Clooney fetish.  Christmas music just makes me happy.

The sky is getting dark outside my window.  Thunderstorms are moving in for the afternoon.  That's OK.  I like rain.  It's a perfect summer day.  Sunny and warm in the morning.  Humid and rainy in the afternoon.  When I was in Hawaii for my honeymoon, that was the weather every day.  At about 2 p.m., it would storm for a good hour or two.  And it was lovely.  The world was fresh and green-smelling by evening.

It is Monday, and that means it's time for a Web dip.

My question for this Memorial Day is:

Will I ever experience a Hawaiian rainstorm again?

And E. B. White says:

...No pig ever had truer friends, and he realized that friendship is one of the most satisfying things in the world.  Even the song of the crickets did not make Wilbur too sad.  He knew it was almost time for the County Fair, and he was looking forward to the trip.  If he could distinguish himself at the Fair, and maybe win some prize money, he was sure Zuckerman would let him live.

Well, it looks like Wilbur's going to the County Fair, and Saint Marty will eventually go to Hawaii again.

Mele kalikimaka, dude!

February 22: Most Terrific Liar, Gym, Fact From Fiction

I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life.  It's awful.  If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera.  It's terrible.  So when I told old Spencer I had to go to the gym to get my equipment and stuff, that was a sheer lie.  I don't even keep my goddam equipment in the gym.

Lying is something Holden does very well.  He lies to his teachers.  He lies to the mother of one of his Pencey Prep classmates.  He lies to many of the women he meets in New York.   Most of all, Holden lies to himself.  He hasn't dealt with his feelings over his brother's death.  His hands are scarred from the windows he broke the night Allie died.  In this book, which is, basically, a conversation he's having with his therapist, Holden comes cleans about his life and emotions.  For the first time, he's telling the truth.

I thought I would try an experiment on this P.O.E.T.S. Day.  I'm going to lie or exaggerate through this entire post.  If I do it well, you won't be able to tell fact from fiction.  Sometimes, fiction is more interesting anyway.  So, read on, but take everything in this post with a grain of salt, or an entire salt shaker, depending on how full of crap you think I am.

I have nothing to do today.  When I get home from work, I'm going to go up to my office in the attic and read and work on my memoir until it starts getting dark.  Jacinta, our housekeeper, will be busy downstairs cleaning, so I want to stay out of her way.  Perhaps I'll get some Thai take-out for dinner.  I'm feeling a little hungry for something spicy this Friday.

During the course of the afternoon, I'll probably respond to an e-mail I received from J. K. Rowling asking me to look over the manuscript of her new novel.  I can't divulge any of the details, but I will say that it involves a certain character with a scar on his forehead.  Then, I'll return a phone call to Pope Benedict.  He's trying to get me to come to a big retirement party the cardinals are throwing for him, but I'm going to decline.  Partying with those guys in the red beanies is like going to a Weight Watchers buffet.

This evening, I will call Steven Spielberg and wish him good luck this Sunday at the Oscars.  Stevie is a little insecure since Ben Affleck is getting all this attention for Argo.  Just last week, he drunk dialed me at 1 a.m., sobbing into the phone about how "no...bo..dy..li...likes...me..."  I had to remind him of E.T. and Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I told him to snap out of it and check his bank statements versus Ben's bank statements.  That made Steve feel better.

I am so flush with money right now that I'm thinking of booking a vacation in Hawaii.  My wife and I have been wanting to go back since our honeymoon.  Or maybe we'll surprise our friend from New Zealand and show up on his doorstep this weekend.  I'm not sure I want to be around all those Kiwis, however.  The Swedish Academy has been trying to get me to come to Stockholm to deliver a lecture ever since Mo Yan showed up in his rented tux for the Nobel Prize ceremony in December.  It's nice not to have to worry about finances.

Yes, my son is totally potty trained, and my daughter has just been invited to dance the part of Clara in The Nutcracker for the New York City Ballet this coming Christmas.

Saint Marty's life is perfect.

Everybody tells the truth...sometimes