February 1-2-3: Feast of St. Louis of France, Decent Routine, Open Mic

Merton's father returns from abroad:

When he returned to New York, in the early summer of that year, he came in a kind of triumph.  He was beginning to be a successful artist.  Long ago he had been elected to one of those more or less meaningless British societies, so that he could write F. R. B. A. after his name--which he never did--and I think he was already in Who's Who, although that was the kind of thing for which he had supreme contempt.

But now, what was far more useful to an artist, he had gained the attention and respect of such an important and venerable critic as Roger Fry, and the admiration of people who not only knew what a good painting was, but had some money with which to buy one.

As he landed in New York, he was a very different person--more different than I realized--from the man who had taken me to Bermuda two years before.  All I noticed, at the moment, was the fact that he had a beard, to which I strenuously objected, being filled with the provincial snobbery so strong in children and adolescents.

"Are you going to shave it off now, or later?" I inquired, when we got to the house in Douglaston.

"I am not going to shave it off at all," said my father.

"That's crazy," I said.  But he was not disturbed.  He did shave it off, a couple years later, by which time I had got used to it.

However, he had something to tell me that upset my complacency far more than the beard.  For by now, having become more or less acclimated to Douglaston, after the unusual experience of remaining some two years in the same place, I was glad to be there, and liked my friends, and liked to go swimming in the bay.  I had been given a small camera with which I took pictures, which my uncle caused to be developed for me at the Pennsylvania Drug Store, in the city.  I possessed a baseball bat with the word "Spalding" burnt on it in large letters.  I thought maybe I would like to become a Boy Scout and, indeed, I had seen a great competition of Boy Scouts in the Flushing Armory, just next door to the Quaker meeting house where I had once got a glimpse of Dan Beard, with his beard.  

My father said:  "We are going to France."

"France!" I said in astonishment.  Why should anybody want to go to France?  I thought:  which shows that I was a very stupid and ignorant child.  But he persuaded me that he meant what he said.  And when all my objections were useless, I burst into tears.  Father was not at all unsympathetic about it.  He kindly told me that I would be glad to be in France, when I got there, and gave me many reasons why it was a good idea.  And finally he admitted that we would not start right away.

With this compromise I was temporarily comforted thinking perhaps the plan would be dropped after a while.  But fortunately it was not.  And on August the twenty-fifth of that year the game of Prisoner's Base began again, and we sailed for France.  Although I did not know it, and it would not have interested me then, it was the Feast of St. Louis of France.

I sort of feel like Merton's father typing this post tonight.  It has been a long time since I sat down with my laptop to record some thoughts.  I'm sure some of you think that I have lost interest in blogging.  I haven't.  The problem I'm experiencing is one of adjustment.  Since the new semester has begun, I have failed to establish a decent routine for myself, one in which I carve out time for writing.  I've tried getting up early.  Staying up late.  Stealing some moments in the middle of the day.  Nothing has really worked well .

Now, on top of everything else, I'm a little under the weather.  The flu has been running rampant through my coworkers at the medical office, so I am a little anxious about this cold.  I don't want it to develop into a full-blown case of leprosy.  (My partners in the office are already sanitizing pens and phones and keyboards like the CDC in an Ebola zone.)

I sort of wish my situation was a little more like Owen Merton's.  After many years of struggle, Owen returns home as a successful painter.  He's able to support himself and his family with his art.  I have not, and probably never will, be able to do that.  Instead, I will work a series of part-time jobs until I retire, die, or have a stroke.  With my luck, I'll probably die of a stroke on the day I retire at the age of 96.  Not many jobs out there for full-time poets.

Tonight, I'm going to a poetry open mic.  It's one of my favorite things to do every month.  I'm surrounded by poet friends who appreciate what I do.  Poetry rarely puts money in my pocket.  In fact, when I go to poetry readings, I usually end up buying books with the money I have in my pockets.  That's what poets do.  We support each other, celebrate our successes, lend helping hands when necessary.

So, unless I find a rich patron, win the National Book Award or Pulitzer Prize, or inherit a large fortune from a distant rich relative, I will never be able to support my family with my art, like Owen Merton.

Instead, Saint Marty will cobble writing time from stolen minutes during the day, staying up late, getting up early, forgoing lunch or dinner, attending open mics.  And, every once in a while, he'll get exhausted and a little sick.

January 5: Sunrays Slanting, Life of a Poet, Book Club

Thomas Merton's father tries to support his family on an artist's income . . .

I have not doubt that there was a certain amount of conflict between the two generations when Father and Mother determined that they were going to find their own kind of a house and live in it.  It was a small house, very old and rickety, standing under two or three high pine trees, in Flushing, Long Island, which was then a country town.  We were out in the fields in the direction of Kiljordan and Jamaica and the old Truant School.  The house had four rooms, two downstairs and two upstairs, and two of the rooms were barely larger than closets.  It must have been very cheap.

Our landlord, Mr. Duggan, ran a nearby saloon.  He got in trouble with Father for helping himself to the rhubarb which we were growing in the garden.  I remember the grey summer dusk in which this happened.,  We were at the supper table, when the bended Mr. Duggan was observed, like some whale in the sea of green rhubarb, plucking up the red stalks.  Father rose to his feet and hastened out into the garden.  I could hear indignant words.  We sat at the supper table, silent, not eating, and when Father returned I began to question him, and to endeavor to work out the morality of the situation.  And I still remember it as having struck me as a difficult case, with much to be said on both sides.  In fact, I had assumed that if the landlord felt like it, he could simply come and harvest all our vegetables, and there was nothing we could do about it.  I mention this with the full consciousness that someone will use it against me, and say that the real reason I became a monk in later years was that I had the mentality of a medieval serf when I was barely out of the cradle.

Father did as much painting as he could.  He filled several sketch books and finished some water-colors along the waterfront in New York, and eventually even had an exhibition in a place in Flushing which was maintained by some artists there.  Two doors away from us, up the road, in a white house with pointed gables, surrounded by a wide sweep of sloping lawn, and with a stable that had been turned into a studio, lived Bryson Burroughs, who painted pale, classical pictures something like Puvis de Chavannes and who, with some of the gentleness you could see in his work, was very kind to us.

Father could not support us by painting.  During the war years we lived on his work as a landscape gardener:  which was mostly plain manual labor, for he not only laid out the gardens of some rich people in the neighborhood, but did most the work planting and caring for them:  and that was how we lived.  Father did not get this money under false pretenses.  He was a very good gardener, understood flowers, and knew how to make things grow.  What is more, he liked this kind of work almost as much as painting.

Then in November 1918, about a week before the Armistice of that particular World War, my younger brother was born.  He was a child with much serener nature than mine, with not so many obscure drives and impulses.  I remember that everyone was impressed by his constant and unruffled happiness.  In the long evening, when he was put to bed before the sun went down, instead of protesting and fighting, as I did when I had to go to bed, he would lie upstairs in his crib, and we would hear him singing a little tune.  Every evening it was the same tune, very simple, very primitive, a nice little tune, very suitable for the time of day and for the season.,  Downstairs, we would all fall more or less silent, lulled by the singing of the child in the crib, and we would see the sunrays slanting across the fields and through the windows as the day ended.    

Being a poet, I sort of understand the hard-scrabble existence that Merton describes here.  His father, a devoted and talented artist, does what he can to support his family.  He lays out gardens for the well-to-do because it pays the bills and also satisfies his artistic temperament.  And Merton's father is good at the work--knows the ins-and-outs of planting and growing.  Not only that, he enjoys gardening almost as much as painting.

For most of my adult life, I have held down at least two full-time jobs.  I do this out of necessity, not because I enjoy feeling exhausted all the time.  I have bills to pay and a family to support.  I would certainly welcome the opportunity to work just one job.  However, I know that's not in the cards for me, unless some literary agent discovers this blog, recognizes the genius of my writing, immediately contacts a publisher, and the publisher offers me a three-book deal with film options that pays me three million dollars.  Aside from that, it's medical office/teaching/organ playing/church cleaning for me.

I can imagine it was pretty tiring for Owen Merton (Thomas Merton's father).  Gardening can be back-breaking work.  I know that, after a day at the medical office and university, I can't even think about picking up a pen and trying to write a poem.  My weekends are often taken up with other kinds of busyness--cleaning, playing the pipe organ for Mass, grading, lesson planning.  My writing often takes a back seat on Saturdays and Sundays, too.  The best I can do is a blog post, and sometimes not even that.

For example, I started this blog post last night.  I got about half of it written.  Yesterday was Sunday.  I had church in the morning.  It was a difficult service for me because my good, good friend who passed away was the choir director there.  I could barely get through a hymn without crying.  After church, I had to grocery shop, because my book club was meeting at my house.  Had to buy chocolate for the chocolate fountain, bananas, strawberries, marshmallows, a meat-and-cheese tray, and a bottle of wine.  Then, home again, home again.  Put together the book club discussion guide with questions.  (We read Oscar Hijuelos' Mr. Ives' Christmas--a great book, but one without a pre-made book club packet.  Therefore, I had to throw that together.)  Then, I wrapped some Christmas presents for our Secret Santa exchange.  Shovel.  Set out the food.  Run out and buy a bag of ice, because I forgot.  Then, about 5:30 in the afternoon, people started showing up.

I love all the members in my book club.  They are some of my best friends, and have been for many, many years.  We ate, drank, talked about movies, laughed, ate some more, drank some more.  Oh, yeah.  We also discussed the book.  Then we opened presents, picked a new book to read, and called it a night.

After that came the clean-up, which never takes as long as the set-up.  But a good 45 minutes of work getting the house back in order, the dishes washed, and the food put away.  Then, I had to get my son to bed earlier than he's gone to bed for a while, because Christmas vacation ends today.  That was a chore, in and of itself.

Finally, I sat down to blog.  I got to about "Not only that, he enjoys gardening almost as much as painting" and had to quit for the night.  Exhausted.  So, I called it a night, ate a chocolate Santa, and went to bed.

Today, however, begins a week of vacation for me.  No medical office.  No school.  I will have to throw together my syllabuses for next week.  And I have a poem to finish to read at my friend's funeral on Friday.  I'm very thankful for these days of rest before my next five months of insanity begins.  It's a blessing.  And I get to reconnect with some friends whom I haven't seen in a while.

The life of an artist.  The life of a poet.  We all cherish stolen moments of peace.  Sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the January wind in the trees.  Or to a child singing in his crib as sunrays slant across the fields through the windows as the day draws to a close.