June 2: "Red," Roadkill, Ghost

Mary Oliver sees red . . . 

Red

by:  Mary Oliver

All the while

I was teaching

in the state of Virginia

I wanted to see

gray fox.

Finally I found him.

He was in the highway.

He was singing

his death song.

I picked him up

and carried him

into a field

while the cars kept coming.

He showed me

how he could ripple

how he could bleed.

Goodbye I said

to the light of his eyes

as the cars went by.

Two mornings later

I found the other.

She was in the highway.

She was singing

her death song.

I picked her up

and carried her

into the field

where she rippled

half of her gray

half of her red

while the cars kept coming.

While the cars kept coming.

Gray fox, and gray fox.

Red, red, red.

If you live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, you have seen roadkill.  If you have lived in the Upper Peninsula for any length of time, chances are good that you have been responsible for causing roadkill.  I've lived most of my life in the U.P., and I have taken out a few animals--a rabbit, deer, and squirrel.  I have come close to eliminating a few skunks, but, thus far, I've avoided that particular species, thank goodness.

Recently, I've noticed a plague on roadkill deer on the highway as I drive to and from work.  When the weather warms up, the deer start moving.  Happens every year.  Eventually, as the summer progresses, deer are replaced by skunks and raccoons as the most common victims of animal vehicular homicide in the U.P.  When major highways are bordered by forests, roadkill happens.  Period.

Don't worry.  I'm not going to post a picture of the bloated deer carcass I've passed every day this week.  I'm dark, but not that dark.  When you hit any kind of animal with your vehicle, there will be damage.  Sometimes major damage, depending on the size of the creature.

I once owned a Mercury Sable.  It was dependable and in really good shape, even with over 100,000 miles on it.  The week after I made the last payment on that car, I was driving to work at around 5:30 a.m.  It was late June/early July, and the sun still hadn't made an appearance.  I was listening to a CD (this was before Bluetooth was a thing).  I never even saw the deer bounding across the highway.

My headlights caught a flash of brown, followed by the impact.  The Sable jerked, crunched, and then sputtered.  It happened so fast, I didn't have time to react.  The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the side of the road with my car's engine in a death rattle.  

Within a minute or so, there was a Michigan State Police cruiser behind me, its lights flashing.  The officer got out of the car, approached the driver's side window, which I rolled down.

"Are you okay?" the trooper asked.

"Yes," I replied, sounding a little more confident than I actually felt.  My hands were still shaking.

"Do you know if the deer is dead?"

I looked up at the trooper.  "No," I said, "but if it isn't, let me know.  I'll back up and run over it again."  I noticed the trooper's troubled expression.  "I'm sorry," I sighed.  "I just paid this car off, and I'm a little pissed."

The trooper nodded.  When I handed him my license, registration, and proof of insurance, he said, "As long as you're okay, I'm going to ask you to stay in your car until I check on the animal."  This guy thinks I'm batshit crazy, I thought to myself.

The trooper went back to his cruiser and sat in it for a few minutes.  Then, he emerged with a flashlight, and I saw him scanning up and down the side of the road, looking for the deer I'd hit.  

The deer was nowhere to be seen.  Either it was thrown far into the woods by the impact with my Sable, or it wasn't that injured and had continued running.  It was g-o-n-e.

The trooper came back to my car and handed me my documents.  "Is your car drivable?" he asked.  I turned the key in the ignition.  The engine roared to life, but sounded like a dying water buffalo.  I drove the car slowly up the highway into a parking lot.  "I'll call you a tow truck," the trooper said.

Within a half hour, the tow truck came and hauled my Sable away.  My dad came to pick me up and drive me to work.  Later that day, I found out that the car was totaled.  It was a shitty day, all 'round.  So, what did I do?  My wife and I went to Red Lobster for dinner.  I ordered four gin and tonics, and, when the server brought my meal, I asked him to box it up for me to take home.

Within a week, I was driving a new car.  A Ford Freestyle.  Another great vehicle.  

However, for the rest of the summer and well into the autumn, I kept on seeing shadow deer on the sides of roads.  If I was driving late at night or early in the morning, I swear brown ghosts were jumping in and out of my headlights.  Perhaps I was suffering from a little PTSD.  Or maybe the spirit of the deer I struck that summer was haunting me.  Punishing me for its untimely death.

I still am hypervigilant when I am driving through particularly remote areas, surrounded by a lot of fields or trees.  I have just enough memory of that lightning bolt of brown in my headlights to be cautious.

One morning, several years later, I was again driving to work early in the morning.  This time, it was late fall.  The heavens were filled with stars and moonlight.  As I came around a bend in the highway, I saw a deer not 20 feet ahead of me, standing directly in the middle of the road.  I slammed on my breaks and heard them scream against the asphalt.  My car came to a stop about five feet from the deer.

And the deer just stood there.  It didn't move or twitch.  In fact, it seemed hardly spooked at all.   It just stared at me, as if it somehow recognized who I was.  I sat in my car, wondering if the creature was going to charge at me.  After what seemed like an hour, the deer slowly trotted off the road and into the trees.  Its white tale bobbed into the darkness like a will-o'-the-wisp.  And then it was gone.

It wasn't the same deer I hit years earlier.  That was impossible.  But that animal wasn't afraid of me or my car.  In fact, it seemed somehow to recognize me and wanted to give me enough time to observe its swan neck, sleek torso, and elegant flanks.  It was beautiful, whether it was from this world or the next.

And that is Saint Marty's roadkill ghost story.

December 25: Her Lightness, Christmas Day, "Christmas Roses"

Santiago knows he has to stay strong . . . 

Now, he thought, I must think about the drag. It has its perils and its merits. I may lose so much line that I will lose him, if he makes his effort and the drag made by the oars is in place and the boat loses all her lightness. Her lightness prolongs both our suffering but it is my safety since he has great speed that he has never yet employed. No matter what passes I must gut the dolphin so he does not spoil and eat some of him to be strong.

No matter what, the old man realizes he has to eat in order to finish the battle with the fish.  He has to be stronger than his adversary.  That's what life's all about, I guess.       

 For the past two days, my adversary was a Christmas blizzard.  It started on December 23 and pretty much raged until early Christmas morning.  According to the National Weather Service, we received about 27 inches of snow.  The worst part, however:  the winds.  Sixty to 70 miles per hour at times.  There were hip-deep drifts in my driveway yesterday afternoon.  All the Christmas Eve church services but one were cancelled.  (Catholics never cancel.  They just wrap a rosary around their fingers, get in the car, and let Jesus take the wheel.)

Despite all this, Christmas came.  On Friday, as the storm was really ramping up, my wife's side of the family gathered for an Italian smorgasbord and gift exchange.  Christmas came.  Last night, I drove through the snow-clogged streets of my little hometown and played the pipe organ in the church I grew up in.  My wife and son sang "O Holy Night" together, and one of my best friends came up to the choir loft and celebrated with us.  Christmas came.  And today, it was presents and family and games and Christmas movies.  Christmas came.  

Christmas always comes.

I know that I have been mostly absent from this blog for a good portion of the year.  I have been struggling for many months with sadness and anxiety.  At a time when writing about my thoughts and emotions in blog posts would have been therapeutic, I just couldn't do it.  Most times when I got home at night, I found myself too exhausted from just . . . functioning.

Yet, this December has been full of blessings.  My daughter turned 22 years old at the beginning of the month, and we had a wonderful, late party for her on her birthday.  She has become such a beautiful, caring, poised young woman.  Blessings.  My son has been thriving at his new school, winning awards and maintaining all A's.  I haven't seen him this happy in years.  Blessings.  I have a wife who struggles with mental illness, but she never gives up.  She gets out of bed every morning, goes to work, and loves us all fiercely.  Blessings.  I have a job I love at a library, and friends who care about me deeply.  Blessings.

I did a fundraiser this December for the U. P. Poet Laureate Foundation.  For a donation of seven dollars, I wrote personalized poems for people to give their loved ones for Christmas.  When I conceived the idea, I thought I would receive, at most, ten or 15 requests for poems, mostly from friends and family.  After all, we're talking poetry, the subject that drives fear into the hearts of most school-age kids and causes PTSD (that's Poetry Traumatic Stress Disorder) in adults.  How many people want the gift of poetry for Christmas?

The answer:  44 people.  That's right.  In the space of about 17 or so days, I wrote an entire book of poems.  And it was a blessing.  People entrusted me with their stories of love and loss and grief.  It was both an honor and a huge responsibility.  I'm not sure if I rose to the occasion every time, but I tried the best I could.  And over the last 24 hours, people received my poems as Christmas presents.  Blessings, I hope.

Despite my ongoing struggles, I was able to write those poems.  I was able to write my annual Christmas essay, as well.  I struggled with that project for close to five months.  False starts.  Blazing inspiration that quickly fizzled.  Frustrations.  The essay slowly took shape.  I recorded it on December 13 for Public Radio.  I included it in my annual Christmas letter.  It seems to have had strong impact on many people this holiday season.  Blessings.

As the above passage from The Old Man in the Sea touches on, when facing a difficult adversary (a really big fish, a blizzard, a half-year depression), you just can't give up.  And there are blessings all around you.  

This Christmas night, I give thanks for all the blessings I received this December.  They have been multitude.  We are past the solstice.  The planet is slowly tipping back to light, and I will embrace each extra second of sun in the coming days.  Because darkness never wins.

I wish all of you a blessed Christmas.

Saint Marty's Christmas essay . . . 

Christmas Roses

 Dear Santa,

This letter will not be easy to write.  Or is not easy to write.  Or wasn’t.

I guess it all depends on when you’re reading it, what path of time you’ve traveled in order to receive these words.

Maybe this letter is just a thought, flashing from one synapse in my brain to another as I sit beside my sister Rose’s hospital bed, listening to her lungs take one-two-three-four more bites of air before shutting down quietly, the way autumn shuts down when that first snowfall pixilates the world into winter.

Or maybe I’ve already written this letter, left it on my dining room table next to a plate of thumbprint cookies and mug of eggnog on December 24^th, the hard work of scratching words on a piece of paper done.  Because I can’t imagine a world where you and your sleigh aren’t called to flight by my sister’s belief.  How she would spend hours conjuring you with pen each Christmas Eve, starting with that initial incantation:  “Dear Santa.”

I am surrounded by Christmas Roses.  From eight-month-old Rose in my stubborn mother’s arms:  a baby with an extra chromosome facing a world that doesn’t believe in her.  To the Rose who can barely speak, her brain plaqued with Alzheimer’s, whose Christmas gift to me is a smile after a forkful of baked ham.

I’m shuttling back-and-forth this year, watching Christmas in time lapse, Rose growing old and young again, budding and blossoming, withering and dropping petals, then retreating to seed and promise in the universe of our mother’s belly.

No matter what theory of time travel you believe or don’t—Einstein at the speed of light stretching a second into a century, Rod Taylor saving Yvette Mimieux from the clutches of the Morlocks in The Time Machine, or Emily Webb haunting her childhood in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town—we’re all subject to the passage of minutes and hours and days and years.  Our lives all episodes in The March of Time newsreels, Westbrook Van Voorhis narrating each breath and war, each plague and Christmas ginger snap. 

I know in these Santa letters, authors usually proclaim how good they’ve been over the past 365 days and then provide catalogues of Christmas wishes, from the material to the ethereal.  New iPhones and Nintendo DS5s.  World peace.  Good health for an ailing mother.  That’s how it works.  Has worked.  Will work.  Wishes are just alternate universes for each wisher.  Ones where the wisher has traveled backward or forward to change some string of time.  Stop grandpa from smoking two packs a day.  Say “yes” to that boy in high school who asked you to the Holiday Formal.  Buy your son that God of War computer game.  Hold your dead sister’s hand one last time.

Santa, I know that, in one of these threads of time, you’re reading a note left for you by one of these Roses on Christmas Eve.  She’s been a good girl.  She always is.  Was.  Will be.  And she wants new ballpoint pens to write letters with.  Stationery.  Hubba Bubba bubblegum, as many packs as you can spare.  Another Santa reads that Rose misses our father and mother, hopes God is letting them win a few hands of gin rummy.  To a third Santa she writes that I wouldn’t let her drink another Diet Coke after dinner, and maybe he should take one present away from me.

In all of these Christmases, you exist/did exist/will continue to exist for me because all the Roses still exist—providing the plutonium for Marty McFly’s DeLorean, phone number for Bill and Ted’s next excellent adventure.  Through all the years of her life, Rose’s belief in you never failed.  Never fails.  Will never fail.  There was/is/will be cookies and milk left on the dining room table for you every Christmas Eve as sure as the moon turns Teal Lake silver on August nights and geese chase the sun across the country when frost pinches the air toward winter.

In the play Our Town, the main character, Emily Webb, dies in Act III, ending up in the town cemetery, surrounded by ghosts.  One of those ghosts is her mother-in-law, Mrs. Gibbs.  When Emily declares she’s going to travel back to a happy time in her life, Mrs. Gibbs tries to talk her out of the idea.  Emily remains determined, so Mrs. Gibbs cautions her:  “At least choose an unimportant day.  Choose the least important day in your life.  It will be important enough.”

I’ve reached that point in my letter where I’m supposed to tell you what I want for Christmas.  I want a time machine, like the one Rod Taylor rode, past to present to future to present again, with its upholstered Victorian chair, spinning sundial, flashing lights, and throttle stick capped in crystal.  So I can return like Emily to the least important day of my life.  Emily chooses her twelfth birthday.  Maybe I’ll choose my twelfth Christmas.

It had been snowing for several days, but the snow stopped that morning.  The sun came out, making the world so white it was hard to look at.  My dad, young and flinty as steel, sat in his chair, sipping his third cup of thick, black coffee.  My mother, her hair only slightly peppered with gray, was in the kitchen, pulling the ham from the oven, its back studded with cloves.  On the couch, Rose ogled the gigantic pile of presents spilling across the living room floor, trying to find ones with her name on it.  Slowly, my other siblings appeared, pulled by the smell of the ham or the voice of Willie Nelson on WJPD, twanging, “Pretty papers, pretty ribbons of blue . . .”

They all look so young and beautiful and happy.  Yet, they don’t know it.  It’s just another Christmas for them.  Another of my mother’s gingered hams.  Another December filled with snow.  Another December 25^th when Rose asks over and over, “Can we open presents now?”  Just like Emily in Our Town, I can’t look at everything hard enough.

Part of me wants to hold each one of them for a long, long time.  Tell them how this life we know goes so fast, and we never really look at each other or notice all the little things of each and every day. 

But Rose.  Somehow, she saw and knew what we all didn’t or couldn’t know.  The smell of coffee.  Our mother’s homemade bread.  The clock chiming on the dining room wall.  Old Hank Williams songs on the radio. Dad spreading mustard on his ham sandwich.  Mom humming along to Judy Garland.  The furnace ticking one, two, three times before rumbling to life.  The poinsettia from Midnight Mass sitting in the middle of the dining room table, surrounded by plates of spritz cookies and snickerdoodles.  Going to sleep at night, and waking up to the gift of another day.  The tinsel and wrap of each and every moment.  Rose knew.  Believed in a world where reindeer can fly faster than starlight. 

Perhaps that’s my real Christmas wish this year.  I don’t need an H. G. Wells time machine.  A nuclear-powered DeLorean.  An omnipotent Stage Manager with a pocket watch.  I just need a Christmas Rose to remind me how truly wonderful the world was.  Is.  Will always be.

And a cookie.  The good kind—peanut butter with a Hershey’s kiss pressed into its center.  They were always her favorite.  I’ll sit down, put that cookie in my mouth, feel Rose’s arms reach across time to wrap around my shoulders.  I’ll hear her voice in my ear, asking if she can have one more Diet Coke.  Because it’s Christmas Eve.  And Santa is coming to take her to the North Pole, where our mother and father are waiting for her to open presents.

With love,

Martin

October 7: A Blessed Life, Panic and Doubt, Classic Saint Marty, "The Omelet"

Can I tell you that I've had a really great birthday weekend?

Last night, I took my son to see The House with the Clock in Its Walls, which was surprisingly good.  My son has been talking about this movie since the first trailers came out.  Jack Black is always entertaining, even in bad films.  He has a similar kind of manic energy that Robin Williams and John Belushi had.

This morning, I went to two church services.  One of my good friends invited me to the 9 a.m. worship at her church.  She and her son play in the praise band.  It was like a Christian rock concert, replete with lights, fog, and banging loud music.  My son loved it.  Then, I went to the worship service at my wife's church for World Communion Sunday.  Different vibe, but still inspiring.

Now, I'm getting ready for the coming week.  Something happened a little while ago that is sort of playing on a loop in my head right now.  Can't turn it off, and it's bringing me down.  The past (especially a fairly traumatic time from the past) has a way of popping up every once in awhile to haunt you.  Don't worry.  I'm not in harm's way.  I just can't push it out of my mind, and it's making me crazy.

I know that I lead a blessed life.  I know that.  My health is pretty good.  My kids are smart and beautiful.  My wife just threw me a great surprise birthday party.  I have jobs that pay the bills (for the most part).  Lots of friends who care about me.

Yet, memory has a way of triggering the worst kinds of moods.  I don't know if it's post traumatic stress or what.  I have never had a positive memory trigger, been overcome and obsessed about the best times of my life.  The births of my daughter or son.  My wedding day.  Being named Poet Laureate.  No, my memory triggers fill me with panic and dread.  They sit in the pit of my stomach, perch on my forehead.  Caw and screech and growl.  That's what I'm experiencing right now.

My sister is cooking prime rib for me tonight.  Mashed potatoes.  Dinner rolls.  And tapioca pudding.  My favorite things.  I'm trying to push this wave of anxiety away and enjoy this family birthday dinner.  It's getting easier.  I spoke with my wife about it a little while ago, and she was able to make me less anxious.

Now, you disciples reading this are probably thinking that I'm a basket case.  Confession:  I frequently am.  I can go from panic to self doubt to Hershey kisses to panic in the space of about five minutes.  This is normal for me.

A year ago, I was also celebrating my birthday and counting my blessings.  No panic involved . . .

October 7, 2017:  Silent Film, Richly Blessed, This Little Light

The guards drew together instinctively, rolled their eyes.  They experimented with one expression and then another, said nothing, though their mouths were often open.  They looked like a silent film of a barbershop quartet.

"So long forever," they might have been singing, "old fellows and pals; So long forever, old sweethearts and pals--God bless 'em--"

Have to apologize for my absence last night.  I was not bunkered down, waiting out a fire-storm.  I was at the monthly poetry workshop I lead at the Joy Center in my home town of Ishpeming, right in the heart of the Upper Peninsula.  There were lots of old pals and colleagues there.  We wrote about ghosts, watched one of my favorite haunted house movies (The Changeling), and ate.

You know, I have realized this Saint Marty's Day that I have been richly blessed this year.  So much good has happened in my life.  If I were in a silent film of a barbershop quartet, the subtitles would probably be the lyrics of "This Little Light of Mine" or Pharrell Williams' "Happy."

I know I'm sounding very Up With People, but I have been very lucky this year, connecting with new friends and reconnecting with old ones.  That has been one of the greatest blessings of being chosen Poet Laureate.  I get to go places, read poems, talk about poetry, and meet wonderful people all over the Upper Peninsula.

Of course, there are still troubling things happening in the world--locally, nationally, and internationally.  So much division and strife.  These last couple days, there was a registered nurses' strike at the local hospital.  Good people, walking a picket line to make the community a better, safer, healthier place.  And, of course, there was Las Vegas this week.  Donald Trump.  Brexit.  North Korea.  There are plenty of things to worry about, and I'm not ignoring them.

However, for today, I'm going to watch my silent film, read the subtitles, hum a song.

Sing with Saint Marty:  "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..."

And a happy poem for this evening.  I swear. . .

The Omelet

by:  Martin Achatz

The Omelet

I had an omelet this morning,

With scallions and mushrooms and grated

Monterey Jack cheese.  It was so good

I wanted to take a picture of it,

Wanted to fall on my knees, right there

In the crowded dining hall, and say

A rosary for it.  I wanted to push

My way back into the kitchen,

Worship at the feet of Ruth, the aproned

Chef who had created it

In less than two minutes, scraping

Her spatula back and forth over

Her hot, stainless steel palette.

Watching her create that omelet made me

Believe in the Book of Genesis,

That God could create the world

In six days flat and then sit back

And view us like a National Geographic

Special on Sunday morning.

Seeing Ruth work, I couldn't understand

How people denied the existence of God:

Here she was, serving up two-minute

Breakfast miracles for everyone.

If I could serve this omelet

To the entire Middle East, the suicide

Car bombings, the need for guns,

Missiles, and armies would vanish

In a single bite.  An Omelet Peace

Accord would take place, the entire

Planet joining hands to sing

Psalms and dance with timbrels and drums.

Yes, the omelet was that good.

When I go to church this coming Christmas,

While the congregation kneels,

Gives thanks for a baby

Served up with a side of hay

In a manger, I will give thanks

For scallions and mushrooms

And Monterey Jack cheese, for folded and melting

Frankincense, gold, and myrrh.

Two of the biggest blessings in my life . . .

October 10: Face of the Moon, PTSD, Middle of the Night

The guards told the Americans to form in ranks of four, which they did.  Then they had them march back to the hog barn which had been their home.  Its walls still stood, but its windows and roof were gone, and there was nothing inside but ashes and dollops of melted glass.  It was realized then that there was no food or water, and that the survivors, if they were going to continue to survive, were going to have to climb over curve after curve on the face of the moon.

Which they did.

This is Billy in the aftermath of the bombing of Dresden.  The city has been completely annihilated by American and British planes.  Fire has consumed everything.  The streets and buildings and people.  Billy and his fellow prisoners of war are practically the only survivors walking upright and unharmed.  They are the lucky ones.

Of course, most people who survive this kind of experience suffer, to a greater or lesser degree, some kind of post traumatic stress.  Vonnegut did.  I think Slaughterhouse was his attempt to exorcise what he saw in Dresden.  As a prisoner of war, Vonnegut spent the weeks following the bombing climbing into the basements of wrecked buildings to retrieve corpses.  The corpses were put in piles and burned.  That'll fuck up anybody for the rest of their lives.  Or make them into really fantastic writers.

I have been pretty lucky in my life.  I haven't really experienced anything that would cause me to suffer PTSD.  Sure, in the weeks following my sister's death, I kept seeing and hearing her all over the place.  I saw her walking across the parking lot when I was at work.  I heard her voice as I drove home at night.  I don't think that really qualifies as PTSD.  I was haunted for quite a while, that's for sure.

However, several years ago, a guy broke into my house in the middle of the night.  I found him standing in the dark in my kitchen.  I said, "Hello?"  And he said, "I was looking for a friend."  When I reached for the light, he bolted out of the back door. 

For weeks after that night, I couldn't go to sleep without triple checking all the doors and windows of the house to make sure they were locked and bolted.  I still do that every night.  I look in the back seat of my car before I open my door.  In the middle of the night, if I have to go to the bathroom, I can feel my heart start beating a little faster. 

That's nothing, though. compared to military veterans who come home from war.  Police officers and firefighters who risk their lives.  Survivors of violent crimes like rape or assault.  These people are true heroes who suffer on a daily basis because of their horrible life experiences. 

My own experiences give me just a little bit of insight into the struggle of PTSD.  It's debilitating, makes you relive the worst times of your life over and over and over and over.  Like Billy Pilgrim unstuck in time.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful for anybody who suffers from PTSD.  They are brave people, each and ever day of their lives.

October 4: Magic Fingers, PTSD, Joy Harjo

Billy went into his bedroom, even though there were guests to be entertained downstairs.  He lay down on his bed, turned on the Magic Fingers.  The mattress trembled, drove a dog out from under the bed.  The dog was Spot.  Good old Spot was still alive in those days.  Spot lay down again in a corner

Billy is recovering from a moment of PTSD.  As I've said in recent posts, Slaughterhouse is a book about PTSD that masquerades as science fiction and social criticism.  Billy is unstuck in time, constantly reliving his wartime experiences.

I only have a few moments this evening for reflection, on PTSD or war or science fiction.  All of those subjects are up for grabs with this little passage.  However, in a little over an hour, I will be teaching my evening class.  First semester composition.  Three hours and some minutes long.  I still need to eat dinner, meet with a colleague about online teaching, and carry some books out to my car. 

This week has been flying by.  Tomorrow is Saint Marty's Day.  Tapioca and Diet Mountain Dew for everyone.  My holiday celebration is going to include a Joy Harjo poetry reading, followed by a Joy Harjo book signing.  At the moment, however, I'm so tired that I feel like I could fall asleep right now and not wake up until next October 5th. 

If I had a bed with Magic Fingers, I would flip the switch, lay down, and let my mattress tremble me to oblivion.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for caffeine and pizza.

October 2: Pulled Apart Inside, PTSD, Truth in Writing

The barbershop quartet sang again.  Billy was emotionally racked again.  The experience was definitely associated with those four men and not what they sang.

Here is what they sang, while Billy was pulled apart inside:

 'Leven cent cotton, forty cent meat,

How in the world can a poor man eat?

Pray for the sunshine, 'cause it will rain.

Things gettin' worse, drivin' all insane.

Built a nice bar, painted it brown;

Lightnin' came along and burnt it all down:

No use talkin', any man's beat,

With 'leven cent cotton and forty cent meat.

'Leven cent cotton, a car-load of tax,

The load's too heavy for our poor backs . . . 

And so on.

Billy fled upstairs in his nice white home. 

Of course, what Vonnegut is writing about here, and through all of Slaughterhouse, is post traumatic stress.  Like Vonnegut, Billy survived the firebombing of Dresden, saw horrible things.  Schoolgirls boiled to death in a water tower.  Basements filled with burned bodies.  An entire city of people wiped off the face of the planet.  So, what is Billy's reaction?  He becomes unstuck in time.  He jumps back to Dresden, forward to the planet of Tralfamadore, back to his home in Ilium.  The past is always with him, causes him to become unhinged without warning.

I watched a documentary on the life of Vonnegut this afternoon, and the narrator of the documentary was very clear in his belief that Vonnegut suffered from PTSD for most of his life after his return at the end of World War II.  He was haunted by what he witnessed in Europe, and in Slaughterhouse, he found a way to write about it that made sense to him.  The book also gives insight into what living with PTSD may be like.  A constantly shifting and unstable reality.

I think most writing is about writers trying to come to terms with some life event.  For Vonnegut, it was the bombing of Dresden.  For Faulkner, it was Southern racism and racial violence.  For Sylvia Plath, it was mental illness.  For some writers, that work is a form of therapy.  Vonnegut lived into his eighties.  For other writers, it's simply a record, too late to do any good for the author.  Plath committed suicide.

I'm not sure what my writing is.  Sometimes my blog posts and essays and poems help me deal with difficult emotions and situations.  I wrote a poem this weekend that was in the form of a blessing.  When I was done with it, I felt very much at peace.  I slept well Saturday night.  I am not a confessional poet, like Plath.  My poems are not my life on the page.  My poems are true without necessarily being "the truth."  I don't know if that makes any sense.

For Vonnegut, Billy's time hopping was true to his experiences in the war, I believe.  It somehow communicated his particular reality.  That doesn't mean that Vonnegut believed he traveled on flying saucers or was some kind of time-bending prophet.  That means it was how Vonnegut could tell his story about Dresden. 

I have been writing poems about Bigfoot and in the voice of Bigfoot.  That's doesn't mean that I have seen Bigfoot or think that I am Bigfoot.  It is my way, right now, of understanding my small part of the universe. 

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for the truth of writing.

July 5: Think About the War, Fireworks, Day After

When the beautiful people were past, Valencia questioned her funny-looking husband about war.  It was a simple-minded thing for a female Earthling to do, to associate sex and glamor with war.  

"Do you ever think about the war?" she said, laying a hand on his thigh.

"Sometimes," said Billy Pilgrim.

Billy doesn't really have to think about the war.  He keeps living it, over and over, back and forth in time.  Valencia has no idea that there's a chance, once she goes to sleep, Billy will jump back to Germany, Dresden, or Tralfamadore.  The war is constantly with Billy, whether he likes it or not.  He doesn't get a chance to suffer from PTSD, because the trauma is never post.  Always present.

I am exhausted tonight.  I was at an Independence Day fireworks display until after 11 p.m.  Got home, took a shower, went to bed.  The alarm went off at 4:45 a.m., and my day began.  So, I am operating on less than four hours of sleep, and my day still isn't over.  I have rehearsal tonight with my praise band, I think.  That will last until past eight o'clock, at which time I will come home and finalize the plans for a poetry workshop that I'm leading tomorrow night.  I'm not saying this day is going to give me PTSD, but I'm certainly not going to have any fun.

I'm feeling a little brain dead right now.  Usually, after I'm done working at the medical office, I get a second wind to prepare me for the afternoon and evening responsibilities/festivities.  About the only thing I have the energy for is a nap.  A long one.  If I close my eyes, I fear that they won't open again until tomorrow morning.

So, let me sum up the extent of my wisdom this evening:

1. Fireworks, good.
2. The day after, exhausted.

Saint Marty is going to be very thankful tonight for his bed.  Amen.

June 29: Concentrate on the Good Ones, Book Club, Praise Be

"So--" said Billy gropingly, "I suppose that the idea of preventing war on Earth is stupid, too."

"Of course."

"But you do have a peaceful planet here."

"Today we do.  On other days we have wars as horrible as any you've ever seen or read about.  There isn't anything we can do about them, so we simply don't look at them.  We ignore them.  We spend eternity looking at pleasant moments--like today at the zoo.  Isn't this a nice moment?"

"Yes." 

"That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough.  Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones."

"Um," said Billy Pilgrim.

Shorty after he went to sleep that night, Billy traveled in time to another moment which was quite nice, his wedding night with the former Valencia Merble.  He had been out of the veterans' hospital for six months.  He was all well.  He had graduated from the Ilium School of Optometry--third in his class of forty-seven.

Now he was in bed with Valencia in a delightful studio apartment which was built on the end of a wharf on Cape Ann, Massachusetts.  Across the water were the lights of Gloucester.  Billy was on top of Valencia, making love to her.  One result of this act would be the birth of Robert Pilgrim, who would become a problem in high school, but who would then straighten out as a member of the famous Green Berets.

Valencia wasn't a time-traveler, but she did have a lively imagination.  While Billy was making love to her, she imagined that she was a famous woman in history.  She was being Queen Elizabeth the First of England, and Billy was supposedly Christopher Columbus.

Did Columbus and Queen Elizabeth the First ever meet?  I'm not sure, but that's beside the point.  The Tralfamadorian solution to things like war and genocide is simply not to focus on them.  Instead, they focus on good things, like days at the zoo or, in Billy's case, the conception of his first child with his new bride, Valencia.  Good moments, that will make everything alright.

I'm not sure I agree with this advice.  However, I do believe that dwelling on some past tragedy is not very healthy.  I have a had a lot of bad things happen in my life, as has everybody reading this post, I'm sure.  If I went around all day thinking about the death of my sister or my wife's mental illness or the election of Donald Trump, I wouldn't be able to function.  I would curl up on my bed, under the covers, in a fetal position, and just not live. 

Ignoring traumas from the past isn't a good practice, either.  That creates issues like depression, PTSD, and other forms of mental illness.  No, bad things must be dealt with, through talk therapy and group therapy and medical therapy and chocolate.  That's the only way to overcome bad shit.  I'm speaking from experience.

Tonight, however, I am going to have a good moment, one that Tralfamadorians would probably return to in times of war.  My book club is meeting tonight at my house.  This month's book is Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.  When I'm done typing my posts, I'm going to cut up some cheese for a little tray.  Then, I'll set the tables with dishes and cups, because Book Club is really just an excuse to eat.

It will be a lovely moment with lovely people whom I love.  Is there enough love in that sentence?  It will be a good night, filled with laughter and conversation. No war.  No end of the universe.  Just cheese and crackers and brownie trifle.  As the characters in The Handmaid's Tale say, "Praise be."

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for good friends.

May 26: A Broken Kite, PTSD, Honor and Respect

Hold on.  This is a longer passage from Slaughterhouse:

There was silence now, as the Englishmen looked in astonishment at the frowsy creatures they had so lustily waltzed inside.  One of the Englishmen saw that Billy was on fire.  "You're on fire, lad!" he said, and he got Billy away from the stove and beat out the sparks with his hands.

When Billy made no comment on this, the Englishman touched him exploratorily here and there, filled with pity.  "My God--what have they done to you, lad?  This isn't a man.  It's a broken kite."

"Are you really an American?" said the Englishman.

"Yes," said Billy.

"And your rank?"

"Private."

"What became of your boots, lad?"

"I don't remember."

"Is that coat a joke?"

"Sir?"

"Where did you get such a thing?"

Billy had to think hard about that.  "They gave it to me," he said at last.

"Jerry gave it to you?"

"Who?"

"The Germans gave it to you?"

"Yes."

Billy didn't like the questions.  They were fatiguing.

"Ohhhh--Yank, Yank, Yank--" said the Englishman, "that coat was an insult."

"Sir?"

"It was a deliberate attempt to humiliate you.  You mustn't let Jerry do things like that."

Billy Pilgrim swooned.

Billy came to on a chair facing the stage.  He had somehow eaten, and now he was watching Cinderella.  Some part of him had evidently been enjoying the performance for quite a while.  Billy was laughing hard.

The women in the play were really men, of course.  The clock had just struck midnight, and Cinderella was lamenting:

          "Goodness me, the clock has struck-- 
            Alackday, and fuck my luck."

Billy found the couplet so comical that he not only laughed--he shrieked.  He went on shrieking until he was carried out of the shed and into another, where the hospital was.  It was a six-bed hospital.  There weren't any other patients there.

Whew.  That was a long one.  Billy is teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  He blacks out.  Eats.  Sits and watched the entertainment that the Englishmen provide.  Then, he falls into the canyon of mental illness, shrieking with laughter.  It is probably PTSD, after the long train ride without sleep and the German delousing shower/gas chamber.

At the beginning of Memorial Day weekend, I think this passage is fairly important.  There are so many combat veterans in the United States who suffer from PTSD.  Just this past Sunday, a friend from church (and a veteran) told me that he is going away for six weeks of treatment for PTSD.  For this man, the firecrackers of the Fourth of July are triggers for panic attacks and flashbacks.  Instead of going to parades and picnics, he spends most of the holiday at home, in the dark, teetering like Billy.

I often forget to be thankful for the freedoms I have in this country.  I can criticize the President of the United States and government, peacefully demonstrate, hold unpopular opinions.  I can do all this without fear for my life or safety.  Those rights are guaranteed to me by the United States Constitution (regardless of what Donald Trump says), and that Constitution has been defended and protected over and over, through the centuries, by brave men and women who were/are willing to risk their lives to preserve it.

I am not getting all nationalistic here.  I think nationalism is dangerous.  What I am saying is that there are people who have sacrificed greatly so that I can say what I want to say, live the way I want to live.  And those people deserve honor and respect, whether they are living or dead.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful for those who have defended his freedom.

January 13: Rumpus Room, PTSD, Body in the Road

And so on.  

Billy was working on this letter in the basement rumpus room of his empty house.  It was his housekeeper's day off.  There was an old typewriter in the rumpus room.  It was a beast.  It weighed as much as a storage battery.  Billy couldn't carry it very far very easily, which was why he was writing in the rumpus room instead of somewhere else.

The oil burner had quit.  A mouse had eaten through the insulation of a wire leading to the thermostat.  The temperature in the house was down to fifty degrees, but Billy hadn't noticed.  He wasn't warmly dressed, either.  He was barefoot, and still in his pajamas and a bathrobe, though it was late afternoon.  His bare feet were blue and ivory.

The cockles of Billy's heart, at any rate, were glowing coals.  What made them so hot was Billy's belief that he was going to comfort so many people with the truth about time.  His door chimes upstairs had been ringing and ringing.  It was his daughter Barbara up there, wanting in.  Now she let herself in with a key, crossed the floor over his head, calling, "Father?  Daddy, where are you?"  And so on.

Billy didn't answer her, so she was nearly hysterical, expecting to find his corpse.  And then she looked into the very last place there was to look--which was the rumpus room.

Billy Pilgrim is trying to spread the news about Tralfamadore and the Tralfamadorian concept of time.  He's older, feeble from the plane crash and sudden loss of his wife.  Yet, he isn't mourning, because time is not a steady forward march for him.  It's a series of circles and tangents.  Russian nesting dolls of past and present and future.

I'm wondering if Billy's condition--being unstuck in time--is a metaphor for post traumatic stress disorder.  That inability to shake off the traumas of the past.  Maybe that's why time is so unstable for him.  The closest experience I've had with PTSD happened several years ago.

It was early December, and I was driving my daughter home from a dance lesson.  The traffic was heavy.  Holiday traffic, cars shuttling from store to store.  Suddenly, I noticed all kinds of flashing brake lights ahead of me.  I started to slow up, but I couldn't see if there was a car accident or a dead skunk in the road.

Then, out of nowhere, I saw a human body sprawled in the middle of the highway, directly in front of me, as if the man had decided to take a nap.  I didn't have a whole lot of time to react.  I yelled, threw my arm across my daughter beside me, and jerked the steering wheel to the side.

I didn't hit the man.  Missed him by only a couple of feet.  After I regained control of my fishtailing car, I looked in my rear view mirror.  I could see all kinds of cars swerving and stopping behind me.  I didn't have a cell phone at the time, so I stopped at the closest gas station to phone the police.  The dispatcher told me that the accident had already been reported, and a cruiser and ambulance were on the way.

My heart didn't stop racing until I got home.  Later on that night, I heard on the news that the man in the road had been drunk and stumbled across the highway.  A car had struck him.  He died almost immediately.

For about a year after that incident, I couldn't drive past that spot without getting jumpy, especially at night.  Even in the summer, I would see that body in my headlights, lying on the asphalt, face down, not moving.  Over and over, I kept returning to that moment.  I guess you could say that I was a little unstuck in time.  I don't know if that is clinically PTSD.  Every once in a while, I still get anxious driving in the dark, expecting some human mound to appear in my headlight beams.

Maybe that's Billy's issue, only he summons up little green men along with the charred buildings and bodies of Dresden.

Saint Marty has to drive his daughter to dance tonight.  Hopefully, he won't be abducted by aliens on the way home.