December 15, 16, 17: Don't Talk to Me About It, Optimism, Addicts, and Magical Thinking

"Life," said Marvin, "don't talk to me about it."

I'm with Marvin, the clinically depressed robot, on this one tonight.

For the past three days, all I've been doing is writing and grading and working.  Sunday night, I slept for two hours or so.  Yesterday, I didn't go to bed.  I stayed up grading until 4:30 this morning.  Then I slept for about an hour or so, got up, and graded some more.  Finally submitted my final grades for the semester at 10:30 this morning.  Then I went to work.  Then, a therapy appointment. Came home, got changed, and dashed off to my son's choral Christmas concert at school.  Now, I'm home.

But this blog post is about none of that.  It's about optimism and a conclusion I arrived at this evening.

I think I need to stop being an optimist.

Optimism is all about believing and hoping for the best in everything.  If I go to the doctor with a persistent cough (and I'm an optimist), I will believe that it's just bronchitis and not stage 4 lung cancer.  If I go to the grocery store at Christmas time (and I'm an optimist), I will buy that bottle of holiday wine AND a present for my Secret Santa at work, believing my debit card will not be declined.  If I have an alcoholic or addict in my life (and I'm an optimist), I will believe that my addict is just having coffee with a friend like he said instead of hitting Pat's Bar at 10 a.m.  If there's a presidential election coming up (and I'm an optimist), I will believe that Donald Trump will lose the election, be arrested in the ballroom where he was supposed to deliver his victory speech, and be led away in handcuffs to a federal penitentiary where he will spend the rest of his life behind bars--instead of Donald Trump calling Vladimir Putin to thank him for helping him win again.

You see what I'm saying.  Sometimes optimism strikes me as a form of magical thinking.  Magical thinking is the belief that your thoughts, wishes, and desires can influence the external world.  If you've seen Field of Dreams, it's the whole "if you build it, he will come" thing.  In the short term, magical thinking can help you cope with difficult situations.  In the long term, it leads to disappointment, heartbreak, and (if continued) clinical depression.

Let me explain it another way.  If I call a phone number and expect to speak with my best friend, but the number is out of service, I just keep calling the same number, over and over, expecting a better outcome each time, because that's what I want and desire.  That's magical thinking.  It's unhealthy and unproductive.  And I think optimism falls under the umbrella of magical thinking sometimes.

Tonight, I was disappointed by the actions of a person I know.  The optimist/magical thinker in me has been walking around, semi-believing that this person was getting better, seeking help, finally being honest with himself.  He wasn't, and that truth really made me angry, disappointed, and sad all at the same time.  He is walking down a path of self destruction, engaging in his own form of magical thinking.  That's what people with addictions do, I guess.

Here's how it works.  I'm an addict, but I don't want to give up my addiction.  So, I tell myself, hey, it's only one drink or one pill or one trip to the casino or one sexual encounter.  I can handle that.  It's not going to hurt anyone.  So I do it.  And then I do it again, because the first time wasn't so bad.  And then again.  And again.  And again. And again.  All the while, I tell myself that I'm not hurting my spouse.  I'm not gambling with mortgage or rent money.  I'm not choosing to neglect my children or job or other responsibilities.

Of course, that's all magical thinking.  An addict does all of those things.  He hurts his spouse.  He gambles and spends the grocery money and mortgage payment.  He neglects his kids.  He does all these things until his spouse kicks him out.  He loses his house.  His kids always expect him to lie and disappointment them.  By the time the addict has a moment of clarity, it's too late.  He's alone.  Homeless.  Sick.  Jobless.  No place to turn,  All his bridges are piles of ashes at the bottom of deep canyons.

So, I am going to go to bed tonight and pray for this person, as I have been for a while.  Some people say that prayer is a form of magical thinking.  I don't think it is.  Prayer is simply about giving your worries up to God, saying, "I can't handle this one.  It's up to You."

Saint Marty is bone tired at the moment.  Life.  Don't talk to him about it.

August 5: Book Club, Classic Saint Marty, Sharon Olds

Welcome to Sunday evening.

Book Club ended about an hour-and-a-half ago.  My friend, author John Smolens, was the guest of honor.  We ate, talked, asked questions, drank, and talked some more.  It was a lovely gathering.  My Book Club has been going strong for close to 15 years or so.  That's a pretty good track record.  Members have come and gone.  Meeting nights have changed.  We've added a Secret Santa gift exchange at Christmas.  (Okay, I forced that one on everyone, but nobody's complaining.)  I can honestly say that some of my best friends are in this group of people.

They've seen me through a lot of ups and downs in my life.  They were there when my wife and I separated.  They were there when we reunited.  They've seen both of my kids grow up.  And, when my brother and sister and father died, they were at the funerals.  That's the kind of friends I have. 

I've been very lucky to have this group of people in my life for so long.  They really have lifted me up, over and over and over.

And a Classic Saint Marty from about three years ago . . .

August 4, 2015:  Felix the Cat, "Jaws," Sharon Olds, "Wonder"

Later, because it was Christmas, Ives had somehow felt compelled to leave the nice watch he'd bought his son in the room, instead of returning it to the store.  He put it in his top drawer, as if his boy would come in anytime now to claim it.  That drawer was stuffed with school paraphernalia, prayer cards, baseball cards, playing cards, a Felix the Cat comic that Ives had illustrated himself, years before.  And pamphlets, a dozen of them, from different seminaries, clipped together, one of them with the sun's rays extending outward in the shape of a cross, the title:  In God's Service.  On a shelf Robert had a edition of the World Book Encyclopedia, which he had bought when he was ten with his own money; an Oxford Book of Saints, his marker left on the page describing Saint Francis of Assisi.  A row of books on sciences, a picture book of pretty flowers from Celeste.  A paperback novel called Invasion of the Star Creatures and a book on ancient Egypt.  He saw that in a row on the inside cover his son had drawn three symbols:  that of an ankh, chrismon, and crucifix, one leading to the next.  In a bag he found a copy of Fanny Hill, which had one of his son's friend's names in the margin, certain pages marked off.  It made him laugh.  Then on Robert's desk, where each night he had worked by lamplight on his schoolwork--what "good" youngsters do--he found an edition of A Christmas Carol, which Annie had given him, opened to one of the middle chapters.

Ives is surrounded by reminders of his son.  The Christmas following Robert's death, Ives goes into Robert's room and catalogs his son's belongings--his books and cards, scribbled notes.  It's almost as if Robert is going to walk through the door, sit down, pick up his copy of A Christmas Carol, and start reading where he left off.  Robert's story is incomplete, and Ives wants him to return to finish it.

Greetings from Munising, Michigan, on the shores of Lake Superior.  Actually, I'm in a hotel in Wetmore, which is a couple of miles beyond Munising.  It has been a fairly pleasant day, discounting a disappointing lunch and messed-up hotel reservations.  My kids spent several hours at a swimming pool with a water slide, and I got to watch America's Got Talent. 

As I sit on my bed typing this post, I'm wearing one of my favorite tee shirts, with the classic logo for the movie Jaws on it.  For years, I'd wanted this shirt.  Every time I hit Old Navy, I'd scour the vintage tee shirt racks looking for it without success.  Then, one year, I found it--in my six-year-old son's size.  We bought it for him, and he wore it all the time.

One day, my son and my sister (the one who is currently a patient at the University of Michigan hospital) handed me a package.  Inside was a vintage Jaws tee.  My sister ordered it from Amazon.  Every time I wear it, I think of her.  I think of how my son loves my sister, and vice versa.  They probably planned my tee shirt surprise for over a week.

Like Ives, I feel like my sister's story isn't complete.  She's supposed to come to my daughter's high school graduation, show up for my son's school Christmas programs.  This morning, my son saw me wearing my Jaws shirt, and he said, "Me and Aunt Sally bought that for you."

"Yes," I said.  "You sure did."

My son touched the shirt and said, "I miss Aunt Sally."

I nodded and said, "Me, too, buddy."

I'm still hoping that my sister, by some miracle, beats this cancer.  Still hoping that she's around to see my son graduate from high school and my daughter go to college.

Saint Marty isn't on vacation from hope.

Wonder

by:  Sharon Olds

When she calls to tell me my father is dying
today or tomorrow, I walk down the hall
and feel that my mouth has fallen open
and my eyes are staring.  The planet of his head
swam above my crib, I did not understand it.
He lay, behind bevelled-glass doors, beside
the cut crystal decanter, its future
shards in upright bound sheaves.
He sat by his pool, not meeting our eyes,
his irises made of some boiled-down, viscous
satiny matter, undiscovered.
When he sickened, he began to turn to us,
when he sank down, he shined.  I lowered my
mouth to the glistening tureen of his face
and he titled himself toward me, a dazzling
meteor dropping down into the crib,
and now he is going to die.  I walk down the
hall face to face with it
as if it were a great heat.
I feel like one of the shepherd children
when the star came down onto the roof.
But I am used to it, I stand in familiar
astonishment.  If I had dared to imagine
trading I might have wished to trade
places with anyone raised on love,
but how would anyone raised on love
bear this death?

September 26: Son's Ninth Birthday, Saeed Jones, "Boy in a Stolen Evening Gown"

Today is my son's ninth birthday.  He is a boy's boy.  Into trucks and guns and video games where bad guys are chopped in half by machine gun fire.  Sometimes, I don't understand him.

But he is also the most loving child I have every met.  Last Christmas, he bought extra presents for his class Secret Santa giveaway, just in case "somebody forgets."

Saint Marty loves and accepts his son, no matter what choices he makes.  Guns or journals.  Trucks or dresses.  Video games or Broadway shows.

Boy in a Stolen Evening Gown

by:  Saeed Jones

In this field of thistle, I am the improbable
lady. How I wear the word: sequined weight
snagging my saunter into overgrown grass, blonde
split-end blades. I waltz in an acre of bad wigs.

Sir who is no one, sir who is yet to come, I need you
to undo this zipped back, trace the chiffon
body I’ve borrowed. See how I switch my hips

for you, dry grass cracking under my pretend
high heels? Call me and I’m at your side,
one wildflower behind my ear. Ask me
and I’ll slip out of this softness, the dress

a black cloud at my feet. I could be the boy
wearing nothing, a negligee of gnats.

December 22: Secret Santa, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, "Orange Day"

Yesterday, my son had a Secret Santa exchange in his third grade classroom.  Each child was supposed to bring one gift to give to a classmate.  My son brought three gifts because he wanted to.

It turns out that there were two children who didn't brings gifts.  My son gave out his extra presents, and every student in the classroom had a Secret Santa.  Later on in the day, my son's teacher texted my wife this message:  "Gestures like his today far outweigh his struggles."

My son has been diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder and attention deficit disorder.  He has a hard time controlling himself sometimes.  My wife and I have made many trips to the principal's office since he entered kindergarten.

Those words from his teacher left me a little speechless for a moment.  I think that I tend to focus on my son's struggles a little too much, and I forget to see his generous, loving spirit.

So, tonight, I dedicate this post to my son.

Orange Day

by:  Martin Achatz



My son had an orange day
in kindergarten, stuck crayons
in his ears, red in his left,
yellow in his right.  Chased
kids at morning recess,
tried to lick them, his tongue
a pink bullet in the barrel
of his mouth.  Sat under his desk,
screamed like a peacock at dusk,
roosted in dogwood above Georgia
clay, while his classmates practiced
their numbers:  1, 2, 3, 4, up to 100.
Took off his shoes, socks, spread
his monkey toes, picked up
a brush with them, painted
water lilies in a pond on the floor
where sunlight sparked purple,
pink.  Chewed his mac and cheese
at lunch to orange glue, spat it
on the table, made a map of Hannibal's
journey over the Alps, raisin
elephants on the highest peaks.
Beat plastic drums in music class,
refused to make that damn spider
climb the water spout, instead
played Ligeti's Atmospheres,
moonrise over the monolith
of his chimpanzee heart.
His teacher calls me at night, says
she's at a loss with my son,
doesn't know what to do
with his untamed ways.
I want to tell her it's all about
evolution, that he's learning
how to walk upright, hunt
through pinecone and maple
for blueberries, slabs of bloody
venison.  Give him time, I want
to say.  To learn the agriculture
of her classroom, its fields, furrows,
seasons of alphabet, trapezoid,
computer and gym.  In this epoch,
he won't be caught in tar lakes
underneath asteroid rain.  He will
survive, become a new link.
Homo kindergartenus.  Note
the wide scoop of his skull to accommodate
all he will know by year's end.
His cave drawings hang on our fridge.
Concentric orange circles, bull's-eyes.
"See," my son points, "this is King
Pumpkin.  He's bigger and oranger
than the rest."  I stare at his paintings,
feel the planet skip, stars reorganize,
something end, something begin.
The dawning of a new age.
Tonight, I'll pack his lunch,
for another orange day.
Apple juice, carrot sticks,
maybe a grilled cheese sandwich.
It's supposed to rain tomorrow,
enough to make the mastodons
hunker down in the woods,
orange hair slick with mud, moss.
Maybe my son will find
them there, in the trees
behind the playground.  He'll climb
into their orange center where all
he can hear is breaths.
Deep, orange breaths.
He'll skip school.  Stay there
for the rest of the day.
Happy.  Wild.  Orange.


Please vote for Saint Marty:

Voting for next Poet Laureate of the U. P.