December 19, 2025: "Where Will Love Go?", Long Weeks, "Reincarnation"

I am writing this post the end of a long couple weeks--after final teaching and grading, last holiday events at the library, and the terrible murders of Rob Reiner and his wife last weekend in California.  In short, I'm exhausted with life and the world, and Christmas is fast approaching.  

Today, in particular, was very challenging for me in many ways that aren't interesting enough to discuss here.  But, when I got home this evening, I went into my office and ate dinner alone because I was not fit to be around other people.  I withdrew so I didn't say or do something that would hurt my wife or son.  On top of all that, I've been thinking a lot about my friend, Helen, who always lifted my spirits when I was in a state of ennui such as this.  I miss her joy and love.

Sharon Olds meditates on the conservations of love . . . 

Where Will Love Go?

by: Sharon Olds

Where will love go?  When my father

died, and my love could no longer shine

on the oily, drink-contused slopes of his skin,

then my love for him lived inside me,

and lived wherever the fog they made of him

coiled like a spirit.  And when I die

my love for him will live in my vapor

and live in my children, some of it

still rubbed into the grain of the desk my father left me

and the oxblood pores of the leather chair which he

sat in, in a stupor, when I was a child, and then

gave me passionately after his death--our

souls seem locked in it, together,

two alloys in a metal, and we're there

in the black and chrome workings of his forty-pound

1932 Underwood,

the trapezes stilled inside it on the desk

in the front of the chair.  Even when the children

have died, our love will live in their children

and still be here in the arm of the chair,

locked in it, like the secret structure of matter,

but what if we ruin everything,

the earth burning like a human body,

storms of soot wreathing it

in permanent winter?  Where will love go?

Will the smoke be made of animal love,

will the clouds of roasted ice, circling

the globe, be all that is left of love,

will the sphere of cold, turning ash,

seen by no one, heard by no one,

hold all

our love?  Then love

is powerless and means nothing.

The ending of that poem is pretty bleak.  Right now, at the end of 2025, there is a climate crisis.  Most of the rest of the world is trying to save this planet from humankind's greed, sloth, and stupidity.  Yet, in my home country, the people currently in charge are hell-bent on drilling and AIing and mining and Facebooking and manufacturing the world into oblivion.  Love does not enter the equation, and that mean that there is a love crisis on top of the global climate crisis.  (Proof of a the love crisis:  ICE raids, mass shootings, unaffordable healthcare.)

It's difficult not to be a cynical Scrooge this holiday season with all of that going on.  Yet, over the next couple weeks, I will endeavor to buoy my yuletide spirits in any way that I can--cookies, chocolates, It's a Wonderful Life, rereading my favorite Christmas book of all time (Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos), which never ceases to restore my faith in humanity.

I'm hoping my difficult mood this evening is simply a fluke, brought on by the stress of last-minute work responsibilities and a severe lack of sleep.  (I think, over the last week or so, I've been averaging about four to five hours of slumber a night.)  Tomorrow, I will wake, finish up my last library chores for the year, and throw myself into Christmas overdrive--addressing cards, wrapping presents, planning menus, watching Charlie Brown learn what Christmas is all about from Linus.  and reading some Mary Oliver poems.

'Tis the season, as my part of the globe tips away from darkness, to embrace the return of light and, hopefully, love and goodness.  A love crisis is easily reversed--just don't behave like an asshole.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for this evening about faith and belief, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Are you for or against getaway weekends in Vegas?  Do you believe wolves should be reintroduced in the western US?  What's your idea of a perfect day?  Write a credo poem that shares the core beliefs that guide your actions.

Reincarnation

by: Martin Achatz

I used to believe I was Flannery O'Connor,

practiced walking with crutches, spoke

with a thick Southern accent, ate grits

for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, tried

to talk my parents into raising peafowl

in our backyard so we could watch

them shiver their feathers into stained

glass.  When I turned 24, I waited for

red butterflies to appear on my cheeks

and forehead, for my hair to thin,

fall out in clumps.  More than anything, 

though, I kept an eye out for a hitchhiker

who looked a lot like Kevin Spacey to shoot

me in the chest every day of my life, 

just to keep me honest and good. 

March 26: Random Group of Atoms, Aubri, Being Authentic

So a hole appeared in the Galaxy . . .

As it closed up, lots of paper hats and party balloons fell out of it and drifted off through the Universe.  A team of seven three-foot-high market analysts fell out of it and died, partly of asphyxiation, partly of surprise.

Two hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly fried eggs fell out of it too, materializing in a large wobbly heap on the famine-struck land of Poghril in the Pansel system.

The whole Poghril tribe had died out from famine except for one last man who died of cholesterol poisoning some weeks later.

The nothingth of a second for which the hole existed reverberated backward and forward through time in a most improbable fashion.  Somewhere in the deeply remote past it seriously traumatized a small random group of atoms drifting through the empty sterility of space and made them cling together in the most extraordinarily unlikely patterns.  These patterns quickly learned to copy themselves (this was part of what was so extraordinary about the patterns) and went on to cause massive trouble on every planet they drifted on to.  That was how life began in the Universe.

Tonight, my niece, Aubri, visited.  She came over to dye and cut my wife's hair.  When Aubri enters a room, she sort rearranges the atoms of that room in extraordinary ways, as well.  She is one of my favorite people in the whole world.  Whenever she's at our house, there's lots of laughter and family gossip.  I've said it before in this blog that I can be a bit of a mean girl.  Aubri gets that.

Aubri is authentic.  She doesn't put on airs.  I know very few people like that.  Most people change depending on the situations in which they find themselves.  In job interviews, people become super positive team players.  Visiting sick friends, people morph into caregivers.  At wedding receptions, with a little alcohol, people transform into rap singers and line dancers.  Aubri, on the other hand, is always Aubri.

I'm sort of like that, as well.  I think that's why Aubri and I get along so well.  Being authentic means putting yourself out there all the time, regardless or how people may react.  What you see is pretty much what you get.  This approach also opens you up to self doubt sometimes.

This afternoon, I was supposed to receive a phone call about a job for which I applied.  Come 5 p.m., my phone hadn't rung.  This launched me into a tailspin of introspective questioning.  Was I not dressed well enough?  Did I not answer their questions satisfactorily?  Should I have prepared for the interview more thoroughly?  Don't I have the skills they are looking for?  Maybe I shouldn't have talked about my habit of listening to Christmas music all year long?

You get the idea.

Tonight, Aubri lifted my spirits.  Took my mind off my worries for a couple hours.  And she did it by simply being herself.  Fully.  She's a beautiful person, inside and out. 

Saint Marty is a lucky uncle.

February 28: Gargle Howl, Out of Sight, Garlic Aioli

A message from the commander of the Vogon constructor ship . . .

Howl howl gargle howl gargle howl howl howl gargle howl gargle howl howl gargle gargle howl gargle gargle gargle howl slurrp uuuurgh should have a good time.  Message repeats.  This is your captain speaking, so stop whatever you're doing and pay attention.  First of all I see from our instruments that we have a couple of hitchhikers aboard.  Hello, wherever you are.  I just want to make it totally clear that you are not at all welcome.  I worked hard to get where I am today, and I didn't become captain of a Vogon constructor ship simply so I could turn it into a taxi service for a load of degenerate freeloaders.  I have sent out a search party, and as soon as they find you I will put you off the ship.  If you're very lucky I might read you some of my poetry first.

"Secondly, we are about to jump into hyperspace for a journey to Barnard's Star.  On arrival we will stay in dock for a seventy-two-hour refit, and no one's to leave the ship during that time.  I repeat, all planet leave is canceled.  I've just had an unhappy love affair, so I don't see why anybody else should have a good time.  Message ends."

An unhappy love affair for the Vogon captain.  Therefore, he wants nobody else to experience happiness.  I get that.  I'd bet that most of my disciples are getting tired of hearing about the closure of the surgery center where I work.  Er, used to work.  I know that these last few posts have been more than a little sad.  Never fear.  After today, I will no longer be at the surgery center.   I will be stationed at the main hospital, checking in patients.  That doesn't mean that I'll be happier.  It means I will be removed from the primary source of my unhappiness.  As the saying goes:  out of sight, out of mind.

Okay, I'm lying there.  The place is not going to be out of my mind for quite some time.  Can't quite scrub close to 20 years of life from my thoughts that easily.  In fact, in my new office digs, I'm still surrounded by objects and equipment for my old office, including the name plate from the wall (which I've placed on my office door) and my Christmas frog (which will sit prominently on my desk).  I have about six weeks of surgery center work left before it goes away forever.

This morning, I walked through the place, turning off lights, opening and closing drawers, like I do at the end of a vacation when I'm checking to make sure I haven't left any underwear or socks in the hotel room.  Of course, I've opened and closed those drawers about 50 times in the last few days.  It was just my way of holding on.  I walked out the door for the final time with an armload of belongings--a three-pound bag of M&Ms (half-eaten), some printer paper, my lunchbox, and a few coffee mugs.

I spent the rest of the day settling into my new space.  Unpacking boxes.  Testing computers and printers.  Answering phone calls.  E-mailing work tickets to get things fixed.  Watching my coworkers try to adjust to our new environment.  I was sort of lucky.  All my work will be in one place.  I have a refrigerator and microwave.  My own desk.  There's a bathroom right around the corner.  I'm all set.

The rest of the employees from the surgery center are having a harder time, I think.  They are spread over two or three different floors.  Their processes are going to be vastly different.  And, due to the 20-day time frame we were given for this whole closure process, nothing was really prepared for us at the main hospital.  No computers.  No phone lines.  No fax numbers.  No patient spaces.  No operating/procedure room.  The I. T. guy who was working on my computer and printer said at one point today, "You really should have given us about a three-month warning."  Hmmmmmm.

Well, after a long, unsettled day, I went out for drinks and food with some good friends.  We hit two different drinking establishments--one for happy hour ($3 beers), the other for the best French fries in the world with garlic aioli so good it would make an atheist believe in God.  We laughed and bitched and got a little sad and then laughed again.  It was a really perfect way to end a not-so-perfect day.

I am sad tonight, but I've had three drinks to combat that sadness.  It's muted.  Plus, the garlic aioli was a good aloe for my broken heart.  I'm not saying alcohol and fried potatoes are great coping mechanisms, but they certainly lifted my spirits.

Maybe Saint Marty is a little drunk.