February 18: Be Patient, Pep Talks, Kamila Valieva

Santiago talks to his hand.  (Yes, you read that correctly--he TALKS to his hand.) . . . 

"I don't think I can eat an entire one," he said and drew his knife across one of the strips. He could feel the steady hard pull of the line and his left hand was cramped. It drew up tight on the heavy cord and he looked at it in disgust.

"What kind of a hand is that," he said. "Cramp then if you want. Make yourself into a claw. It will do you no good."

Come on, he thought and looked down into the dark water at the slant of the line. Eat it now and it will strengthen the hand. It is not the hand's fault and you have been many hours with the fish. But you can stay with him forever. Eat the bonito now.

He picked up a piece and put it in his mouth and chewed it slowly. It was not unpleasant.

Chew it well, he thought, and get all the juices. It would not be bad to eat with a little lime or with lemon or with salt.

"How do you feel, hand?" he asked the cramped hand that was almost as stiff as rigor mortis. "I'll eat some more for you."

He ate the other part of the piece that he had cut in two. He chewed it carefully and then spat out the skin.

"How does it go, hand? Or is it too early to know?"

He took another full piece and chewed it.

"It is a strong full-blooded fish," he thought. "I was lucky to get him instead of dolphin. Dolphin is too sweet. This is hardly sweet at all and all the strength is still in it."

There is no sense in being anything but practical though, he thought. I wish I had some salt. And I do not know whether the sun will rot or dry what is left, so I had better eat it all although I am not hungry. The fish is calm and steady. I will eat it all and then I will be ready.

"Be patient, hand," he said. "I do this for you."

Sometimes, I give myself pep talks, too.  Especially when I'm facing something difficult.

At the moment, it is almost 11 p.m.  I am doing what I have been doing for the last couple weeks--watching the Beijing Winter Olympics.  Last night, I watched the train wreck that was the finals of women's figure skating.  In particular, the performance of 15-year-old Kamila Valieva.

Here is what I noticed:  Valieva looked traumatized even before she began skating.  After days of scandal, she had to talk herself into getting on the ice.  And then, when she fell, she had to talk herself into getting up and continuing.  She did this over and over.  By the time it was over, this little girl looked tiny and broken.

Kamila Valieva shouldn't have skated last night.  Not just because she tested positive for banned substances.  She shouldn't have skated because she was a teenage girl with no emotional support system.  The entire world had been watching her every move almost since the start of the Olympics.  Talking about her.  Criticizing her.

Facing all of that, what teenager wouldn't have fallen apart?  When I was 15, I was sitting alone in my bedroom, scribbling in my journal, dreaming of doing something great with my life.  I didn't know who I was.  And I certainly wouldn't have held up if the entire world was reading and tearing my writing apart.

All Saint Marty wanted to do yesterday was give that little girl a hug and tell her everything is going to be alright.

May 24: Joe Mills, "How You Know," Little Girl

How You Know

by:  Joe Mills

How do you know if it’s love? she asks,

and I think if you have to ask, it’s not,

but I know this won’t help. I want to say

you’re too young to worry about it,

as if she has questions about Medicare

or social security, but this won’t help either.

“You’ll just know” is a lie, and one truth,

“when you still want to be with them

the next morning,” would involve too

many follow-up questions. The difficulty

with love, I want to say, is sometimes

you only know afterwards that it’s arrived

or left. Love is the elephant and we

are the blind mice unable to understand

the whole. I want to say love is this

desire to help even when I know I can’t,

just as I couldn’t explain electricity, stars,

the color of the sky, baldness, tornadoes,

fingernails, coconuts, or the other things

she has asked about over the years, all

those phenomena whose daily existence

seems miraculous. Instead I shake my head.

I don’t even know how to match my socks.

Go ask your mother. She laughs and says,

I did. Mom told me to come and ask you.

_________________________

Spent some time with my daughter tonight, walking in the woods and along the shore of Lake Superior.  She was beautiful, walking along the edge of the water, picking up stones.  Her hair was so red in the dusking sun.  I couldn't help but feel a little sad at how grownup she looked.  In a year, she'll be an almost high school graduate.

When did this happen?

The good thing is that, before she goes to bed every night, she comes to me for a kiss goodnight.  She still calls me "daddy."  And, every once in a while, she comes to me with life questions.  That means she still thinks that I'm smart.  For now.

Saint Marty isn't ready for his little girl to be a big girl.

April 22: Injustice, Big Heart, Little Girl

 "I see no difference," replied Fern, still hanging on to the ax.  "This is the most terrible case of injustice I ever heard of."

At the beginning of Charlotte's Web, Fern fights against her father's decision to kill Wilbur, the runt of a little of pigs.  She's fighting injustice, and she wins.  This doesn't always occur.  Sometimes, injustice wins.  Innocent people suffer.  Bad people prosper.  I know I should never question God's plan.  But God's plan doesn't always make sense to me.

Tonight, I am asking you to pray for a little girl with too big of a heart.  My daughter's friend has a little sister.  That little sister is three-years-old, and she has a serious health problem.  It seems her heart is too large for her tiny body.  Her parents have known this since her birth, but she was too young for surgery.

Now, that little girl is going to have that surgery.  The doctors are going shave her heart down.  That's the best way I can describe it.  If she doesn't have the surgery, she will certainly die.  If she does have the surgery, there's a good chance she will die.  The chances of her survival are slim.

I'm asking you to pray for this three-year-old redhead.  She's a beautiful child, and she needs a miracle.

Saint Marty has little more to say.  Pray.  Please.

Fold your hands for a wounded heart

September 4: School is Not Quite Deserted, First Day, Daughter

"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost.  "A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still."

The Ghost of Christmas Past is reminding Scrooge of his solitary boyhood at boarding school in this little snippet of dialogue.

The only reason I chose this passage is because it's the only one dealing with school in the novel.  This morning was my daughter's first day of sixth grade.  I went in late to work to see her get on the bus and snap a few pictures.

Saint Marty's feeling a little nostalgic for his little girl today.

My daughter on the bus

June 23: Softening Influence, Tears, New Cartoon

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

This little softening occurs early in Stave Two when the Ghost of Christmas Past and Scrooge observe Scrooge's younger self, sitting alone in a schoolhouse on Christmas day.  The implication of this passage is that Scrooge had a pretty miserable childhood, and the memory of it begins the slow disassembly of Scrooge's defenses.  Scrooge is reduced to a young, abandoned child again.  It's a pretty heart-breaking moment, and, for the first time, the reader feels compassion and sorrow for Scrooge.

Last night, when my son was going to bed, he asked me to read him Love You Forever by Robert Munsch and Sheila McGraw.  It's a book about a mother and her son, the unending love of a parent for her child.  I didn't get past the second page before I was ready to cry.  I found myself skipping huge portions of the book just so I wasn't a weeping mess by the end.  Robert Munsch definitely had a softening influence on me.  I felt a little ridiculous.

Anything about kids growing older sort of puts me over the edge right now.  I'm sitting across from my eleven-year-old daughter right now, and I'm looking at her closely.  She looks like a teenager.  She's going to be in sixth grade in September.  In six more years, she'll be a senior in high school.  As my daughter might say, "OMG!"  It depresses me a little.  Actually, more than a little.

It seems like yesterday when I was sitting beside her toddler bed, reading Charlotte's Web to her.  Now, she has me locked out of her iPod, and she's self-conscious about her clothes.  She wants to get her hair streaked pink, and she stays up late watching vampire movies.

I'm standing with the Ghost of Christmas Past, watching my daughter open her Barbie Dream Castle.  She's tiny, beautiful, excited.  She throws her arms around my neck and kisses me.

Saint Marty's little girl isn't so little anymore.

Confessions of Saint Marty