June 25: Mother's Birthday, Classic Saint Marty, "Heart to Heart"

Today is my mother's 86th birthday.  We will be celebrating in a few minutes with barbecued hamburgers and bratwurst, with an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen for dessert. 

My mother doesn't have a great memory any more.  Some days, she knows who I am.  Some days, I'm that nice man who stops by for a visit.  Same goes for my kids.  It's difficult for me to think that my mother doesn't know who I am, that I've become one face in a parade of faces. 

Let me tell you a few things about her:

She is a reader.  I can't remember a time when I didn't see her sitting with a book in her hands.  She raised nine kids, cooked dinner for them every night, breakfast every morning.  This year, she will have been married to my father for 64 years.  When I was in high school, she marched into the principal's office on the first day and told him (over his objections), "You will enroll my son in Algebra and Geometry this year."  Afterward, when she got me in the car, she looked at me and said, "You will get A's in both of those classes all year."  I did.

That gives you an idea of who my mother is.  She's one of the strongest people I know.  And she likes ice cream cake.

Five years ago, I had a few questions on my mind . . .

June 25, 2012:  Have You Ever Noticed . . .

Have you ever noticed that I rarely ask questions in my posts?

Am I the only blogger who avoids questions?  Am I the only person who read a criticism in a print magazine (Time?  Newsweek?  The New Yorker?) of how bloggers tend to ask tons of questions in their blogs?  Why is that a bad thing?  Does it make the writing weak?  Trite?  Precious?  Is it some kind of pathetic ploy to get readers to respond to posts?  Are all bloggers that desperate for attention?  Are we all kids who got picked last for teams in gym class?  Did we all go through high school yearning to be the popular basketball player or class president or star of the school's production of Our Town?

Can we ever overcome adolescent need for acceptance and validation?  Am I still just a pathetic teenager inside, still too insecure to ask the girl in chemistry class to go to prom?  Isn't that the question all writers want answered:  "Will you go to the dance with me?"  Don't we write our poems or stories or blog posts or novels to get the thrill of having the pretty cheerleader or handsome cross country runner talk to us, laugh with us, make us feel cool?  (Is there any way to make that last sentence parallel in grammatical structure?  Does anyone care if it's in parallel grammatical structure?)

Am I just a blogger in search of recognition?  Will I just keep asking questions until somebody, anybody actually responds to my pathetic pleas for human connection?  Am I being too open?  Too honest?  Should I conceal this nervous, monkey-side of my personality?  Or should I continue to eat my bananas, scratch my balls, fling my shit into the cyberspace zoo for all to see?  Am I just Bobo, the well-hung chimpanzee blogger, wagging my hairy goods in the faces of all my readers?

Will Saint Marty ever be able to answer any of these questions?  Is anybody out there?

Is this cartoon funny or what?

And a poem in honor of my mother's birthday  . . .

Heart to Heart

by:  Martin Achatz



Luke says Mary kept every-
thing—angels roaring in
the night, shepherds crawling
through dung and hay, camels,
comets—all these things,
gospels and gospels, stored in
the four chambers of her heart.
I wonder if Einstein’s mother
had room enough in her
ventricles for quanta and
atoms, light’s slow passage
through the eye of the universe.
Or Darwin’s mother enough
space in her atria for
all the creatures of the Galapagos—
tortoises and iguanas, butter-
flies and cormorants.  Lincoln’s
mother died before she had
to squeeze Gettysburg and
emancipation under her ribs,
and I believe Shakespeare’s
mother departed this mortal
coil without Romeo or
the Globe nestled beneath
her breast.  My mother is
still packing things in
the attic of her chest.  Just
yesterday, she asked me if
I still write poems.  Yes, I told
Her.  I’m writing a poem
about you right now,
I said.  She nodded, looked away.
I imagined her opening a box
with my name on it, wrapping
this poem in newspaper, placing
it beside the lanyard I made
for her in third grade, closing
the box again, putting it
back on the shelf in her bosom.
When she gets to heaven,
my mother will meet Mary
on a street corner,
and they’ll unpack their
hearts.  This, mother will
say, is a poem my son wrote
for me for Mother’s Day.  Mary
will hold out her hand, show
my mother the first tooth
her son lost, a tiny grain
of enamel in her palm.  They
will find a diner to have
coffee together.  They will sit
in a booth, brag about how
their kids changed the world.

June 24: Mother's Birthday, Peter Balakian, "My Mother is a Fish"

Tomorrow is my mother's birthday.  I believe that she is going to be 86.  You must forgive me.  I'm not good with birth dates.  I'm lucky that I remembered the day at all.

My mother's two remaining sisters have driven up from Detroit for the occasion.  It will be the first time in two or three years that they've all been together.  My mother doesn't know hat they're coming.  I'm hoping that she remembers them.

You see, my mother's memory isn't great.  She barely remembers my sister who lives in Washington.  When my sister was visiting last year, my mother kept looking at my sister and saying to me, "Isn't she a nice lady."  However, my mother seems to able to remember things from her childhood quite well.  Sometimes, she sits at the dining room table and tells me stories of when she was a little girl.  It's as if her long term memory is intact, but her short term memory is short circuiting.   I think that the only reason she remembers me is because I see her almost every day.

So, tonight, Saint Marty is honoring his mother with a poem by Peter Balakian.

"My Mother is a Fish"

by:  Peter Balakian

—Faulkner 

My mother is a fish

and the sky is low and orange,

and the long grass rises   

in the still air.

The mud is black   

and worms turn   

their cold segments   

at my feet.

      I used to walk   

      with an old lady.

      It seemed far from water

      and the ground sank.

      Weeds were higher

      than my head.   

      Slugs slept

      in the mud.

My mother is a fish

and the sky swallows my head.   

A fine rain comes

and softens the ferns.

In March before the crocus   

and the lily,

eggs bunch in the shoal   

of green jelly.

Crabs glide through them.   

A kingfisher is dead

on a rock.

My mother is an eel   

winding a light

around the rock.   

Even without a moon   

the black glows.

*

The sun grows like an egg

over the bridge,

the first birds are silver

and swoop down for my mother.

      When the lady came

      we jumped—

      She took us to find worms   

      we could squeeze

      in our hands.

      I went with my father

      to the dark water.

      I went with a bucket

      of mud.

      When we doubled the worm   

      on the hook and it coiled,   

      I could hear how a bass

      could thud.

      I grabbed it

      with a wet hand,   

      and watched its eye   

      go black

      as I dropped it

      in a metal bucket.

      Hack it along the gill

      and throw the head to the gulls.

My mother is a fish

and flutters in my bucket.   

The sky is a fleck of stones   

on the night water.

Turns my arms silver.

The wind calls my father   

out to where bigger birds   

call and caw and spin,

where my father goes

and leaves me with the mud   

and gulls on the patchy water.

My mom and dad

June 29: Mother's Birthday, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

We are celebrating my mother's birthday this afternoon.  She is 83 years young.  I'm sitting at her dining room table, keeping her company, as I type this post.  My mother is a wonderful woman.  Raised nine kids.  Helped run my father's plumbing business.  Taught me that it doesn't matter whether you fail or succeed, as long as you always do your best.






My mother's memory isn't the best anymore.  She repeats herself a lot.  Her eyesight is failing due to macular degeneration.  She has to wear hearing aids.  Books, always one of the joys of her life, are simply impossible for her to enjoy now.  She can still sing.  Tells great stories about growing up with her sisters in Detroit.  And, above all, she loves her kids and grandkids more than anything.

Today, I celebrate a truly great woman.

Today's Classic Saint Marty comes from two years ago.

June 29, 2012:  Stream of Consciousness, Hiccups

I really don't have anything new to say right now.  Therefore, I will just let my mind go where it wants to go, follow the butterfly, and trust in God to get me where I need to be.  This process may be difficult, since the editor for Blogger seems to work in fits and starts today.  I can be typing away, and suddenly the entire system grinds to a halt. A little blue circle of death appears for almost a full minute.  Thus, my stream of consciousness writing will have to take a break, and there may be a few hiccups.  Like the one I just experienced.  I will make a deal with you.  Every time my computer hiccups, when it comes back, I will type the word "hiccup," which will explain any great cognitive leaps that may occur.  I will try to keep my fingers moving on the keyboard as fast as possible.

I hiccup My hiccup My wife and daughter are going to see the movie Brave this afternoon.  My son and I will be going stag for a few hours.  We may take  hiccup We may take a walk, although the temperature is supposed to be in the ninety-degree range.  I like being out in weather like that, but it may not be too good for a three-year-old toddler who likes to run a lot.  Perhaps I'll just strap him into the running stroller and go for a run.  Yes, I'm crazy.  I like hot weather running.  I like to sweat.  I like the sun and the humidity.  It makes me feel like I've actually worked hard.

Tonight, my wife and I are entertaining a notary who's coming to our house to have us sign the final documents on our mortgage refinance.  I'll be so glad to get that out of the way.  I'm hoping it won't take more than a half hour.  For some reason, signing my name on so many pieces of paper in succession makes me a little nervous.  I have this fear that I hiccup

I really want to see the hiccup I really want to see Brave as well,  but we couldn't get a babysitter for this afternoon.  Plus, we really couldn't afford a babysitter.  My wife and I drew straws, and I lost.  I figure if the movie is any good, my daughter will want to see it again.

I am coming hiccup This may be the end of this post.  I'm getting a little frustrated with the pauses today.  I wish I had something more substantial to talk about.  I have no new poem.  Yet.  I will be on a writing panel discussion on Sunday evening as part of the 2012 U. P. Book Tour.  I'm sort of looking forward to that, although I'm sort of terrified at the same time.  I believe Linda Nemec Foster is going to be on the panel with me, and that's a little intimidating.  We'll see if I can hold my own or if I just sit there, stuttering and saying things like, "Me like poetry lots I do."  That hiccup

Saint Marty has hiccup Saint hiccup Saint Marty hiccup Oh, screw it.

Confessions of Saint Marty