July 5: Surrounded by Angels, Tracy K. Smith, "The Angels"

You know, I'm a lucky guy.  I'm surrounded by angels.

Okay, this is not going to be one of those posts that cause the nearest diabetic to go into a coma.  It's a simple observation.  My life is filled with wonderful people.  I like my coworkers at the medical center.  My office mate at the university is one of my best friends.  My daughter and son bring me joy on a daily basis.  My daughter's boyfriend is a wonderful kid who treats her really well.  I have best friends who I know would do anything for me, and vice versa.  An my wife doesn't mind that I'm a poet. 

Saint Marty doesn't deserve all the goodness these people bring to his life.

The Angels

by:  Tracy K. Smith

Two slung themselves across chairs
Once in a motel room. Grizzled,
In leather biker gear. Emissaries
For something I needed to see.

I was worn down by an awful panic.
A wrenching in the gut, contortions.
They sat there at the table while I slept.
I could sense them, with a deck

Of playing cards between them.
To think of how they smelled, what
Comes to mind is rum and gasoline.
And when they spoke, though I couldn’t,

I dared not look, I glimpsed how one’s teeth
Were ground down almost to nubs.
Which makes me hope some might be
Straight up thugs, young, slim, raw,

Who bounce and roll with fearsome grace,
Whose very voices cause faint souls to quake.
— Quake, then, fools, and fall away!
— What God do you imagine we obey?

Think of the toil we must cost them,
One scaled perfectly to eternity.
And still, they come, telling us
Through the ages not to fear.

Just those two that once and never
Again for me since, though
There are — are they? — 
Sightings, flashes, hints:

A proud tree in vivid sun, branches
Swaying in strong wind. Rain
Hurling itself at the roof. Boulders,
Mounds of earth mistaken for dead

Does, lions in crouch. A rust-stained pipe
Where a house once stood, which I
Take each time I pass it for an owl.
Bright whorl so dangerous and near.

My mother sat whispering with it
At the end of her life
While all the rooms of our house
Filled up with night.

June 6: Gloucester, Twelve On, Twelve Off, a Piece of My Mind

...Then she invited me to visit Ernie during the summer, at Gloucester, Massachusetts.  She said their house was right on the beach, and they had a tennis court and all, but I just thanked her and told her I was going to South America with my grandmother...

These are the kind of people Holden is used to being around.  People with summer homes in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on the beach.  People who play tennis on their private tennis courts.  People who actually do go on trips to South America with their grandmothers.  These aren't just successful people.  These are wealthy people.  The Caulfields have money.

You may be wondering what's on my mind today.  Well, I'll tell you:  money, and my lack of it.  I just flipped through my copy of The Catcher in the Rye and read about Holden's private schools and lawyer father who produces Broadway shows and Hollywood writer brother.  I have nothing in common with these characters at all.

It's summer now.  While my colleagues at the university at teaching summer courses, I'm basically working twelve hour shifts at my medical office job.  Twelve on.  Twelve off.  Twelve on.  Twelve off.  Sometimes I'm so tired when I get to my car at the end of the day that I'm not sure whether I'm done with a twelve or starting a twelve.  This schedule is by choice and necessity.  Without the income from teaching at the university during the summer months, I choose to work these hours in order to not go into foreclosure on my home.

My situation is not unusual.  My office mate at the university is also contingent faculty.  She has two kids like me, as well.  And she waitresses at Applebee's to pay the bills.  These are the choices people make in order to provide for their families.  Thus, summering in Gloucester is about as foreign-sounding as flying to Uranus.  If I were in Gloucester, I'd be working as a busboy or registering hotel guests.

The strange thing about people of means is that they don't realize they are people of means.  When I sit with a group of professors and they start complaining about how many empty rooms they have in their homes, I want to punch them in their throats.  I want to say, "Ooh, yeah.  I understand.  Just the other day, I was talking to my wife about converting one of our guest bedrooms into my second library.  What do you think?"  Puh-lease.

I'm sure I sound a little whiny at the moment.  I am.  I'm also jealous, angry, and exhausted.  If you give me a few more minutes, I'll probably come up with three more adjectives to describe the seven dwarfs of my fairy tale.  And I'm one of the lucky contingents.  I have a second job that provides health insurance for my household (for the moment).  My office mate doesn't.  She's one case of pneumonia away from eviction.

I'm not looking for pity or even sympathy.  I'm looking for a vacation from my twelve-hour-work-day life.  A nap, too.  I want a nap.  And maybe a glass of cheap wine and some chocolate.  Those are my goals for this summer.

Saint Marty has just given you a piece of his mind.

My house in the Hamptons....

February 5: Long Day, Daughter-less Night

I'm sitting in my office at the university, talking with my office mate, "Reese."  Reese has been in this office with me for over four years.  It's a pretty comfortable professional marriage.  We get along great, to the point where we can almost finish each other's sentences.  She is the best office mate I have ever had at this university.  And I've had quite the parade of people, from an uncontrolled diabetic to a man who was put on trial for CSC with a minor.  (By the way, that last guy doesn't teach here anymore.)

It has been a long day.  Tonight, my daughter is staying at grandma's.  She's going on a trip tomorrow to see Lord of the Dance with her aunts.  Her bags are packed, and her homework should be in her backpack.  I'm picking her up from dance and dropping her off at my parents' house.  My wife and I will have a daughter-less night.

It's strange.  When my kids are gone, I really miss the chaos they bring into our household.  When they're at home and in full two horsemen of the Apocalypse mode, I want to lock myself in the bathroom and suck my thumb.  Most parents can relate.  I think.

Saint Marty needs to get moving.  His daughter is probably standing in the snow, trying to sell matches outside her dance studio to pay for her Lord of the Dance trip.

My office mate.  Really.