October 9: Tell Me a Story, Exhaustion, Once Upon a Time

"Tell me a story," Montana Wildhack said to Billy Pilgrim in the Tralfamadorian zoo one time.  They were in bed side by side.  They had privacy.  The canopy covered the dome.  Montana was six months pregnant now, big and rosy, lazily demanding small favors from Billy from time to time.  She couldn't send Billy out for ice cream or strawberries, since the atmosphere outside the dome was cyanide, and the nearest strawberries and ice cream were millions of light years away.

 She could send him to the refrigerator, which was decorated with the blank couple on the bicycle built for two--or, as now, she could wheedle, "Tell me a story, Billy boy."

"Dresden was destroyed on the night of February 13, 1945," Billy Pilgrim began.  "We came out of our shelter the next day."  He told Montana about the four guards who, in their astonishment and grief, resembled a barbershop quartet.  He told her about the stockyards with all the fenceposts gone, with roofs and windows gone--told her about seeing little logs lying around.  There were people who had been caught in the fire-storm.  So it goes.

Billy told her what had happened to the buildings that used to form cliffs around the stockyards.  They had collapsed.  Their wood had been consumed, and their stones had crashed down., had tumbled against one another until they locked at last in low and graceful curves.

"It was like the moon," said Billy Pilgrim.

That is an astonishing story, one that Billy hasn't shared with anybody yet, except Montana Wildhack.  He shares it in a moment of intimacy, both of them naked, lying in bed.  Her six months pregnant, petulant with child.  Instead of a fairy tale, a happily-ever-after, Billy tells her about the horrors of Dresden.

So it goes.

I am going to tell you the story of exhaustion.  This past weekend, I celebrated my birthday, led a poetry workshop, corrected papers, wrote a poem, and helped my wife throw a birthday party for my son and his school friends.  Today, I worked a full shift in the medical office, conferenced with students for three hours, and put together a Midterm Exam.  Now, I am blogging.  Soon, I will go home and collapse.

So it goes.

So, once upon a time, there was a saint named Marty.  Marty worked all day and all night for four days straight, closing his eyes only to blink away the sand of sleep.  By the fourth night, Marty was just a shade, sitting in his dark office, ghosted by the light from his laptop screen.

And then Saint Marty slept happily ever after.  The end.

So it goes.

May 24: Cinderella, Most Popular Story, Happily Ever After

The banquet hall was illuminated by candlelight.  There were heaps of fresh-baked white bread on the tables, gobs of butter, pots of marmalade.  There were platters of sliced beef from cans.  Soup and scrambled eggs and hot marmalade pie were yet to come.

And, at the far end of the shed, Billy saw pink arches with azure draperies hanging between them, and an enormous clock, and two golden thrones, and a bucket and a mop.  It was in this setting that the evening's entertainment would take place, a musical version of Cinderella, the most popular story ever told.

The most popular story ever told.  That's Vonnegut's claim about Cinderella.  An abused girl rescued from her wicked step-family by a handsome prince, swept away to a castle where she will be married and live happily ever after.  Of course, in the original version of the story, I believe Cinderella has her stepmother and stepsisters blinded by a flock of crows or seagulls.  There's also a point where the stepsisters cut off their toes in order to make their feet fit into the glass slipper.  So it goes.

I'm sure there are other stories that could make a claim to the "most popular story ever told" award.  There's the tale of Scrooge and the ghosts.  Or the one about Belle and her hairy love interest.  Let's not forget the Jesus narrative from the gospels.  Don Quixote sparring with windmills.  Gilgamesh.  There are a lot of stories that have been around for a very long time.

Of course, the one thing that most of these narratives have in common is the ending.  Everyone, in the most popular stories, lives happily ever after.  Belle kisses the Beast.  Presto.  Instant Brad Pitt.  Ebenezer Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning and goes on to save Tiny Tim's life.  Jesus rises from the dead and redeems all of humankind.  Don Quixote finds his Dulcinea.  Love wins.

That's why these narratives are so enduring.  They provide hope.  In the ash heaps of life, there's a Fairy Godmother waiting to change you into a princess.  Even if you're the biggest son of a bitch in London, there's a ghost willing to rescue your soul from eternal misery.  And, of course, the biggest and most important narrative, God sends His son to suffer and die for our sins. 

That's why we tell stories.  It's the promise of salvation, the light of hope.  We are all children who want to live happily every after.  Billy Pilgrim wants it.  You want it.  I want it.  Nobody wants to live forever in world of darkness and pain and death. 

So, we sit on our parents' laps, open a book, pay attention in Church.  And we listen:  "In the beginning . . . Once upon a time . . . "

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for stories.

January 24: Telling Stories, Once Upon a Time, Friday's Tale

Fairy tale time...

In some ways, Charlotte's Web reads like a fable.  Something that Aesop may have told, had he lived on a farm in the United States in the early part of the 20th century.  I mean, there's talking pigs and spiders and sheep and cows and geese.  And, really, the whole book is a lesson in loyalty and friendship.  The book even ends with a kind of moral:

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

 Charlotte herself tells tall tales for Wilbur sometimes.  One night, she spins a yarn about her cousin who catches a fish in a web:

"Once upon a time," she began, "I had a beautiful cousin who managed to build her web across a small stream.  One day a tiny fish leaped into the air and got tangled in the web..."

So begins an epic battle between spider and fish that rivals anything Homer wrote about Troy or Odysseus.  It's a great story.


Human beings love stories.  We live for narrative.  When family members get together for holidays or birthdays, we drag out our favorite memories, tell the tales, adding details, making them funnier or sadder or scarier.  A brother chopping wood who misses the log and slams the ax into his foot.  An infant daughter who pees in her father's face the first night she comes home from the hospital.  A grandmother in a nursing home who sings everything:  "I wo-onder how Helen Je-ennings is do-oing?  I haven't se-eeen herrrr is a lo-ong time!"  Great stories.

I think that's why I like blogging.  I can share my stories, good or bad, happy or sad.  (Sorry for the bad rhyming.)  I want to leave some kind of record of my days and thoughts.  Things that my family and friends can read.  I know I'm not the most interesting person in the world, but that's not the point.  The point is to communicate, put myself out there.  Tell people I love them.  Thank people for their kindness. Let people know about a worry.  Let people know about a joy.  Maybe make a new friend.  That's the point.

You know, once upon a time, a lonely old man lived on the edge of a vast green sea.  The old man's wife had died.  His children lived half-way across the world.  Nobody ever came to the edge of the vast green sea to visit the old man.

So, the old man began writing notes every day.  He put the notes in bottles and threw them into the waves of the vast green sea.  He wrote, "Hi, I'm lonely today" and "Hi, I had Rice Krispies for breakfast" and "Hi, I've been constipated for three days."  Every day, a bottle went into the green waters.  Every night, the old man went back to the beach to see if anybody had sent him a bottle in return.

One night in early January, the old man went to the beach of the vast green sea as he always did.  There, bobbing in the shallows, was a bottle with a message inside it.  Excitedly, the old man splashed into the water and grabbed the bottle.  He took out the cork and removed the paper inside.  He opened the note and read:

"Get high speed Internet from AT&T for only $19.99 a month!"

Moral of the story:  junk mail pisses me off.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

November 3: Once Upon a Time, Good Reads, New Cartoon

Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house...

With these words, Charles Dickens basically kicks off A Christmas Carol.  Those words ("once upon a time") are a signal to readers.  A story is coming.  A tale is going to be told.  We are all trained as children to expect dragons and fairy godmothers and ghosts when we hear those words.  Dickens give us a whole bevy of spirits to satisfy our fairy tale natures.  We all, as human beings, love to be told stories.  It's as much a part of our make-ups as eye or hair color.  It's in our DNA.

Today is Good Reads day.  I will be talking about a book I love.  It may be a novel or collection of short stories or compilation of poems.  Whatever strikes my fancy. 

This week, I want to talk about poetry.  I received a book of poems by Terry Godbey for my birthday.  Beauty Lessons is a stunning collection, full of the pain of childhood, the wars of adult life.  Literally, some of the poems in this collection take my breath away.  Mostly narrative, these poems tell stories of growing up, of learning what it takes to move from girlhood to womanhood.  At times, the poems are wistful.  At times, the poems are brutal.  Always, the poems connect the reader to the fragile tapestry of human existence.  Through her work, Godbey reminds us of our common need for connection and love, and the terrible/wonderful cost of that connection.

I would like to include one of my favorite poems from the collection here.  It's a poem about connection, again.  A poem about mothers.  A poem about love and loss.

Two Mothers Stranded in the World

She circles, distraught and loud,
and like any expectant mother
displays an unfortunate waddle.
Behind her, a man emerges from the lake,
shoes and shins dripping,
holding her glistening oval
found on a lily pad
where it lay like a woman sunning.
He places it in the nest and she tests it gently
with her webbed foot, sits down
and settles in.  Finally, explanation,
a boy had sailed the egg
into water two hours earlier.
The goose shuts her eyes, complete.
All around the air sighs with us,
and crape myrtle blossoms
fall feathery at our feet.
A woman breaks the silence:
"My son is going to Iraq.
We're pretty torn up about it,
but if the goose got her baby back,
that means I'll get mine back too,"
her voice thin as an eggshell,
and cracking.

With her poems, Terry Godbey tells stories that break your heart, over and over.

That's the word on words from Saint Marty.

Confessions of Saint Marty

May 2: Once Upon A Time, Fairy Tales, HEA

Once upon a time--of all good days in the year, on Christmas Eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house.

After teaching Grimm fairy tales for the last half of the semester, this little sentence from the beginning of A Christmas Carol appealed to the mythologist in me.  First, the sentence places Scrooge and company squarely in the fairy tale realm.  That's one of the reasons why all the supernatural stuff works so well.  Upon hearing the phrase "once upon a time," the readers are predisposed to accept things like ghosts and phantoms and magical Christmas spirits.  Second, the phrase calls to mind story templates most readers are very familiar with.  Cinderella.  Little Red Cap.  The Big Bad Wolf.  Rumpelstiltskin.  We, as readers, know what to expect from these stories.  Third, "once upon a time" guarantees the use of an equally familiar phrase at end of the tale:  "happily ever after."  And we do get a phrase very much in that vein as the last sentence of the A Christmas Carol:  "And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!"

I think we all crave the stuff of fairy tales.  Magic.  Familiar narratives.  Happy endings.  We live our lives trying to attain these things.  We want magic--romance, money, vacations, perfect jobs.  We want familiar structures on a daily basis--breakfast, school/work, lunch, more school/work, dinner, recreation, bed.  Whether we admit it or not, we all like the familiarity of routine.  And any evil witch or wizard who interferes with that routine must be dispatched so we can return to our comfortable routines and attain...happily ever after, of course.  We're all searching for some sort of happiness in our lives.

Admit it.  You have a fairy tale in your mind for the trajectory of your life.  I do.  It's called dreaming.  And everybody, from Oprah Winfrey on down, tells us to live our dreams.

Here's Saint Marty's fairy tale:

Once upon a time, there lived a relatively young saint named Marty.  Marty was good looking, strong of spirit, and the best writer in the world.  He wrote every day--poetry, stories, novels, memoirs, blog posts.  One day, Saint Marty entered a poetry contest sponsored by the king.  The king loved the saint's poems so much, he gave the saint five bags of gold and the title of Poet Laureate of the Kingdom.

After a few years, a group of scholars in the far away land of Stockholm met behind closed doors and selected Saint Marty to receive the most prestigious literary award in the world.  The Nobel Prize.  People all over the planet rejoiced as beloved Saint Marty traveled to Stockholm to accept his honor.

When he returned home, Saint Marty continued to write his wonderful verse and prose.  People from all over came to Saint Marty, seeking his wisdom and advice.  Saint Marty lived 135 years. 

One night, Saint Peter came to Saint Marty, took him by the hand, and escorted him to the heavenly banquet table.  The Lord accepted Saint Marty with open arms, saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant." 

And Saint Marty lived happily in the ever after.  God bless us, every one.