March 9: Burnished Gold Fish, Really Beat, Selfcare

Santiago catches a dolphin . . . 

Just before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by a dolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air. It jumped again and again in the acrobatics of its fear and he worked his way back to the stern and crouching and holding the big line with his right hand and arm, he pulled the dolphin in with his left hand, stepping on the gained line each time with his bare left foot. When the fish was at the stern, plunging and cutting from side to side in desperation, the old man leaned over the stern and lifted the burnished gold fish with its purple spots over the stern. Its jaws were working convulsively in quick bites against the hook and it pounded the bottom of the skiff with its long flat body, its tail and its head until he clubbed it across the shining golden head until it shivered and was still.

The old man unhooked the fish, rebaited the line with another sardine and tossed it over. Then he worked his way slowly back to the bow. He washed his left hand and wiped it on his trousers. Then he shifted the heavy line from his right hand to his left and washed his right hand in the sea while he watched the sun go into the ocean and the slant of the big cord.

Santiago needs to eat.  That's why he hauls in the dolphin and kills it.  The old man has no idea how much longer the battle with the fish will last.  It could be hours or days.  And he is in a boat in the ocean, with no land in sight.  So he has to keep up his strength somehow.

It is late Wednesday night.  I just got home after a long day of work.  I'm pretty really beat.  For some reason, I packed all my evenings with events this week.  Concerts.  Astronomy presentations.  Author Readings.  Science presentations.  I do this kind of intensive scheduling at least one week out of every month.  Not by design.  It just happens.

So, I find myself trying to practice a little self-care, like Santiago in the above passage.  He knows he has to eat and rest.  That's how to survive in a society that thinks downtime is a luxury instead of a necessity.  Americans just don't get the impulse to withdraw and be alone.  There's this constant push to strive and achieve.

I'm not saying ambition is a bad thing.  I am literally the posterchild for Overextended.  It has something to do with my need to please.  To say "yes" or "no problem," even when there are claxons going off in my cerebral cortex and entire nervous system.  I'm a very ambitious person, in my job and artistic life.  

Yet, there is a price for this lifestyle of overachievement.  It's called exhaustion.  It happens to me once every couple of months.  I find that I simply cannot function.  I need to literally lay down on my couch and take a twelve hour nap.  Practice a little selfcare.  I think I am reaching that point soon.

Please forgive me if this post seems short and a little indulgent.  My cup runneth over.  And over.  And over.  And over.  Perhaps, by tomorrow night, after the fourth program of the week, I will carve out a little "me" time.

Translation:  Saint Marty will take a nap.

February 23: Rose Slowly and Steadily, Snowstorm, Possibility

Santiago finally sees the fish . . .

If the boy were here he could rub it for me and loosen it down from the forearm, he thought. But it will loosen up.

Then, with his right hand he felt the difference in the pull of the line before he saw the slant change in the water. Then, as he leaned against the line and slapped his left hand hard and fast against his thigh he saw the line slanting slowly upward.

"He's coming up," he said. "Come on hand. Please come on."

The line rose slowly and steadily and then the surface of the ocean bulged ahead of the boat and the fish came out. He came out unendingly and water poured from his sides. He was bright in the sun and his head and back were dark purple and in the sun the stripes on his sides showed wide and a light lavender. His sword was as long as a baseball bat and tapered like a rapier and he rose his full length from the water and then re-entered it, smoothly, like a diver and the old man saw the great scythe-blade of his tail go under and the line commenced to race out.

When something happens that you've been waiting for, it's an amazing moment.  Santiago finally sees the fish.  You receive your first romantic kiss.  Experience sex.  Publish your first poem.  Release your first book.  These are moments that mark a change.  The second before, you are one person.  The second after, you are completely different.  Or feel completely different.

The three-day snowstorm finally ended today.  Over fifteen fresh inches of snow this morning.  This is not the first three-day winter storm I've ever experienced.  And it won't be the last, if I continue to live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  I am sore tonight from pushing snow.  Not a first, either.  The banks around my house almost as tall as the house itself now.  Again, not a first.  

In fact, nothing about today was new to me.  I don't feel any different tonight than I felt yesterday.  Therefore, the point of this post is simply to say that I survived the storm.  I'm sore as hell.  Tired of winter.  As a Yooper, I am allowed to say this without guilt.  As I said a couple posts ago, only Yoopers are allowed to complain about the weather in the U. P.

Tomorrow, I will get up.  Go to work.  Sit in my library office and dream up programs and events.  Drive home and probably collapse on my sofa for a while.  Maybe take a nap.  Then, I will attend a poetry workshop.  Maybe I will write something that I never dreamed of writing before.  Maybe not.

Here's the thing:  if you treat every day like a gift, then you will be a different person every second of that day.  If you treat every day like a sequel to the prior one, then you will remain frozen in place.  Buried under 15 inches of fresh monotony every morning.

Therefore, tomorrow I will rise.  Unwrap the morning like a Christmas present.  Perhaps, the day will turn out to be a pair of socks.  Or, a new watch.  Underwear.  Who knows?  That's what gifts are all about.  Possibility.

Saint Marty likes the idea of living in possibility.  Even if it comes with over thirty inches of snow.

February 13: Liked Him for Company, Alone for Most of the Day, Human Interaction

The fish injures Santiago . . . 

Just then the fish gave a sudden lurch that pulled the old man down onto the bow and would have pulled him overboard if he had not braced himself and given some line.

The bird had flown up when the line jerked and the old man had not even seen him go. He felt the line carefully with his right hand and noticed his hand was bleeding.

"Something hurt him then," he said aloud and pulled back on the line to see if he could turn the fish. But when he was touching the breaking point he held steady and settled back against the strain of the line.

"You're feeling it now, fish," he said. "And so, God knows, am I."

He looked around for the bird now because he would have liked him for company. The bird was gone.

Santiago loses his feathered companion.

I have been working all afternoon and evening.  School stuff.  Writing stuff.  Stuff stuff.  I'm reaching the point of exhaustion.  

And I have been alone for most of the day, watching movies, listening to music, as I tapped away on my laptop.  My wife is at work.  My daughter is at her boyfriend's house.  And my son is playing computer games in his room.  Since about one o'clock this afternoon, I may have said about nine words total.  To my son:  "Are you hungry?"  To my puppy:  "Gotta go out?"  To myself:  "Get it together."

It is Super Bowl Sunday, which doesn't really mean a whole lot to me.  I don't care about football, and I don't really want to sit through six hours of a game for the commercials or half-time show.  Instead, once I'm done typing this blog post, I'm either going to read a book or take a nap.  (I'm leaning toward taking a nap.)

I'm alright with being alone.  I crave solitude sometimes.  It comes with the territory of being a poet.  So, I don't need a little bird to keep me company.  This little post is about enough human interaction for me today.  Because tomorrow is going to be a human interaction day for me.  And it will leave me cranky and withdrawn by tomorrow night.

Saint Marty thinks he was a desert monk in a former life.