September 19: The Whale Watch, Autumn Cold Again, Poetry Workshop

The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart; one, far to windward; one less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern. These last three were brought alongside ere nightfall; but the windward one could not be reached till morning; and the boat that had killed it lay by its side all night; and that boat was Ahab's.

The waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale's spout-hole; and the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled flickering glare upon the black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight waves, which gently chafed the whale's broad flank, like soft surf upon a beach.

Ahab and all his boat's crew seemed asleep but the Parsee; who crouching in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally played round the whale, and tapped the light cedar planks with their tails. A sound like the moaning in squadrons over Asphaltites of unforgiven ghosts of Gomorrah, ran shuddering through the air.

Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee; and hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the last men in a flooded world. "I have dreamed it again," said he.

"Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, that neither hearse nor coffin can be thine?"

"And who are hearsed that die on the sea?"

"But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage, two hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not made by mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in America."

"Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee!- a hearse and its plumes floating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-bearers. Ha! Such a sight we shall not soon see."

"Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old man."

"And what was that saying about thyself?"

"Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy pilot."

"And when thou art so gone before- if that ever befall- then ere I can follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still?- Was it not so? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot! I have here two pledges that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it."

"Take another pledge, old man," said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted up like fire-flies in the gloom- "Hemp only can kill thee."

"The gallows, ye mean.- I am immortal then, on land and on sea," cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision;- "Immortal on land and on sea!"

Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came on, and the slumbering crew arose from the boat's bottom, and ere noon the dead whale was brought to the ship.

Another uplifting little chapter about the promise of death.  In particular, Ahab is contemplating his own demise and what form it will take.  Of course, he believes that he will live long enough to see the death of Moby Dick.  In fact, Ahab intends to administer the killing blow himself.  The Parsee makes a different prediction:  "Hemp only can kill thee [Ahab]."

Day two of an autumn cold, and I'm still feeling like that dead whale.  Last night, after a two-hour nap and a dose of Claritin, I was feeling much better.  However, today, I've been pushing through tar.  I've already worked eight hours and taught one class.  Now, I'm trying to muster enough energy for three hours of composition tonight.  I'm not being very successful. 

I don't know how long I'm going to last this evening.  Maybe the full three hours.  I'm thinking less probably.  There are things I must accomplish:  1) collect an essay; 2) listen to group presentations; 3) hand out the next writing assignment; and 4) maybe talk about a chapter in the textbook.  If I get through all of that, it will be a miracle.

Frankly, I'm less concerned about teaching tonight than about a poetry class I'm leading this weekend.  For one hour on Saturday morning, I have to guide kids through the writing of a poem.  It's for the homecoming festivities at the university where I teach.  I'm looking forward to it, but I don't want to look like a refugee from The Walking Dead. 

So, after tonight, it's all about rest and recuperation. 

Saint Marty will be thankful tonight for his bed and Nyquil.

September 17: The Dying Whale, Friggin' Cold, Nyquil

Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune's favorites sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out. So seemed it with the Pequod. For next day after encountering the gay Bachelor, whales were seen and four were slain; and one of them by Ahab.

It was far down the afternoon; and when all the spearings of the crimson fight were done; and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky, sun and whale both stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and such plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy air, that it almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent valleys of the Manilla isles, the Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor, had gone to sea, freighted with these vesper hymns.

Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned off from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings from the now tranquil boat. For that strange spectacle observable in all sperm whales dying- the turning sunwards of the head, and so expiring- that strange spectacle, beheld of such a placid evening, somehow to Ahab conveyed a wondrousness unknown before.

"He turns and turns him to it,- how slowly, but how steadfastly, his homage-rendering and invoking brow, with his last dying motions. He too worships fire; most faithful, broad, baronial vassal of the sun!- Oh that these too-favoring eyes should see these too-favoring sights. Look! here, far water-locked; beyond all hum of human weal or woe; in these most candid and impartial seas; where to traditions no rocks furnish tablets; where for long Chinese ages, the billows have still rolled on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the Niger's unknown source; here, too, life dies sunwards full of faith, but see! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it heads some other way.

"Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned bones hast builded thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these unverdured seas; thou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly speakest to me in the wide-slaughtering Typhoon, and the hushed burial of its after calm. Nor has this thy whale sunwards turned his dying head, and then gone round again, without a lesson to me.

"Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed jet!- that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou darker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith. All thy unnamable imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of once living things, exhaled as air, but water now.

"Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild fowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea; though hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!"

So, this chapter is about Captain Ahab meditating on the death of a whale.  Tonight, my head is full of mucous; my nose is plugged; I'm sneezing like crazy; and my partner in bed tonight is going to be a bottle of Nyquil. 

That's what I have tonight.  I've been battling this friggin' cold all day long, and, currently, I'm losing the battle.  There's half a box of used Kleenexes sitting on the couch cushion beside me.  If all these details are disgusting you, I apologize.  The feeling is mutual.

I'm ready to turn my belly up to the sun and call it a day.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for Claritin.

September 16: Sunday Afternoon, Classic Saint Marty, "Song of Ourself"

Welcome to Sunday afternoon.

It has been a warm and lazy day.  Church in the morning, followed by a potluck.  When I got back from church, I went on a bike ride because it was such a beautiful day.  I've made a vow to do some form of exercise every day, if I can.  Yesterday, I went for a walk with my wife and son.  Today, a four-mile bike ride.  Hopefully, come Thanksgiving day, I will be in some kind of shape for the annual Turkey Trot.

This evening, I'm attending a pipe organ concert at my church.  The organ recently underwent a 70-thousand-dollar restoration, so this is the culmination of that project.  I've been playing this instrument for close to 35 years, and I've never heard it sound better.  However, after the bike ride, I'd rather stay at home, read, and get my lesson plan ready for tomorrow.  My motivation for human interaction is at low ebb.  But I will go and play nice with other people.

Two years ago, I was at the start of a weekend, not the end . . .

September 16, 2016:  Migration of Caribou, Box of Kleenex, Road to Hell

In autumn the winding passage of ravens from the north heralds the great fall migration of caribou...

It is autumn, although I have seen no ravens from the north.  And I certainly didn't see any caribou tonight, although I did see a whole lot of football players running up and down a soggy field.  So, it was sort of like watching the fall migration of caribou.  Don't ask me if the home team won.  My daughter plays in the pep band, and we always leave after she plays during half-time.

Speaking of autumn, the annual fall illness has descended upon my household.  My daughter was out of school for two days this week, and she's still taking antibiotics.  My wife just crawled into bed with a box of Kleenex.  Me?  I'm attempting, for the second time, to watch The Wonder Boys with my daughter.  (For details on my first attempt, refer to last night's second post.)

It's Friday night, if you haven't guessed by the whole football thing.  After nine o'clock, and I still have papers to grade and poems to write.  Hopefully, tomorrow I will be able to get some major work accomplished.  That's my goal, anyway.  Of course, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I always have a lot of good intentions at the beginning of a weekend.  Tonight is like an apple, high on a branch, just waiting to be plucked.  I love Friday nights.  The potential of them.  The whole weekend stretching out before me.  It's one of my favorite times of the week.

Of course, come Sunday, I will have accomplished only half (if I'm lucky) of what I intended to do, and I will be feeling like a failure.

Tonight, however, Saint Marty is an unlit candle.  An uneaten Milky Way.  A pepperoni pizza waiting to be delivered.

And a little art and poetry for a Sunday afternoon . . .

September 15: The Pequod Meets the Bachelor, My Mother, Dementia

And jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came bearing down before the wind, some few weeks after Ahab's harpoon had been welded.

It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in her last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and now, in glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously, sailing round among the widely-separated ships on the ground, previous to pointing her prow for home.

The three men at her mast-head wore long streamers of narrow red bunting at their hats; from the stern, a whale-boat was suspended, bottom down; and hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the long lower jaw of the last whale they had slain. Signals, ensigns, and jacks of all colors were flying from her rigging, on every side. Sideways lashed in each of her three basketed tops were two barrels of sperm; above which, in her top-mast cross-trees, you saw slender breakers of the same precious fluid; and nailed to her main truck was a brazen lamp.

As was afterwards learned, the Bachelor had met with the most surprising success; all the more wonderful, for that while cruising in the same seas numerous other vessels had gone entire months without securing a single fish. Not only had barrels of beef and bread been given away to make room for the far more valuable sperm, but additional supplemental casks had been bartered for, from the ships she had met; and these were stowed along the deck, and in the captain's and officers' state-rooms. Even the cabin table itself had been knocked into kindling-wood; and the cabin mess dined off the broad head of an oil-butt, lashed down to the floor for a centerpiece. In the forecastle, the sailors had actually caulked and pitched their chests, and filled them; it was humorously added, that the cook had clapped a head on his largest boiler, and filled it; that the steward had plugged his spare coffee-pot and filled it; that the harpooneers had headed the sockets of their irons and filled them; that indeed everything was filled with sperm, except the captain's pantaloons pockets, and those he reserved to thrust his hands into, in self-complacent testimony of his entire satisfaction.

As this glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle; and drawing still nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round her huge try-pots, which, covered with the parchment-like poke or stomach skin of the black fish, gave forth a loud roar to every stroke of the clenched hands of the crew. On the quarter-deck, the mates and harpooneers were dancing with the olive-hued girls who had eloped with them from the Polynesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamental boat, firmly secured aloft between the foremast and mainmast, three Long Island negroes, with glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were presiding over the hilarious jig. Meanwhile, others of the ship's company were tumultuously busy at the masonry of the try-works, from which the huge pots had been removed. You would have almost thought they were pulling down the cursed Bastille, such wild cries they raised, as the now useless brick and mortar were being hurled into the sea.

Lord and master over all this scene, the captain stood erect on the ship's elevated quarter-deck, so that the whole rejoicing drama was full before him, and seemed merely contrived for his own individual diversion.

And Ahab, he too was standing on his quarter-deck, shaggy and black, with a stubborn gloom; and as the two ships crossed each other's wakes- one all jubilations for things passed, the other all forebodings as to things to come- their two captains in themselves impersonated the whole striking contrast of the scene.

"Come aboard, come aboard!" cried the gay Bachelor's commander, lifting a glass and a bottle in the air.

"Hast seen the White Whale?" gritted Ahab in reply.

"No; only heard of him; but don't believe in him at all," said the other good-humoredly. "Come aboard!"

"Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men?"

"Not enough to speak of- two islanders, that's all;- but come aboard, old hearty, come along. I'll soon take that black from your brow. Come along, will ye (merry's the play); a full ship and homeward-bound."

"How wondrous familiar is a fool!" muttered Ahab; then aloud, "Thou art a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayst; well, then, call me an empty ship, and outward-bound. So go thy ways, and I will mine. Forward there! Set all sail, and keep her to the wind!"

And thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze, the other stubbornly fought against it; and so the two vessels parted; the crew of the Pequod looking with grave, lingering glances towards the receding Bachelor; but the Bachelor's men never heeding their gaze for the lively revelry they were in. And as Ahab, leaning over the taffrail, eyed the homewardbound craft, he took from his pocket a small vial of sand, and then looking from the ship to the vial, seemed thereby bringing two remote associations together, for that vial was filled with Nantucket soundings.

The contrast is pretty stark in this chapter.  The Bachelor, joyous and buoyant and homeward bound.  The Pequod, dark and heavy and White Whale bound.  It's the difference between wedding and funeral.  Reception and wake.  The crew of the Bachelor is sailing toward the future.  The crew of the Pequod, toward imminent, albino-fluked doom.

Today, I'm going to write about a subject that is difficult for me.  My mother has been struggling with dementia for several years now.  My father passed away in February.  They were married for 65 years, raised nine children.  Buried two of them.  They were partners for a very long time.  As my father lay dying in the hospital, my mother was holding his hand, saying over and over, "You were a good husband.  You were a good father."

Sometimes, I think my mother's dementia has been a blessing for her in the last seven months.  It has allowed her to go through her days without feeling my father's absence constantly.  Every once in a while, she will ask where he is.  For the most part, however, she's been not exactly happy, but blessed with only small bouts of grief.

Recently, however, my mother has been focused on my father's death, asking my sisters how he died, what the funeral was like, whether she needs to sell her house, where her car is.  Very recently, she's been repeating one thought:  "I should just die and get it over with."

It seems as though she's giving up.  Instead of sailing into the future, she's headed out into deeper, darker waters.  Perhaps this is natural, but it is difficult to hear and witness.  Her dementia allows her to focus and obsess on certain thoughts and actions.  Right now, she's obsessed with death.

My mother has always been a huge force in my life, even more so than my father.  She was the one who pushed me to excel in school, supported me through some of the most difficult times of my life.  She never judged any of the decisions I made, even if she thought they were wrong-headed.  No, her one wish was simply for me to be happy.

I want my mother to be happy, to be celebrating something instead of mourning my father.  I'm not sure I can do anything to make that possible.  There's a big piece of her puzzle missing now.  A 65-year-shaped piece.  And she's spending her days looking for that piece.

Saint Marty is thankful this morning for having a mother who has loved him.  Unconditionally.