October 8: Wonderful Horror, Beautiful Ugly, 24th Wedding Anniversary

Arthur stared about him in a kind of wonderful horror.  Ranged away before them, at distances he could neither judge nor even guess at, were a series of curious suspensions, delicate traceries of metal and light hung about shadowy spherical shapes that hung in the space.

I love the phrase "wonderful horror."  It's sort of like the term "beautiful ugly" or "awful joy."  A combination of opposites used to describe something that is full of ambiguity.  It tries to embrace the entirety of what is being described, whether it's a person, place, or experience.

When you think about it, nothing can truly exist without its opposite.  How can we know what light is without experiencing darkness?  Can one tree be beautiful without another tree being ugly?  If watching the Perseid meteor showers is full of wonder, then watching an equivalent event in nature must be full of horror, like Hurricane Katrina.  You see what I mean?  Each thing is defined by its antithesis.

I am approaching my 24th wedding anniversary this coming Monday.  My wife and I have been married for almost a quarter century, but we've been together for closer to 30 years.  Those years have been full of joys and sorrows.  They've been beautiful, and they've been ugly.  We've experienced peace, and we've experienced struggle.
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This pretty much describes any marriage.  It's impossible to be with the same person for a long period of time without problems arising.  It kind of goes with the territory.  Yet, it's that foundation of love that helps couples weather the storms.  Marriages fail when one partner or the other loses sight of that love, turns away, toward something that seems exciting or dangerous or both.

One of the biggest misconceptions of marriage is that it's always midnight swims, bodies naked under a coral moon.  Sure, those things still happen.  But most of the time, marriage is cooking spam omelettes because that's all that's in the refrigerator to eat and you can't afford to order a pizza.  Marriage is built on both the extraordinary and the extraordinarily mundane.

This past summer, there has been a lot of ugly to go along with the beautiful of our marriage.  We have been struggling, but we have also had moments of joy, including our little vacation in Mackinaw City.  We walked hand-in-hand along the shores of Lake Michigan, enjoying this simple moment of physical intimacy.  It was beautiful ugly.  Or lovely sad.  Or wonderful normal.

I wouldn't wish away any of these infinitely small moments of love I've shared with my spouse over the years.

They have made Saint Marty's marriage fragile strong.

October 7: Atoms and Molecules, Scarecrow, Algebra of the Heart

The Heart of Gold fled on silently through the night of space, now on conventional photon drive.  Its crew of four were ill at ease knowing that they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics--as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed relationships between atoms and molecules.

In some ways, I think that life would be so much easier if relationships between people were governed by the laws of physics.  It would save me (and millions of others) from a lot of sleepless nights.  If love were simply a matter of valences and formulas, the problems of my life could be solved almost algebraically.  It would be as simple as understanding a² + b² = c².  (For those of you uncomfortable with scientific or mathematical equations, I am saying that if life/love were as predictable as the Pythagorean theorem, it would be really easy to avoid heartbreak.)

Of course, it isn't quite that simple.  The Scarecrow learned that in The Wizard of Oz.  Even though he got his brain, he still couldn't figure out how not to be heartbroken when Dorothy left.  What I'm saying here is not very earth-shattering, but I think people tend to forget it, especially if they've been in long-term relationships for quite some time.  After 25 or 30 or 40 years, love can be taken for granted, until love climbs into the basket of an air balloon and disappears into the sky forever.

The love my wife and I share has been complicated by a lot of things--mental illness, addiction, and all the messy things that accompany mental illness and addiction.  If I were talking mathematically, I would say that a lot of unknown variables have entered the equation of our lives.  And, as of this night, I am still trying to figure out the value of those variables.  Solve the equation of our marriage, so to speak.

It's too late right now for me to fiddle around with the x and y and a and b and z (and probably quite a few other letters) of my relationship with my wife.  I'm tired, and the math simply makes me more tired.  What I want you to take away from this post is that the heart has its own algebra, and no mathematician has been able to figure out its rules.  Because they're transitive and associative and communicative all at once.

So, go with what the Beatles said, if you want:  "All you need is love."

Or Bette Midler:  "Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed."

Or Robert Palmer:  "Might as well face it, you're addicted to love."

Or go with what Saint Marty says:  Love can ruin and save your life at the same time.

October 6: Next Year's Journey, Few Things I've Learned, Addiction Sucks

As I embark upon my next year's journey in life, I thought I'd list a few things I've learned over the past 365 days:

• Don't take anything for granted.  Life can change in a hummingbird's heartbeat.  One moment, you are on stable, easy ground.  The next, you're treading quicksand.  So, make sure to appreciate even the smallest, most mundane moments every day.  
• You can't choose who you love.  Love chooses for you.
• The person you love the most is the person who can hurt you the most.
• Mental illness sucks.
• Addiction sucks.
• You cannot force an addict to become sober, no matter how hard you try.
• Addiction is a selfish disease.  An addict will turn his back on his significant other, children, family, job,  and life in pursuit of his addiction.
• You can't love a person into sobriety.
• Did I mention that addiction sucks?
• I am stronger than I realized.
• God is looking out for me, all the time.  When I was at rock bottom this past year, staring up at the sky from the pit of a forgotten well, God stepped in, rolled up His sleeves, and went to work.
• There are tons of people in my life who care about me very deeply.
• My daughter is an amazing person.  She's smarter and stronger than I will ever be.
• Poetry can save your life.
• Friends come and go, like busboys in a restaurant, as Stephen King wrote.
• There is nothing wrong with sameness.  Boring is not bad.  It's stable and comforting.
• Sometimes, simply getting out of bed in the morning is the biggest victory of your day.
• Never, EVER say to yourself, "Well, it couldn't get any worse!"  It WILL get worse.
• I could live at Walt Disney World.
• I am not a big fan of blizzards or snow storms.  
• I still have dreams.
• Hope is a sustaining life force, not an unrealistic fantasy.
• Fear really is the opposite of faith.  
• Don't chew loudly around me.  I will kill you.
• I hate Donald Trump.
• My son is sweet, generous, and loving.
• My son is frustrating and short-tempered.
• I love my son.
• I love my daughter.
• I love my wife.
• Love always wins.

There you have it!  Saint Marty's life lessons for 2018/2019.  Print them on a tee-shirt.  Make a meme.  Turn them into an app.  Just remember, Saint Marty gets a 40% cut of the profits.

October 5: Happy Saint Marty's Day, Nature of the Universe, the Future

Happy Saint Marty's Day!

Yes, the day has finally arrived!  All that preparation, cookie-baking, decorating, and gift-wrapping have finally paid off!  Now, we can all just relax and enjoy the joy and goodwill of this blessed day!

I will say that this past year has had a lot of ups and downs for me.  And, although things are still not on level ground for me, I am still able to wake up in the morning, go through my day, finding things to laugh about, feeling loved and blessed.  Sure, I have my down days, but I try not to wallow in them.  Instead, I look for the beautiful things in the swamp.  The water lilies and orchids.  The singing bull frogs.  There's beauty everywhere.  You just have to open your eyes and look around.

Douglas Adams writes this about a bowl of petunias falling through the atmosphere to the surface of the planet Magrathea:

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again.  Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.

Yes, even petunias can have a bad day.  Or a series of bad days.  There's always mystery in life.  (Why did those petunias say, "Oh no, not again.")  Nobody knows why bad things happen to good flowers (or people).  There may be no answer to that conundrum.  A cynic/pessimist may say that the the petunias are victims of a universe that is cruel and cold.  An optimist may say that the universe is preparing the petunias for something better.  A realist would simply tell the petunias that their fate is simply a fact of nature and to accept it.

On this Saint Marty's Day, I would tell the petunias to enjoy the sun and wind in its petals!  Don't worry about what's coming.  Worrying about the future is a fruitless endeavor.  If there is one thing this past year has taught me it's that you can't spend your whole day pondering the "what ifs" of life.  Because they may never happen, and then you've just wasted minutes/hours/days of your life.  Instead, I choose to focus on making the best of my now.

Today, I will enjoy driving my son to his weekly game of D&D.  We will listen to podcasts that we love.  Or Christmas music.  (I've trained him well.)  Later, I will enjoy playing the pipe organ for Mass this afternoon.  I'm sure my daughter and wife will have some Saint Marty's Day goodness to share with me.  And then, hopefully, a fire tonight in the backyard.  Or a game night.  That's about as far into the future as I'm going.

That is what Saint Marty's Day is really all about.  Enjoying the little and big blessings in your life.  Not taking anything for granted.  Because, as the Spinners song warns, tomorrow may never come. 

Saint Marty wishes you all a blessed and joyous Saint Marty's Day!