May 16: Confident Loving Eyes, My Daughter, Unconditionally

Santiago loves the boy . . . 

When the wind was in the east a smell came across the harbour from the shark factory; but today there was only the faint edge of the odour because the wind had backed into the north and then dropped off and it was pleasant and sunny on the Terrace.

"Santiago," the boy said.

"Yes," the old man said. He was holding his glass and thinking of many years ago.

"Can I go out to get sardines for you for tomorrow?"

"No. Go and play baseball. I can still row and Rogelio will throw the net."

"I would like to go. If I cannot fish with you, I would like to serve in some way."

"You bought me a beer," the old man said. "You are already a man."

"How old was I when you first took me in a boat?"

"Five and you nearly were killed when I brought the fish in too green and he nearly tore the boat to pieces. Can you remember?"

"I can remember the tail slapping and banging and the thwart breaking and the noise of the clubbing. I can remember you throwing me into the bow where the wet coiled lines were and feeling the whole boat shiver and the noise of you clubbing him like chopping a tree down and the sweet blood smell all over me."

"Can you really remember that or did I just tell it to you?"

"I remember everything from when we first went together."

The old man looked at him with his sun-burned, confident loving eyes.

Santiago loves the boy like his own child.  That much is obvious in this short passage.

My daughter called me a little while ago to share some good news she'd just received.  She applied for some donor scholarships from the university she's attending (the same one at which I teach as a contingent professor), and today she found out that she's been awarded three of them.  It's enough money that she won't have to worry next year too much about how she's going to pay for school or books.  She was so excited, and she wanted to share that excitement with me.

Sometimes, I wonder how good of a father I've been to my kids.  I know I've made some wrong choices in my life.  Made a ton of mistakes.  All parents do.  Kids don't come with manuals.  I wish they did.  It would make things so much easier.  

Instead, I've had to rely on the example of my mother and father.  My parents weren't perfect people, either.  However, the one thing I knew through my whole life was that I was loved.  Unconditionally.  They didn't always agree with my life choices.  (Not many parents would dream of the children growing up to be poets.)  But they loved me.  No matter what.

I love my kids.  Would do anything for them.  I hope they know that.  Perhaps my daughter's phone call this afternoon was proof that she does.  She had good news, and she wanted to share it with her old man.  I don't think she realizes how much that meant to me.

Despite all of Saint Marty's failings as a father, he's managed to raise some loving, caring children.  

May 15: Made Fun, Loved Everyone, "Ascension"

Santiago faces polite ridicule from the other fishermen . . .

"Why not?" the old man said. "Between fishermen."

They sat on the Terrace and many of the fishermen made fun of the old man and he was not angry. Others, of the older fishermen, looked at him and were sad. But they did not show it and they spoke politely about the current and the depths they had drifted their lines at and the steady good weather and of what they had seen. The successful fishermen of that day were already in and had butchered their marlin out and carried them laid full length across two planks, with two men staggering at the end of each plank, to the fish house where they waited for the ice truck to carry them to the market in Havana. Those who had caught sharks had taken them to the shark factory on the other side of the cove where they were hoisted on a block and tackle, their livers removed, their fins cut off and their hides skinned out and their flesh cut into strips for salting.

There's some cruelty in this little passage, but Santiago doesn't take it to heart.  Either he's too old or too wise.  Probably both.  He's lived a long life and has seen a lot, suffered a lot.  Perhaps he's developed a callous around his heart to protect him from petty slights and injuries.  Like a hermit crab retreating into its shell until danger passes.

When I woke this morning in my hotel room in Calumet, there was a memory from two years ago in my Facebook feed.  It was from the beginning of the pandemic, and my wife, kids, and I had walked down to my parents' house to sing "Happy Birthday" to my sister, Rose.  We put our gifts for her on the front stoop, plus a cupcake with a lit candle, and then rang the doorbell.  The video shows Rose standing in the doorway, smiling and singing along with us, raising her arms and cheering.

Rose endured a lot of cruelty in her life.  Kids in school who made fun of her because she had Down syndrome.  Because kids are stupid and cruel at times.  Strangers who stared at her in restaurants.  Because she looked and acted differently.  Here's the thing:  Rose loved everyone she met.  Everyone was her friend.  She handwrote letters to people most of her life.  Hundreds and hundreds of letters. Labored over latch hook rugs for months and then gave them away freely.  Rose never developed callouses.  Never retreated into her shell.

This morning, watching that video, the joy on her face, I found myself breaking a little bit.  She was a great gift in my life.  I don't think I fully realized that until the day she died.  The world was a better place with her in it.  A kinder place.  If you ever had the chance to meet Rose, you know what I'm talking about.  If you never met Rose, know that she would have loved you.  Unconditionally.  Because that's what she did.  What she was.

Marty celebrates a true saint today on her birthday.  Saint Rose.  Patron of latch hook rugs and Diet Coke. 

A psalm for my sister . . .

Ascension

by:  Martin Achatz

for Rose, February 5, 2022

I wonder what Jesus did as he ascended
on that elevator of cloud. Did he wave
to the disciples as he rose and rose
like some kite broken free of its string,
becoming smaller, smaller until he
was swallowed by the great blue
throat of heaven? And did the disciples
keep their eyes trained on him,
unblinking, until tears transformed
that mountaintop into the Sea of Galilee?
After he was gone, did the disciples stand
there, look at each other dumbly, try
to recall his last word? Was it
earth or dirt or air or mother?
They didn’t have phones to take
pictures or videos. Weren’t able to
scroll through their albums
to remind themselves how dark
his skin and eyes were or how
laughing made him blaze
like Pentecost. Instead, they gospelled
each other, tried to recall with letters
God’s whiskered face.
               Today, we gather
in this church for you, dear sister, two
weeks after the metronome of your lungs
ceased and you ascended on that cold
morning. I stood by your bed, held
your hand, mapped its pulse
with my fingertips. I don’t remember
the last word you spoke to me,
or even second to last. It may
have been my name or mother
or ham or simply yes. Like the disciples
now, I’m greedy for every
last scrap of you, your crooked
smile, how you cackled even
when you didn’t get the joke. I
spent my entire life knowing
you, but not really knowing.
Until the end, when you were
rising and rising away from me,
getting smaller, smaller. I
watched until you vanished
from sight, taken back
to that place you came
from, that infinity between zero
and one. Only then did I realize
how lucky I’d been. To have
you with me every day, drinking
Diet Cokes, listening to ABBA
songs, begging me to wrap
my arms around your
shoulders. I could spend the rest
of my days writing gospels and gospels
about how much you loved me.

May 14: Much Faith, Almost Full, Tilting Toward Summer

The boy believes in Santiago . . . 

"Santiago," the boy said to him as they climbed the bank from where the skiff was hauled up. "I could go with you again. We've made some money."

The old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him.

"No," the old man said. "You're with a lucky boat. Stay with them."

"But remember how you went eighty-seven days without fish and then we caught big ones every day for three weeks."

"I remember," the old man said. "I know you did not leave me because you doubted."

"It was papa made me leave. I am a boy and I must obey him."

"I know," the old man said. "It is quite normal."

"He hasn't much faith."

"No," the old man said. "But we have. Haven't we?"

"Yes," the boy said. "Can I offer you a beer on the Terrace and then we'll take the stuff home."

If you can't tell, I've gone back to the beginning of The Old Man and the Sea, the night before Santiago heads out by himself for his encounter with the big fish.  The boy is there, helping the old man.  They talk about keeping faith, even in the face of almost three months of bad luck.  

That's a pretty tall order.  It's difficult to remain hopeful when it seems like the world has turned against you.  I'm in Calumet, Michigan, at the moment.  Tomorrow night, I'm performing in a radio variety show.  Reading some poems.  Acting in some skits.  Sometimes, I sing  songs.  It's a nice break from the stress of these last couple weeks.

Looking out the window of my hotel room just now, I can see the moon.  It's full.  Or almost full.  It's one of those moons that is just about as round and bright as can be.  Tomorrow night, there's going to be a full lunar eclipse.  A blood moon.  By the time the eclipse begins, I'll be done performing and back at the hotel, probably soaking in the hot tub.

The world, at the moment, is tilting toward summer.  These last couple days, the temperatures have been hitting close to 90 degrees.  For mid-May in the U. P., that's pretty unusual.  Everything is turning green, and, when I step out my front door at night, I can hear the peepers screaming down by Lake Bacon a few blocks away.  Yes, even the frogs can sense the shift.

At the start of every summer, I make big plans.  Lists of books I'm going to read.  Writing projects I'm going to complete.  Places I'm going to visit.  This year isn't any different.  I have plans.  However, I'm not going to detail those plans here.  If I do that, I'm setting myself up for failure.  

Instead, I'll just revel tonight in the possibilities of summer this evening.  The long days.  Moony nights.  That end-of-schoolyear fever.  Something ending.  Something beginning.  I remember that anticipation.  Like standing in line in 1977 to see Star Wars: A New Hope for the first time.

That's enough for Saint Marty tonight.

May 13: Flag of Permanent Defeat, Having a Stroke, Friday the 13th

Santiago and luck . . . 

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy's parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast. The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.

The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert.

Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.

So, you're all probably wondering, on this Friday the 13th evening, how my son fared on his first day back at school.  On a day notoriously and superstitiously unlucky, I dropped him off at 8 a.m. and watched him, looking very small, hobble into the building.  (He took a spill on his scooter last night and hurt his knee.)  It was difficult to let him go.  In a weird way, it felt like I was sending him into battle.

I waited all day for my phone to ring.  Each time it did, my stomach knotted.  At 2 p.m., I started relaxing.  At 3 p.m., I let out the breath that I didn't realize I'd been holding all day.  When I finally got home, I felt like hugging him for a very long time.  I didn't.  Because he's a 13-year-old boy, and he would have thought I was having a stroke.

I celebrated last night with my son.  Got him Taco Bell.  Watched a terrible Bigfoot movie with him.  (We have gotten into the habit of looking for films with less than two-stars ratings, and then pulling a Mystery Science Theater 3000 on them.)  We laughed really hard.  Ate some popcorn.  Let go of a lot of stress that's built up over the last seven days.

Friday the 13th.  No Jason bloodbath.  No Santiago bad luck.  Just some chicken quesadillas and really awful acting (including guys running around in a terrible, store-bought gorilla costume).  And a son full of joy.

Saint Marty couldn't have asked for a better unlucky day.