Yesterday was just one of those days when I shouldn't have been around people. If you've ever seen Brian DePalma's The Untouchables with Deniro, there's a great scene where Deniro/Capone blows his cork. He starts ranting, declaring he wants everyone dead, ending with, "I want to go to the graveyard and piss on his bones!" (I may be paraphrasing here, but I'm pretty sure that's the line.) I was pretty much Bobby Deniro in full Al Capone mode yesterday. (Not a good thing to be on a day when I have to teach.) I pretty much try to avoid people and situations that will make me drag out my baseball bat when I'm like this.
So, that's my explanation for my posting yesterday. I'm human, and I was cranky.
Today, I'm trying to turn over a new leaf in honor of Catherine of Bologna. Born in 1413, she spent the early years of her life in the royal court of the Marquis of Ferrara. Basically, she was the companion of the marquis's young daughter. Eventually, she joined the order of the Poor Clares and became the superioress of a couple of convents. When she died in 1463, she was buried and then exhumed after 18 days because of the perfume rising from the soil. She's one of the incorruptibles, which means that her remains have never decayed. To this day, her body is on display in the chapel of the Poor Clares in Bologna. (Her skin has discolored, but she's close to 600 years old. We should all look so good at her age.)
The reason Catherine inspires me to loftier goals in my mood and work is because she is the patron saint of artists. During her lifetime, she was a painter and writer. One of her works is Rosarium, "a Latin poem on the life of Jesus." If Catherine had read what I wrote yesterday, she would have laughed (even in a crappy mood, I can still be funny), but she would have recognized the baser impulses of my words (I wanted to call my subject a "nasty bitch").
So, today, I'm trying to shake off my darker side. For those of you that know me personally, this is no easy feat. Think Moses parting the Red Sea or Obama passing health care reform. But I don't walk around all day with a thundercloud raging in my head. I do see the beauty in life.
For the last week, Spring has taken hold of the Upper Peninsula. Now, Spring in the U.P is a little different than Spring in Washington D. C. There are no cherry blossoms exploding on the trees here. But, the sap is flowing in the maples, and the snow banks are no longer taller than the Empire State Building. There's actual mud on the ground and water flowing down the streets. If I spend a little time outdoors, I can actually smell the frozen world thawing. On Sunday, there were flies buzzing around my front porch. They were very confused flies, not quite sure what to do with the cold, white stuff, but they made me feel like summer was within reach. Yes, even flies can be beautiful when they're harbingers of warm weather.
I just have to make a conscious effort to notice the small moments of art in my life every day. Last night, I put my son in his crib and watched him drift off to sleep. After a few minutes, I quietly left the bedroom, convinced that I was home free to simmer for the rest of the night in my bad juju. Just as I sat down on the couch with a book about a political assassination in my lap, I heard my son start crying in his crib. I threw myself to my feet and stormed into his bedroom.
"You better go to sleep, kid," I said aloud as I sat on the bed beside the crib. "I'm in no mood for this tonight."
Then I looked over at him.
He stretched his hand through the bars of the crib toward me, his fingers open and waiting.
I reached out and put my finger in his small palm.
His hand closed around my finger, and he smiled at me in the darkness. Then he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
I sat there for a really long time and watched him just...breathe.
Painting by Saint Catherine of Bologna
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