May 24: A Blanket, Unknown Needs, Ellen Steinbaum, "Letter Home," New Cartoon

"That's just what we need," said Avery.  "A blanket."

"Of course it is," replied Lurvy.  And he spread the blanket across the sideboards of the truck so that it was like a little tent.  The children sat in the shade, under the blanket, and felt better.

After lunch, they stretched out and fell asleep.

Avery doesn't know what he needs.  He's hot and tired.  When Lurvy shows up with the Indian blanket he won, Avery doesn't realize it's just what he needs.  A blanket.  Tent.  Shade.  Nap.

Most of us don't realize what we actually need.  We walk around, vaguely unfulfilled, not knowing what will make us truly happy.  A new job.  New love.  Happy family.  All of the above.  None of the above.  Most of the time, we yearn for things we don't have.  And if we get those things, we find out they don't make us happy at all.

For years, I've dreamed of a full-time teaching gig at the university.  I've convinced myself that, if I had that, life would be perfect.  Of course, I know that's a load of crap.  Perfection is a fallacy.  A dream.  Unattainable.  Something that simply makes me strive for something better all the time.

Needs, once met, become experience.  Experience becomes memory.  Memory becomes story.  I guess what I'm saying is that we're all trying to write our story, and we all want a happily ever after.  That's not a bad thing.  For the moment, I'm happy.  I have a home, wife, children, family.  I can almost pay my bills on time.  And, through the fall and winter months, I get to do what I love--teach and talk about literature.  I'm lucky.

Saint Marty has a poem for you tonight that seems appropriate for Memorial Day weekend.

Letter Home

by:  Ellen Steinbaum

I love you forever 
my father's letter tells her
for forty-nine pages,
from the troopship crossing the Atlantic
before they'd ever heard of Anzio.

He misses her, the letter says,
counting out days of boredom, seasickness,
and changing weather,
poker games played for matches
when cash and cigarettes ran out,
a Red Cross package--soap,
cards, a mystery book he traded away
for The Rubaiyyat a bunkmate didn't want.
He stood night watch and thought
of her.  Don't forget the payment
for insurance, he says.

My mother waits at home with me, 
waits for the letter he writes day by day
moving farther across the ravenous ocean.
She will get it in three months and
her fingers will smooth the Army stationery
to suede.

He will come home, stand
beside her in the photograph, leaning
on crutches, holding
me against the rough wool
of his jacket.  He will sit
alone and listen to Aida

and they will pick up their
interrupted lives.  Years later,
she will show her grandchildren
a yellow envelope with
forty-nine wilted pages telling her

of shimmering sequins on the water,
the moonlight catching sudden phosphorescence,
the churned wake that stretched a silver trail.

Confessions of Saint Marty