When I pulled into the camp, she came walking up to my car, wearing a foreign hoodie. By "foreign" I mean one that does not belong to her. As we trudged up to her cabin to retrieve her suitcase and sleeping bag, I asked about her new article of clothing.
"Oh," she said, looking down at herself, "it's Easton's."
"Oh," I said. "Is he a friend of yours?"
She shrugged, and that was the end of the conversation. She has been wearing the hoodie all day long. It is the second year in a row that she's come home wearing some boy's clothing. Last year, I believe the name was Brad. By the time she graduates from high school, she should have an entire closet of teenage boys' clothes.
Of course, I'm not going to say anything more, unless she wears the damn hoodie for three weeks straight. Then I may suggest showering in it to get it clean. Aside from that, I shall be content in my fatherly ignorance until such time as I need to release the hounds on some horny kid who's missing something from his wardrobe.
Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired a year ago. It's a little melancholy and nostalgic. Things haven't changed much.
September 20, 2014: Rumor of Sadness, Warm Day, Philip Levine, "Night Thoughts Over a Sick Child"
The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year--the days when summer is changing into fall--the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.
Yes, the end of summer is a time of sadness and change. The trees are preparing for winter. Crickets seem to call for frost and snow at night. At dusk, the sun turns everything gold--the grass, bark on the pines, swings on the playground. The whole world is a sepia photograph.
Today felt like August, not late September. Near 80 degrees. Sky, blue as church window glass. The wind was temperate and constant, making the oranges, greens, and yellows flicker and spark in the trees. It was a perfect day.
Autumn is my favorite time of year, but it also fills me with a kind of melancholy. I suppose it's that rumor of sadness and change that White writes about. Something coming to an end. Soon it will be cold and white in the mornings, and the sidewalks will be a carpet of fallen maple and aspen and oak leaves.
No, I'm not suffering from seasonal affective disorder. Yet. That comes after the first six months of winter. I'm simply mourning the end of summer. One of the reasons I've chosen to live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with my family is the acuteness of the seasons. Spring, summer, fall, winter--they're all magnified here. Spring is greener. Summer, hotter. Autumn, oranger. Winter, whiter and colder.
Today, I'm being reflective. Thinking about everything that's happened and changed. It's been a year of upheaval for sure. It makes me nostalgic for simpler times in my life. Retro times, if you will, when happiness was easier to come by and worries were just shadows in a brightly lit room.
My son is still coughing, but not so acutely. He has more energy and is hungry again. He's on the mend. I found a poem by Phil Levine about caring for a sick child. It certainly touches upon the fears of all parents when it comes to the illness of a son or daughter. Especially a very young one.
Saint Marty hopes you love it as much as he does.
Night Thoughts Over a Sick Child
by: Philip Levine
Numb, stiff, broken by no sleep,
I keep night watch. Looking for
signs to quiet fear, I creep
closer to his bed and hear
his breath come and go, holding
my own as if my own were
all I paid. Nothing I bring,
say, or do has meaning here.
Outside, ice crusts on river
and pond; wild hare come to my
door pacified by torture.
No less ignorant than they
of what grips and why, I am
moved to prayer, the quaint gestures
which ennoble beyond shame
only the mute listener.
No one hears. A dry wind shifts
dry snow, indifferently;
the roof, rotting beneath drifts,
sighs and holds. Terrified by
sleep, the child strives toward
consciousness and the known pain.
If it were mine by one word
I would not save any man,
myself or the universe
at such cost: reality.
Heir to an ancestral curse
though fallen from Judah's tree,
I take up into my arms my hopes,
my son, for what it's worth give
bodily warmth. When he escapes
his heritage, then what have
I left but false remembrance
and the name? Against that day
there is no armor or stance,
only the frail dignity
of surrender, the dumb beast's fall,
unseen in the frozen snow.
Confessions of Saint Marty
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