January 9: Exasperated Whale, Coincidence, My Sister's Best Friend

Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large oil painting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be altogether unwarranted.

But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through.- It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale.- It's the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.- It's a blasted heath.- It's a Hyperborean winter scene.- It's the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time. But last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture's midst. That once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself?

In fact, the artist's design seemed this: a final theory of my own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads.

One thing you may have noticed about Moby-Dick since the beginning of the year is that Melville makes use of the second person point of view a lot.  Yes, the book is narrated by Ishmael from the beginning, but Ishmael has a way of saying things like "you found yourself" and "you at last come to the conclusion."  You are Ishmael, and Ishmael is you.

These three paragraphs ponder a sooty painting, one that does not surrender its subject easily.  Melville offers several possibilities, from Time to the Black Sea to a blasted heath.  He settles on the image of a ship being torn apart in a hurricane, and, over the ship, a breaching whale, about to be impaled on one of the ship's towering mast-heads.

Art imitating literature imitating life imitating art.  I find that happens a great deal to me.  For example, a couple months ago, I was talking to a good friend and colleague at the university.  I was wondering aloud what book I should focus on for 2018 in my blog.  We kicked about many possibilities, including Bluets by Maggie Nelson (a favorite book for both of us) and The World According to Garp ("Too mainstream," my friend dismissed).

Then, he looked across his desk, on which sat a huge tome.  He nodded and pushed it toward me.  It was an illustrated, annotated version of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.

I wasn't immediately convinced.  I have had a love/hate relationship with Melville's masterpiece for a very long time.  It's not an easy read.  Full of weirdness and density.  That day, I sort of laughed at my friend, shook my head, and pushed the book back to him.  My way of saying, "Thanks, but I'd rather do Green Eggs and Ham."

Then, through October, November, and December, I kept encountering references to Moby-Dick in things that I read, movies that I watched.  For example, one night, I was watching Citizen Kane and realized that the name "Rosebud" appears in Moby-Dick.  It's a ship the Pequod encounters.  I saw a snippet of Star Trek II:  The Wrath of Khan in early December.  Khan is an Ahab-quoting fanatic.  I saw Moby-Dick references in Family Guy and Jaws, too.

The universe seemed to be sending me some kind of cosmic message, short of a white whale jumping out of Lake Superior and landing on top of my Subaru Impreza.  It was like I was staring at the dirty painting on the wall of The Spouter-Inn, trying to figure out, along with Ishmael, what I was supposed to be seeing.

I never believe in coincidences.  Coincidence is just a way for people who lack faith to explain seemingly miraculous things.  Let me give you an example . . .

My sister, Sally, was the administrator of an outpatient surgery center.  One day, she was interviewing for a circulating nurse in the operating room.  In walked one of my best friends, Lydia.  She had no operating room experience.  Her most recent nursing work had involved hospice care.  Before Lydia went into her interview, I went to my sister's office and told Sally, "I think Lydia would be a perfect fit for this place."

Sally and Lydia had a long interview.  They spoke very little about operating rooms and surgery.  Instead, they spoke about Lydia's work in hospice.  My sister asked Lydia many, many questions about her experiences.  At the end of the interview, Lydia walked out of Sally's office thinking that she wasn't going to get the job.

Lydia got the job, and she became my sister's best friend.

Seventeen years later, Lydia put her hospice knowledge to work when my sister was dying of lymphoma of the brain.  She cared for my sister.  Advocated for her.  Ultimately, Lydia loved her enough to know how to help her die with dignity.

After my sister's funeral, Lydia said to me, "I think God put me in Sally's life for a reason."

I agreed.  No coincidence.  It was the gears of the universe working.

That is why I chose Moby-Dick this year.  Too many white whales crossed by path in the ending months of 2017 for me to ignore.  Just call me Ishmael.

Saint Marty gives thanks for the "coincidences" of his life tonight.