March 4: "An Old Story," Sue, Bigfoot and Poetry

Mary Oliver tells . . . 

An Old Story

by:  Mary Oliver

Sleep comes its little while.  Then I wake

in the valley of midnight or three a.m.

to the first fragrances of spring

which is coming, all by itself, no matter what.

My heart says, what you thought you have you do not have.

My body says, will this pounding ever stop?

My heart says:  there, there, be a good student.

My body says:  let me up and out, I want to fondle

those soft white flowers, open in the night.

It is that time of year when winter and spring keep trading places.  One day, 50 degrees.  The next, five degrees and winter storm warnings.  I haven't experienced the first fragrances of spring yet, and those soft white flowers are still buried by snow.

I went for a short walk with my family and friends before the Midwest Weirdfest started this afternoon.  The air was crisp, and people were fishing on the Eau Claire River.  Getting away from home for a few days feels good, even if I'm not lounging on a beach in the Bahamas.

Big and Marty premiered this afternoon at the festival.  There was a good-sized audience, and an old friend, Sue, who lives about 15 minutes away from Eau Claire. showed up.  I haven't seen her in over two years, and we had a reunion in the theatre lobby.  It involved long hugs and some tears.  Then we started ribbing each other and exchanging barbs, as if no time had passed.

After the screening and Q & A (during which Sue asked me a question even though I forbade her from doing so before the movie started), we snapped a picture.  I'm looking at it right now as I type these words.  

Sue has been one of my best friends for over 30 years, through some of the happiest and most difficult times of my life.  I think she would say the same about me.  We understand each other.  We both had siblings with Down syndrome.  She grew up in the late 1960s/early 1970s.  I grew up in the 1980s.  We like the same movies and books, and we both share the same political beliefs.  Spiritually, we adhere to the rule of disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.

So, it was amazing to have her sitting next to me while Bigfoot and Marty premiered on the big screen.  (I will admit that seeing my head as big as King Kong's was a little disconcerting.)  She laughed, shook her head, laughed some more, and paid close attention, as if she was watching Citizen Kane with Bigfoot and poetry.

So, tonight, Saint Marty is telling an old story--friends reunited after a long separation, sitting in a dark theatre, behaving like middle schoolers on a fieldtrip.