December 29: Utter Blackness, New Year's Eve Party, Snowstorm

Out of the utter blackness stabbed a sudden point of blinding light.  It crept up by slight degrees and spread sideways in a thin crescent blade, and within seconds two suns were visible, furnaces of light, searing the black edge of the horizon with white fire.  Fierce shafts of color streaked through the thin atmosphere beneath them.

Douglas Adams is describing the twin sunrises on the planet of Magrathea.  It's all about light piercing through the darkness, burning away night.  It's an image that is quite moving, especially for a book that, for the most part, is all farce.  Something is on the horizon.  Something bright and clear.

I have spent most of today preparing for the coming new year, which is on the horizon in about two days.

Every December 31st, since I was in sixth grade, I have organized a New Year's Eve party at my parents' house.  I started the tradition because, as a child,  I was jealous of my mother and father and older siblings going out for New Year's Eve, returning home in the wee morning hours, slightly inebriated and sporting party hats and noisemakers.  I started collecting their party favors until, one year, I had enough supplies to throw my own Auld Lang Syne get-together.  Eventually, all of my family decided that my party, with its games and food and prizes, was better than the drunken debauches of the outside world.  Thus, the annual Saint Marty Family New Year's Eve Bash was born.

We've had balloon drops at midnight, featuring about three hundred balloons.  One year, we had a pina colada bar.  (Just one year.  I got so drunk that year that I still can't smell coconut with getting nauseated.)  The guest list has grown and shrunk, expanded and contracted.  Family members have died and married and moved away.  Boyfriends have come and gone.  Close friends have migrated to places like Florida and New Zealand.  Yet, the party goes on, every year.

I am excited to be out of 2019, which has not been kind to me, as most of you know.  There are no guarantees that 2020 will be any better, but there is the possibility of more joy than heartache.  Possibly even a happily ever after.   Who knows?

In the mean time, tomorrow, December 30, my little corner of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is bracing for a winter storm.  If the National Weather Service predictions are accurate, by tomorrow night at this time, there may be an additional ten to twelve inches of snow on the ground.  I am praying that is not the case.  In my old(er) age, I have grown to dislike most winter weather events, unless they involve warming trends and lots of melting.

And tomorrow evening, I'm doing a poetry reading at my home church, if the weather cooperates.  I think it's going to be wonderful.  Lots of food and wine.  Music provided by some friends of mine.  And Christmas poems and a Christmas essay.  As the song goes, these are a few of my favorite things, minus the impending snowstorm.  Any day that involves poetry is a good day.

In these waning days of 2019, Saint Marty has been pretty blessed.

November 10: Terrible Ghastly Noise, Front Porch Christmas Decorations, 2019

"I don't know," said the voice on the PA, "apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all."  It cut off.

There was a terrible ghastly silence.

There was a terrible ghastly noise.

There was a terrible ghastly silence.

The Vogon Constructor Fleet coasted away into the inky void.

That is the end of Earth at the beginning of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Terrible ghastly silence.  Then a terrible ghastly noise.  Terrible ghastly silence again.  It's a pretty dark passage for a book that's described on its back-cover as "Extremely funny . . . inspired lunacy [and] . . . over much too soon."

This afternoon, with the help of my wife and daughter, I decorated the front porch of our house for Christmas.  I sort of pride myself on being one of the first houses in the neighborhood to have its outside Christmas decorations up.  It's a little competition that virtually nobody else on the street knows about except me.  Thus, I win every year.  It's sort of like being the only person ever nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

I am looking forward to the holidays, mostly for one simple fact:  the ending of  2019.  This year has been a struggle on many levels.  I know that there are no guarantees that, in 51 days, things will alter dramatically in my life.  I'll just be glad to have 2019 in my rear view mirror.  Gone in a terribly ghastly silence.

I am doing all that I can right now to end the year well.  Planning some Christmas surprises for my kids, working on my annual Christmas essay, stabbing my Trump voodoo doll with impeachment pins.  Yet, I also know that there's a good possibility that 2020 could be worse than 2019.  There are no guarantees for a happy future.  In fact, at the end of next year, I may look back and think, "2019 wasn't such a bad year, after all."

Here are some things about 2019 that I can recall with fondness and nostalgia:

• A family trip to Walt Disney World at the beginning of January.
• Being elected Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula for the second time in a row.
• My daughter graduating from high school with honors.
• My daughter starting college and majoring in premed.
• My son joining chorus and band for sixth grade.
• Winning the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature.  (Okay, that didn't happen, but I can pretend.)
• Having wonderful and supportive family and friends.
• Surviving a haunted escape room at Halloween without soiling myself.
• Good health, although I'm in a constant state of exhaustion.

So, you see, 2019 hasn't been a total loss.  There have been some wonderful moments.  And those are things I should concentrate on.  Hold close.  Yes, 2019 may end with a terrible ghastly noise, followed by a terrible ghastly silence. 

But Saint Marty also has light in his life.  Beautiful, glowing, Christmasy light.