December 10: "Three Things to Remember," Following the Rules, Christmas Essay

Mary Oliver breaks the rules . . . 

Three Things to Remember

by:  Mary Oliver

As long as you're dancing, you can

     break the rules.

Sometimes breaking the rules is just

     extending the rules

Sometimes there are no rules.

I don't like rules all that much.

If I'd followed the rules my whole life, I'd be a plumber right now, probably making a whole lot more money than I currently make as a contingent college English professor, poet, and library programmer.  That doesn't mean I'd be happier, just better off financially.

Instead, I sort of made up my own rules for success.  For example, I don't do anything that makes me unhappy.  Don't listen to music that annoys me.  Don't watch movies/television shows or read books that bore me.

Of course, there are always exceptions to rules.  I started watching The Crown because my daughter said I would like it.  (She literally forced me to view the first episode, and now I'm obsessed with the show.)  A few years ago, a friend told me that I just HAD to read All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr; I didn't pick it up until two years later--after Doerr won the Pulitzer and a movie adaptation was in the works--and I loved every page of it.  

I follow some rules during the Christmas season.  I do write a new Christmas poem and essay every year.  I do send out Christmas cards containing letters and pictures to almost 80 people every year.  I do watch It's A Wonderful Life every Christmas Eve.  If I don't do each of these things, it simply doesn't feel like Christmas to me.

Right now, I'm in the midst of finishing my Christmas essay.  It's been a rough process this year.  I usually start writing this essay in July.  However, choosing the right subject was challenging this time, and then, when I finally found my subject, figuring out how to write about it took me several more weeks.  

I'm happy to report that I've finished writing about half of the essay as of this moment.  My goal:  to have the essay finished by Wednesday morning (that's when I have to record it for my local Public Radio station).

I've got a good start, but now I'm trying to figure out the rules of this essay.  In my experience, each writing project comes with its own guidelines.  Sometimes, however, it takes quite a long time to discern what those guidelines are.  I'm just getting to that point right now.

So, tonight, here are three rules to remember about Saint Marty:

1. He loves Christmas.
2. He's obsessive about his writing.
3. He hates working under deadlines.

May 22: This Fiction, Storytelling, Power in Voice

Santiago and the boy indulge in some fiction . . . 

"What do you have to eat?" the boy asked.

"A pot of yellow rice with fish. Do you want some?"

"No. I will eat at home. Do you want me to make the fire?"

"No. I will make it later on. Or I may eat the rice cold."

"May I take the cast net?"

"Of course."

There was no cast net and the boy remembered when they had sold it. But they went through this fiction every day. There was no pot of yellow rice and fish and the boy knew this too.

I think we all do this sometimes.  When reality is a little too painful, we engage in a little storytelling to make life a easier.

Think about it.  When you're on a new diet, you try to convince yourself that the shredded cauliflower flakes taste like mashed potatoes.  When you're performing a mindless task at work, you listen to music and suddenly you're back in the high school gym, dancing with your friends.  You lose people you love, and you swear you hear their voices calling you from another room.

Stories can be vehicles of healing.  At times in my life, I have dealt with incredibly difficult personal issues.  I walked around for months holding these troubles close, not talking about them, putting them in a drawer, closing the drawer, and pretending they didn't exist.  Not the healthiest coping strategy.  It was only after I started talking, sharing my story (with family, friends, therapists), that things got better.

Today was sane.  I hosted my book club this afternoon.  We talked about Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land and ate a lot of good food.  Then, in the evening, I led a poetry workshop.  My son and wife attended, along with some other poet friends.  I got to write and speak my truth.

My son isn't going back to school tomorrow because of the threat of a possible fight.  He's got one more day of not worrying, of being himself, before he heads back into the war zone of his school life.  Over the last five or six days, I tried to give him ways to deal with bullies and negative impulses.  Of course, it would be so much easier to keep him home for the next two weeks.  But I'm not going to make that choice for him. 

On Tuesday when he gets to school, he will meet with the school superintendent, and my son will tell the man his story.  There will be power in that for him, hopefully.  Perhaps a sense of relief.  In the big picture, it will make no difference.  The school has already taken away experiences that my son will never regain.  I can't change that.

BI know things are going to get better.  Not tomorrow.  Not the next day.  But I'm going to keep telling my story, and my son's story.  Because there is power in narrative.  In voice.

Say it with Saint Marty:  "Once upon a time . . . "

June 24: Glass Darkly, Completely Positive, Movie Marathon

People say that a good seat in the backyard affords as accurate and inspiring a vantage point on the planet earth as any observation tower on Alpha Centauri.  They are wrong.  We see through a glass darkly.  We find ourselves in the middle of a movie, or, God help us, a take for a movie, and we don't know what's on the rest of the film.

Dillard is an observer.  She watches the way waters flow and snakes shed skins.  The seasons change.  Ice melts,  Grass sprouts.  Monarchs flock.  Leaves turn gold.  Pumpkins fatten.  Frost thickens.  And snow flies.  And Dillard is there with her pen and journal to capture it all, through a glass darkly.

I am very familiar with that dark glass.  But I have been challenged to write at least one completely positive post a week.  As my two Constant Readers know, I have a tendency to dwell on the darker elements of the universe.  It's who I am.  One of my favorite Christmas gifts last year was a copy of Anthony Doerr's Four Seasons in Rome which describes, among other things, the funeral of Pope John Paul II.  Happiness and sorrow.  That's the way things are.

However, I accept this challenge of positivity.  Tonight's post will contain nothing about the death of my Ford Freestyle or my fears of parental inadequacy.  I won't dwell on black mold or my need for a haircut.  Nope, nothing but happiness tonight.

I have a best friend who has been keeping a gratitude journal since January 1st of this year.  Every day, she writes about three things for which she gives thanks.  Recently, she told me that sometimes the only thing she is grateful for is her bed.  Yet, she claims that this little exercise has changed her life.  (A long time ago, my wife did a similar exercise in gratitude, and she, also, says it was a life-changing practice.)

So, tonight, I am an observer, like Dillard.  However, I'm not looking for wreckage and apocalypse.  I'm going to write about a good evening with my daughter.  A few years ago, we had a Harry Potter movie marathon.  For many nights, we spent a few hours at Hogwarts.  It was a really happy time.  Tonight, we have started another movie marathon.  This time, my daughter has chosen The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I'm watching the first film with her right now.  There have been no tears or meltdowns or raised voices tonight.  Instead, it's all about Frodo and Gandalf and the One Ring.

So, that's what Saint Marty is grateful for tonight:  the start of a movie marathon with his daughter.

January 25: Shoveling Snow and Book Club, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

It is a little after 4 p.m.  I have spent the day preparing my home for the invasion of book lovers.  The members of my book club are showing up at 6:30 tonight to discuss Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See.  A great book, probably headed for at least a Pulitzer Prize nomination this year.

So, Friday night I cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed.  Last night, I swept and mopped the hardwood floors, and then I made a double batch of mini crescent weenies.  And, this afternoon, I shoveled my front yard and driveway.  (Split my pants in the process.  I took a spill in the street and felt the seams of my pants give way.  There was a brisk breeze blowing through my nether regions for the rest of the shoveling.) 

In a little while, I will heat up my weenies (please refrain from any crude jokes) and put out some plates and utensils.  It will be a good night with good friends.  A nice way to end the weekend.  And there will be plenty of good food to eat.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired two years ago.  I was teaching poetry to a group of second graders...

January 25, 2013:  My Best Subject, Second Graders, Poetry

...All I said was English was my best subject.

"Oh, really?  Oh, I'm so glad!" the one with the glasses, that taught English, said.  "What have you read this year?  I'd be very interested to know."  She really was.

Holden is speaking to a nun he has met in a restaurant.  The nun teaches English, and she strikes up a conversation with Holden about Romeo and Juliet.  Her enthusiasm reminds me of many of the middle and grade school teachers I've known.  They have unbridled enthusiasm for their students and subjects.  And they fill me with their enthusiasm.


This morning, I taught poetry to a class of second graders.  Their teacher, "Ms. Rita," was my daughter's kindergarten teacher.  I've been teaching poetry lessons to her classes ever since.  Six years in a row, and I've loved each time.  There's something very uninhibited about six- and seven-year-olds.  They are game for almost anything.  I've had Ms. Rita's students write poems about colors and animals and themselves and similes.

This year, I had them write found poems.  Basically, a found poem is a poem assembled from the lines and words of another source.  I did a poem based on Jack Prelutsky's work.  I did another based on Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.  And I did a third one based on words I found on a package of Dove chocolates.  Then, the second graders had to "find" their own poems.

The class had just finished reading the story of the Gingerbread Man, so a lot of them chose that as a source.  It was fun and a little out-of-control.  We talked about chocolate and hippo chips and math.  And, after an hour, they sang me their "Thank You" song.  It was awesome.

Saint Marty wishes his college students were a little more like second graders, or maybe Saint Marty needs to be more like a nun.

I'm not sure this would be a good look for me

Confessions of Saint Marty