December 23, 2024: "I Love You," Family Christmas, Secret Santa Aubri

On my first official day of vacation from the library, I . . . spent about seven hours at the library.  I wanted to complete the audio version of my new book for my publisher, so I booked the sound booth at the library and recorded one poem after another poem after another poem.  I started around 10:30 a.m. and finished the whole project around 5 p.m.

By the end, I was hoarse and tired.  I was also pretty damn proud of myself for getting it done.  Stay tuned for information when A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders is available on Audible.

Then it was off to my sister-in-law's house on the Dead River for a family Christmas celebration.

Billy Collins writes about love . . . 

"I Love You"

by: Billy Collins

Early on, I noticed that you always say it
to each of your children
as you are getting off the phone with them
just as you never fail to say it
to me whenever we arrive at the end of a call.

It’s all new to this only child.
I never heard my parents say it,
at least not on such a regular basis,
nor did it ever occur to me to miss it.
To say I love you pretty much every day

would have seemed strangely obvious,
like saying I’m looking at you
when you are standing there looking at someone.
If my parents had started saying it
a lot, I would have started to worry about them.

Of course, I always like hearing it from you.
That is never a cause for concern.
The problem is I now find myself saying it back
if only because just saying good-bye
then hanging up would make me seem discourteous.

But like Bartleby, I would prefer not to
say it so often, would prefer instead to save it
for special occasions, like shouting it out as I leaped
into the red mouth of a volcano
with you standing helplessly on the smoking rim,

or while we are desperately clasping hands
before our plane plunges into the Gulf of Mexico,
which are only two of the examples I had in mind,
but enough, as it turns out, to make me
want to say it to you right now,

and what better place than in the final couplet
of a poem where, as every student knows, it really counts.

I've never had a problem saying "I love you."  When I gave my boss, the director of the library, a Christmas present a day or so ago, she stood up and asked, "Are you a hugger?"  "I am," I responded, and we hugged.

This holiday season, as you know, my predominant emotion has been sadness.  However, tonight, as I shared a turkey dinner and opened presents with my wife's side of the family, my overwhelming emotion was love.  We laughed a lot.  Insulted each other (in a completely loving way) a lot.  And, when we were getting ready to leave, we embraced and said, "Merry Christmas."  It was literally a love fest, if the fest was held with the entire cast of National Lampoon Christmas Vacation, minus the live squirrel in the tree and SWAT team storming the house.

The adults do Secret Santa for Christmas.  My niece, Aubri, one of my favorite people in the whole world, was my Santa.  She showered me with an embarrassment of gifts and love--a book I wanted, Bigfoot socks, new Moleskine journal, and a tee shirt she designed herself:

In short, she spoiled me silly.  And, on the gift tags, she wrote things like, "To Uncle Martin, from Your Favorite Niece."  I love this young woman profoundly, and I hope she knows it.  She never fails to make me smile and laugh, even on the darkest of days.  I'm a pretty lucky uncle.

It also filled my heart so much to see my kids enjoying Christmas with their cousins.  Their love and affection for each other was thick as the smell of turkey in the room.  I found myself getting a little weepy watching them together.  (Or it may have been the two Twisted Teas provided to me by my niece Aubri.  Now you see why I love her so much.) 

All in all, it was a great way to kick off Christmas.  Each and every one of the people I shared dinner with tonight is a true light in my darkness,

And Saint Marty is proud to proclaim, "I love you all."

July 20: "The Lanyard," Camp, Beautiful Young People

Billy Collins goes to summer camp as a kid . . .

The Lanyard

by: Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

This is a poem about a kid learning to make a lanyard at summer camp.  It's a poem about all the sacrifices a mother makes for her child.  It's about a grown child trying to honor the memory of his mother.  Most of all, this is a poem about love.

My wife, kids, niece, puppy, and I went to camp this afternoon.  It was a bon voyage celebration for another one of my nieces who is moving to Germany soon to start a new job.  So, we stuffed the back of our Subaru Impreza with bathing suits, a fruit tray, cookies, a hammock, fishing rods and tacklebox, and we headed out to Lake Arfelin (about a 40 minute drive from our house).

It was a wonderful gathering of in-laws, nephews, nieces, great nephews, great nieces--full of laughter and food and swimming and saunas.  We arrived around 1:30 in the afternoon and got back home around 9:30 at night.  It was a perfect day.  Relaxing.  Full of affection and love.  I am truly going to miss Aubri, my niece who is heading to Deutschland.  She's funny, genuine, and, truly, one of the best people I know.  

Just before we left, my nieces Abby and Brianna (another one of my favorite people), decided to go frog and tadpole hunting.  Armed with a fishing net and buckets, they managed to find several frogs in various stages of development, from tadpole onward.  One particular specimen looked like a fully-grown frog with a salamander tail.  To me, it resembled a mutant alien.  Abby loved it, holding it in her hands, taking pictures.

Tomorrow, Abby leaves for home.  In a few weeks, Aubri boards her airplane.  I hope they both know how much joy they bring me just by being a part of my life.  Like Collins giving his mother that insignificant lanyard, all I can offer nieces are these words.  They don't seem an adequate way to express my love for them, but they're all I have.

Saint Marty is so grateful for these two beautiful young people in his life.

September 27: "Poem," Spirit, Aubri

Mary Oliver gets into the spirit of things . . . 

Poem

by:  Mary Oliver

The spirit

     likes to dress up like this:

          ten fingers,

               ten toes,

shoulders, and all the rest

     at night

          in the black branches,

               in the morning

in the blue branches

     of the world.

          It could float, of course,

               but would rather

plumb rough matter.

     Airy and shapeless thing,

           it needs

               the metaphor of the body,

lime and appetite,

     the oceanic fluids;

          it needs the body's world,

               instinct

and imagination

     and the dark hug of time,

          sweetness

               and tangibility,

to be understood,

     to be more than pure light

          that burns

               where no one is--

so it enters us--

     in the morning

          shines from brute comfort

               like a stitch of lightning;

and at night

     lights up the deep and wondrous

          drownings of the body

              like a star.

Tonight, Mary Oliver writes about the spirit in her poem "Poem."  The spirit that shines like a stitch of lightning.  That enters the body and lights it up like a star at night.  We can't touch the spirit, or see its airy and shapeless form, until it's clothed in the brute comfort of flesh and breath.  Yet, it is always there.

Tonight, I am writing about the spirit, as well.  Everyone knows a person whose spirit is so bright it can't be completely contained in a body.  A person who lights up the air like a swarm of fireflies.  I've had the privilege of having a few people like this in my life--individuals who've made my journey better just by being in it.  Because of their kindness and humor and compassion.

My niece, Aubri, celebrated her golden birthday today--27 on the 27th.  On more than one occasion in the past, she has reached out to me when I've been struggling with darkness, just to let me know that I'm loved and important to her.  In the deepest wells of my life, she has shared her light and laughter with me, and, in doing so, she's reminded me to look up and see the sun and stars.

So, even though an ocean separates us this evening, I want to send her joy and peace, to let her know that her spirit is a lighthouse to me.  A beacon that makes me smile, fills me with hope.  Because after a long night, the dawn comes with laughter and beauty.  Everyone needs an Aubri in their lives.

On her golden day, Saint Marty wishes his niece all the blessings the universe has to offer.

October 28: Very Cold, Halloween Snow, Aubri

Five figures wandered slowly over the blighted land.  Bits of it were dullish gray, bits of it dullish brown, the rest of it rather less interesting to look at.  It was like a dried-out marsh, now barren of all vegetation and covered with a layer of dust about an inch thick.  It was very cold.

That is a description of the surface of the planet of Magrathea from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  It could also be a description of what I will wake up to tomorrow.  There is a winter weather advisory in effect for my little corner of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for this evening.  Two to four inches of the white stuff.  Now, having lived in the U. P. for most of my life, except for a brief stint in Kalamazoo, I shouldn't be surprised by this forecast.  In fact, I should expect it.

However, just as I was unwilling to let go of summer a little while ago, I'm finding it very difficult to relinquish my grip on autumn, especially right before Halloween.  In my youth, Halloweens were generally warm.  I recall very few All Hallow's Eves where I was bundled up in my winter coat to go trick-or-treating.  The last warm Halloween I can recall occurred about 11 years ago, when my son was newly born.  That year, I wore a full gorilla costume to go trick-or-treating with him, and I nearly died of heat stroke.  It was a very warm night.  Ever since then, Halloween has been the unofficial start of winter.

Of course, I have no control over the weather, just as I have no control over a lot of things in my life.  God has been very diligent in reminding of this fact.  Frequently.  I like to think that I run my own life, that I can decide whether I'm happy or sad, successful or a failure.  In short, I've been trying to play God for quite a long time.  I believed that I controlled the weather in my life, from Halloween to Christmas to Independence Day.

This morning, my niece, Aubri, got on an airplane and flew off to San Francisco to start a new job and a new life.  Aubri is one of my favorite people in the whole world.  She's funny and smart, and she shares my sense of humor.  At family gatherings, we frequently found ourselves seated beside each other, sharing inside jokes and mean girl comments.  Aubri can always make me laugh, even on the darkest of days.

Saying goodbye to Aubri this weekend was like accepting a forecast of snow for Halloween.  I knew it was coming.  I was expecting it.  Yet, when it finally happened, I found myself saying, "It's too soon.  Too soon."  This is one of those life things that I have no control over.  Snow is inevitable.  Young people growing up and leaving is inevitable.  Goodbyes are inevitable.

Join me in wishing my niece, Aubri Cheryl--beautiful girl, ray of sunlight, fellow mean girl--Godspeed.  When I wake up to snow on my car tomorrow morning, I will think of her and all the joy she has brought into my house.  And I will smile, knowing that God has bigger plans for her than I can even imagine.

This Saint Marty knows for sure.

March 26: Random Group of Atoms, Aubri, Being Authentic

So a hole appeared in the Galaxy . . .

As it closed up, lots of paper hats and party balloons fell out of it and drifted off through the Universe.  A team of seven three-foot-high market analysts fell out of it and died, partly of asphyxiation, partly of surprise.

Two hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly fried eggs fell out of it too, materializing in a large wobbly heap on the famine-struck land of Poghril in the Pansel system.

The whole Poghril tribe had died out from famine except for one last man who died of cholesterol poisoning some weeks later.

The nothingth of a second for which the hole existed reverberated backward and forward through time in a most improbable fashion.  Somewhere in the deeply remote past it seriously traumatized a small random group of atoms drifting through the empty sterility of space and made them cling together in the most extraordinarily unlikely patterns.  These patterns quickly learned to copy themselves (this was part of what was so extraordinary about the patterns) and went on to cause massive trouble on every planet they drifted on to.  That was how life began in the Universe.

Tonight, my niece, Aubri, visited.  She came over to dye and cut my wife's hair.  When Aubri enters a room, she sort rearranges the atoms of that room in extraordinary ways, as well.  She is one of my favorite people in the whole world.  Whenever she's at our house, there's lots of laughter and family gossip.  I've said it before in this blog that I can be a bit of a mean girl.  Aubri gets that.

Aubri is authentic.  She doesn't put on airs.  I know very few people like that.  Most people change depending on the situations in which they find themselves.  In job interviews, people become super positive team players.  Visiting sick friends, people morph into caregivers.  At wedding receptions, with a little alcohol, people transform into rap singers and line dancers.  Aubri, on the other hand, is always Aubri.

I'm sort of like that, as well.  I think that's why Aubri and I get along so well.  Being authentic means putting yourself out there all the time, regardless or how people may react.  What you see is pretty much what you get.  This approach also opens you up to self doubt sometimes.

This afternoon, I was supposed to receive a phone call about a job for which I applied.  Come 5 p.m., my phone hadn't rung.  This launched me into a tailspin of introspective questioning.  Was I not dressed well enough?  Did I not answer their questions satisfactorily?  Should I have prepared for the interview more thoroughly?  Don't I have the skills they are looking for?  Maybe I shouldn't have talked about my habit of listening to Christmas music all year long?

You get the idea.

Tonight, Aubri lifted my spirits.  Took my mind off my worries for a couple hours.  And she did it by simply being herself.  Fully.  She's a beautiful person, inside and out. 

Saint Marty is a lucky uncle.

February 5: Zaphod Beeblebrox, President Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, My Niece

So, I'm not going to talk about a certain event that's happening tonight in Washington, D. C.  I'm avoiding posts on all platforms regarding any person with an orange complexion.  Instead, let's return to Hitchhiker's and the President of the Imperial Galactic Government, Zaphod Beeblebrox . . .

Only six people in the entire Galaxy understood the principle on which the Galaxy was governed, and they knew that once Zaphod Beeblebrox had announced his intention to run as President it was more or less a fait accompli:  he was ideal presidency fodder.*

*President:  full title President of the Imperial Galactic Government.

The term Imperial is kept though it is now an anachronism.  The hereditary Emperor is nearly dead and has been for many centuries.  In the last moments of his dying coma he was locked in a stasis field which keeps him in a state of perpetual unchangingness.  All his heirs are now long dead, and this means that without any drastic political upheaval, power has simply and effectively moved a rung or two down the ladder, and is now seen to be vested in a body that used to act simply as advisers to the Emperor--an elected governmental assembly headed by a President elected by that assembly.  In fact it vests in no such place.

The President in particular is very much a figurehead--he wields no real power whatsoever.   He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage.  For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character.  His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.  On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had--he has already spent two of his ten presidential years in prison for fraud.  Very very few people realize that the President and the Government have virtually no power at all, and of these few people only six know whence ultimate political power is wielded.  Most of the others secretly believe that the ultimate decision-making process is handled by a computer.  They couldn't be more wrong.

You see my dilemma with this post.  The above passage is a perfect set-up for me to launch into a discussion of the current resident of the Oval Office.  I'm not going to do that.  He is going to be all over TV this evening.  Therefore, I will not draw more attention to President Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

When I got home from work this afternoon, I began cutting branches from the trees on the side of my property.  They were coated with ice, and one of the limbs was resting on the roof of my house.  Therefore, with the help of my daughter's boyfriend, a saw, and my dad's old tree trimmers, I deforested a little.  I can now park on the side of my house again without fear of severe damage.

I also drove down to my mother's house.  The damage to her trees was much worse.  One tree was lying on the snow, snapped off at the base of the trunk.  Branches littered her entire front yard, and there were limbs on the roof.  At the base of her driveway was a wedge of ice boulders.  So, I spent some time there shoveling, chipping, and collecting some of the fallen lumber.

And now, I am sitting at my kitchen table, visiting with one of my favorite people in the world--my niece, Aubri.  She just graduated from college last December, and she came over to cut and dye my wife's hair.  My niece and I have similar senses of humor.  We recognize the ridiculous and hypocritical, and we revel in making fun of it.  (That's the nicest way I can describe it.  To put it another way:  we can be mean girls when we get together.)

 However, Saint Marty can't think of a better way to spend this State of the Union evening.  Cutting branches.  Eating ranch pretzels.  Laughing with his niece.

Please vote for Saint Marty (Marty Achatz) for 2019/2020 Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula:

Vote for 2019/2020 Poet Laureate of the U. P.