July 20: "Spring," Apollo 11, Betelgeuse

Mary Oliver on the lust of spring . . . 

Spring

by:  Mary Oliver

All day the flicker

has anticipated

the lust of the season, by

shouting.  He scouts up

tree after tree and at

a certain place begins

to cry out.  My, in his

black-freckled vest, bay body with

red trim and sudden chrome

underwings, he is

dapper.  Of course somebody

listening nearby

hears him; she answers

with a sound like hysterical

laughter, and rushes out into

the field where he is poised

on an old phone pole, his head

swinging, his wings

opening and shutting in a kind of

butterfly stroke.  She can't

resist; they touch; they flutter.

How lightly, altogether, they accept

the great task, of carrying life

forward!  In the crown of an oak

they choose a small tree-cave

which they enter with sudden quietness

and modesty.  And, for a while,

the wind that can be

a knife or a hammer, subsides.

They listen

to the thrushes.

The sky is blue, or the rain 

falls with its spills of pearl.

Around their wreath of darkness

the leaves of the world unfurl.

For over seven months, I've been exploring the universe with Mary Oliver as my guide.  She inspires me to be a better caretaker, person, and poet.  I've always had a great respect for the mysteries of nature, and Oliver fully embodies those mysteries.  She asks questions without needing answers.  Observes without having to explain.  All around her, leaves unfurl, rain falls, and birds laugh and sing.  

Human beings are inherently curious animals.  That's hardwired into us.  We like to understand how things work, from the subatomic to the celestial.  Perhaps that's the divine part of ourselves.  If you believe we are made in the image of God, then the need to create and comprehend is just a reflection of the great Poet who wrote us into existence.

Today is the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and Neil Armstrong taking that one giant leap onto the lunar surface.  Fifty-four years ago, three human beings were kicking up dust in the Sea of Tranquility, and the entire planet was watching.  I'm sure it felt like humankind had just reached up and touched the face of God.

Yet, in the grand scheme of things, we still don't understand a whole lot.  We've made great scientific and technological advances, yet we're still pretty much those apes at the beginning of 2001:  A Space Odyssey encountering the monolith for the first time.  We still kill each other over waterholes and exploit resources.  

I was an astronomy nerd when I was a kid.  I know that's hard to believe, given my current state of coolness.  I had a cheap telescope, subscribed to Astronomy magazine, and got geeked about things like eclipses and meteor showers and sunspots.  I can't tell you how many nights I spent studying the surface of the moon, imagining what it was like to walk on its powdery landscape.  

I never wanted to be an astronaut or physicist.  Didn't study laws of motion or Einstein's relativity.  I was just enthralled with the idea that, when I saw Betelgeuse shining in the heavens, that light was 430 years old.  By looking up at the stars, I was literally peering through a window into the past.  Pretty cool.

Mary Oliver probably found that pretty cool, too.  The past shining down on the present into the future.  Time travel, in a way.  When the light from Betelgeuse hits Earth tonight, that light came into being a couple months after playwright Christopher Marlowe was murdered in England and Mumtaz Mahal, Queen of India and inspiration for the Taj Mahal, was born.  

We are surrounded by miracles, each and every day.  We just don't pay that much attention to them, from Oliver's flicker to Galileo's mountains on the moon.  The universe is unfurling around us, and we're just hatchlings, really, looking up at the blue, blue sky from the bowl of our nest, hungry and desperate.

That's Saint Marty's one small step of a blog post tonight.

January 11: Marvels of the Universe, Ford Prefect, Low Blood Sugar

Back to Ford Prefect, Arthur Dent's friend from a planet near Betelgeuse . . .

In fact what he was really looking out for when he stared distractedly into the night sky was any kind of flying saucer at all.  The reason he said green was that green was the traditional space livery of the Betelgeuse trading scouts.

Ford Prefect was desperate that any flying saucer at all would arrive soon because fifteen years was a long time to get stranded anywhere, particularly somewhere as mindboggingly dull as the Earth.

Ford wished that a flying saucer would arrive soon because he knew how to flag flying saucers down and get lifts from them.  He knew how to see the Marvels of the Universe for less than thirty Altairan dollars a day.

Well, you can't get through Walt Disney World on thirty Altairan dollars a day.  That's for sure.

So, our teenage Ford Prefect finally came to his senses after about half a day at the Magic Kingdom.  The day became much better after the Haunted Mansion.  We started at the Jungle Cruise.  Moved on to the Country Bear Jamboree, followed by a side trip to the shooting gallery for my son..  Then we took a ride with the ghosts.  After the ghosts, we headed off to Hollywood Studios.  By that time, Ford Prefect had returned to Betelgeuse, and I stopped looking for flying saucers.

At Hollywood Studios, we rode the Tower of Terror.  Well, most of us did.  There are some non-thrill-ride people in our party.  After that, it was Alien Swirling Flying Saucer ride in Toy Story Land.  Didn't partake in that pleasure,  Too much spinning for my vertigo-prone brain.  Then, we had dinner.  Chicken and biscuits for me.  Delicious.  After that, Star Tours--which is a Star Wars-themed virtual reality ride.  Pretty cool.  We were going to try to get to the Muppet theater  for the 3-D movie, but it was closed for the day.  To round out the night, we saw Fantasmic, which is a laser/fireworks/water show with Mickey and company.  My son was enthralled through the whole spectacle.

We came home, tired but not exhausted.  Had some hot chocolate (it was in the 40s last night).  Watched some Shark Tank.  Went to sleep.  That's when I turned into Ford Prefect.  Or at least my body did.

I had a really low blood sugar early this morning.  Almost ambulance-worthy.  However, my wife and daughter were able to get enough sugar packets and peanut butter into my mouth to bring me around.  What I remember about the night--not being able to control my body.  My right arm and leg simply wouldn't do what I wanted them to do.  Plus, I couldn't speak.  I was terrified that I'd had a stroke, as my brother and sister did before they died.  Even after my blood sugar was at a normal level and everyone had gone back to sleep, I lay awake in bed, moving my fingers and toes, just to prove to myself that I was not paralyzed in any way.

That was my day.  Not uneventful.  Full of Ford Prefect moments.

Saint Marty is still on Earth, and he will be heading to the Animal Kingdom in a little while.

January 10: Ford Prefect, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, One of My Favorite Nights

Here we are again.  Arthur still lying in front of the bulldozer.  Mr. Prosser still having Genghis Khan visions of death and destruction.  But now we've been introduced to Arthur's friend, Ford Prefect, who is an alien from a planet near Betelgeuse . . .

Sometimes [Ford Prefect] would get seized with oddly distracted moods and stare into the sky as if hypnotized until someone asked him what he was doing.  Then he would start guiltily for a moment, relax and grin.  "Oh, just looking for flying saucers," he would joke and everyone would laugh and ask him what sort of flying saucers he was looking for.

"Green ones!" he would reply with a wicked grin, laugh wildly for a moment and then suddenly lunge for the nearest bar and buy an enormous round of drinks.

Evenings like this usually ended badly.  Ford would get out of his skull on whisky, huddle into a corner with some girl and explain to her in slurred phrases that honestly the color of flying saucers didn't matter that much really.

Thereafter, staggering semi-paralytic down the night streets he would often ask passing policemen if they knew the way to Betelgeuse.  The policemen would usually say something like, "Don't you think it's about time you went home, sir?"

"I'm trying to baby, I'm trying to," is what Ford invariably replied on these occasions.

One of the challenges in life is dealing with difficult people, like Ford Prefect.  Or semi-difficult people.  Or people who seem to seek out ways of making others feel terrible.  I've been doing that for most of my life.  I have a brother whose moods can change in a blink.  Currently, he hates me, or at least he did when I left for Orlando.  He probably still does.  This brother also has a PhD in grudges.  I'm alright with that.

I've learned that the only way to deal with Ford Prefects is to simply let them be Ford Prefects.  Let them work things out for themselves.  I can't make anyone into a  better version of themselves, no matter how hard I wish I could.  Ford Prefects need to live, screw up, and then figure out how to unscrew up their screw ups.

(In case you are completely confused by the beginning of this post, let me say that teenagers are Ford Prefects.  They are dealing with raging hormonal moods which they can't really control.  They aren't quite children any more, and they aren't quite adults.  They are aliens from a planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.)

So, a quick rundown of the last couple days:

Tuesday, we visited the Animal Kingdom here at Disney.  It was a lovely day, one of the warmest since we've been down here.  Yet, that particular theme park is full of lush greenness and shade.  We saw a Lion King extravaganza; watched a 3-D movie about bugs in the Tree of Life; traveled to Avatar land to ride on the back of a banshee; twice climbed Mount Everest on a roller coaster to find the Yeti; and time traveled on a roller coaster to hunt a dinosaur.  Interspersed among all that were encounters with parrots and crocodiles and silverback gorillas.  Then, in the evening, we went back to EPCOT for the magic hours (9 p.m. to 11 p.m.) for resort guests.  We rode on Test Track again, because my son wanted to, and we traveled under the ocean with Nemo.  A pretty cool, eventful day.

Yesterday, we returned to Universal Studios for some more butter beer and to partake in some of the non-Harry Potter attractions, which were mainly roller coasters.  However, the morning started out for me with a really low blood sugar, so I was feeling kinda wonky for the first part of the day.  Skipped a couple of the coasters.  We did the Jimmy Fallon Tonight Show ride.  My daughter, son, and sister rode The Mummy and Fast & Furious roller coasters.  We killed some aliens with Men in Black.  Helped E. T. save his planet.  Ate the Big Pink (a pink frosted doughnut the size of your head).  Then it was the Hogwarts Express to Hogsmeade for some butter beer and wand action.  From there, we wandered into Seuss Landing where we rode the (for lack of a better description) sky trolley.  My daughter and son went on the Incredible Hulk roller coaster.  Twice.  Yes, they are insane.  And then I went on a river rapids Popeye ride with my daughter and son, where I got drenched.  Literally, barrels of water were dumped on us.  Still dripping, we encountered King Kong to end the day at Universal.  (It was somewhere in that time that Ford Prefect decided to make an appearance, and things got a little intense between the teenagers in our party.  There were tears and stony silences.)

Yesterday evening, we made our way to the Magic Kingdom for some Splash Mountain and Space Mountain Action, minus Ford Prefect.  It was magic hours time there.  So, we hit the Haunted Mansion, Little Mermaid, and It's a Small World, as well.  We had dinner.  A chicken Parmesan sandwich for me.  Then, to cap off the night, we rode the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train roller coaster.  My wife joined us for that one.  She screamed the entire ride, throwing in some language that would have made Popeye blush.  Just as we were pulling into the station to disembark, she started saying, "I'm gonna throw up, I'm gonna throw up!!!"  She didn't.  However, it took her quite a while to recover.  She said her limbs went numb at the end of the ride. 

On the bus ride home, we were laughing and joking, although my wife may have turned into Ford Prefect a little.  She wasn't amused.  And, despite the challenges of the afternoon and evening, my daughter looked at me and said, "This is one of my favorite nights we've had."

And that is what it's all about.  Finding joy in the midst of struggle.  Not letting Ford Prefects steal that away from you. 

Saint Mary is hoping that, today, Ford Prefect has returned to Betelgeuse for the duration of this voyage.