June 7: "When the Roses Speak, I Pay Attention," My Friend, Petals and Thorns

Mary Oliver takes time to listen to and smell the roses . . . 

When the Roses Speak, I Pay Attention

by:  Mary Oliver

"As long as we are able to

be extravagant we will be

hugely and damply

extravagant.  Then we will drop

foil by foil to the ground.  This

is our unalterable task, and we do it

joyfully."

And they went on.  "Listen,

the heart-shackles are not, as you think,

death, illness, pain,

unrequited hope, not loneliness but

lassitude, rue, vainglory, fear, anxiety,

selfishness."

Their fragrance all the while rising

from their blind bodies, making me

spin with joy.

The job of roses:  to be damply, joyfully extravagant in the short time they bloom.  For Oliver, roses are also a reminder of everything that would be considered anti-roses:  lassitude (a state of mental or physical weariness), rue (bitter regret), vainglory (excessive vanity), fear, anxiety and selfishness.  I know I just repeated almost half of the poem in my last couple sentences, but Oliver's message bears repeating.

You send roses to people you love.  You send roses in memory of people who've died.  Roses are put in bridal bouquets and prom corsages.  Bette Midler starred in and sang the theme song to The Rose.  Rose was JFK's mother, and Rose let Jack drown in the movie Titanic.  Then there's Rose who used to tell stories about St. Olaf, and the Rose Bowl Parade every January 1st.  Ethel Merman sang "Everything's Coming Up Roses," and Melania Trump gutted the White House Rose Garden created by Jackie Kennedy.  My sister who died last year was named Rose, and she was the sweetest, most loving person I've known.

Roses have lots of cultural meanings and uses--from the religious (rose is the color for Gaudete and Laetare Sundays) to the medicinal (ingesting rose hip is used to treat osteoarthritis).  And, of course, there are poetic roses (to quote Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions):

Roses are red 

 And ready for plucking, 

You're sixteen, 

And ready for high school. 

In Oliver's poem, there's a huge difference between what the roses say versus what emotion their scent evokes.  Rose words are filled with darkness, pride, and envy.  Rose scents are occasions for joy.  The dichotomy is sort of striking, but also in keeping with the actual flower, which has supple, red petals and biting thorns.  

I had a long conversation with a close friend today.  This friend has been struggling a great deal in the last month or so.  It's not my place to tell my friend's story, and I won't.  But I will say it involves someone my friend loves very much who is currently suffering from severe mental illness.  My friend is in rough shape, shuttling between despair and anger and frustration and devotion.  

Faithful disciples of this blog know that I have a lot of experience dealing with mental illness in people I love.  I understand what my friend is going through, have experienced many of the same feelings over the years.  I wanted to give my friend some hope or solace today, but I know too much of the reality of mental health.  

I told my friend, "The most important thing to do right now is to remember to take care of yourself."  

I know that sounds like pretty selfish advice, but the wrecking ball that is mental illness can destroy everything in its path.  My friend needs to practice selfcare, or else my friend will end up in pieces.  I've been there.  I know.

Roses can make your day spin with joy, or they can leave you bleeding and in pain.  Love can do the same, and my friend is learning this lesson right now.  I'm not saying everyone should shut off their hearts to avoid sorrow and pain.  I'm saying that if you love, you have to be prepared for petals and thorns.

Saint Marty has the scars to prove it.

October 7: Atoms and Molecules, Scarecrow, Algebra of the Heart

The Heart of Gold fled on silently through the night of space, now on conventional photon drive.  Its crew of four were ill at ease knowing that they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics--as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed relationships between atoms and molecules.

In some ways, I think that life would be so much easier if relationships between people were governed by the laws of physics.  It would save me (and millions of others) from a lot of sleepless nights.  If love were simply a matter of valences and formulas, the problems of my life could be solved almost algebraically.  It would be as simple as understanding a² + b² = c².  (For those of you uncomfortable with scientific or mathematical equations, I am saying that if life/love were as predictable as the Pythagorean theorem, it would be really easy to avoid heartbreak.)

Of course, it isn't quite that simple.  The Scarecrow learned that in The Wizard of Oz.  Even though he got his brain, he still couldn't figure out how not to be heartbroken when Dorothy left.  What I'm saying here is not very earth-shattering, but I think people tend to forget it, especially if they've been in long-term relationships for quite some time.  After 25 or 30 or 40 years, love can be taken for granted, until love climbs into the basket of an air balloon and disappears into the sky forever.

The love my wife and I share has been complicated by a lot of things--mental illness, addiction, and all the messy things that accompany mental illness and addiction.  If I were talking mathematically, I would say that a lot of unknown variables have entered the equation of our lives.  And, as of this night, I am still trying to figure out the value of those variables.  Solve the equation of our marriage, so to speak.

It's too late right now for me to fiddle around with the x and y and a and b and z (and probably quite a few other letters) of my relationship with my wife.  I'm tired, and the math simply makes me more tired.  What I want you to take away from this post is that the heart has its own algebra, and no mathematician has been able to figure out its rules.  Because they're transitive and associative and communicative all at once.

So, go with what the Beatles said, if you want:  "All you need is love."

Or Bette Midler:  "Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed."

Or Robert Palmer:  "Might as well face it, you're addicted to love."

Or go with what Saint Marty says:  Love can ruin and save your life at the same time.

June 4: "Wonder Woman," Classic Saint Marty, "Something Better"

It has been a good day.  I went to see Wonder Woman with my wife and kids.  Generally, I hate superhero movies.  I haven't seen an X-Men movie since the first.  Stopped going to Spiderman  movies when Tobey Maguire stopped playing Peter Parker.   

Wonder Woman was different.  It was about a strong woman.  Yes, that strong woman was still in a tight swimsuit with armor, but it was still good.  Even my daughter, who generally eschews the superhero genre, really liked it.

And I just finished grading a whole bunch of papers for my online class.  I am ready for the evening.  I will be watching the Tony Awards.  No Hamilton this year.  But, hopefully, Bette Midler will sing "Hello, Dolly!"  Maybe.

A year ago, I lost a friend who really loved theater.  Tonight's Classic Saint Marty is dedicated to him...

June 4, 2016:  The World Floating, Death of a Friend, Lee

Emerson saw it.  "I dreamed that I floated at will in the great Ether, and I saw this world floating also not far off, but diminished to the size of an apple.  Then an angel took it in his hand and brought it to me and said, 'This must thou eat.'  And I ate the world."  All of it.  All of it intricate, speckled, gnawed, fringed, and free.  Israel's priests offered the wave breast and the heave shoulder together, freely, in full knowledge, for thanksgiving.  They waved, they heaved, and neither gesture was whole without the other, and both meant a wide-eyed and keen-eyed thanks.  Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, said the bell.  A sixteenth-century alchemist wrote of the philosopher's stone, "One finds it in the open country, in the village and in the town.  It is in everything which God created.  Maids throw it on the street.  Children play with it."  The giant water bug ate the world.  And like Billy Bray I go my way, and my left foot says "Glory," and my right foot says "Amen":  in and out of Shadow Creek, upstream and down, exultant, in a daze, dancing, to the twin silver trumpets of praise.

It's all about living life to the fullest.  Eating the world like a ripe apple floating in outer space.  And giving thanks for everything in life that brings happiness and joy.  That's what Annie Dillard is talking about in this final paragraph of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  She is giving glory, saying a prayer of thanksgiving, for all the creation around her, big and small.

This morning, I am giving thanks for the life of a friend of mine.  A big friend.  A guy who looked like he could reach up and eat the world like an apple.  Yes, Lee LaForge was larger than life, a Rushmore of a man in stature and joy and love.  Gifted teacher, performer, activist, and friend to everyone.  In the past, I drank with him.  Sang with him.  Laughed with him.  In a musical, I shared a stage kiss with him.  It was a pretty good kiss.

I am not going to become maudlin.  Lee wouldn't want that.  He would want me to tell you this story:

Over twenty years ago, I directed a production of the musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.  Lee was in the show, playing, among other things, a state senator caught in a compromising situation by a news reporter.  The only direction I gave him was, "Do something funny."  Every performance, when the door was opened on Lee's scene, I never knew what I was going to see.  One night, he and his acting partner got creative with a can of whipped cream.  Another night, Lee was on all fours with his partner riding his back like a horse, cracking a whip and yelling, "Who's your daddy?"  That little moment, orchestrated by Lee, always brought the house down.  Every night.  Joy.  Laughter.  Thunderous applause.

That was Lee.  His whole goal in life was happiness, making the most out of the piece of pie that he was served, whether pecan or pumpkin or banana cream.  And he always wanted to share that pie with everybody he loved.  I always knew, when I met up with Lee, he would have a hug and a joke.  And his laugh was thunder.  It rolled and overtook you, shook you, until you were weak and breathless.

Lee LaForge, you took large steps.  On your left foot was "love."  On your right foot was "rejoicing."

Saint Marty doffs his halo to a really saintly man.

A really good kisser . . .

And a poem for 2 Sundays before Father's Day . . . 

Something Better

by:  Martin Achatz

I want something better for my kids,
The way all parents want their offspring
To attend college, law or medical
School.  Do something extraordinary.
We scrub toilets, paint walls, deep-fry potatoes
For thirty or forty years, put everything
On hold until we're sure our daughters
Can study veterinary medicine, our sons
Learn to x-ray broken vertebrae, tibias,
Clavicles.  My uncle drove to the GM plant
For over thirty-five years before he received
His pension, then began to paint oil landscapes
Of places he’d dreamed about in rush hour
Traffic on I-75, places full of waves,
Evergreens the color of Chinese jade,
Places he knew he'd never see,
All so his daughter could study,
Become an engineer at Ford.
I don’t want my children to teach
College English part-time, work
Eleven-hour days in an office,
Scribble poems on napkins, lunch bags,
Margins of graded essays, dreaming
Always of a time when those words,
Cut and polished and set in lines of gold,
Will buy vacations to Stockholm or Rome,
Ballet lessons and birthday parties
In hot air balloons.  I want my kids
To know a life better than mine,
Even if it means I eat bologna
With cheese every day, pretending
My cut of lunchmeat is somehow
Superior to the one my father ate
At work for over fifty years.

July 24: Fatigues of the Day, Unmotivated, Upon the Instant

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered.  It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed.  He tried to say "Humbug!" but stopped at the first syllable.  And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

Scrooge isn't very motivated in this paragraph.  Jacob Marley has just departed, and Scrooge is exhausted.  He's had the crap scared out of him.  He's been told he's going to be condemned to an eternity of endless wandering and suffering.  He doesn't have a whole lot of motivation left.  He can't even get undressed, sort of tumbling into bed without even a last trip to the chamber pot.

This morning, I understand Scrooge's lack of enthusiasm.  I don't really feel like sitting down at the keyboard.  I have no real thoughts or insights to share, although that has never stopped me before.  I could just go back to bed and fall asleep upon the instant, without kicking off my shoes or draining my bladder.  I simply don't have much motivation.

I'm reminded of a Bette Midler comedy routine where she plays the most unmotivated person in the world.  She goes through a list of normal, daily routines, like washing hair, brushing teeth, washing dishes, and ends each item on the list with the question, "Why bother?"  It's hilarious to listen to, but it pretty much sums up my mood this morning.

Thus, I will be ending this post right here.  I could go on for another paragraph or two, discussing the reasons why I don't feel motivated.  I could talk about lack of sleep or sore feet.  I could talk about approaching weather fronts or feelings of inadequacy.  I could talk about the collapse of social ethics and morality in the world.

Saint Marty could talk about all these things.  But, why bother?

Tell me you haven't felt like this.