August 11: "Evening Alone," Night Owl, Happy Place

I have very few moments during my days--morning, afternoon, or evening--when I am completely alone.  I think that's why I've always been a night owl.  After people go to bed, I get a few hours of solitude.

Sometimes I make good use of that solitude, reading or writing or revising or eating chocolate.  Other times, I allow my mind to rest.  I watch a movie I've seen dozens of times or a television program that requires little in the way of active attention.  I drift and wander lonely as a cloud.

That's what Billy Collin is doing in today's poem . . . 

Evening Alone

by: Billy Collins

Last of the strong sun

on white tiles, stack of white towels, 

faint piano melody from downstairs, 

and the downpour of hot water on my shoulders. 

I lift my face to the nozzle, close my eyes

and see mountains folded 

over mountains, smoke rising from a woodcutter’s hut,

 and in the distance, billowing pastel clouds. 

It must be China I am beholding 

on this early summer evening— 

the great sway of rivers, 

thousands of birds rising on the wing, 

the jade and mulberries of China, 

plum blossoms—now the cry of a pheasant. 

It is a vision that drains me of desire, 

and leaves me wanting nothing 

but to be here 

in this hot steamy room 

washing my neck, rubbing my sides, 

the soap slithering down the chest and stomach, 

eyes still shut, 

while in China, 

a light boat crosses a lake, 

and in a wooden house on the shore 

a young woman in a tight-fitting silk dress 

lifts a cup of cinnamon tea 

to her painted, slightly parted lips.

I'm not sure if Billy Collins is calling up a distant memory or completely imagining this scene.  But he is drifting and wandering in his mind to a place that gives him peace and pleasure.  It really doesn't matter whether it's real or not.

We all have happy places.  The Eiffel Tower.  Loch Ness.  Lake Superior.  A couch.  My happy place?  I'm kind of a homebody.  The only place where I really relax and set aside all my masks is at home.  I don't have to do anything but be myself.  That's a great gift.  I can be Marty the poet.  Marty the blogger.  Marty the Christmas fanatic.  Marty the Bigfoot guy.  Or I can just be Marty the guy who watches Portrait Artist of the Year fanatically, over and over.  

Saint Marty's favorite place tonight was his backyard, standing under the sun, noticing how leaves are already changing color.

November 10: "Beaver Moon--The Suicide of a Friend," Becoming Unbearable, Christmas Fanatic

Mary Oliver loses a friend . . . 

Beaver Moon--The Suicide of a Friend

by:  Mary Oliver

When somewhere life

breaks like a pane of glass,

and from every direction casual

voices are bringing you the news,

you say:  I should have known.  

You say:  I should have been aware. 

That last Friday he looked

so ill, like an old mountain-climber

lost on the white trails, listening

to the ice breaking upward, under

his worn-out shoes.  You say:

what could I have done? and you go

with the rest, to bury him.

That night, you turn in your bed

to watch the moon rise, and once more

see what a small coin it is

against the darkness, and how everything else

is a mystery, and you know

nothing at all except 

the moonlight is beautiful--

white rivers running together

along the bare boughs of the trees--

and somewhere, for someone, life

is becoming moment by moment

unbearable.

Yes, it is that time of year.  The days are getting shorter and shorter.  I drive to work in the dark, return home in the dark.  The boughs of the trees are bare, and, as Oliver says, somewhere, for someone, life is becoming unbearable.

If you haven't noticed, I have been sporadic in posting blogs recently.  I've fallen out of the habit of daily writing.  There are a few reasons why.  Library busyness.  Exhaustion at night.  Schoolwork.  Library work.  Family work.  I've tried to blog, but I struggle.  A lot.  My thoughts seem to slip through my fingers like a salamander.

Plus, in the past couple years, I tend to experience some pretty dark moments as the holidays approach.  Which is a strange thing for me.  My whole life, I've been a Christmas fanatic.  The day after Halloween would usually find me dragging out my Christmas decorations and decking the halls.  Not so much these days.

I still love Christmas.  The lights.  Movies.  TV shows.  Music.  Peace on Earth.  All that jazz.  However, I've become much more aware of the surrounding darkness.  There's a scene in many of the film adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol where Marley makes Scrooge look out a window.  Scrooge sees countless specters filling the air with cries of lamentation and sorrow.  That's sort where my holiday headspace has been these past few years.

This month, the Beaver Moon happens on November 27.  I feel myself sliding toward that day like Oliver's friend who looks like "an old mountain-climber / lost on the white trails . . ."  Don't worry.  I'm not thinking of self harm.  However, there's a sort of melancholic black snow falling on my head right now.  Last year, this snow held on and on, finally melting away when June rolled in.  I'm hoping spring comes a little faster this time 'round.

I know I'm not the only person who has these struggles.  I also know most people's lives are a lot more difficult than mine.  As Oliver points out in her poem, the moon is a small coin of light against the coal of the heavens.  This time of year, I am acutely aware of this fact.

So, I try to be kind--to myself and to most people I meet.  Because you never know when that kindness is exactly the live preserver a person drowning in darkness needs.

Saint Marty wishes all of his faithful disciples sunrises in the coming weeks.  

November 8-9: True Child of the Modern World, "A Charlie Brown Christmas," Linus' Blanket

Thomas Merton lives in fear . . . 

That window! It was huge. It seemed to go right down to the floor. Maybe the force of gravity would draw the whole bed, with me on it, to the edge of that abyss, and spill me headlong into the emptiness. 

And far, far away in my mind was a little, dry, mocking voice that said: “What if you threw yourself out of that window....” 

I turned over on the bed, and tried to go to sleep. But the blood drummed and drummed in my head. I could not sleep. 

I thought to myself: “I wonder if I am having a nervous breakdown.” 

Then, again, I saw that window. The mere sight of it made my head spin. The mere thought that I was high above the ground almost knocked me out again. 

The doctor came in and saw me lying there wide awake and said:

“I thought I told you to go to sleep.” 

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. He gave me a bottle of medicine, and went away again. All I wanted was to get out of that room. 

When he was gone, I got up and went downstairs and paid for the room and took a train home. I did not feel bad in the train going home. The house was empty. I lay down on a thing in the living room that they called the chaise-longue, and went to sleep. 

When Else came home, she said: “I thought you were going to stay up town for dinner.” 

But I said: “I felt bad, so I came home.” 

What was the matter with me? I never found out. I suppose it was a sort of a nervous breakdown. In connection with it, I developed gastritis, and thought I was beginning to get a stomach ulcer. 

The doctors gave me a diet and some medicine. The effect of both was more psychological than anything else. Every time I went to eat anything, I studied what was there, and only chose certain things and ate them with a sort of conscious scrupulosity. I remember one of the things that I was told to eat: it was ice-cream. I had no objection to eating ice-cream, especially in summer. How delightful not only to enjoy this dish, but also to feed my imagination with thoughts of its healthfulness and wholesomeness. I could almost see it kindly and blandly and mercifully covering the incipient ulcer with its cool, health-giving substance. 

The whole result of this diet was to teach me this trivial amusement, this cult of foods that I imagined to be bland and healthful. It made me think about myself. It was a game, a hobby, something like psychoanalysis had been. I even sometimes fell into the discussion of foods and their values and qualities in relation to health, as if I were an authority on the subject. And for the rest, I went around with my mind in my stomach and ate quarts and quarts of ice-cream. 

Now my life was dominated by something I had never really known before: fear. Was it really something altogether new? No, for fear is inseparable from pride and lust. They may hide it for a time: but it is the reverse of the coin. The coin had turned over and I was looking at the other side: the eagle that was to eat out my insides for a year or so, cheap Prometheus that I had become! It was humiliating, this strange wariness that accompanied all my actions, this self-conscious watchfulness. It was a humiliation I had deserved more than I knew. There was more justice in it than I could understand. 

I had refused to pay any attention to the moral laws upon which all our vitality and sanity depend: and so now I was reduced to the condition of a silly old woman, worrying about a lot of imaginary rules of health, standards of food-value, and a thousand minute details of conduct that were in themselves completely ridiculous and stupid, and yet which haunted me with vague and terrific sanctions. If I eat this, I may go out of my mind. If I do not eat that, I may die in the night. 

I had at last become a true child of the modern world, completely tangled up in petty and useless concerns with myself, and almost incapable of even considering or understanding anything that was really important to my own true interests. 

In this passage from The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton is living in fear, of food, vertigo, heights, ulcers.  The world seems to terrify him and absorb him at the same time.  His religion consists of the Holy Trinity of the modern world:  me, myself, and I.  Anything not related to Merton's own interests and preoccupations are inconsequential.  Thinking outside of his own little concentric universe is impossible for him, like most teenagers.

I think, to a greater or lesser degree, we all sometimes fall victim to an inner voice that whispers, "What's in it for me?"  It's human nature.  We are like spoiled kids during the Christmas season.  There is no bell ringing for the Salvation Army.  No Toys for Tots.  No working in soup kitchens.  Nope.  For a child, it's all about the newest Nintendo Switch.  For a teenager, the newest iteration of the iPhone.  For an adult, there's Alexa and drones.  The modern world teaches us to be Veruca Salt, wanting more and more and more.  

I have always been a Christmas fanatic, as any of my friends and family will attest.  I listen to Christmas music all year long.  On the 25th of every month, I try to accomplish something Christmassy.  Addressing Christmas cards.  Doing some Christmas shopping.  Working on my annual Christmas essay.  I love everything about Christmas.

I try to avoid the commercial side of this obsession, although I did go out and spend a lot of money on Charlie Brown-themed decorations this past Sunday.  We decorate the enclosed front porch of our house every year, and, every year, we have a different theme.  Last year, because we were getting a puppy for Christmas, my daughter chose to deck the halls with dog toys--plush animals that squeaked, fat knots to chew on, and balls.  Another year, it was an Ice Creamy Christmas, with ice cream cone and sundae ornaments on the tree.  

My favorite Christmas television special has always been A Charlie Brown Christmas.  As a kid, I think I loved the cartoon because Chuck and his gang sounded and looked like me.  They were mean and petty and materialistic.  I KNEW these kids.  I was one of them.  As an adult, I love this special because of the Linus moment.  That's when Charlie Brown yells out, "Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?!"  And Linus walks center stage and, in a spotlight, recites the Nativity story from Luke: 

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this [shall be] a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Blogger Jason Soroski points out that, at the point when Linus says "Fear not," he drops his blanket and finishes the monologue without it in his hands.  Soroski thinks this detail was intentional on Charles Schultz's part.  To drive home the true message of Christmas even more:  to drop all those things that we cling to for security, and focus on what is truly important.  The presence of grace in our lives.  

So, this year, in the middle of a pandemic, at the end of four years of absolutely no good will toward men in my country, I chose to decorate our front porch with Charlie Brown.  I want to embrace the true meaning of Christmas, per Linus van Pelt.  It's not about toys or gadgets or trips.  Those are all security blankets for a very lost world.  It's about grace toward all human beings.  Kindness and charity and compassion.  Lifting each other up, regardless of skin color or gender or sexual orientation or religion or political affiliation.

We are all Charlie Brown, and we need to be taught daily, over and over and over, what Christmas is all about.  So that we don't spend every second of our lives living in fear.  Clinging to ratty old blankets that will never give us warmth.

For the miracle of this Linus moment, and for Snoopy, Saint Marty gives thanks.