January 7: My Keyhole, Edit the Universe, Kim Addonizio, "Eating Together"

Peering through my keyhole I see within the range of only about thirty percent of the light that comes from the sun; the rest is infrared and some little ultraviolet, perfectly apparent to many animals, but invisible to me.  A nightmare network of ganglia, charged and firing without my knowledge, cuts and splices what I do see, editing it for my brain.  Donald E. Carr points out that the sense impressions of one-celled animals are not edited for the brain:  "This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since it means that only the simplest animals perceive the universe as it is."

In her reflections on seeing, Annie Dillard laments all that she cannot see, all that her limited vision filters and obscures.  Trees filled with red-winged blackbirds.  Deer gliding through a copse of trees.  A bullfrog the size of a plate dozing in muddy shallows.  Somehow, the human mind edits the world, allowing us to view only what we can handle, only what is necessary.  To see everything, like a one-celled animal, like God, would be overwhelming.  Too much for our feeble brains.

I sometimes lament things I cannot see, too.  I have a writer friend whose observations continuously intrigue and confound me.  His vision is very different from my own.  Where I see a snowy field of frozen cattails, he would probably see the stubbled leg of a fallen giant.  I envy his ability to make associations like that.

Peering through my keyhole, I see what I want to see.  I try to avoid visions that frighten me.  A house that is in serious need of repair.  A daughter that is struggling with serious anxiety problems.  A job that deadens my joy.  A country run by Donald Trump.  I make choices every day, try to edit the universe to fit my definition of happiness.

Of course, I'm constantly surprised every day.  For example, I planned to finish sending out Christmas presents to distant family and friends today.  That was my plan.  I was also going to wrap up beginning-of-semester work, as well.  Those were the two big things on my to-do list.  That was my vision for today. 

Instead, I shoveled my sidewalk and driveway early this morning.  Went back to bed for a little while.  Had lunch with my wife.  Picked up my daughter at school.  Tonight, I'm going to a basketball game to watch my daughter play in the pep band.  I didn't touch the Christmas presents I wanted to mail.  I did minimal work for school.

When Dillard talks about peering through her keyhole at Tinker Creek, she's editing, as well.  Seeing only what she expects to see.  Keeping her world in a certain order.  That's what we all do.  Every day.  Yet, the universe has a way of intruding.  Forcing us to see the miraculous or mysterious or frightening.

Poets have a way of widening the keyhole.  Seeing things from a one-celled perspective.  Dinner with a friend can become something deeper, a communion with loss.

Saint Marty prefers sangria with his dinner.

Eating Together

by:  Kim Addonizio

I know my friend is going,
though she still sits there
across from me in the restaurant,
and leans over the table to dip
her bread in the oil on my plate; I know
how thick her hair used to be,
and what it takes for her to discard
her man’s cap partway through our meal,
to look straight at the young waiter
and smile when he asks
how we are liking it. She eats
as though starving—chicken, dolmata,
the buttery flakes of filo—
and what’s killing her
eats, too. I watch her lift
a glistening black olive and peel
the meat from the pit, watch
her fine long fingers, and her face,
puffy from medication. She lowers
her eyes to the food, pretending
not to know what I know. She’s going.
And we go on eating.

December 16: Nice Watch, Christmas Presents, Annie Dillard, A Martha Christmas

Later, because it was Christmas, Ives had somehow felt compelled to leave the nice watch he'd bought his son in the room, instead of returning it to the store.  He put it in his top drawer, as if his boy would come in anytime now to claim it.  That drawer was stuffed with school paraphernalia, prayer cards, baseball cards, playing cards, a Felix the Cat comic that Ives had illustrated himself, years before...

Since Ives' son is killed a few days before Christmas, Ives has already purchased presents for his Robert.  In particular, Ives bought a beautiful wristwatch for him, something suitable for a young man about to enter the seminary.  In addition, at the scene of Robert's murder, a police officer hands Ives a Sam Goody's bag, filled with the gifts Robert had purchased for his father, mother, and sister.  Record albums by the Beatles, Thelonius Monk, and Rosemary Clooney.

Presents are not the reason for Christmas.  Not even close.  We all know that.  I love getting gifts as much as anybody else, but the moment I love the most during the holidays occurs on Christmas Eve, around 11 p.m., at my wife's church.  It's a candlelight communion service, full of quiet music and contemplation.  All the crazy holiday preparation is done, for better or worse.  Christmas has arrived.

My sister, Sally, loved Christmas.  She loved buying presents, seeing the joy on people's faces when they opened them.  She especially loved spoiling her nieces and nephews.  In the weeks leading up to December 25th, she would spend hours baking cookies, wrapping gifts, addressing cards.  Sure, she got overwhelmed sometimes, but she never, ever wanted her family to feel unloved or forgotten at Christmas.

It's going to be a very difficult Christmas this year.  There's going to be emptiness, maybe tears.  It's unavoidable.  This morning, my daughter was so upset about last night's commitment service at the cemetery that she couldn't stop crying.  She stayed home from school today.  There is little I can do to assuage her pain.  Only time will do that.

Christmas is a season of light and giving.  I have to keep reminding myself of that these days.  As I drive home every night, I see trees glowing and blinking in living rooms.  A few nights ago, I watched Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye in White Christmas.  After I'm done typing this post, I will write my annual Christmas letter.  Tonight or tomorrow, I will shop for a few things online.

Christmas is going to come next week, whether I'm ready for it or not.  I know what my sister, Sally, would want me to do, though.  She would want me to make this coming yuletide as holly and jolly as I can.  And that's what I plan to do.  There will be eggnog.  There will be baked ham and pecan pie.  There will be Jimmy Stewart running through the streets of Bedford Falls.  There will be presents.  And there will be Santa Claus.

Saint Marty would never stand in the way of Santa.

from Teaching a Stone to Talk

by:  Annie Dillard

Like everyone in his right mind, I feared Santa Claus, thinking he was God.  I was still thoughtless and brute, reactive.  I knew right from wrong, but had barely tested the possibility of shaping my own behavior, and then only from fear, and not yet from love.  Santa Claus was an old man whom you never saw, but who nevertheless saw you; he knew when you'd been bad or good.  He knew when you'd been bad or good!  And I had been bad...

A Martha Christmas...

November 29: Book Club, Classic Saint Marty, Confessions of Saint Marty

This evening, my book club is meeting at my house.  Our Thanksgiving read was Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio.  My wife is at home, making a cream cheese pumpkin pie for the occasion.  Yesterday afternoon, I vacuumed, swept, and mopped the floors.  Cleaned the bathroom last night.  I think we'll be in pretty good shape by 6 p.m.

It has been a dreary day, in keeping with my general mood.  Tomorrow, I go back to work and teaching.  The next two weeks are going to be a whirlwind of grading and school programs and concerts.  Next Saturday is my daughter's fifteenth birthday.  Then, next Sunday, I am performing in a Christmas benefit concert with my band.  We are selling our Christmas CD and raising money for a local homeless shelter.  If I reach the end of the semester without going insane, it will be a yuletide miracle.

At the beginning of the holidays every year, I tell myself that I'm not going to let myself get stressed and anxious.  That I'm going to take some time to relax, enjoy Christmas and New Years without the usual array of anger and worry.  I have never kept that oath.  Ever.

So, on this First Sunday of Advent, I once again make a vow to relax a little.  Bake some cookies, not because I have to, but because I want to.  Not go crazy with gift buying.  Find Christmas presents with meaning versus Christmas meaning with presents.  That is my goal this year.  I don't expect to meet it, though.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired one year ago, at a time when I was mourning the loss of a very good friend.

November 29, 2014:  Her Old Web, Joy Harjo, "Perhaps the World Ends Here"

In the days that followed, he was very happy.  He grew to a great size.  He no longer worried about being killed, for he knew that Mr. Zuckerman would keep him as long as he lived.  Wilbur often thought of Charlotte.  A few strands of her old web still hung in the doorway.  Every day Wilbur would stand and look at the torn, empty web, and a lump would come to his throat.  No one had ever had such a friend--so affectionate, so loyal, and so skillful.

Overcoming grief is a gradual process.  Wilbur learns this fact.  He returns from the Fair brokenhearted, and, over the months that follow, he gradually adjusts to the rhythms of barn life without his friend, Charlotte.  Eventually, he is able to experience happiness again.  It takes time, like all healing.

Today, for the first time since Thanksgiving night, I have not felt overwhelming sadness all day.  It overcame me at times, but I was able to have extended moments of grace, where I had pleasant, happy memories of my friend, Ray.  And that's the way that he would want it.  I know that for a fact.  Ray was not a maudlin person.  He always looked for the humor in any situation.

For example, earlier this fall, I was sitting next to him at a poetry reading.  He was speaking to me about his weeping feet.  That is a medical term.  It means his feet were swollen and, basically, leaking blood.  It's very serious, but he laughed and said, "I thought it was stigmata, but then I remembered that starts at the opposite end."  I laughed and said, "Saint Ray of the Weeping Feet."  "You bet your ass," he said.

That was Ray.  In the days and weeks to come, those happy memories will replace the sorrow of his absence.  Healing will take place.  That's what Ray would want, too.  The quicker the better.

I have a sort-of Thanksgiving poem from Joy Harjo tonight.  It's a poem about love and grief, pain and healing.  She gets it right.  Those big things of life really do start in small places like the kitchen table.

So Saint Marty will meet you in the kitchen in a few minutes.  Get out the cheesecake, and we'll have a Golden Girls moment.

Perhaps the World Ends Here

by:  Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Confessions of Saint Marty