November 13: Bad Choices, Light Years, "As It Is"

I have a friend who is making bad choices.  She is turning her back on her children and spouse.  She knows what she's doing is selfish and stupid and destructive, but she doesn't care.  Nobody can change her mind, and she is most likely going to end up alone, without anyone to depend on.  Her bridges are burning.  That's what addiction does.

Please lift up this friend in your thoughts.  If you're a praying person, say some prayers for her and her spouse and kids.  Hope seems like a distant star for them.  Light years away.

Sometimes, I'm not really sure about the goodness of God.

A poem that has been haunting Saint Marty all day . . .

As It Is

by:  Dorianne Laux

The man I love hates technology, hates
that he’s forced to use it: telephones
and microfilm, air conditioning,
car radios and the occasional fax.
He wishes he lived in the old world,
sitting on a stump carving a clothespin
or a spoon. He wants to go back, slip
like lint into his great-great-grandfather’s
pocket, reborn as a pilgrim, a peasant,
a dirt farmer hoeing his uneven rows.
He walks when he can, through the hills
behind his house, his dogs panting beside him
like small steam engines. He’s delighted
by the sun’s slow and simple
descent, the complicated machinery
of his own body. I would have loved him
in any era, in any dark age, I would take him
into the twilight and unwind him, slide
my fingers through his hair and pull him
to his knees. As it is, this afternoon, late
in the twentieth century, I sit on a chair
in the kitchen with my keys in my lap, pressing
the black button on the answering machine
over and over, listening to his message,
his voice strung along the wires outside my window
where the birds balance themselves
and stare off into the trees, thinking
even in the farthest future, in the most
distant universe, I would have recognized
this voice, refracted, as it would be, like light
from some small, uncharted star.

May 19: Dorianne Laux, "Family Stories," Black Sheep

Family Stories

by:  Dorianne Laux

I had a boyfriend who told me stories about his family,

how an argument once ended when his father

seized a lit birthday cake in both hands

and hurled it out a second-story window. That,

I thought, was what a normal family was like: anger

sent out across the sill, landing like a gift

to decorate the sidewalk below. In mine

it was fists and direct hits to the solar plexus,

and nobody ever forgave anyone. But I believed

the people in his stories really loved one another,

even when they yelled and shoved their feet

through cabinet doors, or held a chair like a bottle

of cheap champagne, christening the wall,

rungs exploding from their holes.

I said it sounded harmless, the pomp and fury

of the passionate. He said it was a curse

being born Italian and Catholic and when he

looked from that window what he saw was the moment

rudely crushed. But all I could see was a gorgeous

three-layer cake gliding like a battered ship

down the sidewalk, the smoking candles broken, sunk

deep in the icing, a few still burning.

________________________

Let me tell you now that I love my family, each and every member.  That doesn't mean that I agree with all of the things that everyone does.  I think family members can be petty, cheap, vindictive, stupid, controlling, and shortsighted.  I accept those shortcomings in the people who are important to me.  It's who they are, for better or worse.

I come from a pretty passionate group of people.  Everyone believes they are absolutely right.  All the time.  And they like telling me how I should live my life.  I have learned to listen to them, sometimes argue with them, sometimes ignore them, and then I do exactly what I want to do.  That's how I survive.

Saint Marty is sort of a black sheep, but at least he's sane.  Sort of.

May 9: Dorianne Laux, "Mother's Day," My Mother Reading

Mother's Day

by:  Dorianne Laux

I passed through the narrow hills

of my mother's hips one cold morning

and never looked back, until now, clipping

her tough toenails, sitting on the bed's edge

combing out the tuft of hair at the crown

where it ratted up while she slept, her thumbs

locked into her fists, a gesture as old

as she is, her blanched knees fallen together

beneath a blue nightgown. The stroke

took whole pages of words, random years

torn from the calendar, the names of roses

leaning over her driveway: Cadenza,

Great Western, American Beauty. She can't

think, can't drink her morning tea, do her

crossword puzzle in ink. She's afraid

of everything, the sound of the front door

opening, light falling through the blinds—

pulls her legs up so the bright bars

won't touch her feet. I help her

with the buttons on her sweater. She looks

hard at me and says the word sleeve.

Exactly, I tell her and her face relaxes

for the first time in days. I lie down

next to her on the flowered sheets and tell her

a story about the day she was born, head

first into a hard world: the Great Depression,

shanties, Hoovervilles, railroads and unions.

I tell her about Amelia Earhart and she asks

Air? and points to the ceiling. Asks Heart?

and points to her chest. Yes, I say. I sing

Cole Porter songs. Brother, Can You Spare

a Dime? When I recite lines from Gone

with the Wind she sits up and says Potatoes!

and I say, Right again. I read her Sandburg,

some Frost, and she closes her eyes. I say yes,

yes, and tuck her in. It's summer. She's tired.

No one knows where she's been. 

_________________________

My mother used to read all the time.  She read everything, even gave Stephen King a try once or twice.  Up until a few years ago, she used to be a member of the book club that meets at my house every month.  She always finished the month's book, even if she didn't like it.

My mother's eyesight started to fail several years ago due to macular degeneration.  Then, her hearing became a problem, as well.  Now, my mother doesn't read at all.  Her memory isn't great.  Sometimes, she doesn't know my kids when they're at her house.

This past Sunday, my sister gave my mother a set of headphones.  Then, my sister started playing an audio book for her.  Dan Brown's Angels & Demons.  My mother has read this book before, but she spent all day listening to it.  Laughed and leaned forward, as if she were watching it on television.

Saint Marty was so happy to see his mother reading again.