February 23: Don't Panic, Greta Garbo, Introverted

Ford introduces Arthur to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . . .

Ford frowned at the grubby mattresses, unwashed cups and unidentifiable bits of smelly alien underwear that lay around the cramped cabin.

"Well, this is a working ship, you see," said Ford.  "These are the Dentrassis' sleeping quarters."

"I thought you said they were called Vogons or something."

"Yes," said Ford, "the Vogons run the ship, the Dentrassis are the cooks; they let us on board."

"I'm confused."

"Here, have a look at this," said Ford.  He sat down on one of the mattresses and rummaged about in his satchel.  Arthur prodded the mattress nervously and then sat on it himself:  in fact he had very little to be nervous about, because all mattresses grown in the swamps of Sqornshellous Zeta are very thoroughly killed and dried before being put to service.  Very few have ever come to life again.

Ford handed the book to Arthur.

"What is it?" asked Arthur.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  It's a sort of electronic book.  It tells you everything you need to know about anything.,  That's its job."

Arthur turned it over nervously in his hands.

"I like the cover," he said.  "'Don't Panic.'  It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day."

Don't panic.  It's good advice for anyone, no matter what situation you're in.  Panic doesn't help improve any problem.  It simply makes you feel more out-of-control.  Thus, it's a better practice, when in a difficult situation, to take some deep breaths.  I find that withdrawing a little, indulging in a little alone time to gather thoughts and evaluate emotions, helps, as well.

That's what I need to do this weekend.  I was supposed to meet some of my best friends this morning for breakfast.  I love these ladies dearly, but I woke up this morning and found that I didn't have the energy to do peopling today.  I have to play the pipe organ for church this evening, which requires quite a bit of social interaction.  Aside from that, I believe that I will be what my therapist would term "antisocial."  I prefer the term "introverted."

I can go for many weeks without having this introvert time.  My life doesn't allow it very much.  All day, I answer phones, register patients, teach classes.  Social interaction is a necessary part of my life.  After a good span of being social, however, I find that my well runs dry.  I turn into Greta Garbo:  "I want to be alone."

I don't think that I'm unusual in this need.  Being social and outgoing all the time isn't really healthy, I think.  Think of all the celebrities who have self-destructed because of their constant need for attention and interaction, like Andy Warhol or Truman Capote.  (Disclaimer:  I am NOT claiming that I am any where near as talented or gifted as these two artists.  They are simply examples of excess--individuals who were obsessed with being in the limelight.)  Every person needs to be Greta Garbo occasionally.

This Oscar weekend, with another snow-pocalypse in the forecast, it won't be difficult to withdraw from social interaction.  It will be physically impossible to seek out human interaction.  The weather will prevent it.  Apologies to my best friends who wanted to have breakfast with me this morning.  Please understand that I care about you a great deal, but with the upheaval of the approaching work week, I needed to be Garbo (or John Muir or Thoreau--take your pick).

Saint Marty wishes all his disciples time to recharge this weekend.

February 23: John Muir, Stephen Ratcliffe, "Readings from John Muir's Journals"

I have been acquainting myself with John Muir recently, at the urging of a couple of my close friends.  It's not that I was unaware of Muir,  I knew who he was, but I have never read any of his writings, knew little about his life.

I have discovered that I love Muir.  His fearlessness.  Love of nature.  Dedication to conservation.  He inspires me to be a better person somehow.  Today is a John Muir Day.  I look out my window, and all I see is snow, thick in the sky and on the ground.  It just keeps coming and coming.

John Muir, with his love of nature and glaciers, would love this weather.  He didn't use the term "snowflakes" when talking about snow.  He coined the term "snowflowers" instead.

Saint Marty sees a whole garden of snowflowers in the air right now.

Readings from John Muir's Journals

by:  Stephen Ratcliffe

With eyes of the owl
& the jay's cry
I wake in the open air

to the slow of new day--
light in the oak & yellow pine,
the stream running into my ears.

*

Maple leaves from a winter
or two, or six,
dry cracked
     my voice, my foot
the measure of my climb.

*

Noon.  The mid March
sun begins
to penetrate my

skin, my bones, begins
to warm the lake
side where

waterlichen
has gripped down
for so long

*

The metaphysics of Indian
red madrone to drift
wood, riverwood, run

& weathered, the slow
decay, the sigh
of a time not mine.

*

April 4:  the silver fir,
the light, the Merced
dropping ever the falls,

the embroidered spray,
the sight, thunder
rolling from the height.

*

The cowslip, violet
deep at the stem, to sky
blue, to the jade

behind startips pointed
in a ring,
to no sound at all.

*

At the saddle ridgecrest,
where shade will come long
& cold, two deer,

California mule, graze
in the half light,
ears cocked, listening.

*

Late afternoon on the Sawyer
Camp Road, the wind
down on the lake,

the water deeply green,
the mating of ducks shrill
in the splash, there.

*

Mosaic was the weigh
of the sun,
           these
eyes in the blue
light of the sea,
          le ciel,
the wild
     of twilight--iris
blue in the curl
          & lash.

*

The full moon falling
all around me drips
from honeysuckle

leaftips to petals
where it pools in drops
casting a moonlit spell.

*

Across the way, rising
from a crest of pinetops,
a crystal sky full

of first magnitude stars
drifts, in flight, above
the sleeping, shadowed night.