March 3: Softened and Humanized, Obsession, Pass the Salt

 Merton gets serious about being a priest . . . sort of . . . 

The Franciscan monastery on 31st Street, New York is a grey unprepossessing place, crowded in among big buildings, and inhabited by very busy priests. Not the least busy of them in those days was Father Edmund, Dan Walsh’s friend: and yet he was not too busy to talk to me practically any time I came around to see him. He was a big amiable man full of Franciscan cheerfulness, kind, disciplined by hard work yet not hardened by it, for his priesthood, which kept him close to Christ and to souls more than softened and humanized him. 

From the first moment I met him, I knew I had a good friend in Father Edmund. He questioned me about my vocation, asking me how long it was since my Baptism, and what it was that attracted me to the Franciscans, and what I was doing at Columbia, and when I had talked to him for a while, he began to encourage me in the idea of becoming a Friar. 

“I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t eventually make application to enter the novitiate next August,” he said. 

Next August! That was a long way off Now that my mind was made up, I was impatient to get started. However, I had not expected to be admitted immediately by any Order. But I asked him: 

“Father, isn’t there some chance of my entering sooner?” 

“We admit all our novices together, in a group,” he said. “They start out at Paterson, in August, then they go on together all the way through until ordination. It’s the only way we can handle them. If you entered at any other time, you would miss out all along the line. Have you had much philosophy?” 

I told him of Dan Walsh’s courses, and he thought for a moment. 

“Perhaps there might be a chance of starting you out in the novitiate in February,” he said, but he did not seem to be very hopeful. No doubt what he was thinking of was that I might skip a half-year of philosophy and so catch up with the others at the house of studies up-state, where they would be sent after the year’s noviceship. 

“Are you living with your parents?” he asked me. 

I told him they had long been dead, and that none of my family was left, except an uncle and a brother. 

“Is your brother a Catholic too.” 

“No, Father.” 

“Where is he? What does he do?” 

“He goes to Cornell. He is supposed to get out of there next June.” 

“Well,” said Father Edmund, “what about yourself? Have you got enough to live on? You aren’t starving or anything, are you?” 

“Oh, no, Father, I can get along. I’ve got a chance of a job teaching English in Extension at Columbia this year, and besides that they gave me a grant-in-aid to pay for my courses for the doctorate.” 

“You take that job,” said the Friar; “that will do you a lot of good. And get busy on that doctorate, too. Do all the work you can, and study a little philosophy. Study won’t hurt you at all. After all, you know, if you come into the Order you’ll probably end up teaching at St. Bona’s or Siena. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” 

“Oh, sure,” I said, and that was the truth. 

I walked down the steps of the monastery into the noisy street, with my heart full of happiness and peace. 

What a transformation this made in my life! Now, at last, God had become the center of my existence. And it had taken no less than this decision to make Him so. Apparently, in my case, it had to be that way. 

I understand Merton's obsession here.  Yes, I used the word "obsession" instead of "calling."  Because I don't think that he has quite gotten to the place where he's willing to simply surrender to God's will in his life.  If he was at that point, he wouldn't have pushed Father Edmund about entering the Franciscan Order on some kind of advanced placement plan.  He would have just said, "August?  Okay."  Merton still wants to be in charge here.  His mind is set on becoming a priest.  Right now.

I totally get this kind of obsession.  It happens to me when I write poems or read books.  I don't want anything to get in the way.  Last night, I stayed up until 2:30 a.m. revising the poem I posted on my blog.  This morning, I started revising it some more.  Off and on, all day long, that poem has been with me.  I think I'm on about my 25th or 26th iteration of the ending lines.  Since 6 a.m.  Sometimes, I changed one word.  Moved a line up or down.  Eliminated an image.  Put an image back in.  Sent it to friends for their advice.  Got their advice and did another revision.  Now, I think that it is done.

Maybe.

And I'm fairly exhausted.  That's what obsession does to you.  It sort of sets you on fire, and you blaze brightly for a while.  Two hours.  Two days.  Two months.  Two years.  Whatever.  After that, the fire settles down to ash or ember, and it becomes work to keep it stoked and burning.  Then, you have a choice:  find a new obsession or put in the effort to keep your old one going.

Of course, this rule applies to almost anything.  A job.  Writing a book.  Parenting.  Owning a car.  A friendship.  A marriage.  There's always the initial excitement of the first date.  First draft.  Wedding night.  First eight hour shift.  First road trip.  First time holding your newborn child.  Firsts are easy and exciting.

After first, however, comes second.  Then third.  Fourth,  Fifth.  Eventually, new becomes old.  Worn.  Comfortable.  You stop trying so hard.  Take things for granted.  That is the mistake most people make.  For a first birthday, you throw a big party.  Invite relatives and friends.  Hang streamers and balloons.  Video the child smashing birthday cake with fists.  It's a big deal.  Eventually, though, the birthday parties become less and less elaborate.  Until, one year, it becomes a text message sent in the morning because everyone is so busy with their lives:  "Happy birthday, sweetheart!  Hope it's great!"

In a marriage, when one spouse simply stops trying, the relationship is doomed.  It becomes a mechanical series of days, with "I love you" said like "pass the salt."  It's the easy thing to do.  Because, as with anything that lasts for a long time, maintaining love is hard work.  That's why affairs happen.  A match that's just been struck burns bright and hot and fast.  It's beautiful and fleeting.

I am tired of working on the poem that I wrote yesterday.  After thirty or so drafts, it has become a stone worn smooth.  Maybe it's still beautiful, but I just can't tell anymore.  So I toss it into the lake, where it will tumble and shine in the waves.  Become wonderful again.  Hopefully.

Here's my advice to everyone reading this post tonight:  say "I love you" and mean it.  Every day.  Take your dog for a walk, every day, and let her be a puppy again.  Write a letter or note or e-mail or text to a friend, and in that message, tell that person why they are important to you.  Do this every day.  Eat Fruit Loops like you've never tasted them before.  Reread The Catcher in the Rye, and remember when it was the most important book in your life.

If you do the hard work of making everything new, every day, you will be that match burning bright and hot.  The word "boring" will never enter your vocabulary.  Sure, your heart may get broken.  Many times.  Every day.  But a broken heart means that you have loved.  Do love.  Deeply.  

And new poems will pour out of you.  

Tonight, Saint Marty gives thanks for the hard work of love.

July 1: Tortured Me in My Cabin, First Loves, Ecstasy and Agony

Thomas Merton in love . . .

I would rather spend two years in a hospital than go through that anguish again!  The devouring, emotional, passionate love of adolescence that sinks its claws into you and consumes you day and night and eats into the vitals of your soul!  All the self-tortures of doubt and anxiety and imagination and hope and despair that you go through when you are a child, trying to break out of your shell, only to find yourself in the middle of a legion of full-armed emotions against which you have no defense!  It is like being flayed alive.  No one can go through it twice.  This kind of love affair can really happen only once in a man's life.  After that he is calloused.  He is no longer capable of so many torments.  He can suffer, but not from so many matters of no account.  After one such crisis he has experience and the possibility of a second time no longer exists, because the secret of the anguish was his own utter guilelessness.  He is no longer capable of such complete and absurd surprises.  No matter how simple a man may be, the obvious cannot go on astonishing him for ever.

I was introduced to this particular girl by a Catholic priest who came from Cleveland and played shuffleboard in his shirt sleeves without a Roman collar on.  He knew everybody on the boat in the first day, and as for me, two days had gone by before I even realized that she was on board.  She was travelling with a couple of aunts and the three of them did not mix in with the other passengers very much.  They kept to themselves in their three deck chairs and had nothing to do with the gentlemen in tweed caps and glasses who went breezing around and around the promenade deck.

When I first met her I got the impression she was no older than I was.  As a matter of fact she was about twice my age:  but you could be twice sixteen without being old, as I now realize, sixteen years after then event.  She was small and delicate and looked as if she were made out of porcelain.  But she had big wide-open California eyes and was not afraid to talk in a voice that was at once ingenuous and independent and had some suggestion of weariness about it as if she habitually stayed up too late at night.

To my dazzled eyes she immediately became the heroine of every novel and I all but flung myself face down on the deck at her feet.  She could have put a collar on my neck and led me around from that time forth on the end of a chain.  Instead of that I spent my days telling her and her aunts all about my ideals and my ambitions and she in her turn attempted to teach me how to play bridge.  And that is the surest proof of her conquest, for I never allowed anyone else to try such a thing as that on me, never!  But even she could not succeed in such an enterprise.

We talked.  The insatiable wound inside me bled and grew, and I was doing everything I could to make it bleed more.  Her perfume and the peculiar smell of the denicotinized cigarettes she smoked followed me everywhere and tortured me in my cabin.  

Ah, young love!  There's nothing like it.  Thank God!  That summer blush of passion that makes every waking moment pure ecstasy and agony at the same time.  Merton is right.  It can only happen once in anyone's lifetime.  After that, a person becomes guarded, unwilling to endure it again.  To feel too much of something is reserved for young lovers and saints.

I, myself, never really recovered from that time.  At moments, I find myself thinking of my first love, and all the turmoil that hurricaned around me that summer.  I remember the heat, the need I felt for this person's smell and voice and touch.  It was something akin to addiction.  Like I couldn't survive without those things.  And, at night, I burned in my bedroom thinking about this person's body next to mine.

I know I'm expressing some unsaintly things here, but I don't care.  I think there's something very pure about first loves.  You go into it with your eyes wide open, not wanting to miss anything.  There aren't any barriers to overcome.  You don't hold back anything.  From before dawn to beyond dusk, you are consumed.

I suppose it's the same with all firsts in your life, though.  Your first car--all you want to do is get behind that wheel and . . . drive.  First dog--the long walks, hours of fetching and belly scratching.  First fireworks--lying on your back, blinded by light and noise.  First reading of The Catcher in the Rye--feeling like you've lost and found yourself.  It's about obsession, I guess.

I'm sure saints feel the same thing, when they get their first taste of God.  Like a cold drink of water after seven years of drought.  A thirst you didn't know you had.  Overpowering.  Either they surrender or live in despair for the rest of their lives.

It is night two of my Star Wars marathon with my daughter.  The Empire Strikes Back.  Another first for my daughter.  She came bouncing down her stairs around 9 p.m. and announced, "C'mon, Daddy."  She was the same way with the Harry Potter books and movies when she was younger.  Every night, until she was done, full, quenched.

Me?  Right now, I'm obsessed with the miracle of this moment, in the middle of a pandemic:  me and my daughter on the couch, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

For this, Saint Marty gives thanks.

April 14: Moby Dick, Obsession, Tom Petty and Vampires

(Enter Ahab: Then, all)

It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one morning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walk at that hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a few turns in the garden.

Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also, you would see still stranger foot-prints- the foot-prints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought.

But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even as his nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full of his thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, now at the main-mast and now at the binnacle, you could almost see that thought turn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced; so completely possessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the inward mould of every outer movement.

"D'ye mark him, Flask?" whispered Stubb; "the chick that's in him pecks the shell. 'Twill soon be out."

The hours wore on;- Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon, pacing the deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his aspect.

It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and with one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody aft.

"Sir!" said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on ship-board except in some extraordinary case.

"Send everybody aft," repeated Ahab. "Mast-heads, there! come down!"

When the entire ship's company were assembled, and with curious and not wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not unlike the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among the crew, started from his standpoint; and as though not a soul were nigh him resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and half-slouched hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering whispering among the men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have summoned them there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat. But this did not last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried:-

"What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?"

"Sing out for him!" was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed voices.

"Good!" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically thrown them.

"And what do ye next, men?"

"Lower away, and after him!"

"And what tune is it ye pull to, men?"

"A dead whale or a stove boat!"

More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began to gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions.

But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in his pivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and tightly, almost convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:-

"All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a white whale. Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?"- holding up a broad bright coin to the sun- "it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D'ye see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul."

While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his vitality in him.

Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: "Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke- look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!"

"Huzza! huzza!" cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.
"It's a white whale, I say," resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul: "a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out."

All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was separately touched by some specific recollection.

"Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that white whale must be the same that some call Moby Dick."
"Moby Dick?" shouted Ahab. "Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?"

"Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?" said the Gay-Header deliberately.
"And has he a curious spout, too," said Daggoo, "very bushy, even for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?"

"And he have one, two, three- oh! good many iron in him hide, too, Captain," cried Queequeg disjointedly, "all twiske-tee be-twisk, like him- him-" faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand round and round as though uncorking a bottle- "like him- him-"

"Corkscrew!" cried Ahab, "aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all twisted and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a split jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have seen- Moby Dick- Moby Dick!"

The first mention in the book of the title character.  White whale.  He of the fan-tail and crooked jaw and wrinkled brow.  Sporting harpoons in his hide from previous battles.  Ahab's nemesis.  The driving force of his life.  Moby Dick.

And thus enters one of the main themes of the novel, as well--obsession.  You could say that the whole book is one long discourse on various obsessions.  Nantucket.  Whaling.  Whales.  Mast-heads.  The color white.  As I said in a post earlier this week, the entire book is one long list of digressions, interrupted by a semi-interesting narrative.  I would say that, if it weren't for the digressions, Moby-Dick wouldn't be on college reading lists and the subject of so many PhD dissertations.

As I also said earlier this week, I have had a love/hate relationship with the book.  Earlier in my life, it frustrated me.  Bored me at times.  At other times, I would pick it up, read sections of it and fall in love with the color white or cetology or chowder.  Love and hate.  I think that's a normal reaction to the novel.  It engages and disengages me on so many levels.  That's one of its greatest strengths.

As an artist/writer, I frequently obsess.  Currently, I am nursing an obsessions for Bigfoot and Christmas, because I'm working on two separate manuscripts dealing with those topics.  And obsessions have the tendency to feed off one another.  For example, I am revising an essay for my Christmas book that features Bigfoot.  In my Bigfoot book, I have a poem titled, "Bigfoot Noel."

I don't think obsession is necessarily a negative thing, unless it takes over your entire life to the exclusion of all else.  That's when obsession crosses over into addiction.  I will not be abandoning my family to go on a three-year-long Bigfoot hunt in the Pacific Northwest.  I could be tempted by a long weekend, however.

Some people might say that I do have a Christmas addiction.  I listen to Christmas music all year long.  Watch It's A Wonderful Life at all times of the year.  Have a Christmas countdown app on my phone.  If I start talking about Christmas with any member of my family, I get one of two reactions:  1) glazed eyes and a quick change of subject, or 2) a laugh and shake of the head (dismissive but not unkind, like a child being sent out to play on a summer day).  It's not a destructive addiction.  Just mildly annoying to those around me sometimes.

Everybody has obsessions.  Favorite authors.  Favorite foods.  Favorite movies.  Favorite singers.  I have a friend whose obsession is Tom Petty.  She recently got a tattoo on her arm of a line from one of his songs.  When he died, she went into mourning and hasn't totally recovered.  I have a sister whose obsession is vampire books and movies.  Twilight.  Abraham Lincoln:  Vampire Hunter.  Dracula in all of his incarnations, from Bela Lugosi to Francis Ford Coppola.  Neither of these obsessions is harmful.  (I have to admit, the vampire thing with my sister can get a little old, especially when she's watching episodes of The Vampire Diaries.)

I admire people with obsessions.  Obsession fascinates me.  A person's obsession says something about him or her.  I think my Bigfoot obsession touches upon my fascination with mysteries of the world.  Things that exist on the fringe of reality and possibility.  My Christmas obsession could possibly stem from nostalgia and loss--pain transformed into an ache for joy and miracles.  I try not to dissect my obsessions too much.  If I do that, I'm afraid my obsessions will lose their power over me.

I will be indulging both of these obsessions this afternoon, hopefully shaping that Bigfoot Christmas essay.  I'm looking forward to this.  Obsessions can be good friends.

Today, Saint Marty salutes everybody out there with healthy obsessions.  Embrace them.  Take them skiing.  Write about them.  Paint them.  Sing them.

March 20: Momentous Men, Obsession, Book Manuscript

Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whaleboat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests. He was as particular about the comfortable arrangements of his part of the boat, as an old stage-driver is about the snugness of his box. When close to the whale, in the very death-lock of the fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and off-handedly, as a whistling tinker his hammer. He would hum over his old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster. Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair. What he thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question; but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and not sooner.

What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going, unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a world fail of grave peddlers, all bowed to the ground with their packs; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short, black little pipe was one of the regular features of his face. You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk without his nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of pipes there ready loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand; and, whenever he turned in, he smoked them all out in succession, lighting one from the other to the end of the chapter; then loading them again to be in readiness anew. For, when Stubb dressed, instead of first putting his legs into his trowsers, he put his pipe into his mouth.

I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least of his peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this early air, whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as in time of the cholera, some people go about with a camphorated handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all mortal tribulations, Stubb's tobacco smoke might have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent.

The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha's Vineyard. A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great Leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered. So utterly lost was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of any possible danger encountering them; that in his poor opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil. This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in the matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and a three years' voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted that length of time. As a carpenter's nails are divided into wrought nails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided. Little Flask was one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and last long. They called him King-Post on board of the Pequod; because, in form, he could be well likened to the short, square timber known by that name in Arctic whalers; and which by the means of many radiating side timbers inserted into it, serves to brace the ship against the icy concussions of those battering seas.

Now these three mates- Starbuck, Stubb and Flask, were momentous men. They was who by universal prescription commanded three of the Pequod's boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in which Captain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on the whales, these three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being armed with their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of lancers; even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins.

There you are--the Holy Trinity of the mates on the Pequod.  Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask.  Each, as Ishmael describes them, good and trustworthy men.  Each with his own set of peculiarities.  And Ishmael has yet to clap eyes on the Old Testament God of the ship--Ahab himself.  Of course, if you are familiar with Moby-Dick at all, you already know Ahab's singular, driving motivation.  Spoiler alert:  it's big and white and swims in the ocean.

Everyone has some force that motivates them.  For Stubb, it seems to be his pipe.  For Ahab, it's a whale.  Me?  I guess it's writing.  The best part of my day is when I sit down to write these blog posts and then, afterward, when I try to scratch out a new poem in my journal.  I feel really alive at these moments.

That is not to say that I neglect my duties as husband or father.  Never.  Wasn't raised like that.  Today, for instance, I have to cut my writing time short to take my daughter dress shopping.  She has a choral concert on Thursday and needs an appropriately black and modest outfit.  So, in about two hours, I will be standing in Kohl's, arms laden with possibles, as my daughter scours the racks.

That is my life, and I've been doing it for quite some time.  Frankly, I don't know what I'd do with eight or nine hours of writing time in a day.  Once in my life, I went to a writing workshop retreat in Big Sur.  It was a week long and overseen by poet Sharon Olds.  In the morning, I would wake up with the sun and go walking along the cliffs above the Pacific with my journal and pen.  Then I would go to workshop.  In the afternoon, I would go for another walk with my journal and pen.  Then I would go to workshop again in the evening.  All that was expected of me was to write.  All day long.

At the end of those five days, I had working drafts of ten new poems.  It was a glorious time, driven only by the motivation to create poetry.  That was my white whale in Big Sur.

Since my life is more complicated now with work worries and family worries, I rarely get long stretches of writing time.  Instead, I steal time from other activities.  Five minutes here.  An hour there.  If I'm lucky, a two hour stretch of uninterrupted concentration before I have to pick up my daughter from her dance studio.  Small whaling voyages rather than extended excursions around the Cape of Good Hope.

Yesterday, I cobbled together a couple hours to piece together a book of Christmas essays that I've been working on.  It felt pretty good to have an actual, honest-to-God manuscript in my hands.  It's nowhere near done, but it felt like I had landed a pretty big fish.

So, you see, I'm just like Ahab or Starbuck or Stubb or Flask.  A little obsessed.  A little driven.

Saint Marty is thankful today for a new book, even if it's a little rough around the edges.

March 6: Obsession, Maggie Nelson, Section 13 from "Bluets"

Okay, so Maggie Nelson's book, Bluets, is all about blue things, feelings, places, experiences.  Obviously.  Nelson was/is obsessed with the color.

I understand obsession.  I think all artists and writers go through a series of obsessions.  That's what fuels our work.  Right now, I'm obsessed with Bigfoot.  Been writing Bigfoot poems for about a year-and-a-half.  Don't ask me why.  Sort of like Nelson in the passage below, I don't have a good answer. 

As she says, "We don't choose what or whom we love . . ."

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for Bigfoot.

Section 13 from Bluets

by:  Maggie Nelson

At a job interview at a university, three men sitting across from me at a table.  On my CV its says that I am currently working on a book about the color blue.  I have been saying this for years without writing a word.  It is, perhaps, my way of making my life feel "in progress" rather than a sleeve of ash falling off a lit cigarette.  One of the men asks, Why blue?  People ask me this question often.  I never know how to respond.  We don't get to choose what or whom we love, I want to say.  We just don't get to choose.

February 19: Ahab, Obsession, Project

Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at first I saw nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It seemed only a temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical shape, some ten feet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the right-whale. Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced together, mutually sloped towards each other, and at the apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like the top-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem's head. A triangular opening faced towards the bows of the ship, so that the insider commanded a complete view forward.

And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who by his aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon, and the ship's work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of command. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all over with curious carving; and the bottom of which was formed of a stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was constructed.

There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the appearance of the elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like most old seamen, and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style; only there was a fine and almost microscopic net-work of the minutest wrinkles interlacing round eyes, which must have arisen from his continual sailings in many hard gales, and always looking to windward;- for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed together. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl.

"Is this the Captain of the Pequod?" said I, advancing to the door of the tent.

"Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of him?" he demanded.

"I was thinking of shipping."

"Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer- ever been in a stove boat?"

"No, Sir, I never have."

"Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say- eh?

"Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I've been several voyages in the merchant service, and I think that-"

"Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see that leg?- I'll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of the merchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed! I suppose now ye feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant ships. But flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh?- it looks a little suspicious, don't it, eh?- Hast not been a pirate, hast thou?- Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou?- Dost not think of murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea?"

I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the mask of these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an insulated Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices, and rather distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the Vineyard.

"But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think of shipping ye."

"Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world."

"Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab?"

"Who is Captain Ahab, sir?"

"Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of this ship."

"I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain himself."

"Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg- that's who ye are speaking to, young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew. We are part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou wantest to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way of finding it out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one leg."

"What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?"

"Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured, chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a boat!- ah, ah!"

I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I could, "What you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how could I know there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed I might have inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident."

"Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye see; thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye've been to sea before now; sure of that?"

"Sir," said I, "I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in the merchant-"

"Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant service- don't aggravate me- I won't have it. But let us understand each other. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is! do ye yet feel inclined for it?"

"I do, sir."

Ishmael doesn't really know what he's doing.  He has never served on a whaling ship before.  Doesn't know if this old salt of a captain is trying to scare the sea out of him or simply testing his waters, to see if he has the makings of a whaler.  Of course, Ishmael sticks to his guns (harpoon?).  He's determined to see the world and hunt whales.  Of course, Ishmael hasn't met Ahab yet.  He has no idea what obsession can do to a man.

I am home again today, at least until early afternoon.  I will be teaching this evening.  Just finished up my lesson plans.  Each time I step foot in a classroom, I feel like a novice, even though I've been doing this gig for going on a quarter century.  I read and reread my lecture notes.  Make new notations.  Discover new insights.  I'm obsessed with trying to be the best instructor I can be.

I do this with most things in my life.  Music.  Poetry.  Art.  Parenting.  Husbanding.  Son-ing.  Sibling-ing.  Perhaps obsession isn't quite the right word here.  How about  I say that I aspire to do my best every day of my life, in everything I do?  I often fail miserably.  That's okay.  I learn from my failures, as well.

This past weekend, I did my best to honor my father's memory with the poem I wrote for his funeral.  With the music I chose, the readings, the chicken at the funeral lunch.  I don't know if I succeeded.  Friends told me that the poem was moving.  One person in the church said that they didn't want the service to end because it was so beautiful.  That comment made me think of books that I love--that I never want to reach the last page of.

It is Lent right now.  I have created a project for myself for these next 40-plus days.  It's something that I've been thinking about for a while.  And it's something my dad would have loved to see.  Of course, since my dad died a week ago, I really haven't had a chance to even think about this project.  Now, as I slide back into normal life (whatever that is), I need to get to work.

Starting a new project is sort of like Ishmael looking for a whaling ship to serve on.  It's exhilarating and panic-inducing at the same time.  However, I need to chase this whale for a while.  See where it leads me.  I may end up at the bottom of the ocean, or I may sail home with a really big, white prize.

Saint Marty is thankful this morning for obsessions and projects.

February 3: Obsession, Nin Andrews, "Ode to Helga"

Most people have seen an Andrew Wyeth painting from his Helga years.  Some of you might know the story of how Wyeth painted Helga for over 15 years, hiding the work from his wife, children, the rest of the world.  Helga was his muse, although I don't think he had a sexual relationship with her, despite the overt sensuality of the paintings.

I think Andrew Wyeth was in love with Helga's hair and skin and eyes and fingernails and teeth.  Just like I am writing poems right now about Bigfoot, Wyeth was obsessed with the Helga-ness of Helga, if that makes sense. 

I appreciate artistic obsession.  I, myself, indulge in obsession from time-to-time.  That's what artists and writers do.  They obsess.

Saint Marty is thankful for the obsessions in his life.

Ode to Helga

by:  Nin Andrews

No, I am not one of those men who falls in love with another man's wife.  Not even your lovely wife, Helga, and all the lovely parts of Helga.  And I don't just mean her flame red hair, her perfect breasts, exposed so nicely in the transparent silk blouse, or her full legs in black pantyhose, or her buttocks as round as two sugar-melons side by side, or that little mole at the base of her spine and the other one on the inside of her left thigh.

Or that little gap between her teeth I see when she opens her mouth, or those words that fly off her tongue like birds, and the ones she swallows back and does not speak, those tiny words, those ah's and oh's, and the pauses and the soft no's.  So many no's.

She sighs, pretending to resist, and the I'm so tired's when she turns her back before stretching out like a cat and saying Yes, oh yes! as she clings as if she's drowning as she gasps for air and calls out, Oh God!  God!  God!!  And he answers.  He answers as only God can.

December 26: Ordinary Goat Moth, Obsession, Next Book

I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly.  I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering and, like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt'ring eye and say, "Do you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?" . . .

I think most writers obsess like Annie Dillard.  Her particular preoccupations are with the natural world and God's workings in it.  She goes for walks around Tinker Creek and finds moments of grace.  That's her thing, at least in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  I'm sure that she has other obsessions.  Most people do.

My obsession is about to change.  For a full year, I have been writing about Annie Dillard and Pilgrim.  Come January 1, 2017, I need a new book to focus my energies on.  In the past, I have lived for a year with Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  Then there was the year of Charlotte's Web, followed by 365 days of The Catcher in the Rye.  The year 2015 was all about Oscar Hijuelos' Mr. Ives' Christmas.  And now 2017 is almost upon us.

I am contemplating three novels for next year.  I love each of them for different reasons.  Those three books are:

So, those are the choices.  In the past, I have left it up to a popular vote, asking people to weigh in with their opinions.  I will do this again, although I don't usually get a whole lot of responses.  (Count yourself lucky:  one of the books I had been thinking about for 2017 was Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but, after 365 days of that book, I might have been suicidal.)

So, it's up to my disciples.  What will my next obsession be?:

• The World According to Garp by John Irving
• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• My Antonia by Willa Cather

All you have to do is leave a comment for me with your opinion this week.  On December 31--this Saturday--I will make my choice.  It's in your hands.  Let's hope this election turns out better than the last one in the United States.

Of course, I am leaning toward one book in particular, but I will not name that book.  I don't want to sway the vote.

Speaking of swaying the vote . . .

Please vote for Saint Marty

Voting for next Poet Laureate of the U. P.

December 3: Once-in-a-Lifetime Thing, Unicorn, Obsession

I began to look for them day and night.  Sometimes I would see ripples suddenly start beating from the creek's side, but as I crouched to watch, the ripples would die.  Now I know what this means, and have learned to stand perfectly still to make out the muskrat's small, pointed face hidden under overhanging bank vegetation, watching me.  That summer I haunted the bridges, I walked up creeks and down, but no muskrats ever appeared.  You must just have to be there, I thought.  You must have to spend the rest of your life standing in bushes.  It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and you've had your once.

Dillard is obsessed with muskrats.  She stalks them around Tinker Creek.  Her heart flutters when she sees ripples and bubbles on the surface of the water.  All summer, she creeps along creek banks and bridges, like some guerilla naturalist, searching out the muskrat.  And the muskrat remains a frustration.  Almost mythical.  A unicorn or Yeti.

I know a few things about obsession.  This past week, I have been focused on one thing:  my Christmas essay.  Of course, it had partly to do with deadlines, but it was something else, as well.  I literally couldn't think of anything else.  When I was working, driving, taking a crap, I was working through the writing in my head.  I think I drove my wife a little crazy.

But that's all part of being a writer, I think.  If I'm not obsessed about my subject, I can't write about it.  Now that I'm done with my Christmas essay, I will be obsessing about my Christmas poem.  After I'm done with my grading for the semester.  As you can tell, my life is a series of obsessions broken up with moments of pizza and sleep and Bailey's Irish Cream.

After I'm done posting this morning, I will be throwing myself full force into grading.  I am not looking forward to it.  My goal:  to have everything done by Wednesday night.  Essays.  Final exams.  Finished.  Then I can concentrate fully on the holidays.

So, Saint Marty's next obsession:  a red pen.

May 23: "Midnight in Paris," Obsession, "Star Wars"

My friend, Keith, has been telling me for a few years that I needed to watch Midnight in Paris.  I believe his exact words were, "That movie is un-be-liev-able."  Last week, I had lunch with him, and he mentioned the movie again.

So I ordered it.

And I saved it for tonight.  Well, I watched it, and my friend was right.  It is an unbelievably great movie.  I'm watching it again right now with my wife.  I have a feeling it's going to become one of my obsessions for a while.

I once spent an entire Christmas break watching the film Stranger than Fiction every day.  It drove my wife crazy.  I do that.  I become a little . . . crazy about moves and books.  I've read a thousand-page Charles Dickens biography by Peter Ackroyd at least four or five times.  When I was a kid, I went to see the original Star Wars 27 times at the movie theater.  Obsession.

I'm obsessed with writing this blog.  That's why I've written close to 2,000 posts.  I want to be read, liked.  I want to write things that move people.  Help people.  Excite people.  I'm not sure if I'll ever get to that point, but I'm obsessed with the idea.

Maybe Saint Marty really does need professional help.

Care to join me in a little stroll down lunatic lane?