September 11: Any Dough, Money Problems, Tired of Worry

"I got my damn bags at the station," I said.  "Listen.  You got any dough, Phoeb?  I'm practically broke."

Holden is begging for money from his sister, Phoebe, at this point in Catcher.  He's spent all of his cash on drinks and hotel rooms and a Broadway show.  He doesn't have many options left.  He could come clean with his parents.  He could give his brother, D. B., a call in Hollywood and ask for a loan.  He doesn't do any of those things.  He turns to his elementary-school-aged sister instead.  Holden is not thinking clearly.

Well, it's Worry Wednesday, and the only thing on my mind right now is money.  Or, rather, the lack of money.  This afternoon, my phone service got temporarily disconnected because we were behind in payments.  I had to call my sister can beg for a loan.  Sound familiar?  Yes, I have become Holden Caulfield.

And now, I just got off the phone with a gentleman from church who's the chair of the committee that oversees the church staff.  He told me that my salaried position at church is going to be eliminated come January 1 of next year.  That's another $200 a month gone from my family's budget.  That's in addition to the $400 a month I lost this summer when the hospital eliminated overtime for my medical office job.  I'm literally drowning right now in my thoughts.

I've been trying to avoid writing about financial problems in my blog posts.  I didn't want to complain or whine or get mired in self pity.  Tonight, I'm smack dab in the middle of the hugest pity party in the world.  That phone call pushed me over the edge.  It was like somebody jumping out of a closet, yelling "surprise," and then kicking me in the balls.

I'm tired of worrying about money.  Really tired.  As soon as I wake up in the morning, I start thinking about the next bill that's coming due, or, more likely, past due.  I walk around all day, wondering when the next piece of bad news is going to strike.  It's exhausting.  Really exhausting.  I'm feeling pretty much like a failure at everything tonight.

Everything.

Saint Marty doesn't even have the energy to come up with a witty way of ending this post.  He's wondering if Holden's sister, Phoebe, has a spare five or six thousand dollars.

September 3: Belching Lessons, First Day of School, Prayer

While I was walking toward the door, old Phoebe said, "Holden!" and I turned around.

She was sitting way up in bed.  She looked so pretty.  "I'm taking belching lessons from this girl, Phyllis Margulies," she said.  "Listen."

One of Salinger's greatest strengths in Catcher is his ability to really capture young characters.  Holden's sister, Phoebe, reminds me of my kids.  My daughter can burp like a pro.  All she needs is a can of Diet Coke.  My son, on the other hand, can fart with the best of them.  Put both of my kids in the same room, and it will be like watching the sequel to Bridesmaids.

It was the first day of school today.  I was lucky enough to be able to see my kids off at the bus stop this morning.  My son started kindergarten.  Seeing his face in the window of the bus, waving, nearly killed me.  He looked small and more than a little afraid.  That's the hardest part of the job of being a parent.  Letting go.  I've never been great at letting go of anything.  If there were cribs for twelve-year-olds, I'd have one for my daughter.

Both of my childrren came home from school unharmed.  My daughter had no homework.  My son had a form for a magazine subscription.  Yes, we're already being solicited for money on day one.  Tomorrow, I'm expecting a permission slip for a $10,000 class trip to Paris or Poland.

Yes, I'm very thankful for the end of this day.  Oh, and I also had my first full day back to work.

Dear Big Guy in Charge (and I'm not talking abouut Bill Gates),

Thanks for a successful day.  It's been long, but we all survived.  I'm not going to take up a lot of Your time tonight.  You know all the things in my heart right now, anyway.

So, thanks, and could You do it again tomorrow?

Thanks.

Your loving child,

Saint Marty

My son saying "goodbye"

July 30: Shut Up, You Suck, Prayer for Happiness

"I said I'm not going back to school.  You can do what you want to do, but I'm not going back to school," she said.  "So shut up."  It was the first time she ever told me to shut up.  It sounded terrible.  God, it sounded terrible.  It sounded worse than swearing.  She still wouldn't look at me either, and every time I sort of put my hand on her shoulder or something, she wouldn't let me.

Phoebe is pissed at Holden in the above paragraph, and she shows her anger with words.  She tells her brother to "shut up."  When words like that come out of kids' mouths, it does sound worse than swearing.  Holden's right.  Phoebe's "shut up" is Holden's "fuck you."

My four-year-old son is similar to Phoebe when he gets angry.  Last week, we were visiting my sister-in-law.  When it was time to leave, my son decided he wanted to stay.  When I informed him he didn't really have the option to remain behind, my son stomped away from me and yelled, "Well, you suck!  Your car sucks!  I don't want to go home!  Home sucks!"  Every time he said the word "suck," I wanted to die.

Yes, I know my son was only throwing a temper tantrum, and I know my son is only four years old.  But I've been struggling over the last week or so to feel content with my life.  So, today, I'm going to pray a Please-Don't-Let-My-Life-Suck Prayer.  You could also call it a Prayer for Happiness.

Dear God of all things that don't suck,

Hi.  It's me again.  The guy whose son thinks everything sucks.  (By the way, I didn't teach him that.)

I'm writing to ask for happiness.  I'm not talking about J. K. Rowling-sized happiness.  I don't need a billion dollars.  (I wouldn't turn that down, if it's in Your plan, though.)  I just want some small piece of happiness.  For instance, I entered a poetry chapbook contest a while ago.  Winning that contest would totally not suck.

I'm not demanding anything.  I'm not greedy.  All I want is something good to happen in my life.  Something that doesn't suck.  You've already taken away the job at the university and given me an $800 repair on my car.  How about a small, insignificant success?  Something that will make my son realize I don't suck, that I drive an OK car, and that our house isn't a roach motel.

I know You're busy, so I'll make it easy for You:  poetry chapbook, thousand-dollar prize, publication.  That not too much to ask.  We can talk about bigger things later.

Your loving child,

Saint Marty

At least in my son's opinion...

July 22: Greetings from Curtis, Poetry Reading, Magic 8 Ball Monday

Greetings from Chamberlin's Ole Forest Inn in Curtis, Michigan.  I had lunch a couple of hours ago, and now I'm sitting in my room, blogging remotely.  I've already picked out the poems I'm going to read tonight, practiced them, and made myself sufficiently nervous.  Now, I simply have time to sit back, relax, and meditate on standing in front of a roomful of people tonight who might not really like poetry.

I am the only poet on the docket this evening.  The other poet had to back out at the last minute due to a family medical emergency.  As I chose my poems for this evening, I tried to keep my audience in mind.  I want to sell books, so I chose work that was challenging but not too difficult.  I don't want to offend anybody.  I want the citizens of Curtis to like me.

After the reading, I'm going down to the bar and ordering a drink.  That will be my celebration.  Well, that and the $400 in books I'm going to sell.  Yeah, right.

My question for the great book of Salinger is no surprise:

Will I read well tonight at the Erickson Center?

And Holden's answer is:

"Hey, I don't need all this," I said.  "Just give me two bucks, is all.  No kidding--Here."  I tried to give it back to her, but she wouldn't take it.

That's Phoebe being generous with Holden.  That means the audience at the Erickson Center are going to be kind and generous, too.

Saint Marty likes kind and generous poetry lovers.

Me and a friend at the Erickson Center

July 16: It's Raining, a Kiss, Prayer of Thanksgiving

Then all of a sudden she gave me a kiss.  Then she held her hand out, and said, "It's raining.  It's starting to rain."

"I know."

Then what she did--it damn near killed me--she reached in my coat pocket and took out my red hunting hat and put it on my head.

Holden loves his sister, Phoebe, more than any other character who appears in Catcher, including Jane.  And Phoebe loves Holden, in a childish, motherly fashion.  In the passage above, Phoebe tries to shield her brother from the rainstorm that's starting.  Children like Phoebe have a way of breaking your heart with their tiny acts of love.  A kiss.  A hunting hat.  Yesterday, my four-year-old son did a very Phoebe thing.

I'd just gone swimming with him, and we'd changed clothes.  I drove him to my parents' house for a visit.  As I opened his car door to unbuckle him from his seat, my son looked up at me with a strange expression on his face.

I stopped what I was doing.  "What?" I said.

He stuck out his lower jaw and smiled.  "I want to give you a kiss," he said.

I unbuckled him, and he crawled out of his seat.  When he was standing on the pavement in front of me, I leaned over.  He wrapped his arms around my neck and pressed his lips to mine.  He held on for about twenty or thirty seconds.  Finally, he let go, and I stood up.

"Thanks, buddy," I said.

"You know," he said, "I love you more than a hour and a half."

In my son's universe, that's a really long time.  His little profession of love left me speechless for a few moments.  Eventually, I managed to say, "I love you too, bud."  My son doesn't express these kids of emotions too much to me, so his words were an unexpected moment of grace.

Most of the time, when I pray, I'm asking God to do something for me, to help me in some way.  Today, I'm going to do something a little different.

Dear God,

I don't think I thank You enough for the gifts You give me every day.  I don't say thanks for the sun and day's warmth, or the moon and night's coolness.  I don't say thanks for the lasagna I had for dinner or the strawberries I had for dessert.

So today, I want to say thanks for my son.  Thanks for the love he expressed to me yesterday, the kiss and hug.  I'm so lucky to have him in my life.  Thanks for his tantrums and stubborn streak.  Thanks for the cars he leaves scattered on the floor at night.  Thanks for his sense of humor ("Why did the chicken cross the road?...To poop on your head!").  Thanks for entrusting this amazing little child to me.

I'm a lucky man.  My son reminded me of this fact yesterday.  And for that, I give You thanks.

Your loving child,

Saint Marty

Amen and thank You

May 8: It's Raining, a Kiss, an Almost Job

"No, I'll just watch ya.  I think I'll just watch," I said.  I gave her some more of her dough.  "Here.  Get some more tickets."

She took the dough off me.  "I'm not mad at you any more," she said.

"I know.  Hurry up--the thing's gonna start again."

Then all of a sudden she gave me a kiss.  Then she held her hand out, and said, "It's raining.  It's starting to rain."

"I know."

It's a tender little scene between between Holden and Phoebe at the end of the book.  Holden has reached rock bottom.  His little sister is his only anchor to life at the moment.  A few paragraphs past this conversation, Salinger provides the happiest moment in The Catcher in the Rye.  At this point, however, Holden has finally given up.  He's letting go of his plans to run away, to live as a mute lumberjack (or whatever the hell it was) in Wyoming (or wherever the hell it was.).  He's reaching a point of surrender.

Over the last day or so, my wife and I have been trying to arrange daycare for my son this summer.  Yesterday, my wife was offered a part-time job.  Three days a week, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.  The difficulty is childcare.  All of the daycare providers we have used in the past are already full and have waiting lists.  We've explored several avenues, but we are now at a dead end.  My wife is going to call her would-be employer this morning to turn down the job.

She's upset.  It would have been a great boost for her self esteem and confidence.  Just getting the job offer has done wonders for her in the last 24 hours.  However, she seems at peace with the way things have turned out.  She called me a little while ago and said, "You know, it wasn't meant to be."

It was an almost job.  The extra money would have been great, especially over the summer.  But this isn't rock bottom.  That will come about mid-July, when the tax return runs out.  I'm upset for my wife.  I'm upset she has to sit on the bench in the rain, watching Phoebe ride the carrousel.  I will give her a kiss when I get home, tell her everything is going to be alright.

Saint Marty is letting go.  He has no other choice.

Haven't gotten this bad yet

May 7: Started to Cry, Saint Arsenius, the Gift of Tears

Then, all of a sudden, I started to cry.  I couldn't help it.  I did it so nobody could hear me, but I did it.  It scared hell out of old Phoebe when I started doing it, and she came over and tried to make me stop, but once you get started, you can't just stop on a goddam dime.  I was still sitting on the edge of the bed when I did it, and she put her old arm around my neck, and I put my arm around her, too, but I still couldn't stop for a long time...

I've written about this passage in Catcher before.  It's Holden at his most vulnerable, when all of his sarcastic defenses are down.  Phoebe has just given him her Christmas money ($8.65), and Holden is overwhelmed.  Of course, it's a young child who causes him to finally release some of his pent-up grief.  He's safe with Phoebe.  He knows Phoebe loves him unconditionally.
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When I was reading through the Lives of the Saints this morning, I came across the following passage about Saint Arsenius, whose feast day is May 8:  "He also had the gift of tears to a surprising degree."  The little biography of Arsenius provides no details about these tears, or why they are considered a gift.  The detail intrigued me, so I did a little research on the Internet, and I came across this description from Pope Shenouda III:

Saint Arsenius is one of the saints who became very famous for his weeping.  It is said that his eyelashes fell due to the intensity of his weeping, and that two cavities formed on his cheeks because of his weeping.  During summer, he would wet the palm leaves with his tears, and he placed a piece of cloth on his knees for his tears to fall on.  At the time of his death he wept intensely and his disciples said to him, "Truly, Father, are you also afraid?"  "Indeed," he answered them, "the fear which is mine at this hour has been with me ever since I became a monk."

Arsenius wept out of sadness and fear, Shenouda goes on to say.  He wept because he knew how much he failed in life, and how much those failures grieved God's loving heart.  Arsenius didn't cry for forgiveness.  He knew he was forgiven already.  Arsenius cried because he had failed to live up to God's unconditional love.

I think that's why Holden sits on Phoebe's bed weeping, as well.  He knows Phoebe loves him, no matter what he does.  She loves him so much that she's willing to give him all of her savings.  It's that sacrifice that drives Holden to the gift of tears.  When faced with that kind of love, tears are a natural response, I think.

I'm lucky enough to have a wife and daughter and son who love me unconditionally.  I know that, if I go home tonight and yell at my daughter because she hasn't practiced her flute, or get angry with my wife because she hasn't made the beds or done the dishes in the kitchen sink, or lose patience with my son because he left a pile of toys in the bathtub, they will all still love me in the morning.  When I think about how much love I have in my life, it drives a fist of tears into my throat.

Tears are usually associated with loss and grief and sorrow.  However, it is through tears that loss and grief and sorrow are transformed into something healing.  Memory.  Laughter.  Hope.  Love.

Saint Marty thinks Holden and Saint Arsenius are onto something.

Tears--the gift that keeps on giving

April 30: Her Own Horse, Working Hands, Saint Joseph the Worker

She ran and bought her ticket and got back on the goddam carrousel just in time.  Then she walked all the way around it till she got her own horse back.  Then she got on it.  She waved to me and I waved back.

I love these happy moments in Catcher when Holden is with Phoebe.  The innocence and love present in these passages is more than heartbreaking.  It's wrenching.  Holden is clinging on to life by his fingernails, his bloody and bitten fingernails.  Holden actually slows down when he's with Phoebe, takes time to let himself be happy.

I often think of Joseph, how much joy he must have gotten out of watching Christ grow from infant to toddler to boy.  I sort of picture him like Holden in the passage above, sitting on the ground outside his home, watching his Son climb a palm tree or throw stones into pools of rainwater.  I imagine Christ waving at Joseph, and Joseph waving back, the way my son waves at me from his school bus window as the bus pulls away.  I always fight the impulse to chase the bus, to keep waving like a lunatic, to let him know I'll always be there for him.  It breaks my heart when the bus turns the corner and disappears from my sight.  Every time.  I wonder how often Joseph's heart broke.

On May 1, 1955, Pope Pius XII declared that May 1 the feast day of Saint Joseph the Worker.  It is a day that celebrates Joseph, who was a carpenter, a man who supported his family with his calloused and splintered hands.  He probably taught his Son the craft of woodworking, and, in the evening, rested his weary arms and back after a long day's labor.

My father was a licensed master plumber.  I remember him climbing into his work truck every morning, his handwritten list of service calls in his hands.  He was hard as cast iron (still is).  He could tear the Detroit phone book in half with his hands.  He taught each of his kids the value of hard work, the way, I'm sure, Joseph taught Jesus.  Whether washing dishes for a living or teaching Intro to Film to a group of college students, I've always kept my father's fingers in my mind.  They were thick and cracked, ridged with dirt all the time, no matter how often he washed them.  They were a working man's hands.  Joseph's hands.  Hands that struggled to provide.

That's what I try to do every day.  Provide happiness, security, and comfort for my wife and children.  I think I work hard, but my hands aren't full of splinters or caked with dirt or grease.  But they're hands that struggle to provide, as well.  And, on the eve of the feast day of Saint Joseph the Worker, I admire all fathers' hands.  All working hands.

Saint Marty is going to say a little thank-you prayer for his father tonight.

Thanks, Dad

January 24: Jesus, the Disciples, and Hope

Finally, though, I got undressed and got in bed.  I felt like praying or something, when I was in bed, but I couldn't do it.  I can't always pray when I feel like it.  In the first place, I'm sort of an atheist.  I like Jesus and all, but I don't care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible.  Take the Disciples, for instance.  They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth.  They were all right after Jesus was dead and all, but while He was alive, they were about as much use to Him as a hole in the head.  All they did was keep letting Him down.  I like almost anybody in the Bible better than the Disciples...

I love the fact that Holden, this scrawny teenager, is "sort of an atheist."  Yet, he seems to know a lot about Jesus and the Disciples.  As Holden keeps talking, he discusses how Jesus hand-picked the Disciples, and then he gets into a philosophical debate about whether Jesus would sent Judas to Hell.  For an atheist, Holden seems to do an awful lot of thinking about Jesus Christ.

But Holden says he can't pray, even though he wants to.  Holden is depressed.  He says so about every other page of the book.  Depression doesn't allow a person the comfort of prayer.  It doesn't allow a person the comfort of hope.  Holden can't think about Jesus or the Disciples because he's spiraling downward.  He's on his way to rock bottom.

Perhaps if Holden wasn't an atheist, if he had some kind of belief in salvation or redemption, he wouldn't be in quite so black a place.  In Biblical terms, I suppose he's like Saul, blind and bereft, on his way to becoming Paul the Apostle.  Yes, Holden wants to believe in something, wants to have some kind of faith in humankind.  What he believes in at the moment are his dead brother, Allie; his kid sister, Phoebe; and the girl from his summer in Maine, Jane.  Holden can't imagine the future because he's stuck in the past.  He wants to play checkers with Jane.  He wants watch Allie play baseball again.  He wants to take Phoebe to the movies.  He's tired of phony Disciples.  He wants Hope.

In some ways, I'm a lot like Holden.  I see phony bastards everywhere I look.  The difference between Holden and me is that I, for the most part, think the phony bastards aren't going to win.  I believe that goodness and innocence will trump the darkness of the world.  I see evidence of it every day of my life.  In my son's laugh.  In my daughter's red hair.  In the flash of sun on snow.  In a good book.  In a bowl of Campbell's chicken noodle soup.  In the warmth of my wife when I go to bed at night.

Saint Marty is surrounded by Hope.

It's always there