July 25: Baby Carriages, Motherhood, Siv Cedering, "Poem for My Mother," New Cartoon

And for weeks she [Annie Ives] thought about what he had said, fear tingeing every hope for happiness.  She saw mothers pushing their baby carriages who seemed wonderfully content, and mothers who were glum and remote.  She had memories of the house in Glen Cove reeking of her brothers' diapers, the safety pins nicking her fingers, their cylinder-shaped washing machine chugging all day, babies crying all night, the young boys running their mother ragged.  But whenever she even came close to making a decision, her thoughts always came close to making a decision, her thoughts always returned to Ives and how he had been a foundling [orphan], and how much it must have hurt him even to consider giving up the child to make her happy, and she felt more in love with him.  With that she thought how having a family would not be so bad a thing to do with this considerate and moral gentleman.  And knowing about his past, she could not imagine giving up the child.  He never raised the subject, maneuvering those waters quietly.  He simply treated her well, and in time, despite her doubts, she let the issue drop.  They married in December, as they had wanted.

At first, Annie Ives isn't sure she wants to be a mother when she gets pregnant for the first time.  As this passage shows, Annie's view of motherhood is colored by her own mother's experiences.  She watched her mother--dead weary, washing diapers and settling disputes and dealing with Annie's alcoholic father--give up everything for her family.  All her hopes and dreams.  Annie isn't sure she's ready to buy a ticket for that train ride.

Motherhood is a hard job.  In the mornings, my wife has to get up with our six-year-old son around 7 a.m., even though her bipolar meds transport her into a Walking Dead state in the early hours of the day.  Yet, she knows that's all part of the job description.  Sacrifice.  Exhaustion.  Hugs.  Band-Aids.  Bug spray.  Worry.  Tears.  That's just what mothers do.

My mother did it for nine kids.  I'm the youngest sibling in my family.  I always joke with my brothers and sisters that my mother was too tired to really be tough with me.  I probably got away with a lot more.  I remember the first time I came home drunk.  I was a junior in high school, I think.  I crawled through the dark house, climbed into my bed, and passed out.  At 7:30 the next morning, my mother was at my bedside, shaking me awake to go to the 8 a.m. service at church.  I sat in the pew, nauseated and dizzy.  Then, after Mass, my mother decided to take me out to breakfast "as a special treat."  It was a long, long morning.  But, my mother made her point.

My mother's memory isn't so great any more.  She repeats herself all the time, asking the same questions over and over.  "Is it warm outside?" and "Boy, it gets dark fast, doesn't it?"  She can't see very well, either, due to macular degeneration.  She can't read anymore.  Or watch TV.  She plays gin with my father, but she has a hard time seeing the cards in her hands.

It's hard to see my mother diminished like this.  She was always the person in charge.  Everyone listened to her, including my dad.  She cooked dinners, attended parent-teacher conferences, sent out the bills for my dad's plumbing business.  And she pushed us kids to be the best people we could be.  She wanted to see her children succeed, even my sister with Down Syndrome.  My mother never settled for mediocre.

So, today, I just want to acknowledge the mothers in my life.  My wife.  My own mother.  Through all the struggles in life, they never give up.  My mother believes my sister with lymphoma of the brain is going to get better.  My wife watches my daughter dance and cries.  Because that's what mothers do.

By the way, Saint Marty never came home drunk again when he was in high school.

Poem for My Mother

by:  Siv Cedering

Remember when I draped
The ruffled cotton cape
Around your shoulders,
Turned off the lights
And stood behind your chair,
Brushing, brushing your hair.

The friction of the brush
In the dry air
Of that small inland town
Created stars that flew
As if God himself was there
In the small space
Between my hands and your hair.

Now we live on separate coasts
Of a foreign country.
A continent stretches between us.
You write of your illness,
Your fear of blindness.
You say you wake afraid
To open your eyes.

Mother, if some morning
You open your eyes to see
Daylight as a dark room around you,
I will drape a ruffled cotton cape
Around your shoulders
And stand behind your chair,
Brushing the stars out of your hair.

Confessions of Saint Marty

July 24: Funeral, Dave Memorial Service, Dave Fairy Tail, Siv Cedering, "The Angel of Death"

They buried his son on Christmas Eve morning, 1967, out in Long Island, his marker a simple Celtic cross.  The burial was covered by the press, despite efforts to maintain privacy.  A lot of important people came, few whom Ives knew.  Zoom-lensed cameras captured the scene, and, in an unfortunate gaffe, they published a picture of Celeste, Robert's former girlfriend, who had fallen apart and kept her distance from the family until the funeral, being held in Ives' arms, and identified her as his daughter.

Funerals are strange occasions.  Ives is surrounded by strangers, political figures and local celebrities who attend the service because of the circumstances of Robert's death--young man, soon to enter the seminary, gunned down by a Hispanic youth on the steps of a church.  Sort of like governors, senators, and U. S. Presidents showing up for memorial services for victims of school shootings or terrorist bombings or hurricanes.  Funerals are a mixture of grief and celebration, tears and laughter, story-telling and preaching.

This afternoon, I went to the memorial service of a friend of mine.  Dave died from pancreatic cancer in November in Las Vegas, but his family decided to have his funeral this summer, when the days are long and green in the Upper Peninsula.  Dave was a musician, among other things.  He could play any instrument and harmonize on any song.

I've known Dave for a long time.  He was my daughter's piano teacher, and, for the last few years, he played bass guitar in the church band with me.  Before that, I acted in plays with Dave.  A recovering alcoholic, Dave was 21 years sober when he died.  He attended AA meetings daily, sometimes more.  He had a deep love of God.  A lot of people call God their friend.  I think Dave had breakfast with God every morning, surrendering his will to His will.

I am proud to be able to have called Dave my friend.

Once upon a time, a minstrel named Dave traveled the kingdom, spreading music and love everywhere he went.  When they heard Dave strumming his guitar, people flocked to the town square to listen to him sing and joke.

One day, Dave got really sick.  He knew he didn't have long to live.  So he decided to perform one last time.  On the appointed day, crowds gathered to hear Dave's final concert.  But Dave didn't make it to the stage.

The night before, Dave got on a boat and sailed for the South Pacific, where he died under a palm tree, watching the locals harvest breadfruit and roast pig.

Moral of the story:  always leave 'em wanting more.  That's what Dave did.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

The Angel of Death

by:  Siv Cedering

Because she wanted me, I slipped out of my skin.  I thought it would fall like unnecessary clothing in the corner, by the chair, but it was my skin that went to her, like a beige trench coat flying through the air. 

Somewhere near the flue of the fireplace or beside the open window, she waited, calling me, and the hairs of my arms lifted their small antennas and listened.  Tired of holding the body in place all these years, the skin loose, my empty hands flapping like gloves.  Death must be something to hold on to.

In my nakedness, I stood there, white like a sprout is white before it reaches the air.  Small white breasts, short white hair, white fringes of lashes around my colorless eyes.  And skinless I could perceive all the small angels in things:  dancing on the head of a pin, in the leg of a table, in the arm of the chair.  Even in the air there were tiny galaxies spinning, as if it were Midsummer, and the dance had started.  Then something stirred at the base of my spine.  A warm coating started to spread, licking its long tongue over my surfaces, the elbow, the hip, the raspberry of my nipple, until each pore, mole, curve and mark was covered.  Colors came back.  The earlobes hung like drops from my ears, asleep, not listening.

But the angel of death is somewhere, watering my flowers, reading over my shoulder, counting the days of the moon.  She tells me that invisible things exist:  angels, molecules, the green horses of the grass.

Dave and his beloved granddaughter

July 23: Art Students League, Van Gogh, Siv Cedering, "Sunflowers"

Thinking about Robert, Ives would always fondly remember those evenings he spent in 1948, at the Art Students League on West Fifty-seventh Street, where he took classes several nights a week.  After a day freelancing, he'd walk in and sit in the back, his sketchbook, charcoals, and pencils set out before him...

Aside from his wife and kids, Ives' passion is art.  From a very young age, Ives draws.  Cartoons.  Christmas cards.  Portraits.  He is never without his sketchbook.  After Robert's death, Ives finds solace in his drawing.  He volunteers to teach art classes for at-risk youths at a local community center.  He designs the menu for his best friend's new restaurant.  Art gives Ives a livelihood, and art gives Ives an escape at times.

As most of my loyal disciples know, I dabble in art.  Besides my writing journal, I always carry around an art journal, too.  I sketch and doodle.  Of course, if you're a frequent visitor to Saint Marty, you know that I have a weekend comic strip.  At work, I draw cartoons every day for my coworkers on the assignment board.  I enjoy making people laugh.

I am not a tortured artist.  I'm not going to cut off my ear and mail it to a poetry editor.  Rather, I post my drawings to amuse and inspire, hopefully.  Which brings me to my announcement.

At the beginning of August, I will be launching a new cartoon strip titled The Adventures of Stickman.  It's an idea I've been toying with for a few weeks.  It will be a daily comic, Monday through Friday.  I'm not sure if I have the artistic stamina for it, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Saint Marty van Gogh.  Has a nice ring, doesn't it?

Sunflowers

by:  Siv Cedering

Someone
gave me a copy of
Van Gogh's
Sunflowers,
saying:

It's a picture
women can relate to
feeling kin to a man
who could see many suns
each whirling and wild.
There are thousands
of reproductions.

But a woman, she said,
doesn't have to cut off an ear
in order to bleed.

Not bad for a one-eared guy

July 22: No Disasters, Losing a Child, Siv Cedering, "Figure Eights"

Prepared for the worst and having heard even more stories--everyone he knew seemed to have a story about a baby falling out of a window--Ives was truly amazed that no disasters had struck.

Ives is a worrier.  All his life, Ives worries about the birth parents he never met.  When he becomes a father, he shifts his concerns to his kids.  As a baby, his son has a heart murmur.  Ives spends countless nights next to Robert's crib, watching him breathe, waiting for disaster to strike.  Of course, disaster eventually does pay a visit to the Ives family.  Robert is killed just before graduating from high school, and Ives' worries shift again.  It takes him decades to recover from the grief of losing his son.

As a father myself, I understand Ives' worries.  Right now, my daughter is at Bible camp.  She's surrounded by responsible adults, pretty much supervising her every waking moment.  Yet, I worry about her.  Last night, my son decided to go searching for his 14-year-old cousin in the woods.  For several panicked minutes, my wife had no idea where he was.  Worrying is part of the parental job description.  And the ultimate fear is losing a child.

My parents have already faced this fear with my brother's death last year.  Tonight, we celebrated my father's birthday with apple pie, his favorite.  When my sister said "make a wish and blow out the candle," I know what my father wished:  he wished for my sister's recovery from lymphoma.

I worry all the time about my kids.  I worry for their safety.  Their health.  Their happiness.  Their success.  I try to make my kids' lives better than mine.  Of course, I can't buy them a five-bedroom house with three bathrooms and a swimming pool.  I can't get my daughter the newest iPhone.  I can't get my son the motorized four-wheeler he wants so he can ride around the neighborhood.  But I think my daughter and son are, for the most part, happy.

Childhood is so short.  One day, a kid is learning to ice skate at the local rink.  The next day, she's packing her stuff in a car and moving into an apartment with friends, finally free from the worries of her father and mother.  That's a normal part of life.  It's also terrifying, for parents at least.

I know I can't protect my kids from all things bad.  They will have car accidents.  They will have their hearts broken.  They will get fired from jobs.  They may quit college.  I just hope that they can avoid major problems, like teenage pregnancy and drug/alcohol addiction and Republicans. 

Saint Marty has one big worry right now:  should he have Pringles or ravioli for a snack?

Figure Eights

by:  Siv Cedering

My back toward the circle, I skate,
shift my weight, turn toward the center.

The skill is in the balance, the ability
to choose an edge, and let it cut

its smooth line.  The moon is trapped
in the ice.  My body flows

across it.  The evening's cold.  The space
limited.  There is not much room

for hesitation.  But I have learned a lot
about grace, in my thirty-third year.

I lean the cutting edge:  two circles
interlock, number eight drawn

by a child, a mathematician's
infinity.

I've made a decision--one last worry

July 21: Hard Work, Honorable Mention, Siv Cedering, "A Raccoon"

She [Annie Ives] gave a talk about what hard work would get someone, and the kids either responded by clapping or they shouted insults, the most common being, "Oh yea, if education is so good for you, then what are you doing here?"  Because to some of them being there was the worst thing in the world.  And sometimes the kids laughed at her and cursed, or they stared at her blankly and she'd realized that many of them did not speak or understand English.

Annie Ives is an idealist, at least at this point in her life, before her son is murdered.  She still believes that she can make a difference in the world.  That's why she substitute teaches high school English for inner-city schools in New York.  She wants the kids to understand that there is something better for them.  Something that can be attained through hard work and perseverance.

It has been a long day.  Work kind of sucked, and now I'm sitting in my office at the university, typing this blog post.  When I checked my e-mail, I found a message from the nature writing contest I entered earlier this summer.  It seems I received honorable mention.  That means I came in third.

I'm happy that I placed, but I could have really used that prize money right now.  I knew that the essay wasn't my best work, so I'm not surprised at the outcome of the contest.  Yet, I'm still disappointed.  Tonight, I think that I would fall into the group of students who curse and laugh at Annie Ives when she talks about hard work being the key to success.  I've been working hard all my life--two jobs, blogging, parenting, writing--and I don't seem to be climbing any ladder of professional happiness.  Still on the bottom rung, one step away from "starting over" or "giving up completely."

Sorry, I'm feeling a little sorry for myself this evening.  I didn't sleep well last night, and I had to deal with a lot of difficult people in the medical office today.  In about a half hour, I'm going to be at a meeting of the contingent faculty at the university.  I don't think that I'm going to receive any news of monumental importance.  What I'm looking forward to:  the food and the alcohol.

So, to sum up Saint Marty's day:  crabby patients at work, third place in a writing contest, and shrimp quesadillas with Mike's Hard Lemonade for dinner.

And the Poet of the Week with roadkill. 

A Raccoon

by:  Siv Cedering

A raccoon lies broken
On the broken lines of a road.
Like the car that killed it.

I speed by.  I have seen the pain
In the small and pointed face
And blinked at the pink entrails

That trail from its belly.
But it is the paw that makes me
Stare.  What is there that makes the paw

Reach up? and the five fingers
At the end of the reach, bend
Like a hand?  They say

That animals are our innocence,
What we were before Eden
And the Fall.  Though I cannot

Understand it all, I stay on my side
Of the broken line that divides
The going from the coming.

How about a raccoon quesadilla?

July 20: "Ives" Dip, Unfeeling Bastard, Poet of the Week, Siv Cedering, "In the Planetarium"

I'm going to change things up a little bit tonight.  I'm going to start with the Poet of the Week.  This time, I've chosen a poet I met about ten years ago when she gave a reading at the university.  Her name is Siv Cedering.  I should say "was."  Siv died eight years ago, at the age of 68.  Siv was born in Sweden.  An accomplished poet and novelist, she also won awards for her screenplays.  The screen adaptation of her novel Oxen won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Siv was a fantastic writer and a very gracious woman.  She is now Saint Marty's Poet of the Week.

In the Planetarium

by:  Siv Cedering

And I lean back into the chair
as my mother must have
leaned back under the space
of my father's body.
A small light, a comet
approaches the sun.
My father's seed
approaches
my mother's.  A soft laugh,
and I begin

to inhabit the space that grows
to hold me.  Cells divide,
atoms spin
solar systems around me.
The comet's tail
is blown away from the sun.
My tail shrinks
in my mother's sea.
I grow fingers, toes.  The arm
of the galaxy
will hold me

When I leave one space
for another
space.

This poem makes me think of my parents.  They raised nine kids.  Made tons of sacrifices, every day of their lives.  One of my sisters has Down Syndrome.  I nearly died when I was thirteen and I lapsed into a diabetic coma with a blood glucose of close to 1000; I was in that coma for two or three days.  My brother had a stroke about five or six years ago; he died last year.  And, of course, right now, another of my sisters is battling lymphoma of the brain.  My parents have been through a lot.

I talked to a really smart friend this afternoon about my sister's illness.  I told my friend how I'm so conflicted in my feelings.  I want my sister to get well and come home, but I don't want my sister to live a life of continuing diminishment.  A few years ago, my sister brought me into her office at work.  She asked me to sign an Advanced Directive, named me as her advocate.  In the time we worked together, my sister and I talked about our wishes in the event of life-limiting circumstances.  My sister never wanted any kind of extraordinary measures used to sustain her life.

My friend asked me how I felt about my sister's current treatment.  I told her that, if the chemo is successful, one of the blessings would be that my parents wouldn't have to bury another child in their lifetimes.  That would be grace for my parents.  However, I'm not a believer in trying to keep someone alive by any means necessary, which is what most doctors try to do.  If treatment itself makes my sister's life an exercise in misery, I don't think my sister would want that.  My sister's life is going to be shortened by this illness.  I want my sister to have a life of dignity, no matter how long she lives.

I'm trying to put myself in my parents' shoes.  If my daughter was ill, I would want the doctors to do everything in their powers to save her.  That's the truth.  Maybe that's why my sister talked to me about her wishes, because she knew my parents wouldn't be able to make the hard decisions.  I just hope my other siblings are able to make those difficult choices, if need be.

My question this Ives dip Monday is this:

Am I a horrible person for having these thoughts?

And the answer from Edward Ives:

And then Ives blinked and found himself standing on the sidewalk beside his wife, across the street from the Church of the Ascension.  On the pavement, just by his feet, was a large piece of canvas, and under it a body, stretched out.  Then the officer lifted off the canvas and shined a flashlight onto the face to reveal the shocked and bewildered expressions of his son.

That's it.  Saint Marty is going to die and go to hell for being a cold, unfeeling bastard.

Speaking of cold, unfeeling bastards...