November 12: "Returning the Pencil to Its Tray," Give Up Writing, Joy and Love

I write every day.  Sometimes, it's simply a blog post.  Other times, it's a new poem or lyric essay or, less often, short story.  If I was offered a million dollars to give up writing, I don't think I'd take it.  Writing keeps me sane in an insane universe.

Billy Collins gives up writing

Returning the Pencil to Its Tray

by: Billy Collins

Everything is fine—
the first bits of sun are on
the yellow flowers behind the low wall,

people in cars are on their way to work,
and I will never have to write again.

Just looking around
will suffice from here on in.

Who said I had to always play
the secretary of the interior?

And I am getting good at being blank,
staring at all the zeroes in the air.

It must have been all the time spent
in the kayak this summer
that brought this out,

the yellow one that went
nicely with the pale blue life jacket—

the sudden, tippy
buoyancy of the launch,
then the exertion, striking
into the wind against the short waves,

but the best was drifting back,
the paddle resting athwart the craft,
and me mindless in the middle of time.

Not even that dark cormorant
perched on the No Wake sign,
his narrow head raised
as if he were looking over something,

not even that inquisitive little fellow
could bring me to write another word.

I did a lot of busy work today.  Nothing exciting.  I taught online.  Attended a couple meetings.  Busted my ass to get lots of things off my plate.  Of course, my plate is never completely empty, but I was able to make the Brussels sprouts and sauerkraut disappear.  (You know what I mean--those things you keep pushing off because you simply don't want to face them.)

This evening, I screened a movie at the library.  It was a beautiful film titled The Last Ecstatic Days and was a documentary following a guy named Ethan Sisser who is dying of stage 4 brain cancer.  The movie documents the last 12 or 13 days of his life and his eventual death.  Now, I know that sounds depressing, and it was a little.  But it was also a forceful reminder of how important it is (even when facing a terminal illness) to embrace joy and love every day.

That's what I'm trying to do tonight.  Spread joy and love with my writing.  I truly can't imagine a life without words, unlike Collins.

Saint Marty's moment of hope from today:  my wife's sister and her husband for helping me replace a door in my garage.  

A second moment of hope:  a sunrise so beautiful it's impossible to look away.

August 2: Generosity of Spirit, Triffids, Horror Movies

John Cowper Powys said, "We have no reason for denying to the world of plants a certain slow, dim, vague, large, leisurely semi-consciousness." He may not be right, but I like his adjectives.  The batch of bluets in the grass may not be long on brains, but it might be, at least in a very small way, awake.  The trees especially seem to bespeak a generosity of spirit.  I suspect that the real moral thinkers end up, wherever they may start, in botany.  We know nothing for certain, but we seem to see that the world turns upon growing, grows toward growing, and growing green and clean.

Plants with semi-consciousness.  Dillard even grants the bluets and trees spirit and generosity.  What are the trees giving away?  Oxygen, maybe.  Green shade in the dog days of August, where there's no wind and the sun is punishing.  Certainly, in those conditions, shade seems like generosity.  But sentient plant life?

As a kid, I loved science fiction and horror movies.  One of my favorites was called The Day of the Triffids.  It entailed a meteor shower, the blinding of the human race, and six-foot-tall plants hell bent on eating people and animals.  It was every kid's nightmare--killer vegetables.  I have never been a fan of broccoli or brussells sprouts, and this movie proved how dangerous they actually were.

Of course, now that I am an adult, I have grown accustomed to greenery.  While I don't sit down and eat salad on a regular basis, I do like a good stir fry every now and then.  I can choke down baby carrots and, in a pinch, celery slathered thickly with peanut butter.  However, my consumption of vegetables is purely for self preservation.  I want to eat them before they eat me. 

I know that the possibility of a meteor shower turning the produce section at Walmart into a triffid war zone is not very realistic.  However, the word "triffid" has now become a colloquialism for large, menacing-looking plants.  Any large, menacing-looking plants.  I used to have thistles growing in front of my house.  Big, purple flower balls with menacing leaves that attracted all manner of stinging insects--wasps and bees and yellow jackets.  They were my triffids.

Why am I telling you all this?  I don't know.  I was flipping through my copy of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and happened upon the above passage.  It, in turn, reminded me of the low-budget horror movie from my childhood, which made me think of brussels sprouts, which dug up memories of those damn thistles.  Triffids, triffids everywhere.

That's Saint Marty's wisdom for this evening:  vegetables will kill you, given the chance.

Don't feed the plants!