October 11: The Crowd, I Could Have Danced, Madeleine L'Engle, "Ephesus," New Cartoon

But the crowd loved it.  Avery heard nothing but the applause.  He liked being a clown in a ring, with everybody watching, in front of a grandstand...

Yes, Fern's brother is a ham.  (Pardon the porcine meat reference.)  He loves performing for a crowd.  Eats it up when they laugh at his antics.  Applause is an addicting sound, and Avery has learned this fact early in his life.

I am sitting, watching my daughter in a dance class.  She's been dancing since about 8 a.m.  It is now almost three o'clock in the afternoon.  She's getting a little tired and cranky.  We got lunch late, and now her ears are hurting from so much swimming in the water park last night.  Long story short:  she's all glares and stomps at the moment.

I don't take these moods personally.  It's all part of thirteen-year-old girlhood.  Nothing I did.  Just the world not being thirteen-year-old girl perfect.  I've learned that it's a powerful anger, fueled by hormones and exhaustion and hunger.  She doesn't really understand what's making her act like a feral cat.  What she knows is that she's not in control of herself.  The teenage years are a scary time.

I have a poem for you guys from Madeleine L'Engle.  It's a poem about Mary after the death of Christ, about the time she spent in Ephesus following his execution.  I find the joy in this poem tinged with melancholy.  Joy outlined in sadness, like the chalk outline of a body at a murder scene.

Like Saint Marty's daughter, out on the floor, her anger outlined by dance, waiting for the applause to begin.

Ephesus

by:  Madeleine L'Engle

They walked these self-same stones.
Mary was wilting, weary from the journey,
weary with the years and all that she
had understood and had not understood.
Obedient always, she deferred to John,
smiling a mother's smile at his great joy.
Chariots of gold raced through the godless streets:
Apollo and Diana had grown dim;
only the emperor was god.
They paused, perhaps, Mary and John,
at these same vacant gates
of the sad temple of forgotten gods,
and Mary smiled and turned and said,
"My son, the old gods have been lost."
And John replied, "Bring we now the new--"

And in his harrowing of a shadowed Hell
perhaps the old gods were redeemed as well,
and joyfully sing their praise to him
with cherubim and seraphim.

Confessions of Saint Marty

January 20: Fun Was Had By All

Well, I just finished teaching my poetry workshop.  And I had fun.  I relaxed, told a few jokes, shared some good poems.  I thoroughly enjoyed tonight.  Of course, there were only three students present.  Perhaps the cold and wind kept the poets indoors.  It is colder than a glacier tonight.

The time flew by this evening.  The first time I looked at the clock, we had already been working for an hour.  I was shocked.  I had to cram a whole lot of information into that last thirty minutes.  I was doing a lesson on found poetry.  I think it went pretty well, and all three of the students there produced a draft of a poem.  Not bad for the second week of the workshop.

I am now experiencing an adrenaline crash.  Tired and hungry.  I have half an hour before my daughter's dance class is over.  Maybe I'll read a little or write a little or balance my check book or clean up my desk or start a novel.

Or maybe Saint Marty will sit and stare out his window until it's time to leave.  Ding-ding-ding.  We have a winner.

Didn't have this much fun

January 16: TGIT

Well, I've made it through my first week back at work and teaching.  Thursday night, and I'm T-I-R-E-D.  I feel as though I could sleep for about 36 hours, get up and pee, and then go back to bed for another 12 hours.

Thank God it's Thursday.  My students at the university tell me that Thursday is the new Friday.  Since I stopped working on Fridays at the medical office, I find Thursday evenings tiring.  It's like my body knows its going to get a couple of hours more sleep tonight.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm going to be busy on Friday.  My daughter's getting the stitches out of her ears.  There's an English Department meeting.  I have office hours at school.  In the afternoon, there's a doctor's appointment and a dance class.

Saint Marty would love to have one day where there's nothing on his calendar.  No church.  No teaching.  No work.  No cleaning.  No shopping.  No school concerts.  No birthday parties.  No American Idol.  No Book Club.  Nothing.

Zero.  Zilch.  Goose egg.

A man can dream, can't he?