July 28-29: A Bicycle Built for Two, Blissed Out, Hopes and Dreams

Thomas Merton has some problems with his teeth . . .

They sent me down to the school dentist, Dr. McTaggart, who lived in a big brick building like a barracks, on the way to the station.  Dr. McTaggart was a lively little fellow.  He knew me well., for I was always having trouble with my teeth.  He had a theory that you should kill the nerves of teeth, and he had already done so to half a dozen of mine.  For the rest, he would trot gaily around and around the big chair in which I sat, mute and half frozen with terror.  And he would sing, as he quickly switched his drills.  "It won't be a stylish marriage--  We can't afford a carriage--  But you'll look sweet--  Upon the seat--  Of a bicycle built for two."  Then he would start wrecking my teeth once again with renewed gusto.

This time he tapped at the tooth, and looked serious.

"It will have to come out," he said.

I was not sorry.  The thing was hurting me, and I wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible.

But Dr. McTaggart said, "I can't give you anything to deaden the pain, you know."

"Why not?"

"There is a great deal of infection, and the matter has spread far beyond the roots of the tooth."

I accepted his reasoning on trust and said, "Well, go ahead."

This little passage reminds me of a scene from the film Little Shop of Horrors (the original film or the musical), where a sadistic dentist treats a masochistic patient.  In the original film, Jack Nicholson played the patient.  In the musical, it was Bill Murray, and the dentist was played by Steve Martin.  So, imagine, if you will, the young Thomas Merton in this passage played by Jack Nicholson, sitting in the dentist chair, eagerly waiting to be tortured by Dr. McTaggart/Steve Martin.  That is the image I have in my mind.

In some ways, a person can become used to pain, especially if it's consistent and constant.  That's why abused partners stay with their abusers.  It's easier to deal with a pain you know, rather than something unknown.  Facing the unknown is a frightening prospect, even if it means stepping away from some place, thing, person, job, habit, or addiction that is destructive.  So, instead, you choose to sit in the dentist chair and let him remove your teeth, one-by-one, because you know it, are used to it.

I just got back from taking my puppy for a walk around the neighborhood in my pajamas and flip flops.  I had my iPhone with me, with an app open to help me identify all the planets and stars and constellations.  The app plays this celestial, New Age music that is designed to lower blood pressures and make you feel one with the universe.

I needed that walk, that music, those celestial bodies tonight.  To help me put my life into perspective.  Take inventory of stuff that makes me feel good and stuff that causes me pain.  I need to do this every once in a while, because I tend to lose sight of all the grace in my life,  Instead, I focus on the toothache, if you get what I mean.  That dull throb that stays with me all day long.

So, here I am, back home and blissed out.  I saw a shooting star.  Startled a rabbit.  Smelled the smoke of a backyard campfire.  It was sweet and made me think of hot dogs and marshmallows.  I heard low voices, laughing.  A family sitting around that fire, telling stories, letting them drift upward like sparks into the chimney of night.  It made me feel like I was ten years old again, all my hopes and dreams playing hide-and-go-seek with me in the dark.

Yes, there are toothaches in my life right now.  A lot of them.  But there are miracles, too.  A lot of them.  

Saint Marty just needs to put on his flip flops and go looking for them.

November 13: Reluctantly Becoming Interested, To Be Heard, Great Gift

Later on, as a middle-aged optometrist, he would weep quietly and privately sometimes, but never make loud boohooing noises.

Which is why the epigraph of this book is the quatrain from the famous Christmas carol.  Billy cried very little, though he often saw things worth crying about, and in that respect, at least, he resembled the Christ of the carol:

          The cattle are lowing,
          The Baby awakes.
          But the little Lord Jesus
          No crying he makes...

Billy traveled in time back to the hospital in Vermont.  Breakfast had been eaten and cleared away, and Professor Rumfoord was reluctantly becoming interested in Billy as a human being.  Rumfoord questioned Billy gruffly, satisfied himself that Billy really had been in Dresden.  He asked Billy what it had been like, and Billy told him about the horses and the couple picnicking on the moon.

The story ended this way:  Billy and the doctors unharnessed the horses, but the horses wouldn't go anywhere.  Their feet hurt too much.  And then Russians came on motorcycles, and they arrested everybody but the horses.

Two days after that, Billy was turned over to the Americans, who shipped him home on a very slow freighter called the Lucretia A. Mott.  Lucretia A. Mott was a famous American suffragette.  She was dead.  So it goes.

Billy finally gets to tell his Dresden story to Rumfoord, who listens reluctantly because Billy's truth doesn't gibe with his truth.  Yet, Rumfoord allows Billy to talk about the bleeding horses on the surface of the moon.  He listens to Billy Pilgrim.

I think that's what every human being really wants in life:  to be heard.  There's nothing more frustrating than to voice some story and have nobody listen.  I write these blog posts, send them out into the ether of the Internet, and hope that they find some willing listener.  I don't care if the listener agrees with what I'm saying.  Don't care if the listener voted for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.  Don't care about the listener's skin color or sexual orientation or religious affiliation. What I care about--I want someone to listen, acknowledge, understand.

That's why I write.  That's why any writer writes, I think.  I'm trying to make people understand who I am, why I am.  In fifty years, when I'm worm food, I want my kids and grandkids to be able to read these words and really know me as a person.  They might not like everything they find out, but, in the long run, they will hopefully appreciate my hopes and dreams and struggles.

So, to all the Rumfoords listening to me right now, I want to say thanks.  I'm not the most interesting person in the world.  Not the most talented writer or poet.  My life usually verges on boring.  Yet, you're taking time out of your day to read these words, hear my voice.  That is a great gift.

Saint Marty is full of gratitude on this gray, cold evening.

June 20: Daughter's Life, Arthur Rimbaud, "Young Couple"

I don't generally write about my daughter's life.  Her personal ups and downs.  Her loves.  I try to leave her privacy private.  Sure, I talk about her dance recitals.  Her grades.  My hopes and dreams for her.  Aside from that, I leave her alone in my writing.  I learned that from a conversation I once had with Sharon Olds.

So, tonight, I have a poem that sort of reminds me of my daughter.  Let's leave it at that.

Saint Marty is happy that his daughter is happy.

Young Couple

by:  Arthur Rimbaud

The room is open to the turquoise blue sky;
no room here: boxes and bins!
Outside the wall is overgrown with birthwort
where the brownies' gums buzz.

How truly there are the plots of genii -
this expense and this foolish untidiness!
It is the African fairy who supplies
the mulberry and the hairnets in the corners.

Several, cross godmothers [dressed] in skirts of light,
go into the cupboards, and stay there!
The people of the house are out,
they are not serious, and nothing gets done.

The bridegroom has the wind which cheats him
during his absence, here, all the time.
Even some water sprites, mischievous,
come in to wander about among the spheres under the bed.

At night, beloved oh! The honeymoon will gather their smiles
and fill the sky with a thousand copper diadems.
Then they will have to deal with the crafty rat. -
As long as no ghastly will O;
the wisp comes, like a gunshot, after vespers, -
O holy white Spirits of Bethlehem, charm,
rather than that, the blueness of their window!