March 15: "Poetry," Aunt Aileen, Joy at My Joy

Billy Collins' writing process . . .

Poetry

by:  Billy Collins

As if it were not hard enough,

whenever my pencil

moves along the page,

the pink eraser end points up,

a little finger wagging,

reminding me of our appointment.

Writing has been my life since I was very young.  Words help me understand life, the world, my place in the world.  My memories are not preserved in snapshots and photos.  They are recorded in poems and short stories and essays and blog posts.  When I read one of my old poems, I experience all the emotions and sensations that inspired me to write it.  Poetry is my time capsule, I guess.

Of course, poems are revised and shaped.  Rarely do they emerge fully formed.  (It happens, but not very often.)  When I sit down to write anything, I'm not really about what is emerging on the page or screen.  I'm about what is beyond the veil of those words, that shining mansion on the hill, if you will.  Whatever that mansion is.  I approach it, eraser in hand, ready to make it as beautiful and true as I can.

Yesterday, I wrote about my Aunt Aileen.  I tried to approach her shining mansion as close as I could with my words.  I'm not sure I truly succeeded in capturing her spirit and importance in my childhood and young adulthood.  As always, truth is elusive, and I often feel like Ahab chasing the white whale.

Aunt Aileen took her last breath around 3:30 this morning.  

Nothing I write in this post will come close to paying due honor and homage to this woman.  She blazed through times of great joy and great heartbreak.  At least in my life. 

I'm going to type a phrase now that is fraught with problems--a phrase dependent on the fallibility of the human brain:  I remember.

I remember when I was struggling during a terrible breakup with my girlfriend (who has now been my wife for close to 30 years).  Aunt Aileen had met my future wife, liked her a lot.  (Truth be told:  Aunt Aileen liked everyone.)  I spent almost a month that breakup summer at Aunt Aileen's house downstate, moping, wallowing, crying.  I was not a fun person to be around.  I don't know how my aunt put up with me, but she did.  And she gave me a lot of ice cream.

My girlfriend and I eventually reconciled.  About a year later, at my sister's wedding reception, I was dancing with Aunt Aileen.  The DJ's music was loud, and I could barely hear what Aunt Aileen was saying to me.  She put her mouth close to my ear and said, "I'm so happy things worked out for you."

That's who Aunt Aileen was.  Wanting everyone to live their best lives.

I'm holding onto that--her joy at my joy.  Even though she struggled the last years of her life, physically and mentally, Aunt Aileen will always be, in my mind's eye, my dance partner that evening, celebrating my happiness.

The world is a little bit darker tonight for Saint Marty, and the heavens are a little bit brighter.

August 26: "Whelks," Helen and Mary, Wild Darkness

Mary Oliver has been restless . . .

Whelks

by:  Mary Oliver

Here are the perfect

fans of the scallops,

quahogs, and weedy mussels

still holding their orange fruit--

and here are the whelks--

whirlwinds,

each the size of a fist,

but always cracked and broken--

clearly they have been traveling

under the sky-blue waves

for a long time.

All my life

I have been restless--

I have felt there is something

more wonderful than glass--

than wholeness--

than staying at home.

I have not been sure what it is.

But every morning on the wide shore

I pass what is perfect and shining

to look for the whelks, whose edges

have rubbed so long against the world

they have snapped and crumbled--

they have almost vanished,

with the last relinquishing

of their unrepeatable energy,

back into everything else.

When I find one

I hold it in my hand, 

I look out over that shanking fire,

I shut my eyes.  Not often,

but now and again there's a moment

when the heart cries aloud:

yes, I am willing to be

that wild darkness,

that long, blue body of light.

My friend Helen and Mary Oliver had a lot in common.

Both were ocean gals--in their element when they were walking along a briny beach, finding clams and oysters and quahogs and other weedy mussels.  

Both went for long daily walks, finding wonder along the way.  For Helen, it was raspberries or blueberries or sandhill cranes or mating seagulls.

Both were poets--they understood the world better through words.  That was their medium.  Read one of Oliver's or Helen's poems, and you will taste salt on your lips. 

Both found the world endlessly complex and endlessly simple.  

Both believed in some form of Higher Power.

Both were willing to be that wild darkness, full of mystery.

Both were willing to be that long, blue body of light.

I guess what I'm saying is that every time I read Mary Oliver, I find Helen.  

Today, I hosted a day-long celebration of joy at the library.  It was beautiful, exhausting, and filled with art and words and music and healing and singing bowls.  I texted a friend on Wednesday or Thursday that I'd been experiencing Helen miracles all week long.  Tiny moments of beauty.  Rabbits eating in my backyard.  Clouds shot through with light.  Rain coming down so hard it sounded like the drum solo in Led Zeppelin's "Moby Dick."  This morning, I opened my front door, and a chipmunk was sitting on my top step, staring up at me.  

Just like Oliver, Helen taught me how to slow down and take note.  That's what I did today.

Saint Marty is now going to take note of a bowl of ice cream.  Helen taught him that, too.

July 24: "Summer Poem," Ice Cream, Flossing My Teeth

Mary Oliver enjoys the heron's poem . . . 

Summer Poem

by:  Mary Oliver

Leaving the house,

I went out to see

the frog, for example,

in her shining green skin; 

and her eggs

like a slippery veil;

and her eyes

with their golden rims;

and the pond

with its risen lilies;

and its warmed shores

dotted with pink flowers;

and the long, windless afternoon;

and the white heron

like a dropped cloud,

taking one slow step

then standing awhile then taking

another, writing

her own softfooted poem

through the still waters.

Some days, it's an accomplishment just to get out of bed in the morning.  Other days, it's a victory if you remember to put on underwear.  And then there are days when you work and work from sunrise 'til past sunset, and you don't seem to accomplish a whole lot of anything.

I've literally been sitting with my laptop all day long, editing a podcast, answering emails, and writing scripts.  It is now past 10 p.m., and I'm feeling a little empty.  A couple hours ago, I went and got ice cream with my wife and son.  Actually, they got ice cream, and I got a vanilla malt.  Since it was a beautiful summer evening, a lot of people had the same idea.  There was a lot of Mackinac Island Fudge being sold tonight.

Mary Oliver's summer poem is filled with frogs and ponds and lilies and pink flowers and a softfooted heron.  My summer blog post is about work and exhaustion and ice cream.  I didn't sit down with my journal to work on a new poem today.  Aside from the vanilla malt, I really didn't feel very inspired by anything.

I've been writing about Oliver's poems for over seven months now, and, in my head, I've developed an image of her and her life.  It probably isn't very accurate.  I think she was a quiet person who didn't go out of her way to say "hello" to strangers.  A creature of habit, she rose before dawn every day and went for a hike before breakfast, saying "good morning" to the birds and frogs and snakes of Blackwater Pond.  Then, after a cup of good, strong coffee, she sat down on her front porch with her pen and journal.  And she wrote.  The poems flowed out of her like breath.

That's my version of Mary Oliver.  As I said, it's probably highly inaccurate.  Today's poem is Oliver's version of summer, with all of its inherent Mary-ness.  After having spent so much time in Oliver's company now, I could have guessed that "Summer Poem" belonged to her.  Just the poet heron at the end sort of gives it away.

If anyone read all 5,349 posts on Saint Marty, I'm sure a certain version of me would emerge.  It wouldn't be quite as idealistic as the Mary Oliver in my mind's eye.  Perhaps I'd come across as depressed or angry or exhausted.  Maybe inspired every once in a while.  I can say that, if you imagine me getting up before the sun every day to write for a few hours, like Mary Oliver, you are definitely wrong.  I don't have that kind of energy.

Here is what Saint Marty has energy for at the end of this summer day:  brushing his teeth and flossing.

June 19: Don't You Understand, Change Your Attitude, Ice Cream

Arthur explains why, standing on the blighted surface of the planet of Magrathea, he finds what he sees "fantastic" . . .

"No," Arthur insisted, "don't you understand, this is the first time I've actually stood on the surface of another planet . . . a whole alien world . . . !  Pity it's such a dump though."

Yes, I'm stopping at one paragraph tonight, because Arthur pretty much sums up what I want to talk about tonight. 

I'm sure you've all had a parent tell you to "change your attitude" and "be happy with what you have."  I heard it a lot as a kid.  I have said it to my children more times than I can count.  I don't make a whole lot of money with my jobs.  My wife works part-time at the local OfficeMax.  We haven't moved since we started our family.  We currently live in a three-bedroom (formerly two-bedroom)/one bathroom household.  Our house is what kind people and realtors would call "cozy."  Other (perhaps more realistic) people would call it "small" or "cramped."

There have been many days when I've dreamed of a bigger home--a place with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a big kitchen with an island, and a bathroom that doesn't contain our washing machine.  Maybe even a library/writing room.  I'm human.  I easily give into envy and slide into the hole of self-pity.  However, I also know that I will never experience joy by focusing on what doesn't exist in my life.

It's all about attitude.  Being grateful for my blessings.  In order to lead a truly happy life, Archbishop Desmond Tutu says you must "be a reservoir of joy, an oasis of peace, a pool of serenity that can ripple out to all those around you."  In order to be this, I need to look at the books on my shelves, the clothes in my closet, my beautiful wife and daughter, my funny son, and be at peace.  Know that 99% of the people in the world don't have as much as I have.  In comparison, I'm wealthy.

It's all about attitude.  Sure, I've been dealing with struggles these last few months.  Tutu and the Dalai Lama claim that "the way to heal our own pain is actually by turning to the pain of others."  So, we must not only be an oasis of peace and joy for other people, we must also be a reservoir of compassion and spiritual generosity, as well.  That's why, when facing national or international tragedies (things that seem to have nothing to do with our day-to-day lives), we come together, collect money, donate blood, gather food and clothing.

Human beings are social animals, and we do not thrive in isolation.  Joy is multiplied by sharing it with more people, and pain is diminished when people come together in grief and loss and struggle.  That's how things work in the universe. 

Tonight, I feel like being alone.  Wallowing in isolation.  However, I haven't done that.  I'm sitting in my parents' living room with my mother and two of my sisters.  We had dinner together.  We've talked about our daily irritations, shared moments of laughter.  By doing this, I have made my night not all about me.  It's about my mom's dementia.  My sister's Alzheimer's.  It's about the tortellini I ate a little while ago.  The garlic bread I'm taking home for my wife and son.

Cultivating an attitude of joy is about being connected--not through text messages or Facebook posts.  That's not real joy.  That's outsiders trying to convince the world how wonderful their lives are.  It's false joy, based on other people's envy.

My happiest moment of the last two days--taking my son to get ice cream last night.  He had birthday cake ice cream.  I had an M&M flurry.  He didn't have his Nintendo with him.  I left my phone in the car.  We just had each other.  And, without recording it on Facebook as proof, we were happy.

Saint Marty needs more ice cream moments like that in his life.

July 11: Spinal Branch, Edmund Hillary, Mr. Rogers

If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist his brain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to square.

In in full-grown creature the skull will measure at least twenty feet in length. Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of this skull is as the side of a moderately inclined plane resting throughout on a level base. But in life- as we have elsewhere seen- this inclined plane is angularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous superincumbent mass of the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater to bed that part of the mass; while under the long floor of this crater- in another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many in depth reposes the mere handful of this monster's brain. The brain is at least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden away behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the amplified fortifications of Quebec. So like a choice casket is it secreted in him, that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny that the Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance of one formed by the cubic-yards of his sperm magazine. Lying in strange folds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehensions, it seems more in keeping with the idea of his general might to regard that mystic part of him as the seat of his intelligence.

It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for his true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any. The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common world.

If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck by its resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from the same point of view. Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled down to the human magnitude) among a plate of men's skulls, and you would involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on one part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say- This man had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And by those negations, considered along with the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and power, you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most exhilarating conception of what the most exalted potency is.

But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale's proper brain, you deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I have another idea for you. If you attentively regard almost any quadruped's spine, you will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebrae to a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the skull proper. It is a German conceit, that the vertebrae are absolutely undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it the Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with the vertebrae of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relieve, the beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world.

Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm Whale. His cranial cavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra the bottom of the spinal canal will measure ten inches across, being eight in height, and of a triangular figure with the base downwards. As it passes through the remaining vertebrae the canal tapers in size, but for a considerable distance remains of large capacity. Now, of course, this canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance- the spinal cord- as the brain; and directly communicates with the brain. And what is still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain's cavity, the spinal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost equal to that of the brain. Under all these circumstances, would it be unreasonable to survey and map out the whale's spine phrenologically? For, viewed in this light, the wonderful comparative smallness of his brain proper is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative magnitude of his spinal cord.

But leaving this hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I would merely assume the spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the Sperm Whale's hump. This august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one of the larger vertebrae, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outer convex mould of it. From its relative situation then, I should call this high hump the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm Whale. And that the great monster is indomitable, you will yet have reason to know.

So Melville moves on from the sperm whale's head to its backbone, making the argument that the true measure of a creature's character resides in its vertebrae.  Of course, this phrenology of the spine is no more accurate than that of the spine.  Big head or little.  Long spine or short.  This is not science.  It's pseudo-science, sort of like Donald Trump's truth is pseudo-truth.

This afternoon, I climbed a mountain.  A small one, with several flights of stairs installed to reach the summit.  It took me about 20 or so minutes with my daughter and her boyfriend.  It was our "adventure" for the day.  I have to say that it was more difficult than I remembered.  By the time I stepped onto the mountaintop, I was drenched in sweat and out-of-breath.  It took me about 10 minutes to recover.

I'm not sure that this little trek really required any spinal fortitude.  There was nothing dangerous about it.  As I was starting out, a little two-year-old boy was coming down.  He was carrying a stuffed dog and looked like he'd just watched an episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood instead of climbing a mountain.  Relatively speaking, he was the Edmund Hillary of two-year-olds today.

Tonight, I have to finalize my plans for the poetry workshop I'm leading tomorrow.  Ice cream is the theme.  Some people think it takes spinal fortitude to teach.  Or write poetry.  Or eat ice cream, if you're lactose intolerant.  Courage is just as relative as mountain size.  It depends on what frightens you, I suppose.

Tomorrow night, I'm doing something I enjoy.  It's not a challenge.  It's a joy.  I don't need a strong backbone for it.  I need a journal, pen, a bowl, spoon, and ice cream scoop.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight that Sugarloaf Mountain wasn't a hundred feet taller.
.

May 14: Dusky Phantoms, My Plans, Ice Cream

It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-colored waters. Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat, for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued and yet somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of revelry lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his own invisible self.

I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As I kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly and unthinkingly drove home every yarn; I say so strange a dreaminess did there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of the warp subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending of other threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference in the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric; this savage's sword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this easy, indifferent sword must be chance- aye, chance, free will, and necessity- wise incompatible- all interweavingly working together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course- its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads; and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the last featuring blow at events.

Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound so strange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the ball of free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the clouds whence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the cross-trees was that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerly forward, his hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief sudden intervals he continued his cries. To be sure the same sound was that very moment perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of whalemen's look-outs perched as high in the air; but from few of those lungs could that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous cadence as from Tashtego the Indian's.

As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly and eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought him some prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by those wild cries announcing their coming.

"There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!"

"Where-away?"

"On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!"

Instantly all was commotion.

The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating and reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fish from other tribes of his genus.

"There go flukes!" was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whales disappeared.

"Quick, steward!" cried Ahab. "Time! time!"

Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported the exact minute to Ahab.

The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gently rolling before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone down heading to leeward, we confidently looked to see them again directly in advance of our bows. For that singular craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale when, sounding with his head in one direction, he nevertheless, while concealed beneath the surface, mills around, and swiftly swims off in the opposite quarter- this deceitfulness of his could not now be in action; for there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen by Tashtego had been in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our vicinity. One of the men selected for shipkeepers- that is, those not appointed to the boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the main-mast head. The sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the line tubs were fixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed, and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand clung to the rail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gunwale. So look the long line of man-of-war's men about to throw themselves on board an enemy's ship.

But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that took every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who was surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed out of air.

The first sighting of whales.  Maybe Moby Dick.  Maybe not.  But the crew jumps into action, and dark Ahab reveals a surprise that he's hidden since the beginning of the voyage.  Stowaways?  Ghosts?  Demons working under Ahab's command?  Of course, I know the answer to all of these questions.  However, these are the things that Melville, the storyteller, wants you to contemplate.

Of course, things never turn out the way you expect.  Today, I woke up with my day all planned out.  Work at 6 a.m.  Doctor's appointment at 2:30 p.m.  And then, driving my daughter to her dance classes.  Some quiet time in my university office.  Then home, more writing, and bed.  That was my plan, anyway.

Well, my daughter is sick.  No school.  No dance.  No quiet time in my university office to do any writing.  Instead, I went for a run this afternoon.  First time in about a year.  It nearly killed me.  I stink, my feet hurt, and I'm hungry.  None of these things were on my radar today.  Just like the crew of the Pequod, I had my day all planned out, and suddenly there are whales on the horizon and dusky phantoms floating around the ship's deck.

I generally don't do well when my plans get upset.  It throws me off.  For instance, I planned on having these blog posts done by early afternoon.  Instead, I'm still typing away on my laptop, with no idea of what I'm trying to say right now.  Things might even get crazier--we might go for ice cream later, too.  That's my life.  Predictability interspersed with moments of spontaneity, usually brought on by illness or car problems.

That's probably why it takes me quite some time to finish a writing project.  I have no set writing time during the day.  As I've said before, my writing time is cobbled together from five minutes here, fifteen minutes there.  I'm not complaining.  That's the way I've written for over 20 years.  I can't be Robert Frost, ignoring my wife and children all day while I squirrel myself away in an attic space to compose.

Sometimes I wish I could be like Ahab, ignoring all of my responsibilities in the pursuit of my passions.  Maybe I would be as successful as Billy Collins or as famous as Oprah Winfrey if I did that.  But I can't.  It's not how I was brought up.  I grew up with a father who worked from sunup to sundown to support his family, pay the bills, and put food on the table.  That's what a husband and father does.  Writing takes a back seat a lot of the time in my life.

That's okay.  I don't mind the regularity of my life.  It helps ground me, lets me know when I need to be a professor or health information clerk or husband or father or poet.  I've learned to integrate all of those roles in my life.  Unlike dark Ahab, I don't have to hide secrets from the people in my life.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for whales on the horizon that allow him to get some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

August 20: Really Warm Day, Classic Saint Marty, "1,031, 200 Seconds"

A really warm day, full of wind and sun.  After church, I mowed my lawn and got so hot that I nearly passed out.  Went out for ice cream afterward.

And I've been writing for the rest of the day.  That's something I don't normally allow myself to do.  But I've been working hard all weekend.  Cleaning and mowing and playing music for church.  Plus, I went for a long run yesterday afternoon.

Obviously, this weekend I've also been preoccupied with thoughts of my sister.  I'm sure tomorrow morning, when I go to work, I'll feel her there, too.  I'm ready to have a few relaxing hours before bed now.

Tonight's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired two years ago, on a really dark day . . .

August 19, 2015:  Bewildered Expression, 6:27 a.m., Maggie Nelson, Unbearably Vivid Colors

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 expression of his son.

My sister died this morning at 6:27 a.m.

When I saw her last night, she was breathing hard, each intake hitting her chest like a hammer.  I leaned over, said her name and then, "It's me.  Marty."  Her eyelid lifted, and she focused on me.  I told her about my long day of work.  I told her about classes starting next week.  Just before I left, I leaned over and whispered, "You don't have to be afraid, Sal.  You don't."

When I got to my parents' house at around 5 a.m., my sister was surrounded by the people who loved her.  My mother and father, siblings, nieces, nephews, and best friends.  We all stood around her, touched her hands and feet, told her how much we loved her.

Her breaths got slower, the spaces in between longer, and then she was simply gone.

I thought I was prepared for it.  I thought I was going to hold myself together.  I thought a lot of things.  But, in those moments following my sister's death, I felt an incredible emptiness enter me, as if I had been scooped out like a pumpkin at Halloween.  I wasn't prepared.

It has been about twelve hours since that moment.  I am still not prepared for a world without my sister.  For 17 years, I worked with her.  Eight- and nine- and ten-hour days.  I spent more time with her than any of my other siblings, and we knew each other deeply.  Trusted each other deeply.  Loved each other deeply, without having to say it.

There will be no cartoon tonight.  No laughter.

My sister once said to me, "You know, I wish I was as strong as you."

Saint Marty isn't strong tonight.  He's heartbroken.

98 from Bluets

by:  Maggie Nelson

Vincent van Gogh, whose depression, some say, was likely related to temporal epilepsy, famously saw and painted the world in almost unbearably vivid colors.  After his nearly unsuccessful attempt to take his life by shooting himself in the gut, when asked why he should not be saved, he famously replied, "The sadness will last forever."  I imagine he was right.

I miss your smile

 
And a new poem for this Sunday night . . .

1,031,200 Seconds

by:  Martin Achatz

I remember that moment
when your body took that last
bite of air.  Maybe it tasted
like shortcake and strawberries,
full of seed and sun and biscuit.
Or spaghetti sauce, a tomatoey gout
of garlic and basil.  Maybe it filled
you with pine smoke and flame,
cricket arias under a thumbnail moon,
starlight bright as the cream in Dad's
black coffee.  In that mouthful
of oxygen, perhaps you felt Superior
pulling at your thin ankles,
and you ran through waves
with our sisters, driftwood white
as skull scattered along the sandy
applause of shore.  Or maybe, just maybe,
you tasted the skin of my daughter,
the way you did when she was a baby
and you buried your nose in the palm
of her neck.  That's it.  1,031, 020 seconds
ago, you took a breath so sweet
that you didn't need to take another.  You tucked
that breath into the wallet of your lungs,
like a lucky two dollar bill, right behind
your driver's license, a picture
of our parents on their 50th anniversary,
the key to the lockbox under your bed,
where you kept everything important
to you, each freckle and hair,
frog croak and lightning fork.
Each solar eclipse that scorched
your retinas with happiness.

August 31: Ice Cream, Marie Howe, "The Copper Beech"

There's nothing worse in life than feeling unprotected.

I've been fairly lucky in my life.  I had parents who supported me in every crazy thing I did, including abandoning a possible career in computer programming to go to graduate school to study creative writing.  I have a wife who's willing to listen to 500 drafts of a poem until it's done.  And my kids aren't too embarrassed with having a father who cries at movies like a pregnant woman sometimes.

I've had love and protection, even during the darkest moments of my life.  That's pretty unusual.  Yet, everyone deserves this.  Everyone should have a person to go get ice cream with.  To sit at a picnic table on a hot August day and lick away at some Mackinac Island Fudge or Blue Moon.  It has made all the difference in my life, this human assurance.

Saint Marty hopes everybody reading this post has a Dairy Queen pal.  Or at least a copper beech to sit under.

The Copper Beech

by:  Marie Howe

Immense, entirely itself,

it wore that yard like a dress,

with limbs low enough for me to enter it

and climb the crooked ladder to where

I could lean against the trunk and practice being alone.

One day, I heard the sound before I saw it, rain fell

darkening the sidewalk.

Sitting close to the center, not very high in the branches,

I heard it hitting the high leaves, and I was happy,

watching it happen without it happening to me.

Everyone deserves ice cream every once in a while

May 9: Ice Cream, Whipped Cream, and Strawberries

At work this afternoon, all employees of the Health System for which I work were treated to ice cream sundaes in celebration of National Hospital Week.  My particular sundae consisted of vanilla ice cream (the only flavor of ice cream that counts), crushed Butterfingers, crushed Oreo, crushed Snickers, a dollop of strawberries, a squidge of whipped cream, and several maraschino cherries.  It was supposed to make us feel appreciated by the hospital.  I must say that I didn't feel appreciated, until I went back for my second sundae.  Then I felt appreciated.

I generally try to stay away from food as a reward for anything.  I don't believe in giving my kids food if they behave.  (My daughter always want an app for her iPod touch for a reward, although my son can be bribed with M&Ms when I'm in a hurry.  Not that I do that very often.)  If I'm going to reward myself for working hard, I will give myself some extra time to write.  Or I'll set aside some extra reading time.  If I'm craving something more commercial, I will go to my Amazon.com shopping cart, in which I have about 112 items saved for later.  I will choose a reward from my cart and purchase it, including a free gift card in the package that says something like, "Dear Saint Marty, you are awesome!"

I have been accused of trying to sabotage people's resolve to eat healthier foods.  For instance, I applied a little pressure on a friend/coworker this afternoon.  She had declared that she was going on the wagon.  No candy.  No sugar.  She ate some kind of squash and tomato soup that smelled like radiator fluid for lunch.  I cajoled and teased and pressed her into going to get an ice cream sundae for herself.  She did.  Then she ate it.  Perhaps I do have a slightly evil streak.

I am currently listening to the audio book of Steve Almond's Candy Freak in my car.  I have begun to realize that I am, as Almond would say, a freak of the highest degree.  I don't understand people who don't eat candy or ice cream or cake.  It's beyond the pale of normalcy for me.  Maybe that's why I want people to eat free ice cream sundaes.  It's just normal.  Really.

Saint Marty, you are awesome!  Have some more ice cream.

Resistance is futile!