February 14: Valentine's Day, Joy and Sorrow, Classic Saint Marty

Happy Valentine's Day to all my disciples.

My wife and I didn't see each other too much today.  She worked until 6:30 p.m.  I was on kid duty, stomping out fires, refereeing disputes, keeping everyone alive.  I missed my wife a great deal.

If you're one of my two constant readers, you are already aware of my feelings for my wife.  You are also aware that our marriage has not always been roses and chocolates.  We've had more than our share of struggles.  We still do.  That's what marriage is all about.  Loving in times of joy and sorrow.

So, on this Valentine's Day night, I want to let my wife know how much I love her for everything she does, every day.  She has bipolar.  She has an addiction.  She takes tons of medications, goes to support meetings and therapy appointments.  Even when she's exhausted, sick of pills and phone calls and doctors.  She gets our kids to school, to dance lessons, to religion class.  Makes lunches.  Goes to basketball games.  Plans birthday parties.  She does it all.  Every day.  For love.

And that's why I love her.

From two years ago . . .

February 14, 2014:  St. Valentine's Day, Give My Life, Valentine Fairy Tale

It's a snowy St. Valentine's Day in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  I started hearing the snowplows roar past my house at about 5 a.m.  When the plows are out that early, it means a lot of snow has fallen.

On this cold winter day, I want to take the few moments I have your attention to tell you about the love of my life.

My wife and I will be celebrating our nineteenth anniversary this year.  We were together five years before we got married.  If you do the math, that's 24 years of togetherness.  That's a long time.

I'm not going to candy coat this Valentine's Day post.  My wife and I have had our share of problems.  We have endured struggles with mental illness, sexual addictions, separation.  I was a single father for nearly a year of our marriage.  It hasn't always been easy.

Yet, our love is intact.  A little bruised, but intact.  Even when we were living apart, we still cared about each other through all the darkness.  I have stood by my love through these 24 years, even when everyone else was turning away, giving up.

At the end of Charlotte's Web, Wilbur reflects on his friendship with Charlotte:

"Well," said Wilbur.  "I'm no good at making speeches.  I haven't got your gift for words.  But you have saved me, Charlotte, and I would gladly give my life for you--I really would."

Charlotte has saved her friend's life, and Wilbur pledges his undying love for her.  Charlotte tells him, "...By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle..."


That's what I think my devotion to my wife has done for me.  It's lifted up my life a trifle.  I am a better person for being her husband.

Once upon a time, there lived a saint in a snowy kingdom.  This saint had the good fortune to be married to the love of his life.

And he lived happily ever after.

Moral of the story:  Saint Marty is the luckiest guy alive.

Happy Valentine's Day!

February 8: Empty Web, New Poem, "Confession," New Cartoon

...Every day Wilbur would stand and look at the torn, empty web, and a lump would come to his throat.  No one had ever had such a friend--so affectionate, so loyal, and so skillful.

Wilbur spends a good portion of the last chapter of Charlotte's Web mourning the loss of his friend.  The end of this book is melancholy.  There's no way getting around it.  Yet, it's also a celebration of friendship.  That's why I love this book so much.


I think the best writing has elements of joy and sorrow in it.  My favorite poems.  My favorite novels.  It's something I strive to put in everything I write.  I don't always succeed, but I try.

I've got a new poem for you guys tonight.  It's something I've been working on for almost four or five weeks.  I read it to my wife, and she said, "It's awfully short."  Well, it is.  I have to admit that.  I'm not sure if it's done, but it's done enough for me to share.

This is Saint Marty's first poem of 2014.

Confession

In the dark, I taste again my love's body that first time.  Unmarried.  Young.  Neither of us thought of the future.  No.  It was all lip and shoulder, the press of body against body under a Lake Superior moon.  All hunger, want.  We fell into each other, kept falling.  Surrendered to gravity, the way a blue whale breaches the Pacific, scrapes heaven, then crashes downward into foam, wave, salt, mist.  No guilt or regret.  No reason to bless me, father.  I'll hold this moment on my tongue until you ask for it.  But I won't beg forgiveness.  Won't accept it.  I'll simply open my mouth, speak.  Let you know how I came to be this unrepentant sinner.

Confessions of Saint Marty