October 27: Leader of Men, Beyond Hope, Flawed Saint

Billy Pilgrim opened his eyes in the hospital in Vermont, did not know where he was.  Watching him was his son Robert.  Robert was wearing the uniform of the famous Green Berets.  Robert's hair was short, was wheat-colored bristles.  Robert was clean and neat.  He was decorated with a Purple Heart and a Silver Star and a Bronze Star with two clusters.

This was a boy who had flunked out of high school, who had been an alcoholic at sixteen, who had run with a rotten bunch of kids, who had been arrested for tipping over hundreds of tombstones in a Catholic cemetery one time.  He was all straightened out now.  His posture was wonderful and his shoes were shined and his trousers were pressed, and he was a leader of men.

"Dad--?"

Billy Pilgrim closed his eyes again.

Nobody is beyond hope.  That's what I get out of this passage.  Robert is on the fast-track to a pretty bleak life.  Alcoholic.  Delinquent.  Criminal.  His story could have easily turned out like the end of Leaving Las Vegas, Robert portrayed drinking himself to death at the end of a terrible life.  That could have happened.

Instead, Robert has become a military hero in a very unpopular war.  He's a leader, someone to whom people look up to.  Pretty good for a guy who probably spent most of his teenage years stealing beer and booze from supermarkets.  As I said at the start--nobody is beyond hope.

I firmly believe that statement.  I try to understand people rather than judge them.  Everyone wrestles with demons in some way.  I know that I've done and said things that I'm not too proud of.  That's what being human is all about.  Making mistakes and hopefully learning from those mistakes.

I know what you're waiting for now.  You're waiting for me to go into the details of some huge mistake I've made in the past.  Something that still haunts me and embarrasses me.  I have plenty of stories like that.  But I'm not going to do that.

The things I do when I seriously fuck up are to (1) fix the fuck up, (2) learn how never to fuck up like that again, and (3) forgive myself and let it go.  Number three on that list is very important.  If you don't forgive yourself, if you dwell on past mistakes all the time, you are going to have a pretty miserable life.

So, let me just say that the flawed saint who writes this blog is a patchwork of scars and healings.  I wouldn't be a teacher or poet or laureate or husband or father if I hadn't fucked up majorly at times.  Now, I know that you're intrigued by all this talk about my past.  If you're that interested, there are close to four thousand old posts in this blog.  Go back to day one and start reading.  I'm pretty much an open book.  Or open blog.

This post isn't about mistakes.  It's about hope.  It's about how every person deserves a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth chance.  That belief saved my marriage and life quite a few times.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for the mistakes he's made.

January 10: The Enormity of It All, Richard Wilbur, "Boy at the Window," New Cartoon

Mr. Ives Senior was able to give his third son clothes and books, two brothers and a sister, a little money, and a room in his large, somewhat rundown brownstone, three stories high, on Carroll Street.  And a name:  Edward.  And encouragement when, in one of the miracles of his life, young Ives, at the age of seven or so, had started to draw, spending his leisure hours not out on the street playing with the local ruffians, who'd slide down coal chutes and throw bottles off rooftops at passing trucks, but resting on his belly on their front parlor floor, copying out drawings from newspapers and the illustrated books that found their way into the house.  His father had liked such books very much, notably those from England with engravings by the likes of John Tenniel or those artists who illustrated the works of Charles Dickens, whose line drawings enchanted the young Ives.  (There was a row of books, memoirs and sporting novels, illustrated by Phiz, Cruickshank, Alken, Leech, Seymour, and Heath, among others.,)  He also taught his son how to pray, when to kneel and stand and bow his head and close his eyes during the consecration of the Host, taught him to take in the beautiful goodness that he was desperate to believe existed; to tremble before the "enormity of it all."

There's a lot going on in this paragraph.  It's about Ives' origins as an artist and person of faith.  From a very young age, he demonstrates that he's different.  Quiet and thoughtful.  Interested in art and literature.  Humbled by the goodness and expanse of God's love.  The paragraph raises many questions and provides very few answers.  Ives struggles before the "enormity of it all" for almost the entire book.

This morning, I woke up in a cold sweat after a restless night of sleep.  This week marks the beginning of the winter semester at the university, and I am teaching a graduate-level poetry seminar this coming Thursday.  I chose my textbooks for the class almost two months ago, but I'm currently suffering through a great deal of anxiety over the enormity of it all.  I'm terrified, actually.  Every time I step into a classroom, I feel a little like a fraud, even if I've taught the subject before.  Over my years of teaching, I've become acutely aware of how much I really don't know.

And that's what's causing me so much stress.  Trying to pass myself off as some kind of expert.  One of my college professors told me about the day he received his doctorate from the University of Michigan.  He said he stepped outside the graduation ceremony and suddenly realized that he didn't know anything at all.  He felt completely inadequate to face life's challenges.

That's where I am at the moment.  Feeling completely inadequate and overwhelmed.  I love poetry.  I love talking about poetry.  Reading it.  Writing it.  Rewriting it.  Helping people write it.  Helping people rewrite it.  I want to make my students love it as much as I do.  Now, the million-dollar question is, how do I do that?  That's what keeping me up at night.

I'm going to make mistakes this semester.  I know that.  Hell, I've probably made a few mistakes already.  I just don't want to mess up too badly.  I'm one of the first contingent faculty members at the university to be assigned a graduate-level course.  For the sake of my contingent colleagues, I need to do well.  There are some people who would love to see me fail.

So, that's why I'm turning my blankets into knots at night.  Enormous fear.  Enormous anxiety.  Enormity.  Period.

Saint Marty has a great poem about fear to share tonight.

Boy at the Window

by:  Richard Wilbur

Seeing the snowman standing all alone
In dusk and cold is more than he can bear.

The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare
A night of gnashings and enormous moan.

His tearful sight can hardly reach to where
The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes
Returns him such a God-forsaken stare
As outcast Adam gave to paradise.

The man of snow is, nonetheless, content,
Having no wish to go inside and die.

Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry.

Though frozen water is his element,
He melts enough to drop from one soft eye
A trickle of the purest rain, a tear
For the child at the bright pane surrounded by
Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear.

Confessions of Saint Marty

June 13: Martha, Bob Cratchit Moment, Daughter

"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.

"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant.  "Not coming upon Christmas Day!"

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

Bob Cratchit is almost too perfect.  Leafing through my copy of A Christmas Carol, I can't find a single instance where he loses his temper, utters an unkind word, or pisses in Scrooge's ink well.  He endures Scrooge's abuse without a hint of malice.  His kids adore him, and he's a pillar of fatherhood.  Patient.  Loving.  Compassionate.  He's so good that his kids can't even play a joke on him without feeling twinges of guilt.  Martha, his daughter, can't stand to see him upset.

My daughter woke me up this morning at around 3 a.m.  She's been staying up late since summer vacation started, and she's been sleeping in until 11 a.m. or noon.  "Daddy," she whispered, "I haven't been able to fall asleep all night."  She was absolutely miserable.  Over-tired and wound as tight as a ball of twine.  I get up at 4 a.m. for work.  All I wanted to do was go back to sleep, but I told my daughter to climb into bed with me and my wife.  I held her close, and I sang her "Hush, Little Baby."  I said a prayer with her, and I tried to relax her with deep breathing.  When my alarm went off at four o'clock, we were both still wide awake.  I wanted to cry.

Instead, I dragged myself out of bed with my daughter.  We stumbled to the bathroom together, and I started a hot shower for her, thinking it might relax her.  Then I went about getting ready for work.  When I left our home, she was tucked back into bed next to my wife, who slept through the entire insomnia episode.  As I drove up our street, away from our house, I said a little prayer for my daughter.  I knew she was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, wide awake.  I prayed that she would find peace of mind and heart.  I prayed that her eyes would grow heavy.  I prayed that rest would find her.

I'm not Bob Cratchit.  I make mistakes as a father.  Lots and lots of mistakes.  But sometimes I get it right.  Before I left for work, my daughter hugged me, whispered, "Thank you, Daddy."

Saint Marty had a good Bob Cratchit moment today.

Robert Young ain't got nothin' on me