January 29: "Bazougey," Joy, Forever Gifts

Mary Oliver writes about the deepest sting . . . 

Bazougey

by:  Mary Oliver

Where goes he now, that dark little dog

     who used to come down the road barking and shining?

He's gone now, from the world of particulars,

     the singular, the visible.

So, that deepest sting:  sorrow.  Still,

     is he gone from us entirely, or is he

a part of that other world, everywhere?

Come with me into the woods where spring is

     advancing, as it does, no matter what,

not being singular or particular, but one

     of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.

See how the violets are opening, and the leaves

      unfolding, the streams gleaming and the birds

     singing.  What does it make you think of?

His shining curls, his honest eyes, his

     beautiful barking.

Sorrow is a part of life.  That's what Oliver is getting at.  If you have happiness, you will eventually have sorrow.  Now, you can go around, trying to avoid sorrow.  Stay home.  Don't take any chances.  Of course, that means that you may never experience true joy.  Never find true happiness.

I know I've said all this in previous posts.  Joy and sorrow are two sides of the same coin, like light and dark, fear and courage, Donald Trump and sanity.  You can't have one without the other.  They sort of define each other.  (Okay, I think we could have all done without Donald Trump, but you get the idea.)

I know what you're thinking right now:  "Oh, no, Saint Marty's going to get all maudlin and depressing again about losing his sisters and brother and parents."  Sure, I could go down that road.  That's what you're expecting.

I'm not going to do that.  I'm going to focus on the other side of the coin:  joy.  I've just recovered from COVID.  My children are healthy and happy.  I have a partner I love and who loves me.  My dog is the cutest dog in the world.  I'm working a job I love.  Actually, several jobs that I love.  There's no snowstorm or blizzard on the horizon.  And, tomorrow night, I get to celebrate the life and poetry of one of my best friends.

This evening, my book club was supposed to meet at my house for our monthly dinner and discussion.  Because I have just recovered from COVID, we met via Zoom instead.  One member has described our book club as "the strangest book club in the world."  We have been going strong for close to 20 years.  Members have come.  Members have gone.  My mother was one of the inaugural members.  My sister, Sally, was a member, too.  (She never read the books.  She came to babysit my daughter, and then my son, while the rest of us talked and ate.)

Every time we get together now, I think of the people who aren't there any more.  At the moment, we are a small group.  But we love each other deeply.  We are family,  (Cue the disco music.)  So, tonight was joy.  Sally was there.  My mother was there.  All of our friends who've moved away were there.  Another of the current members once told a friend of hers, "I'm not allowed to leave book club.  Ever."  

Tonight, Saint Marty celebrates the forever gifts of his life--poetry, friends, family, and books that bring that bring us all together.

June 9: She Promised, Artificial Intelligence, Expectations

Billy said, "Hello," to her, and she asked him if he wanted some candy, and he said, "No, thanks."

She asked him how he was, and he said, "Much better, thanks."  She said that everybody at the Optometry School was sorry he was sick and hoped he would be well soon, and Billy said, "When you see 'em, tell 'em 'Hello.'"

She promised she would.

A pretty trivial passage, highlighting the lack of real love between Billy and his bride-to-be, Valencia.  Billy does not want to marry this woman, but he is expected to, by his mother, by Valencia's father, and by Valencia herself.  Billy is just living up to people's expectations. 

I must say that I understand this compulsion.  In life, I have always been aware of people's expectations.  I got all A's throughout high school and college.  That was expected.  I studied computer science and math as an undergraduate, because my mother thought it would be a good field for me.  (Had I followed through on her advice, I might be a much wealthier person right now.)  I went to graduate school.  Got two advance degrees.  And now I teach part-time at a university.

In my last semester as an undergraduate, I took a class in Artificial Intelligence.  (That was a rather new field of study for computer science at the time.)  I knew that I wasn't going to pursue a career in computer programming.  I'd already been accepted into a Master's program in English.  That semester, I did not want to program any more.  I hemmed and hawed.  I procrastinated.  I avoided.

One week before graduation, I knew I wasn't going to pass Artificial Intelligence.  I spent three nights trying to complete my final project.  I, literally, had nervous breakdown in front of my computer.  My mother found me in the basement, hyperventilating and crying.  She asked me what was wrong.  I confessed my failure and apologized for disappointing her.

She took my face in her hands and said, "All I want is for you to be happy.  That's all.  I couldn't be prouder of you."

I never finished that final project.  I still graduated summa cum laude.  I went on to graduate school and did really well.  I love what I do now.  Love teaching.  Love poetry.  Love writing.

My mother's only expectation for my life was that I be happy.  I am.

Saint Marty is very thankful for the love of his mother.

March 8: Women in My Life, Natasha Trethewey, "History Lesson"

I think of all the women who've made a huge difference in my life.  My mother, who always pushed me to do my best in everything.  My sisters, who have always looked out for me, even when I've stumbled a little.  My wife, who teaches me every day how to be a better man.  My daughter, who forces me every day to be a better father.  My best friends, who are all women and tell me that I'm their "best girlfriend."

On International Women's Day, Saint Marty shares a little history lesson from Natasha Trethewey, the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States.

History Lesson

by:  Natasha Trethewey

I am four in this photograph, standing   

on a wide strip of Mississippi beach,   

my hands on the flowered hips

of a bright bikini. My toes dig in,   

curl around wet sand. The sun cuts   

the rippling Gulf in flashes with each   

tidal rush. Minnows dart at my feet

glinting like switchblades. I am alone

except for my grandmother, other side   

of the camera, telling me how to pose.   

It is 1970, two years after they opened   

the rest of this beach to us,   

forty years since the photograph   

where she stood on a narrow plot   

of sand marked colored, smiling,

her hands on the flowered hips   

of a cotton meal-sack dress.

May 25: Mother, Memorial Day, Announcement, "Ives" Dip

My mother came home from the ER last night around 10 p.m.  The doctors ran all kinds of tests.  The whole time, all my mother kept saying was, "I don't care what you do to me.  Just let me sleep."  After much poking, bloodletting, and urine collecting, she was diagnosed with dehydration.  So, they pumped about two bags of saline into her and gave her walking papers.

She's doing much better.  I haven't seen her much this Memorial Day.  I attended a parade this morning.  In the rain.  I went to the cemetery for the VFW service.  In the rain.  Then my wife, kids, and I went to the local veterans home to visit my wife's great uncle, who served during World War II.

The rain lasted almost all day.  This afternoon, I spent some time reviewing poetry submissions for the university's literary magazine.  I had a ton of them.  However, I enjoy the process of discovering new poetic talent.  I know, in a couple of days, many writers are going to be very happy when they get their acceptances in the mail.

Memorial Day, for me, is the official beginning of summer, and I have an announcement to make:  I am going to institute a summer schedule for this blog.  From now until Labor Day, I'm only going to be writing one post per day.  I have several writing projects that I want to complete over the next few months, and I also want to take advantage of the warm weather in the Upper Peninsula.  It doesn't last very long.

Not to worry, though.  There will still be Poets of the Week.  Mr. Ives' Christmas will still be featured every day (except Sundays).  I will just be doing all these things in one daily post instead of two.  After June, July, and August, Saint Marty will return to its normal programming.

My question for Ives dip Monday is this:

Will I get a lot of writing done this summer?

And the answer from Mr. Ives is:

And [Ives] would think about that pretty woman in his office named Maria, with her air of permanent sorrow, and how she would cry in the middle of the afternoon with memories of the people, especially the children, she had watched die in Auschwitz; she had been only a child of ten when the Russians liberated the camp...

OK, that's not very encouraging.  But, I'm still going ahead with my plans.  Tomorrow, I will announce the Poet of the Week.  Stay tuned for more summer surprises.  New poems.  Contests.  Nude selfies.  (Just seeing if you're paying attention.)

Finally, Saint Marty gives thanks to all veterans and their families this Memorial Day.  He is profoundly humbled by their sacrifices.

Thank you.  Amen.

March 20: Mrs. Morrow, Hot-Shot, Mother

Old Mrs. Morrow didn't say anything, but boy, you should've seen her.  I had her glued to her seat.  You take somebody's mother, all they want to hear about is what a hot-shot their son is.

Holden meets Mrs. Morrow on a train to New York City.  She's the mother of one of his classmates at Pencey, a "sonuvabitch" in Holden's estimation.  Yet, Holden likes Mrs. Morrow and tells her a pack of lies about her son, making Ernie out to be a "hot-shot" at school.  Popular,  Humble.  Shy.  Modest.  By the time the train reaches New York, Mrs. Morrow is inviting Holden to visit her son during summer vacation.

Mothers always want to hear the best about their sons and daughters.  Holden tells Mrs. Morrow exactly what she wants to hear.  Her child is a future President of the United States or Nobel Peace Prize winner.  I've had people tell me what a sweet, quiet girl my daughter is.  I usually look at them like they're describing a stranger.  Quiet?  My daughter?

My mother just became an octogenarian a little while ago.  She's always been a strong force in my life.  More than once, she marched up to the high school office when she thought they weren't giving me challenging classes.  When I was a freshman, she had a conversation with the principal on the first day of classes.  The next day, I found myself transferred out of study hall into geometry.  When she dropped me off at school that morning, she looked at me and said, "Don't disappointment me."  I got all A's the entire year.

I appreciate the fact that my mother pushed me as much as she did.  She was a tiger mother before the term "tiger mother" entered the popular lexicon.  She drove me to college scholarship interviews (I eventually received a full-ride from my school of choice).  She was the one who forced me to double-major--English and Computer Science.  She encouraged me to go to graduate school (where I received another full-ride).  After I earned my Master's degree, she suggested a PhD program might be a good idea (although I'd already started applying).  My mother has pushed, nudged, and prodded me through my whole life.  At the release party for my first book of poems, she was in the front row at the reading, smiling and nodding at her hot-shot son.

My mother's mind isn't what it used to be.  When I'm around her, she repeats herself a lot, asks the same questions over and over.  She suffers from macular degeneration.  A voracious reader her whole life, she's reduced to large-print James Patterson and Nicholas Sparks novels.  Last Sunday afternoon, I had dinner at her house.  We talked about my college teaching, and, in a moment of tiger mother clarity, she said, "When are they going to make you a full-time professor?"

I laughed and said, "When I hire a hit man to take out one of the poets in the department."

I worry about my mother now, grieve for the hurricane of woman she used to be.  She doesn't leave the house much anymore and uses a walker to get from her chair to the kitchen to the bathroom.  She could no longer strike fear into the hearts of school principals and counselors.  Yet, I still sense her over my shoulder when I teach or write or give a reading.

She's always there, smiling, whispering in Saint Marty's ear, "Don't disappointment me."

She is mother, hear her roar.

January 16: Saint Fursey

Last weekend, there was a story in my local newspaper about a mother from my hometown who stabbed her 11-year-old daughter in the chest and abdomen.  The article quoted the police, saying that drugs and alcohol were not a factor in the incident.  The little girl was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery (she survived), and the mother was arrested.  A picture of the mother accompanied the report.  I'm assuming it was the photo taken when she was booked.  The mother looked numb or stunned.  She didn't look like a person who knew she had almost fatally wounded her child.  Her affect was flat and calm, almost disconnected from the horror of her circumstances.

I have to admit, when I first read the newspaper story, my initial reaction was, "How in the hell could a mother do that to her child?"  It goes against all of my morals/mores/instincts as a father of a ten-year-old girl.  Granted, at times my daughter can drive me to the point of wanting to abandon her at a rest area in a remote section of Utah, but I always come to my senses.  This circumstance verges on horror-movie standards.  I have visions of Gregory Peck trying to stab his tiny son, who happens to be the spawn of Satan, in The Omen.  Somehow, it feels like something only Hollywood could dream up.

Later in the week, my daughter came home from school and told me, "You know that girl, the one that got stabbed by her mommy?"

I nodded.

"She goes to my school," she said.  "I don't know her, though."  She paused for a second.  "Her mommy has some kind of mental disease.  That's why she did what she did."

"That's very sad," I said.

"Yeah," my daughter said.  "My teacher said her mommy didn't know what she was doing."

I didn't know what to say.  I knew I had to respond in some way, but I was at a loss for how to explain to my daughter that the chemistry of the human brain can shift, the perception of reality become clouded and confused.  I hunted for the right words that would make sense of an incomprehensible act of violence committed by a mother against her young daughter.

Fursey is today's saint.  He was an Irish priest born around 567.  He spent a lot of his life travelling in Ireland and England and France, establishing monasteries.  He also had prophetic visions of heaven and hell, saw the "struggle between the forces of evil and the power of God."  The book based on his revelations, The Visions of Fursey, had a huge impact on Dante's writing of the Divine Comedy.

I wonder how the stabbing of a little girl by her mentally ill mother fits into Fursey's vision of the battle between good and evil.  On the outside, the act seems completely evil, an instance of violence against an innocent child.  Nobody is questioning whether or not the mother actually wielded the knife against her daughter.  The questions that remain are the "why" and "how."  Why did the mother do it?  How could she attack her own child so savagely?  It seems like the ultimate act of betrayal.  A parent, the person a child trusts and loves implicitly, becomes an instrument of death.  It's like the Virgin Mary trying to drown the infant Jesus in the town well.

But it's not that simple.

I have no idea what "mental disease" this mother has, or if she even has a mental illness at all.  Those are my daughter's words.  Words that she heard in school from someone trying to provide comfort to some confused children.

Perhaps having a person in my life who suffers from a mental illness predisposes me to compassion in this case.  I can't immediately blame the devil for this one.  It's not that black-and-white.  The world is a broken place filled with broken people.  Horrible things are said and done every day.  Some of these horrible things are said and done in God's name--wars, terrorism, genocide, hatred.  Condemning people because of what their skin color is, who they choose to love, or what God they worship is, at best, ignorant, and, at worst, completely unchristian.  It's a symptom of the world's brokenness.  God doesn't want us to judge and condemn.  That's not our job in the struggle between the forces of evil and the power of God.  I'm sure Fursey would agree with me.

Here's what I said to my daughter:

"Her mommy is just really sick and needs help to get better."  I paused for a second, and then I added, "Her mommy loves her.  I'm sure of it."

In the face of broken lives, broken families, broken minds, our job as followers of Christ is to provide one thing:  a promise of love.

May 12: Saint Epiphanius of Salamis

Reviewing the last couple of blogs I've written, I realize that I have been focusing a great deal on my penchant for jealousy and sarcasm. I'm really not that shallow of a person, although my recent reflections would lead you to believe otherwise. Therefore, today, I am not going to blog about a writer who has talent, fame , and wealth (deserved or undeserved). I am not going to write about a friend, acquaintance, or coworker who has received some sort of positive recognition (deserved or undeserved).

So, I guess that just about does it for this blog. Enjoy the pretty picture....Just kidding.

Traditionally, in the Catholic Church, the month of May is dedicated to honoring the Virgin Mary. Now, is it a coincidence that the secular celebration of motherhood comes during the same month that Catholics celebrate Mary, the mother of Jesus? I don't know. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Beats me. Epiphanius of Salamis, today's patron, was an early proponent of "devotion to Mary." A fourth-century monk in Palestine, he focused many of his writings on Christ's mother. While not all Christian denominations place as much emphasis on the figure of Mary in the Jesus narrative and the practice of faith, everyone has a soft spot for mothers (unless you happen to be a child of Joan Crawford.)

My pastor friend tells me that traditionally, besides Christmas and Easter, Mother's Day is the Sunday when church attendance is at its highest during the year. That means that on the second Sunday of every May, kids drag their asses out of bed, take showers, dress up, and take dear old mommy to mass or a worship service. It might be out of guilt. It might be because moms refuse to do their laundry or babysit the grandkids if their children don't sit in the pews and act like doting sons and daughters for an hour or so. Whatever the reason, the sanctuary is full of mothers wearing corsages and kids wearing bored and/or angry expressions.

My wife and I don't have that problem yet with our children. Our son is only 18-months-old and has to go anywhere we have the strength to carry him. (He was 10 pounds, 7 ounces when he was born. He emerged from the womb ready for kindergarten.) Our daughter is nine-years-old and still enjoys going to Sunday school and church. So the struggle to appear to be a normal, Ozzie-and-Harriet kind of family unit is not that difficult. Like all parents and children, we set aside all the dysfunction (mental illness, addictions, alcoholism, affiliation with the Republican Party) and polish ourselves up until we sparkle like Carol Brady's kitchen.

And actually, this year, my wife and I didn't have too much to fake. Things have been going well for us, and, aside from a few bumps in the road, our daughter is a great kid. I write these previous comments a little nervously because I'm the kind of person who's always waiting for the other shoe to drop. If nothing bad has happened for a while, I start looking over my shoulder for the rabid chimpanzee that's about to attack and chew off my face. (When Oprah interviewed the woman to whom this actually happened, I had nightmares for a week. I'm not trying to make a joke here. It's just the way my mind works.) Every teacher who has taught my daughter has told us what a polite, bright, smart child she is. Aside from occasional bouts of temper fueled by lack of sleep, my daughter hardly ever gives us problems. (For you parents of teenagers, let me assure you: I have heard the horror stories, and I am trying to stock my parental bomb shelter with as many positive memories of my daughter as possible. As a coworker frequently reminds me: "Teenagers suck.")

So, after church this Sunday, when we got home, my daughter gave my wife a card she made in school.

My daughter has never known her mother without mental illness. She has been a part of my wife's manias and addictions and depressions. When my wife and I separated for a year, my daughter continued to love her mother unconditionally. One Saturday during this time, my daughter waited over eight hours for my wife to come for a visit. When my wife finally appeared, I was furious. But my daughter just threw herself at my wife and wouldn't let go.

My daughter just seems to understand the nature of my wife's disease, knows what to expect. She accepts my wife the way a mother accepts her newborn child: seeing only beauty and perfection.

On this Mother's Day, in the month of Mary, this is what my daughter's card said:

Happy Mother's Day!

to: Mommy

from: Celeste

The flower on the windowsill

reminds me of you

weather you're healthy or ill

I love what you do!

Sometimes you are strict

and I love that about you!

Sometimes you are nice

and I love that too!

but the thing that I love most

Is that you

are you!