August 11: "May," Fear, Near Misses,

Mary Oliver on fear . . . 

May

by:  Mary Oliver

What lay on the road was no mere handful of snake.  It was the copperhead at last, golden under the street lamp.  I hope to see everything in the world before I die.  I knelt on the road and stared.  Its head was wedge-shaped and fell back to the unexpected slimness of a neck.  The body itself was thick, tense, electric.  Clearly this wasn't black snake looking down from the limbs of a tree, or green snake, or the garter, whizzing over the rocks.  Where these had, oh, such shyness, this one had none.  When I moved a little, it turned and clamped its eyes on mine; then it jerked toward me.  I jumped back and watched as it flowed on across the road and down into the dark.  My heart was pounding.  I stood a while, listening to the small sounds of the woods and looking at the stars.  After excitement we are so restful.  When the thumb of fear lifts, we are so alive.

Oliver is frightened by the copperhead, jumps back when it tries to strike at her.  Her heart pounds at the proximity of death, the nearness of her escape from the snake's venom.  It's a thrill of adrenaline that makes her acutely aware of her aliveness.  The working of her body.  The small sounds in the woods.  The stars spinning above.

I think most of my disciples reading this post have had their fair share of near misses like the one Oliver describes in this poem.  If you drive a car, there are those moments when you've almost been hit at a busy intersection.  If you've jumped off a cliff into deep water, there's the rush of gravity and fist of cold squeezing air from your lungs as you submerge.  If you've had a nightmare (who hasn't?), it's the first seconds after waking when every nerve in your body is sparking and reality seems transparent, liquid.

After these near misses, for a few, few moments, the universe and everything in it comes into extreme focus.  You can feel each corpuscle of blood moving through your veins.  The planet spinning on its axis at 1,000 miles per hour.  Trees and blades of grass stretching toward the sun.  As Oliver says, when the thumb of fear lifts, we are reminded how alive we really are.

I have a lot of fears that I live with every day, from the moment I get out of bed in the morning to when my head hits the pillow again at night.  Everyday fears.  Failure.  Loss.  Disappointment.  Trump supporters.  These kinds of fears don't trigger fight-or-flight responses.  They just make you feel shitty.

However, for the last three days, I've dealt with a more present fear.  For some reason, I've woken up in the middle of the night drenched in cold sweats.  Last night, as I surfaced from unconsciousness, I realized I was reciting the "Our Father."  Loudly.  As if I was trying to ward off some evil.

I kind of don't want to fall asleep tonight.

I don't remember the substance of the nightmares I've been experiencing.  I've never kept dream journals.  Usually, about ten seconds after I open my eyes, any movie that my unconscious was screening in the theater of my skull is gone.  So, I don't know what these bad dreams are about.

They might have to do with my over-stressed life--library programming, summer teaching at the university.  Or maybe some leftover anxiety from the dog attack a few months ago.  Or perhaps the upcoming anniversary of my sister's death.

Oliver sees fear as a catalyst for grace--a reminder of the wonders of being alive.  At the moment, I see fear as a catalyst for insomnia.

I wish I could be more like my puppy.  When I watch her dream, with paws twitching and tiny barks huffing out of her black lips, I know she's chasing a chipmunk or running along a beach or fetching her ball.

No near misses for her.  Or failure.  Or loss.  Or fear.  Just pure canine joy.

Maybe Saint Marty should count copperheads or chipmunks to fall asleep tonight.  Or take a sleeping pill.  

May 15: Poet of the Week, Shel Silverstein, "Hungry Mungry"

It's late, but I have a poem from Shel Silverstein, the Poet of the Week.  I remember reading this poem when I was a kid, and it terrified me for some reason.  Had nightmares about being eaten by Hungry Mungry.

Now, we have President Hungry Mungry, eating away at the world.

Saint Marty is tired . . . and hungry.

Hungry Mungry

by:  Shel Silverstein

Hungry Mungry sat at supper,
Took his knife and spoon and fork,
Ate a bowl of mushroom soup, ate a slice of roasted pork,
Ate a dozen stewed tomatoes, twenty-seven deviled eggs,
Fifteen shrimps, nine bakes potatoes,
Thirty-two fried chicken legs,
A shank of lamb, a boiled ham,
Two bowls of grits, some black-eye peas,
Four chocolate shakes, eight angel cakes,
Nine custard pies with Muenster cheese,
Ten pots of tea, and after he,
Had eaten all that he was able,
He poured some broth on the tablecloth
And ate the kitchen table.
His parents said, 'Oh Hungry Mungry, stop these silly jokes.'
Mungry opened up his mouth, and 'Gulp,' he ate his folks.
And then he went and ate his house, all the bricks and wood,
And then he ate up all the people in the neighborhood.
Up came twenty angry policeman shouting, 'Stop and cease.'
Mungry opened his mouth and 'Gulp,' he ate the police.
Soldiers came with tanks and guns.
Said Mungry, 'They can't harm me.'
He just smiled and licked his lips and ate the U.S. Army.

The President sent all his bombers- Mungry still was calm,
Put his head back, gulped the planes, and gobbled up the bomb.
He ate his town and ate the city- ate and ate and-
And then he said, 'I think I'll eat the whole United States.'

And so he ate Chicago first and munched the Water Tower,
And then he chewed on Pittsburgh but he found it rather sour.
He ate New York and Tennessee, and all of Boston town,
Then drank the Mississippi River just to wash it down.
And when he'd eaten every state, each puppy, boy and girl
He wiped his mouth upon his sleeve and went to eat the world.

He ate the Egypt pyramids and every church in Rome,
And all the grass in Africa and all in ice in Nome.
He ate each hill in green Brazil and then to make things worse
He decided for dessert he'd eat the universe.

He started with the moon and stars and soon as he was done
He gulped the clouds, he sipped the wind and gobbled up the sun.
Then sitting there in the cold dark air,
He started to nibble his feet,
Then his legs, then his hips
Then his neck, then his lips
Till he sat there just gnashin' his teeth
'Cause nothin' was nothin' was
Nothin' was nothin' was
Nothin' was left to eat.

May 31: Dragging Chains, Ghosts, Nightmares

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour.  The bells ceased as they had begun, together.  They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant's cellar.  Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.

The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.

A terrifying little moment preceding the appearance of Jacob Marley's ghost at the beginning of A Christmas Carol.  Charles Dickens knew how to play upon the fears of his readers.  For me, there's nothing more frightening than this scenario:  knowing some unseen threat/creature/force is coming to get you.  Scrooge has to sit in his dusty room, listening to the approach of Marley with growing dread.  For me, it's the literary equivalent of hearing the theme from Jaws, knowing that the shark is somewhere in your vicinity.  DA-DUM.  DA-DUM.  DA-DUUUUMMMMM.

Fear comes in many shapes and sizes.  There's the faceless fear demonstrated in the above passage.  I would call that fear of the unknown, one of my particular specialties.  Then there's more tangible (still irrational) phobic fears:  rats, spiders, lightning, Nicholas Sparks novels, Justin Bieber songs.  Another kind of fear is generated by watching scary movies or reading scary books.

My daughter has been suffering from the latter these last few nights.  It seems my older sister thought it was a great idea to watch a film about demon possession with my daughter last Friday.  Since Sunday, my daughter has appeared at the foot of my bed, begging me to come sleep with her because of nightmares.  Last night was the first night of uninterrupted sleep I've had in four days.  I'm tired.

Yup, I grew up watching stuff like this

I'm not against horror movies or books.  Quite the contrary.  I grew up watching the British Hammer horror films in all their blood-drenched glory.  I was weaned on Stephen King novels, from Carrie onward.  I even read the loathsome Firestarter.  I am a fan of this brand of fear.  It's harmless and fun.  If you're a teenager or adult.  Not an eleven-year-old girl who's into ballet.

There's really no point to this little diatribe.  Fear happens.  Whether ghosts in the wine-merchant's cellar or bill collectors pounding on your front door, we all are afraid of something.  I have an entire wing of fears in my psyche, the largest room reserved for the Ghost of Change Yet to Come.  Fear can be healthy and useful (gun-wielding muggers  and rabid dogs and clowns), or fear can be limiting and detrimental (new jobs or new people or new chocolate bars).   Fear eventually drives Scrooge to become a new person:  kind and generous and good-humored.

Today, fear is driving Saint Marty to a two-liter of Diet Mountain Dew.