January 17: "Loneliness," Ugly Duckling, Inner Critic

Mary Oliver knows what it means to be alone . . . 

Loneliness

by:  Mary Oliver

I too have known loneliness.

I too have known what it is to feel

     misunderstood,

     rejected, and suddenly

not at all beautiful.

Oh, mother earth,

     your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.

It has saved my life to know this.

Your rivers flowing, your roses opening in the morning.

Oh, motions of tenderness!

Everyone has known loneliness.  That feeling of being abandoned or shunned or misjudged or out-of -place.  Call it ugly duckling syndrome, if you want.  You can't survive middle school without experiencing these emotions.  I grew up in a household with eight siblings and had a large, extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Family reunions of any sort were like The Brady Bunch, The Patridge Family, and The Godfather combined.  Yet, I still remember moments of utter loneliness.

Because loneliness does not really depend upon physical isolation.  I think it's more psychological or spiritual.  I have always been kind of an oddball in my family.  I come from a blue collar background.  My paternal grandfather was a farmer and plumber.  My dad, three brothers, and one sister were/are all licensed master plumbers.  You might say that shit runs through my veins.  When I was in high school, my dad made me go on service calls during summer vacation, and I hated every second of it.  One of the loneliest moments of my life was when my dad registered me as an apprentice plumber.  I felt . . . trapped.  

Of course, I'm not a plumber.  In my case, the ugly duckling grew up to be a poet swan.  But I still sometimes feel, as Oliver says, "not at all beautiful."  I never feel comfortable in my own skin.  I have a relentless inner critic.  I'm too fat.  Too old.  I'm a terrible musician.  My poetry is sentimental or derivative.  I can't teach my way out of a paper bag.  I'm a horrible husband and father and friend.  

Nobody needs to reject me.  I reject myself on a daily basis.

Of course, in my rational mind, I know that this loneliness has no basis in reality.  But loneliness isn't rational.  It's an open wound.  A raw nerve.  It's a high school freshman who would rather be reading Walt Whitman than unclogging a sewer with his dad.  

Today's poem is a reminder that the world is an embracing place.  That there's no such thing as an ugly duckling.  Everything has a place and belongs.  This tenderness, Oliver says, has saved her life.  And it has saved my life, too.  On many a dark night.  

The rivers flow.  Roses open in morning sunlight.  For you.  For Saint Marty.  Because we are beautiful.  Not alone.

March 11: Bulkington, My Father, Keeping the Trains Running

Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.

When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!

Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?

But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God- so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing- straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!

Bulkington is a minor character.  Melville doesn't waste a whole lot of ink on him as compared to Ahab or Queequeg.  In this short chapter, Ishmael waxes philosophic on men like Bulkington, who steer the Pequod, go down on landing missions with Captain Kirk and Spock, sing in the chorus in Le Mis, or fill the seats at the Oscars when Jack Nicholson or Meryl Streep have to go to the bathroom.  Graduate students don't write doctoral dissertations about Bulkington.  Fans at Star Trek conventions don't line up to get Bulkington's autograph.  If Bulkington misses a perfomance, Jean Valjean will still get a standing ovation at the curtain call.  And Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep will still empty their bladders if Bulkington isn't sitting in their seats.

The Bulkingtons of the world do their jobs and don't complain or call attention to themselves.  They aren't there for glory or accolades.  They are there simply to keep the trains running on time.  My father was a Bulkington.  He worked his whole life, keeping faucets running, furnaces heating, toilets flushing.  In the weeks since he's been gone, I can't count the number of times that a person has come up to me with a story of how he helped them in a difficult time.

That's one thing I learned from my father.  I never wanted to be a plumber.  He knew that.  But he did teach me about the necessity of hard work.  He taught me never to turn my back on a person in need.  We might not have seen eye-to-eye on a whole lot of things, politically or socially or spiritually, but I knew that, if my sewer backed up or my sink drain was leaking, he would be there to help me.  Up until two years ago, he was still driving his riding lawnmower up to my house in the middle of the day to cut my grass.  I didn't ask him to do it.  He just knew it needed to be done.

I'm sitting in the dining room of my parents' house right now.  My mother, whose memory isn't good, just asked, "Is your father in bed?"  One of my sisters is reminding her that he died about a month ago.  It's difficult to listen to.  It's almost as if he's dying all over again for her.  Each day, the loss is new for her.

Despite my father's faults, he always took care of my mother.  I guess he was a Bulkington husband, as well.  He worked hard, stayed faithful, and made sure, even to the end, that Mom was taken care of.  In fact, I think that's why he fought so hard at the end.  He was worried that there wouldn't be somebody there to steer the ship, accompany the landing party, sing the finale, or fill the empty seats.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful for being taught the worth of being a Bulkington.

January 17: Sober Cannibal, First Day Teaching, Facing Fears

"Landlord, for God's sake, Peter Coffin!" shouted I. "Landlord! Watch! Coffin! Angels! save me!"

"Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!" again growled the cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk scattered the hot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen would get on fire. But thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into the room light in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him.

"Don't be afraid now," said he, grinning again, "Queequeg here wouldn't harm a hair of your head."

"Stop your grinning," shouted I, "and why didn't you tell me that that infernal harpooneer was a cannibal?"

"I thought ye know'd it;- didn't I tell ye, he was a peddlin' heads around town?- but turn flukes again and go to sleep. Queequeg, look here- you sabbee me, I sabbee- you this man sleepe you- you sabbee?"

"Me sabbee plenty"- grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe and sitting up in bed.

"You gettee in," he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and throwing the clothes to one side. 

He really did this in not only a civil but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a moment. For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal. What's all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself- the man's a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

"Landlord," said I, "tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or pipe, or whatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short, and I will turn in with him. But I don't fancy having a man smoking in bed with me. It's dangerous. Besides, I ain't insured."

This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again politely motioned me to get into bed- rolling over to one side as much as to say- I won't touch a leg of ye.

"Good night, landlord," said I, "you may go."

I turned in, and never slept better in my life.

I love Ishmael's comment in this passage:  "Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."  Of course, there is still a hint of racism involved.  Ishmael assumes, because of Queequeg's appearance (skin coloring and tattoos), that he is a cannibal.  Yet, Melville does something that's pretty remarkable then.  He compares a sober cannibal to a drunken Christian.  The cannibal wins this character contest.

Of course, there's also a lot of comedy in this little passage that ends chapter three of Moby-Dick.  But the comedy is at Ishmael's expense.  Queequeg is not the fool here.  Ishmael--with his prejudices and fears--comes out looking like the village idiot, and he quickly realizes his error in judgement.

Just finished teaching my first class of the semester--Introduction to Film.  It's one of my favorite courses.  Of course, we did all of the normal things--syllabus and introductions and such.  I always think of the first day as a sort of blind date.  The students don't know if they're going to like me, and I don't know what kind of student hand I've been dealt, either.  So, it's all about first impressions.  Sort of like Ishmael and Queequeg.

I think things went alright tonight.  We ended up watching Charlie Chaplin's City Lights for the last 40 minutes.  It's a great film to break the ice.  A little silly.  A little serious.  Slapstick and melodramatic.  By the end of class, the students were laughing and relaxed.  I count that as a success.  I think I came across as half-cannibal, half-drunken Christian.

Now, I have a couple hours to relax in my office until my daughter is done at her dance studio.  Time to decompress, think about the coming days.

A lot of my life is like Ishmael's first encounter with Queequeg.  I'm thrown into situations that give me stress and anxiety (like teaching a roomful of 35 jaded undergraduates), and I usually end up really enjoying myself.  It's a matter of not letting fear rule my choices.

If I had played it safe my whole life, I would be a plumber right now, spending my days cabling sewers and fixing leaky faucets.  There's nothing wrong with the plumbing profession.  It's hard, honest labor.  However, since my father and brothers and sister were all master plumbers, I wouldn't have been taking any chances if I had chosen the same line of work.  (I'd also be a lot more financially stable.)

Instead, I'm sitting in an office in the English Department of a university, having just finished talking about Charlie Chaplin with a bunch of young people barely older than my daughter.  I'm a poet.  This past December, I added radio performer to my list of credits.  My life has pretty much been about stepping out on ledges, looking down, and then leaping.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for his fears and where they have led him.

June 28: Daughter, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

My daughter is 14 years old.  This fall, she will be a freshman in high school.  When I ask her to make her bed, she groans.  When I tell her she needs to babysit her brother for a couple of hours, she acts as if I've just harvested a kidney from her.  Nothing is ever easy with her right now.

Now, I understand the need for a young person to assert her independence.  After all, she needs to figure out who and what she is.  However, I'm not sure how staying in bed until two o'clock in the afternoon aids her on her road to self-discovery.

I remember being 14.  It wasn't an easy age.  I didn't have it quite as good as she does.  My summer vacations were usually spent going on service calls with my father and brothers, who were all plumbers.  June through August, my days were full of sewage and water heaters and faucets and toilets.  At the time, I hated it.  Now, looking back, I know that I am a better person because of it.  A harder worker.  A more loving husband and father.  Plus, I learned that I did NOT want to be a plumber, which made me strive even harder in high school and college.

I'm not saying I want my daughter to get a job and work all summer.  What I'm saying is that I want my daughter to behave like a civilized human being instead of a surly, resentful primate--otherwise known as a teenager.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired three years ago, when my daughter was still communicating with me in full sentences instead of grunts and eye rolls.

June 27, 2012:  Topper, Daughter's Friend, Boys

"Well!  I'm very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, "because I haven't any great faith in these young housekeepers.  What do you say, Topper?"

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject.  Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister--the plump one with the lace tucker; not the one with the roses--blushed.

Topper is Scrooge's nephew Fred's best friend.  He also seems to be pretty horny, since he spends most of the party at Fred's house chasing after the young woman above.  It's a charming little detail in the book, and certainly Topper seems harmless enough.  He just wants to grab himself some Christmas cheer, put a little nog in his egg, if you get my meaning.

Which brings me to my subject for this morning:  boys.  Particularly, horny boys.  My daughter's best friend is a boy.  Notice that I didn't say, "my daughter's boyfriend."  My daughter has been hanging with this boy since she's been seven or eight years old.  They're the same age and get along well, when they're not annoying the shit out of each other, which they frequently do.  Just this past weekend, they unfriended themselves on Facebook on Saturday, and then friended themselves again on Sunday.

I'm not naive.  I know my daughter is reaching the age where boys start coming into the picture.  (She's eleven years old.)  One of my friends (who is of the opposite gender) said to me yesterday, "Oh, yeah.  They're going to end up dating," speaking of my daughter and her best friend.

My initial reaction to her statement was, "Over my dead body."  Even though I really like this kid, and have for several years, I just can't make that leap in my mind from best friend who is a boy to boyfriend.  Of course, I'm still in the mindset that my daughter is going to be too focused on dancing or music or collecting comic books or anything else besides hanging out with someone who has a penis.

It didn't help that my daughter sent me a picture she took of herself yesterday:

Saint Marty is in big trouble.

Confessions of Saint Marty