December 10: Another Miracle, Son's Christmas Program, Everyday Miracles

Next morning, Wilbur arose and stood beneath the web.  He breathed the morning air into his lungs.  Drops of dew, catching the sun, made the web stand out clearly.  When Lurvy arrived with breakfast, there was the handsome pig, and over him, woven neatly in block letters, was the word TERRIFIC.  Another miracle.

Miracles can happen every day.  Just ask Charlotte and Wilbur.  Sometimes, the miracles are astounding--a sunrise of salmon and pink over a frozen lake.  Sometimes the miracles are simple--a spiderweb in a door frame.  Lurvy has probably walked right by hundreds of miracles without a second glance.  Newborn goslings.  Fingers of frost in the pumpkin patch.  Charlotte simply makes Lurvy stop and take notice.


I am sitting in my classroom at the moment, handing back graded exams.  I just finished all of my final grades a couple of hours ago.  It's just a matter of data entry into the computer now.  Then the semester is over for me.  It's been a heck of a few months.  On the way down to the classroom, I walked by my friend Ray's dark office.  Dark.  Empty.  One of the last things Ray did for me was give me a graduate-level poetry workshop to teach next semester.  One of the last times I saw him, he smiled and said, "You're all set.  Enrollment's good."  Ray was a miracle in my life.

Tomorrow, I'm going to my son's school Christmas program.  I'm not working.  Took the whole day off.  I'm looking forward to simply relaxing, not worrying about anything.  That's going to be a miracle for me.  Watching my son sing with his classmates, that's going to be another miracle.  Having time to breathe, think, reflect.  All miracles.

I'm supremely grateful tonight for all of these things.  For Christmas programs.  Days off.  Poetry workshops.  Finished grading.  My friend Ray.

Saint Marty forgets to say thanks for the miracles in his life sometimes.  Hell, sometimes he doesn't even notice them.

You should expect miracles, too

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September 16: Friday Morning, Nobel Prize Again, Relaxing

It is Friday morning, early, and I'm enjoying the fact that I don't have to teach or edit or grade or anything today.  I'm a little bushed from the week's activities.  It seems like I've been running a race for the past five days, and I've just crossed the finish line.  Excuse me while I collapse on the ground and just...breathe.

I will be getting off work early today (around 11:30 a.m.), and I will be going out to lunch with my wife and son.  Then I will be cleaning my house and taking my daughter to her tap dancing class early this evening.  That's all that I really have to do.  If I accomplish anything else, I will count myself lucky.

You may not have realized it, but, between the first and second paragraphs above, I took a half-hour break to check some discussion threads I've been following about this year's Nobel Prize in Literature.  I already wrote about my obsession with the subject yesterday.  It seems, as of this morning, many odds makers are favoring Cormac McCarthy again this year.  (Last year, right up until the last day, he was one of the favorites.)  If McCarthy is leading the pack right now, that probably means he's not going to win.  Ask Amos Oz or Adonis, whove been in that position quite frequently.

I wil try to avoid daily reports about the Nobel Prize.  It's difficult for me around this time of year.  It doesn't help that my birthday (October 5) falls right around the day that they announce the award.  I just think God planned it that way so that, on my birthday some year, I will actually get a call from the Swedish Academy, telling me I've won the Nobel Prize in Literature.  It's, like, fate.

Well, I'm going to go make myself some breakfast and relax a little bit.  I may try to get a poem written in the next hour or so.

The day is spreading out before Saint Marty like the Pacific Ocean.  Dolphins.  Sea otters.  Kelp.  Waves.  Warmth.

My day...