June 23: "Medieval Photography," Cut That Shit Out, "Sea of Galilee"

Billy Collins believes a memory is worth a thousand pictures . . . 

Medieval Photography

by: Billy Collins

Nothing came out very well.

People thought sitting still was odd.

Black-and-white had yet to be conceived,

even though many days were grey

with low clouds and unpredictable rain.

You remembered someone by closing your eyes.

I miss the days when my kids were kids, before puberty and peer pressure and all the shit that goes along with growing up.  Life was a lot simpler before we had to navigate all the mine fields of angst and hormone-driven anger.  I close my eyes and remember those nights when my daughter was eight, holding her infant brother in her lap like he was the best birthday/Christmas present she'd ever received.

This weekend, I listened to four separate sermons on the Gospel story of Jesus and his disciples crossing the Sea of Galilee when I storm blows in.  You know what happens.  Jesus is napping, and the disciples wake him up because they're afraid the boat is going to founder and capsize, killing them all.  Jesus basically says, "Cut that shit out," and the wind and waves calm down.

The gist of all of the sermons was pretty simple--trust in God when you encounter storms in your life.  Easy to say.  Hard to do.  Yeah, I know that's what faith is all about--trust and belief, blah blah blah.  Yet, when a storm in screaming in your face and you think you're going to drown, it's pretty damn difficult to think, "Oh, no worries.  God's got my back."

So nostalgia kicks in, and you start rationalizing, "Wow, things were so much better five, six, seven, ten, or 20 years ago."  Of course, that's a load of crap, too.  Being a human being pretty much guarantees that life is going to be imperfect.  We're all fuckups, from the moment we enter crying to the moment we exit dying.  That means that all of our little boats are going to be tossed and swamped every day. 

If you're trying to read subtext in this post, forget it.  Yes, something shitty happened today.  No, I'm not going to discuss it.  You will just have to be satisfied knowing that I'm angry and sad tonight.  I'm trying to work through it, but the storm is still raging.  And I can't wake Jesus up to fix things miraculously.  (God hasn't worked like that for a long, long time.)

Instead, Saint Marty's just going to keep paddling and hoping he reaches the shore before his lungs fill with water.

Sea of Galilee

by: Martin Achatz

Sure, Jesus was napping

while the waves howled--

he remembered to take

his Dramamine.

December 4: Remembering, Joy Harjo, "Remember"

Tonight, I'm remembering a lot of things.  I'm remembering my daughter as a baby.  Tomorrow is her fourteenth birthday.  In another year, she'll be in high school.  Where did all that time go?

I'm remembering the last time I spoke to my friend, Ray.  It was the Monday of Thanksgiving week, I believe.  I saw him in the hall of the English Department as I was headed to my office.  "Hey, Marty," he called.  I stopped, and we talked about something totally inconsequential.  It might have been pecan pie versus pumpkin pie.  And then I wished him "Happy Thanksgiving," and we parted.  That was it.

Remembering is an act lined with sadness, because it's a reaching back, a grasping, for something that has been lost to the past.  My daughter will never be a baby again.  My friend, Ray, will never have pumpkin pie again.  All memory now.

Saint Marty doesn't think it's too bad to live in the past.  As long as the past includes dark chocolate, maybe some wine, and a bag of Cheetos.

Remember

by:  Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is. I met her
in a bar once in Iowa City.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe. I heard her singing Kiowa war
dance songs at the corner of Fourth and Central once.
Remember that you are all people and that all people are you.
Remember that you are this universe and that this universe is you.
Remember that all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember that language comes from this.
Remember the dance that language is, that life is.
Remember.

 

Pass the bottle and the Cheetos

May 27: War Movies, Barbecue, Remembering, New Cartoon

In the United States, the fourth Monday in May is set aside as a day of remembrance.  We call it "Memorial Day."  We spend time on this day remembering soldiers who have died in wars.  Some of the wars the U.S. has fought haven't been popular (if war can be popular).  Korea.  Vietnam.  The Gulf War.  Iraq.  Afghanistan.  However, men and women who surrendered their lives defending a cause deserve to be honored.

I'm not a big believer in war.  I don't even like my son to play with toy guns.  There's too much violence in this world.  What I believe we do on Memorial Day is give thanks for the peace we, as citizens of the U.S., have.  And we give thanks for the people who gave their lives so we could enjoy that peace.  There are, literally, millions of people who died so that I could do things like type this blog post on a Sunday afternoon.  So that my father could sit in his living room and watch old war movies all day long (much to my mother's chagrin and annoyance).  So that I could get together with my family this evening and have a barbecue, eat hot dogs and bratwurst, and argue politics or whether Goofy is a dog or a man.  That's what all those people fought for, died for.  For the idea of happiness.

Tomorrow morning, I will take my daughter and son to a Memorial Day parade.  Then, we will go to the cemetery to take part in a Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Day service.  I want my kids to know that tomorrow isn't just about having a day off school.  It's isn't just about getting to sleep in late.  It's about honor.  It's about remembering.

Today, Saint Marty salutes all the fallen war veterans of the world.

Confessions of Saint Marty