February 4: "Three Things to Remember," Rules, Singing and Dancing

Mary Oliver on rules . . . 

Three Things to Remember

by:  Mary Oliver

As long as you're dancing, you can

          break the rules.

Sometimes breaking the rules is just

          extending the rules.

Sometimes there are no rules.

Mary's being playful here.  She's also being deadly serious.

In day-to-day life, everyone obeys rules.  If you're a young kid, it's rules that parents hand down:  "No, you can't have cupcakes for breakfast."  Ditto if you're a teenager:  "No, you can't have you're boyfriend sleep over."  And, when you reach adulthood, those rules simply proliferate like horny rabbits:  "Don't be late for work . . . Don't forget to pay the water bill . . . Don't drink caffeine after 5 p.m. unless you want to be awake all night . . . Don't vote for would-be dictators with orange faces . . . "  I could go on, but you understand.  

Rules are the things that allow society to function.  I appreciate rules.

However, some rules are made and enforced for no apparent good reason.  For example, who decided that paczkis should only be made and consumed on Fat Tuesday?  Perhaps, if paczkis were made all year long, they would lose their luster, but I doubt it.  Then there's the whole thing of expiration dates on eggs.  My wife is a firm believer in throwing out all food products once they pass their expiration dates.  Me?  I think those dates are mere suggestions.  Expired milk, for example, is not necessarily sour.  The sniff test is a much better indicator of whether any food product is fit for consumption.

Rules are helpful when they insure safety and peace.  (If, during the height of the pandemic, you were an anti-masker/anti-vaxxer, you may want to stop reading this post now.)  A couple years ago, in defiance of state and federal guidelines, many people ignored rules regarding public health, gathering in large public spaces without masks, spreading a deadly virus.  (Again, if you don't believe there was a pandemic and that thousands of people died as a result of that pandemic, please stop reading this post.  There are no vaccines for ignorance or stupidity.)  Some rules are simply necessary, to keep people safe and happy and healthy.  These kinds of rules are based on things like common sense, science, love, and/or compassion.

Other rules seem arbitrary, unnecessary, and/or flagrantly unkind and dangerous.  I once tried to purchase a pint of schnapps on Christmas morning and was told that it was illegal to sell liquor in the state of Michigan on Christmas.  If there is any time of the rolling year when access to alcohol shouldn't be restricted, it's Christmas day when you gather with family and dig up all the skeletons buried at the back of the closet.  Alcohol shouldn't be restricted, it should be a requirement.  Then there's the whole gun problem in the United States.  Since the start of 2023, there have been 67 mass shootings in this country.  The land of the free.  Home of the brave.  So, people are free to own all the guns they want, and children and young adults have to be brave to step into a classroom.  When a rule harms someone, it's not a good rule.  Period.  And that rule needs to be changed, ignored, or abolished.

There are no rules for expressing joy.  How do you express true, abiding happiness?  You clap.  Laugh.  Sing.  Dance.  My sister, Rose, loved music.  She wasn't a good singer or dancer, but that didn't matter.  She was always the loudest voice in the choir loft on Sundays.  Always offkey.  She didn't follow the rules when she opened her mouth to make a joyful noise or moved her body to make a joyful show.

But the sounds that came out of my sister at those times probably made the Higher Power happier than Placido Domingo belting out the final note of "Nessun Dorma."  And she probably put King David to shame when she was getting down on the dance floor.  She was song.  She was dance.

I've been playing the pipe organ at my church on weekends for over 30 years.  And Rose was there for most of my tenure as a church musician.  One evening, coming down from choir loft, a parishioner stopped me and said with a pained expression, "You should tell your sister to sing softer."

I looked at the woman and said, "Why don't you come up to the choir loft and tell her yourself?"

The woman looked flummoxed.

I continued:  "It isn't about being perfect.  It's about present."  I started walking away from her and said over my shoulder, "If all you're hearing during Mass is bad singing, maybe you aren't listening right."

Here's a rule Saint Marty believes in:  if you don't have something nice to say, keep your goddamn mouth shut.

June 28: Backasswards, Doing Things in Reverse, Fairy Tale

"God damn it."  He was sore as hell.  He was really furious.  "You always do everything backasswards."  He looked at me.  "No wonder you're flunking the hell out of here," he said.  "You don't do one damn thing the way you're supposed to.  I mean it.  Not one damn thing."

Stradlater's angry with Holden.  Holden wrote an essay for Stradlater, but Holden didn't follow the rubric for the essay.  Let's set aside the fact that Stradlater is using Holden to cheat and focus on the fact that Stradlater is pretty much correct in his character assessment of Holden.  Holden doesn't like following the rules.  He prefers to make up the rules himself.


My whole day has felt a little backasswards.  It's my second Friday of not working, and I still feel a little out of sorts.  Actually, a lot out of sorts.  I cleaned my house when I got up this morning.  Usually, I do this cleaning in the afternoon.  Then I went for a run--usually another afternoon task.  Now, it's early evening, and I just finished reading my devotions and saying my prayers.  Now, I'm typing my first post of the day, which is a morning thing for me.  I hate this inverted Friday.  Perhaps I'll get used to it, but it's kind of hard to get over thirteen-plus years of the same Friday schedule.

However, I'm going to write a fairy tale today.  I'm not throwing all the rules out the window, like Holden.  I can't.  I like rules and ritual.  They keep me calm.

Once upon a time, a man named Oatho lived in a rainy kingdom called Lukedife where everybody followed the rules.  There were rules for everything.  When to get up in the morning.  When to eat breakfast.  When to go to the bathroom.  When to go to work.  If somebody broke one of these rules, that person was immediately deported to the neighboring land of Enema, where nobody followed the rules.

Oatho was a good citizen of Lukedife.  He got up at the correct time.  He ate at the correct time.  He even brushed his teeth the correct number of times.  He never broke the law.  Yet, one morning, he received a scroll from the Department of Rules.  The scroll said,

Citizen Oatho:

You have been accused of going to the bathroom five minutes too soon on five separate occasions.  Therefore, your citizenship to Lukedife is being revoked.  Please pack up your belongings.  You have four hours to report to the Department of Rules for immediate deportation to the Kingdom of Enema.

Have a good day,

Minister of Lukedife Rules

Oatho packed up the hut where he'd lived for the past fifteen years.  That afternoon, he left Lukedife and was never seen again.

Moral of the story:  go to the bathroom frequently to avoid urinary tract infections.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

Somethings are better backasswards