September 26: Very Strange, Son's Fourteenth Birthday, Teenage Boy

Santiago marvels at the fish . . . 

"If you're not tired, fish," he said aloud, "you must be very strange."

The fish seems almost preternatural in strength and stamina.  Like some prehistoric creature.  Strange and beautiful.  A little scary, perhaps.  And the old man respects that.

Today is my son's fourteenth birthday, and he is a marvel to me.  Full of humor and love.  He's still learning how to navigate the world.  He can hold his own in a roomful of experienced adult poets and bring me to my knees with his writing.  

Yet, he's still a young teenage boy who loves to play Dungeons & Dragons, listen to weird indie music, and eat Little Caesar's cheese pizza.  He gets crushes-at-first-sight.  Pushes boundaries like crazy.  Feels everything deeply.

And, for some reason, he's been entrusted to my keeping for the past 5,110 days.  This strange, preternatural child.  Of course, I know that I stand no chance of actually landing this prehistoric fish of a boy.  He will eventually slip away into the wide, deep ocean, as all children must.  And he will leave me in wonder and thankfulness that I was given the privilege of being a part of his evolution.

Happy birthday to my sweet, trouble-making boy.

Saint Marty's blessing today:  fourteen years of adventure with the mystery of my son.

A poem for my son:

Arrangement in Pink and Blue No. 1

by: Martin Achatz

He basks before his sister, does this thing
they planned together, she with her 19-year-old
college girl generosity of time, he with his
11-year-old boy hunger for her attention.
On the floor, they face each other,
heads almost touching, his neon
pink hair bathing her face like a sunrise.
They talk about small things. Rain. Cheetos.
Skunks under our front porch. She holds
his hand. He allows her to hold
his hand. She paints each of his fingernails
Pacific Ocean at night, a blue so dark
it could hold sea monsters. My daughter's touch,
meticulous, does not miss with her brush.
My son's cuticles, knuckles remain pristine. White.
He sits there, the way Whistler's mother probably
did as her son arranged dress, bonnet, asked her
to fold her hands just so, gave her a stool
for her feet, told her not to move, hold still.
said "You're perfect" and "I love you, mom,"
as he mixed his oils while she stared
at the wall in front of her, counted rosettes
in the wallpaper, and felt herself
becoming her son's masterpiece.

February 12: Biggest Sex Maniac, Crumby Stuff, Saint Valentine

The trouble was, that kind of junk is sort of fascinating to watch, even if you don't want it to be.  For instance, that girl that was getting water squirted all over her face, she was pretty good-looking.  I mean that's my big trouble.  In my mind, I'm probably the biggest sex maniac you ever saw.  Sometimes I can think of very crumby stuff I wouldn't mind doing if the opportunity came up.  I can even see how it might be quite a lot of fun, in a crumby way, and if you were both sort of drunk and all, to get a girl and squirt water or something all over each other's face...

Holden is a teenager.  He's staying in a hotel by himself in the above passage, and he's looking out the window of his room, watching the kinky stuff people are doing in the hotel rooms across the street.  He sees an older businessman dressing up in women's clothes, and he watches a couple spitting water on each other's bodies.  It's a very sexual passage, and totally in keeping with what a 16- or 17-year-old boy would be fascinated by.  Holden isn't really a sex maniac.  He's hormonal, pubescent, and naturally curious.

One of the reasons The Catcher in the Rye is so popular with young readers over 60 years after it was published is because of its frank approach to sexuality and teenage angst.  Holden, despite what he believes, is pretty normal when it comes to his obsession with girls and sex.  The first time I read Catcher, I was a freshman in high school, and I totally latched onto passages like the one above.  I remember reading the description of the man and woman spitting water at each other over and over.  I won't say I was obsessed, but I will admit to being a little turned on.  Hey, I was thirteen at the time.  Give me a break.

Being raised Catholic, I found Holden's story a little bit of a revelation.  It made me feel not alone.  Holden was just like me, or I was just like Holden.  I had a few Jane Gallaghers in my life I was obsessed with.  We didn't talk about sex at home.  It was secret, dirty.  I was taught as a boy that having an impure thought about a girl was as much a sin as actually committing an impure act.  I was screwed, not literally, no matter what I did or did not do.

Which is why I always find Valentine's Day a little surprising.  A day that is dedicated to love and romance and sex is a saint's feast day.  Valentine was a Roman priest in the third century.  His association with the modern practice of sending valentines to lovers comes from an ancient pagan ritual.  Boys used to draw the names of girls in honor of the Roman goddess, Februata Juno, on February 15.  In order to do away with this custom, Saints' names were substituted for girls' names on the billets.  Thus, instead of receiving the prize of pretty maidens, young boys got the names of holy people like Valentine, who was eventually beaten with clubs and beheaded for his faith.  Doesn't really seem like a fair trade to me.

My wife and I will exchange cards on Thursday.  We don't buy candy or presents for each other, mostly because we don't have the money for it.  My coworker at the medical office is getting a brand new sewing machine from her husband for Valentine's Day.  I wish I could do stuff like that for my wife.  I wish I could take her to a nice restaurant and maybe a movie.  We just can't afford it.

I've come a long way from that thirteen-year-old who first read The Catcher in the Rye.  I still find Holden's musings on sex and girls fascinating, but in a different way.  Now, I think about all the Holdens who are going to be sniffing around my daughter in the years to come, and I think about the Holden my son will eventually become.

Maybe Saint Marty should keep his kids home on Valentine's Day.

The original inspiration for Valentine's Day