June 5: Good Luck Old Man, "Groundhog Day," Poetry Workshop

Santiago heads out to sea . . . 

"Good luck old man."

"Good luck," the old man said. He fitted the rope lashings of the oars onto the thole pins and, leaning forward against the thrust of the blades in the water, he began to row out of the harbour in the dark. There were other boats from the other beaches going out to sea and the old man heard the dip and push of their oars even though he could not see them now the moon was below the hills.

I don't know if I believe in luck, good or bad.  Everything happens for a reason.  If something good happens, celebrate.  If something bad happens, learn from it.

I think that's a pretty good philosophy.  Today, I wrote and read, and I watched the movie Groundhog Day three times.  Yes, there is some irony in that detail, if you are familiar with the film.  The first two times were by myself, as I was writing stuff and planning out my week.  The last time was with my son, who had never seen it before.  He laughed his ass off.

I led a poetry workshop this evening, as well.  Before my son and I indulged in Bill Murray.  There were only three people in the workshop--myself, my son, and a good poet friend whom I've known for many years.  Before she retired, she specialized in the education of gifted and talented children.  She's heard my son sharing his writing in workshops many times over the past year.

After my son read one of the pieces he'd written tonight, my friend told him how exceptional she thought he was.  That out of all of the student poets she's taught, he's one of the most gifted she's encountered.  And I saw my son open up like a tulip bulb in time lapse.  He tried to play it cool.  I mean, he's a 13-year-old boy.

But I think it was exactly what he needed to hear.  He's had a rough week.  A tough weekend.  

If Saint Marty had to pick a day for his son to repeat over and over and over, today wouldn't be such a bad choice.

November 5: Looking for Blessings, Galway Kinnell, "Saint Francis and the Sow"

I do this when I feel overwhelmed.  Count my blessings.  Watch my son sleep.  Listen to my daughter sing along with the radio.  Put my arm around my wife in the middle of the night.  Remind myself that happiness is all around me.  Like a tulip bulb buried in the ground, waiting for spring.

Blessings are about possibility and hope.  It's about looking past day-to-day ugliness and finding love.

Saint Marty is feeling a little less overwhelmed this evening.  And a lot more loved.  

Saint Francis and the Sow

by:  Galway Kinnell

The bud
stands for all things,
even those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as St. Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of
the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Loveliness and hope