January 16: Fondly Remember, End of Long Week, Nostalgic Fairy Tale

Thinking about [his son] Robert, Ives would always fondly remember those evenings he spent in 1948, at the Art Students League on West Fifty-seventh Street, where he took classes several nights a week.  After a day freelancing, he'd walk in and sit in the back, his sketchbook, charcoals, and pencils set out before him...

If Mr. Ives' Christmas is about anything, it's about nostalgia.  Ives is always fondly remembering better times, happier days.  The majority of his time is spent thinking about his dead son, trying to recapture every last moment of Robert's life.  These remembrances bring him a great deal of comfort, but, in the end, they also cause him a great deal of suffering.  By trying to keep his son's memory alive, Ives is slowly smothering any chance of happiness for himself and his wife.


I'm a pretty nostalgic person myself.  There's a reason why my Christmas tree is still glowing in the corner of my living room and my favorite TV show when I was younger was The Wonder Years (aside from the fact that Winnie Cooper was really cute).  I enjoy tripping down memory lane.  The present is always so complicated, and the past was so much simpler.  Granted, I'm indulging in a little bit of what they call "retrospective falsification."   That means I'm sort of editing my memories.  Leaving out the bad parts, and focusing solely on the happy ones.  It's sort of like eating a pizza but picking off the anchovies.

It has been a very long week.  Late nights teaching.  Early mornings working.  I'm beat.  I just finished snowblowing my driveway and cleaning my bathroom.  Writing this post is the last thing I need to complete before I can put my head on a pillow.  Of course, I'm thinking of simpler times when my daughter was a toddler, how she would lie in her bed and listen to me read Charlotte's Web or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, hanging off my every word.  (These days, I'm lucky if I get more than a grunt in the morning when I drop her off at her school bus stop.)  Of course, I'm completely ignoring the mental illness and sexual addiction that almost ended my marriage.  That's the power of retrospective falsification.  Every memory is a happy one.

Once upon a time, an old man lived near a lake.  The old man was so old that every member of his family had already died.  The old man was quite alone in the world.  He spent his days staring at photo albums, remembering the better times of his life.

The old man eventually died and went to heaven.  As he was standing at the Pearly Gates, the old man met Saint Peter.  "Saint Peter," the old man said, "how come I lived as long as I did?'

Saint Peter shook his head and said, "We forgot about you."

Moral of the story:   Winnie Cooper was really cute.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

See what I mean?

January 15: The Most Talented, Poetry Class, Working Hard

Certainly he would have been a printer if he hadn't been so interested in drawing.  He took classes whenever he could and had the good fortune of studying with George Bridgeman for figure drawing and Max Bechman for painting at the Art Students League.  Although he had never been the most talented of artists, as he'd tell his son, Robert, years later, he had a highly developed work ethic.  A conscientious and self-effacing laborer, ever humble before his craft, he never thought he'd have any money and figured out, as a young man, that he would always live humbly, "without means," practicing his illustrative and painterly skills into his old age.  And if he was lucky, getting along on numerous fleeting jobs, he might one day have a show of beautiful portraits--he very much liked the works of John Singer Sargent and in another life would have been content as the official portraitist of an exclusive men's club.  Perhaps he would make enough money to see something more of the world than just the view from his window or where the trains and subways of the mass transit system would take him.  Paris, Tahiti, Rome--names that he associated with artists and adventure.  That was all he wanted.  

Ives is a humble guy with a gift.  He can draw and paint, and he makes a good living as a commercial artist.   Yet, he remains down-to-earth, not really thinking he's anything special.  He's a hard worker.  He knows he will never be John Singer Sargent, but he dreams of seeing the world.  Places associated with beauty and art.

Since I was a kid, I always dreamed of being a famous writer.  In kindergarten, I created books of nursery rhymes, illustrating them with crayons.  In middle school, I wrote pornographic stories and sold them to friends for money to buy Star Wars bubblegum cards.  In college, I took fiction workshops and dreamed of being Stephen King.

My aspirations have become a little more realistic.  I want to publish another book of poems.  I want to be the next U. P. Poet Laureate.  And I want to be able to sleep in every once in a while, visit my son's classroom, and not stress about finances all the time.  (I wouldn't mind seeing a little of the world, either.  Rome sounds pretty good at the moment.)

Tonight, I got a taste of what it's like to be a full-time college professor.  It was the first class night of the graduate poetry seminar I'm teaching this semester.  I've been stressed about it all week long.  Haven't been sleeping well.  I woke up at 4 a.m. today and couldn't get back to sleep.  All day long, I suffered intestinal distress.  I had visions of being treated like a high school substitute teacher.  A "Kick Me" sign on my back and a thumb tack on my chair.

But it was a fantastic night.  We talked about poetic influences.  I told stories of studying with Sharon Olds and meeting Gwendolyn Brooks.  And then we wrote.  It didn't even feel like I was working.  It was...fun.

I've worked hard all my life.  Two or three part-time jobs at a time.  Book store cashier.  Church organist.  Medical records clerk.  Contingent college professor.  In the midst of all that, I've written.  Stories.  Poems.  Essays.  Published a book.  Been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice.  Not bad for a kid from the Upper Peninsula.

I still dream of achieving big things.  The Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer was 80 years old when he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Doris Lessing was 88.

Saint Marty still has a shot.

If this old coot can win, so can I

January 14 Simple Notion of Calm, Humanity, Fed-Up

...[Dominguez]'d call Ives Eduardo, never Edward, and would sit at lunchtime writing out certain words in Spanish, alongside their English counterparts, on a pad of paper.  In his foundling's loneliness Ives tended to associate such simple kindnesses not with foreign lands, not with bent-over white-haired men with exhausted eyes and filthy lead-blackened fingers, but with a simple notion of calm and, perhaps, love.

This book is full of notions of calmness and love.  There really isn't a "bad" character in the entire novel.  There are flawed characters who do horrible things.  They cheat on their wives.  Murder choir boys on church steps. Beat their children.  But there is also redemption and forgiveness.  That's why I love Mr. Ives' Christmas.  Nobody is completely good, and nobody is completely evil.  Everyone is human.

I like to think I'm a good person.  I love my kids and wife.  I work hard.  I go to church on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings.  I pray all the time.  Yet, I also struggle with emotions like anger, jealousy, lust, and envy.  I covet people's cars and clothes and money.  I envy people's jobs and careers.  I judge people's talents and good fortunes.  Somebody wins some kind of literary award or title, and I immediately think, "Well, sure.  He's an asshole." 

I try to be kind and understanding.  I try to do and say the right things always.  But I'm human.  And, tonight, I'm tired and crabby and a little overwhelmed.  I don't feel like being a good person.  I don't feel like thinking of other people's needs first.  I feel like being selfish.  I wonder if Mother Teresa ever wanted to just lock her bedroom door and ignore the world for a little while.  Even Jesus Christ had to sneak off by himself every once in a while to get away from his needy disciples. 

It feels like nobody understands my need to be not-nice sometimes.  To say "no" when asked to do a favor.  Because I'm supposed to be positive and happy all the time.  Tonight, I'm a little empty of the milk of human kindness.  I've used it up.  My well is dry. And, because I'm not feeling generous or understanding, my wife if angry at me.  My humanity is on full display tonight, and it isn't pretty.

Saint Marty isn't a saint tonight.  He's exhausted and a little fed-up with the world.

Jesus being a little human

January 13: The Printing Business, Back to Work, Tired Beyond Belief

The older Mr. Ives, a widower who worked in the printing business, had never been able to provide [Ives] with more than the name of the foundling home.  Although he gave his son the strong faith that he had through much of his youth, he could not give him a history...

The older Mr. Ives is a kind man who sacrifices a lot for his kids.  He instills in them a strong work ethic and faith in God.  The older Mr. Ives is, simply, a good guy who loves his kids.

Today, I went back to work after being on vacation for a little over a week.  It was tough.  The day seemed to be moving in slow-motion.  I love the people with whom I work, but I loved being at home with my kids a whole lot more.  However, I am the main bread-winner of the household.  That means getting up at around 5 a.m., working all day and into the evening, and, sometimes, not getting home until close to 10 p.m.  I am tired beyond belief right now.

And I only see my six-year-old son for about 40 minutes a day.  In the morning, I get him breakfast, help him get dressed and brush his teeth, and then drop him off at the bus stop for school.  That's it.  When I get home, he's usually been asleep for a couple of hours.  I sometimes stand by his bed and listen to his sleeping breaths.

That's my winter semester.  Working, teaching, sleeping.  Repeat.  I have nothing witty to say.  My brain went to sleep about an hour ago, and my body isn't far behind.  I am going to say my prayers, and then I'm heading off to bed.

Saint Marty is going to need about two liters of Mountain Dew to keep himself moving tomorrow.

The breakfast of champions