January 11: "The Gift," Pushing through Tar, Weighing Me Down

Mary Oliver on being steadfast . . . 

The Gift

by:  Mary Oliver

Be still, my soul, and steadfast.

Earth and heaven both are still watching

though time is draining from the clock

and your walk, that was confident and quick,

has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let

the heart still play its true part.

Love still as once you loved, deeply

and without patience.  Let God and the world

know you are grateful.

That the gift has been given.

Some days I feel young and full of energy.  Other days, I feel time draining from my clock and my walk becoming slow.  

Today was a slow walking day.

It's not that I didn't accomplish a lot.  I did.  But it felt as though I was pushing through tar all day long.  I recorded a podcast episode for the library where I work.  I picked my son up from school because he was sick, took him home, and tested him for COVID (negative--thank goodness).  Then I drove back to the library and edited the podcast episode.  At 1 p.m., I had a Zoom meeting that lasted an hour and fifteen minutes.  After the meeting, I had to talk to people about room and art gallery reservations for an upcoming series of events.  I picked my wife up from work, went back to the library and set up for an evening program, ordered some pizzas, met some friends for dinner and a beer, then drove back to the library to host the evening program.  After all that, I drove home and collapsed on the couch after making my lunch and picking out my clothes for tomorrow.

Like I said, I accomplished things.  However, the entire day was a slog.

And now, I'm sitting on my couch, thinking about all the things I have to do tomorrow.

I have a few things weighing me down at the moment.  The winter semester at the university begins next week, and I always flounder with the idea of new students and new classes.  I still have to finish my syllabi and adjust the schedule of my days.  At the library, I'm trying to accept the fact that my office mate, and closest friend there, has moved on to another job.  Another big adjustment.  

Mostly, however, I'm worried about another close friend of mine.  I won't go into details, but I care about him and his family a great deal.  I'm not sure what is going on in his life, and I don't want to intrude on his privacy.  But, he is someone whom I connect with on a deep level, and I hope that he is not struggling,  That he is doing well.

It seems as though my world has suddenly shifted, and I'm fighting the gravity of that shift.  As if I'm used to bouncing along the surface of the moon in great, long arcs, but now I have to walk uphill all day long.

Mary Oliver would say that it's okay to slow down.  It's natural.  Giving up on steadfast love. however, is incomprehensible to her.  Almost a sin.  Be grateful, she says, and steadfast.

On days like today, gratitude is not always easy to cultivate.  It stays hidden behind the gray clouds and piles of slush and snow.  But it's there.  

So, Saint Marty is grateful for his sick son, who doesn't have COVID.  For a job that he loves, despite the absence of a comrade.  For students who need to be taught about writing and film and poetry, even if they don't think they need to be taught about writing and film and poetry.  And especially for a best friend who fills Saint Marty with concern, because true friendship is so, so rare.

January 10: "I Have Just Said," Surgery Center, Thank You

Mary Oliver on thankfulness . . . 

I Have Just Said

by:  Mary Oliver

I have just said

     something

ridiculous to you

     and in response,

your glorious laughter.

     These are the days

the sun

     is swimming back

to the east

     and the light on the water

gleams

     as never, it seems, before.

I can't remember

     every spring,

I can't remember

     everything--

so many years!

     Are the morning kisses

the sweetest

     or the evenings

or the inbetweens?

     All I know

is that "thank you" should appear

     somewhere.

So, just in case

     I can't find

the perfect place--

     "Thank you, thank you."

Bringing joy into someone's world is a gift.  Laughter is a gift.  The laughter of someone you love is a miracle.

That's what Mary Oliver is writing about.  Those moments of joy and laughter that glide by without a picture or painting or poem to commemorate them.  I'm sure that any disciple of this blog can think of moments like this, when you don't even realize how happy you really are until a long time has passed.

Earlier in my life, I used to work in the healthcare industry.  (Yes, it is an industry, more concerned about profits than patients, but that's the subject of another blog post.)  One of the jobs that I had for close to 20 years was in the business office of an outpatient surgery center.  I worked with some of my best friends at this facility.  Every day, we labored hard and laughed hard.  Sometimes, we cried hard, as well, because that's what friends do.  It was a truly blessed time in my life, but, of course, I didn't realize it until it was over.

Tonight, I'm going to have dinner with several of my friends from the surgery center.  We will laugh and reminisce.  Talk and gossip a little.  We will do what best friends who haven't seen each other for a long time try to do--recapture what has been lost forever.  That blessed time before the surgery center closed and we all went our separate ways.

I'm sure we will tell some of the old surgery center stories and ask about Dr. So-and-So and Patient Such-and-Such.  Maybe we'll share pictures of our kids, some of whom have gotten married since our last reunion.  And, at the end of the dinner, we will all experience that final parting again--leaving the restaurant, not knowing when, or if, we will see each other again.

In case Saint Marty forgets to say it to his friends tonight:  "Thank you, thank you for that blessed time in my life."

January 9: "The Pond," Returned to Work. Happiness and Shadow

Mary Oliver wants to sing . . . 

The Pond

by:  Mary Oliver

August of another summer, and once again

I am drinking the sun

and the lilies again are spread across the water.

I know now what they want is to touch each other.

I have not been here for many years

during which time I kept living my life.

Like the heron, who can only croak, who wishes he

       could sing,

I wish I could sing.

A little thanks from every throat would be appropriate.

This is how it has been, and this is how it is:

All my life I have been able to feel happiness,

except whatever was not happiness,

which I also remember.

Each of us wears a shadow.

But just now it is summer again

and I am watching the lilies bow to each other,

then slide on the wind and the tug of desire,

close, close to one another.

Soon now, I'll turn and start for home.

And who knows, maybe I'll be singing.

It's a gentle thing that Mary Oliver describes here.  Summer.  Sun.  Lilies in a pond, tugging and dancing with each other.  Happiness and the shadow of unhappiness.

I returned to work this morning after having ten days off.  I rarely get that much personal time without pressing obligations.  Either I'm hosting an event, teaching a class, or finishing a project.  The last ten days, however, have been gentle and quiet, for the most part.

Happiness, I think, should be that way--like floating in a pond with people you care about, enjoying their warmth and closeness.  But you can't have happiness without shadow.  They kind of define each other.  Shadow is the outline of happiness.  In order to feel truly happy, you have to know what it means to be truly sad.  There's no way around that.

I think of my son who is 14-years-old.  Young people are invincible.  At least, that's what they believe.  Mortality is an alien concept for them, akin to the monsters in their closets or under their beds.  They just don't think, on any kind of regular basis, about the fact that, one day, they will stop breathing and cease to exist.  And that's good.  Young people shouldn't worry about the shadow of death breathing down their necks.

So I let my son go along, being invincible, a superhero whose skin deflects bullets and blades.  Who can eat anything he wants without the specters of diabetes or heart disease or cancer slapping that pizza out of his hands.  He should feel safe in the universe.  Protected.  Loved.

I was a strange child.  Obsessed with shadow.  From a very young age, I thought about my own death.  Reading my diaries and journals through the years, you would find several detailed drafts of my funeral plans, including music choices, seating plans, and menus.  (For the record, there must be beef stroganoff and a chocolate fountain.)  Death has been a part of my life and thoughts for as long as I can remember.  

I think, in a weird way, I have benefitted from this relationship with impermanence.  It reminds me really to cherish everything that brings joy into my life.  To appreciate the day-to-dayness of things.  Four years ago, I was at Walt Disney World for a two-week vacation.  Recently, every morning, my Facebook feed has been filled with photos from that time.  Lots of smiling and fruity alcoholic drinks and fireworks.  It was a lovely period of respite.

However, looking back on those pictures now, I see shadows.  Things have changed drastically since that trip.  Loved ones have died.  Relationships have ended.  Life has changed.  I write that without any kind of judgement.  I know that the only constant in the universe is change.

But, taking a page from Mary Oliver's book (literally), I embrace the pond of today--the friends I laughed with, the food I ate, the tasks I did.  The now-ness of everything.  

Saint Marty could sing a song about all that.

January 8: "That Little Beast," a Good Friend, Loss

Mary Oliver writes about her little beast . . . 

That Little Beast

by:  Mary Oliver

That pretty little beast, a poem,

     has a mind of its own.

Sometimes I want it to crave apples

     but it wants red meat.

Sometimes I want to walk peacefully

     on the shore

and it wants to take off all its clothes

     and dive in.

Sometimes I want to use small words

     and make them important

and it starts shouting the dictionary,

     the opportunities.

Sometimes I want to sum up and give thanks,

     putting things in order

and it starts dancing around the room

     on its four furry legs, laughing

     and calling me outrageous.

But sometimes, when I'm thinking about you,

     and no doubt smiling,

it sits down quietly, one paw under its chin,

     and just listens.

Mary Oliver can't control her poem.  It has a mind of its own, sometimes behaving itself, sometimes being what it naturally is:  a creature full of wild, emotional abandon.  I picture Oliver walking with a leash in her hand, calling her poem's name as it goes crashing into the woods after a squirrel or chipmunk.

I recently wrote a poem for a good friend who lost her mother last week.  I always find words difficult to herd when faced with loss.  It really is like trying to control a beast.  What do you say to a person who has lost a cherished love one?  What words are going to ease the pain?  The fallback is, of course, "I'm so sorry."  It's a safe response to a person in pain.

A poem doesn't really concern itself with being safe.  Instead, it will plunge into deep waters.  Climb to the top of the tallest tree in the forest and howl at the moon.  Charge into a cave that smells like sleeping lions.  Because a poem has its finger on the pulse of what it really means to be alive.

I don't know if the poem I wrote for my grieving friend was any good.  It may not have been particularly comforting, although that was its intent.   What I can say about the poem was that it was the closest I could come to expressing my true feelings for her and her loss.

Because, let's face it, loss is kind of unspeakable.  Try to describe it, and you have to use cliched terms like "hollow" and "empty" and "grief-stricken."  Try to comfort it, and you start saying things like "he's in a better place now" and "at least she's out of pain."  Try to accept it, and you court the sort of survivor's guilt that keeps you awake at night.

So, poetry it is for me.  Wild, untamable poetry.  Because that's what life is--ferociously unpredictable.  I write lines on a piece of paper, fold that paper, and stick it in an envelope, where it claws and gnashes its teeth until it's set free again.

Tonight, Saint Marty raises his friend up in the kind of love that makes the wounded heart sit down, put a paw under its chin, and just listen.