This week's ball was a joy to carry. I want to keep this baseball with me for several weeks, meditating on the quotes, mantra-like. They were given by Ilya Kaminsky in a workshop. The first:
"Because I found Hitler inside of me..."
Mother Teresa, when asked why she chose a life of service to the poor.
and
"Argument with others is rhetoric. Argument with oneself is poetry."
William Butler Yeats
I will continue with this ball in my backback as a subtle reminder of two quotes that will need to stick with me for the rest of my life.
The one I spin, twirl and carry with me today, however, for week 5, is a recent excerpt from the lovely Elizabeth Thorpe:
I want to write about baseball, like others have and will. There is something about baseball that is incorruptible, no matter how many Barry Bondses break records. No matter how many little kids get baseballs signed because they are the loudest instead of the most polite. No matter how much the players make. The core of baseball, a large core, is solid, made of the finest materials. We are fibers in the string that wraps the core, intertwined in our love and fear and disappointment, in the buildup of details that make history. It matters that my cat was named for Tony Pena. It matters that I watched the victory parade, that I saw the trash cans piled over with styrofoam Dunkin cups on an early morning when we didn't have to drag ourselves out of bed. It matters that one of my most enduring memories from childhood is watching the Red Sox with my mom, the sound of the fans going in the windows, a mixing bowl of popcorn between us. Someday I will be able to write about New England and the Red Sox in a way that will make me feel I finally got it right.
Amen, sista, you're wicked pissa.
I'm beginning to think that I should compile these someday, and title the collection, "Jim Churchill-Dicks and His Balls" Anyone? Anyone?
Monday, August 21, 2006
Friday, August 18, 2006
Baseball Talisman Week 3
The first quote was in a letter from the great poet, James Wright to his son Franz, who had completed a poem that he could finally send to his father.
"So, you're a poet. Welcome to Hell."
The second is from a letter I sent to E-Rod, one of my talented former students, who was having difficulty finding the time to write anything he was passionate about. I told him that if he didn't have to express something through writing, then he shouldn't have to worry about it. People live completely normal lives without writing, I told him. I told him to live a little. And then I warned:
"But if writing is survival to you-- If it is what keeps you out of trouble... If that creative impulse is what gives meaning and purpose to your life-- then for fuck sake, you'd better write, you little bastard."
Yes, profanity again, mixed with love and worry; my curse. As I spun and twirled this ball around for a week, I wanted to get rid of it. It felt like how I sometimes feel of myself-- beyond redemption.
Trinity and I played a long game of catch with the ball on a hot Saturday afternoon at Davidson Field -the old 1911 ball field half a block away, with those old-school covered bleachers. A stadium that will probably be bulldozed to make way for a much needed community pool. So much for historical preservation, so much for religious relics. We played catch, Trinity and I, on this endangered field, in an endangered moment of catch between father and son, with time against us as Trinity's baby teeth continue to give way to those gorgeously awkward adult chompers.
Trinity has still been afraid of the ball, still frozen in fear by the hard ball. My last baseballs have been of the spongier coach-pitch variety, which have done wonders for Trinity's courage. He has asked me every night to play catch with him in the fading light after an 11 hour work day. What a way to end it.
I almost left this #3 baseball at home on that Saturday, not wanting to corrupt one of the last sacred interchanges of my life, but out of stubborn duty to the commitment I have made, I included this ball too. And on this day, Trinity begged me to throw it as high as I could, and by God, he was catching them effortlessly, squealing with victory at first, then later, acting as if it were all just business as usual. And he was whipping the ball back to me, hard and on target.
Beside home plate was his bat, and his batting helmet, the one I spray painted gold, and added a metal facemask to, to protect that horsy smile. It was there just to be there, like a saddle and blanket to a spooked horse, getting used to the old equipment again.
The week before, we went to his old little league ball field to try our first batting practice since the time he was beaned twice in a row by an errant coach. He got the helmet on, stretched on his batting glove, got toward the batter's box, and proceeded to tell me that he couldn't do it, his head was too itchy...he wasn't ready. For once, I took the soft approach. I was the "baseball whisperer. " I patted him on the helmet, and drove him home.
But on this Saturday afternoon, he eventually asked, "So how about a little batting practice?"
I didn't get my hopes up. I watched him put on his gear, that same helmet, that glove, that bat, and he tentatively strode to the batter's box. He was in. I put on my best poker face, calm and steady. My inner voice whispered, "If you fuck this up, you have no right to be this boy's father." I grabbed a bucket full of soft core balls.
"O.K." I said. " Just stand in the box in your batting stance and watch the ball all the way. Don't worry about having to swing. Just get used to the ball coming to the plate." He nodded slightly.
"This is it" I thought, "Make sure you don't kill your son." I wound up, and threw it six feet outside. The second pitch was the same result. Trinity smirked that sarcastic smirk that I used to see on my father's face when he was a young pilot. "You're gonna have to do better than that, Dad," he chortled. I smiled, shook my head and stuffed another ball into my glove. He giggled a little more and got back into his stance.
I pitched a few good ones in a row, and he took swings at each of them, with growing confidence, timing and fluidity. I had one ball left in the bucket. The one with the quotes.
No shit.
I pitched--
he swung--
he pooped that damned ball right over my head.
What a shot!
Instead of looking where the ball went, I looked at him, jumping up and down, giggling like a dork. He was a frozen animal who had shed his icy skin, cold glass breaking all around him, a newly warm-blooded boy who trusted his father again.
You're damn right that's the way it happened, and I know that it pisses you off.
Sure, it's too perfect, and smacks of an overly-crafted revisionist's smarmy American ending. Well, it is what it is. And we were redeemed in that moment. If that's not artistic enough for you MFA types, then you can go piss off somewhere.
"So, you're a poet. Welcome to Hell."
The second is from a letter I sent to E-Rod, one of my talented former students, who was having difficulty finding the time to write anything he was passionate about. I told him that if he didn't have to express something through writing, then he shouldn't have to worry about it. People live completely normal lives without writing, I told him. I told him to live a little. And then I warned:
"But if writing is survival to you-- If it is what keeps you out of trouble... If that creative impulse is what gives meaning and purpose to your life-- then for fuck sake, you'd better write, you little bastard."
Yes, profanity again, mixed with love and worry; my curse. As I spun and twirled this ball around for a week, I wanted to get rid of it. It felt like how I sometimes feel of myself-- beyond redemption.
Trinity and I played a long game of catch with the ball on a hot Saturday afternoon at Davidson Field -the old 1911 ball field half a block away, with those old-school covered bleachers. A stadium that will probably be bulldozed to make way for a much needed community pool. So much for historical preservation, so much for religious relics. We played catch, Trinity and I, on this endangered field, in an endangered moment of catch between father and son, with time against us as Trinity's baby teeth continue to give way to those gorgeously awkward adult chompers.
Trinity has still been afraid of the ball, still frozen in fear by the hard ball. My last baseballs have been of the spongier coach-pitch variety, which have done wonders for Trinity's courage. He has asked me every night to play catch with him in the fading light after an 11 hour work day. What a way to end it.
I almost left this #3 baseball at home on that Saturday, not wanting to corrupt one of the last sacred interchanges of my life, but out of stubborn duty to the commitment I have made, I included this ball too. And on this day, Trinity begged me to throw it as high as I could, and by God, he was catching them effortlessly, squealing with victory at first, then later, acting as if it were all just business as usual. And he was whipping the ball back to me, hard and on target.
Beside home plate was his bat, and his batting helmet, the one I spray painted gold, and added a metal facemask to, to protect that horsy smile. It was there just to be there, like a saddle and blanket to a spooked horse, getting used to the old equipment again.
The week before, we went to his old little league ball field to try our first batting practice since the time he was beaned twice in a row by an errant coach. He got the helmet on, stretched on his batting glove, got toward the batter's box, and proceeded to tell me that he couldn't do it, his head was too itchy...he wasn't ready. For once, I took the soft approach. I was the "baseball whisperer. " I patted him on the helmet, and drove him home.
But on this Saturday afternoon, he eventually asked, "So how about a little batting practice?"
I didn't get my hopes up. I watched him put on his gear, that same helmet, that glove, that bat, and he tentatively strode to the batter's box. He was in. I put on my best poker face, calm and steady. My inner voice whispered, "If you fuck this up, you have no right to be this boy's father." I grabbed a bucket full of soft core balls.
"O.K." I said. " Just stand in the box in your batting stance and watch the ball all the way. Don't worry about having to swing. Just get used to the ball coming to the plate." He nodded slightly.
"This is it" I thought, "Make sure you don't kill your son." I wound up, and threw it six feet outside. The second pitch was the same result. Trinity smirked that sarcastic smirk that I used to see on my father's face when he was a young pilot. "You're gonna have to do better than that, Dad," he chortled. I smiled, shook my head and stuffed another ball into my glove. He giggled a little more and got back into his stance.
I pitched a few good ones in a row, and he took swings at each of them, with growing confidence, timing and fluidity. I had one ball left in the bucket. The one with the quotes.
No shit.
I pitched--
he swung--
he pooped that damned ball right over my head.
What a shot!
Instead of looking where the ball went, I looked at him, jumping up and down, giggling like a dork. He was a frozen animal who had shed his icy skin, cold glass breaking all around him, a newly warm-blooded boy who trusted his father again.
You're damn right that's the way it happened, and I know that it pisses you off.
Sure, it's too perfect, and smacks of an overly-crafted revisionist's smarmy American ending. Well, it is what it is. And we were redeemed in that moment. If that's not artistic enough for you MFA types, then you can go piss off somewhere.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
A Celtic Phoenix: What Really Really happened to Jimmy “Sweet Rolls” Sullivan
"Love left me like a coal upon the floor, Like a half - burned sod!"
Douglas Hyde
Shitdamn, it’s hot in here—slow cooking in this tight-assed whiskey barrel, thick boggy air like where my ancient ancestors were buried, where they remain perfectly preserved in their bronze-peat graveyard. There is CADEYRN’s severed head, turned to me, smiling, his half-moon eyes and that toothless gummy grin, like dirty Al Capone preparing to burn his dirty secrets.
Jesus, it’s hot, Jesus—
you poor bearded fuck, you fell in love with the world- God’s enemy, didn't you? I know just how you feel. Whiskey remnants buzz from these boards, crackle in this heat, dizzy as Hell, I can’t rest my head against these smoldering boards.
Capone, you sonofabitch, you’re probably fanning yourself in that cooled movie theater where you found Mae and I making sloe love in the projection booth while La Boheme flitted to a popcorned crowd below.
Here is my dirty secret: I loved her more than you possibly could have.
But as your goons toss this barrel into the furnace, know this: These shackles blistered into my wrists and ankles—I am dripping out of them, dripping into ashes. There sluices one eyebrow, and then the next—
My nose caves into the tongue your wife adored, she moaned like a pentacostal.
There goes my neck… my spine. I surrender my bowels, my balls, and everything down to my toenails until I am this pile of smoldering ashes—
Now I am coming for you.
Douglas Hyde
Shitdamn, it’s hot in here—slow cooking in this tight-assed whiskey barrel, thick boggy air like where my ancient ancestors were buried, where they remain perfectly preserved in their bronze-peat graveyard. There is CADEYRN’s severed head, turned to me, smiling, his half-moon eyes and that toothless gummy grin, like dirty Al Capone preparing to burn his dirty secrets.
Jesus, it’s hot, Jesus—
you poor bearded fuck, you fell in love with the world- God’s enemy, didn't you? I know just how you feel. Whiskey remnants buzz from these boards, crackle in this heat, dizzy as Hell, I can’t rest my head against these smoldering boards.
Capone, you sonofabitch, you’re probably fanning yourself in that cooled movie theater where you found Mae and I making sloe love in the projection booth while La Boheme flitted to a popcorned crowd below.
Here is my dirty secret: I loved her more than you possibly could have.
But as your goons toss this barrel into the furnace, know this: These shackles blistered into my wrists and ankles—I am dripping out of them, dripping into ashes. There sluices one eyebrow, and then the next—
My nose caves into the tongue your wife adored, she moaned like a pentacostal.
There goes my neck… my spine. I surrender my bowels, my balls, and everything down to my toenails until I am this pile of smoldering ashes—
Now I am coming for you.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Baseball Talisman Week 2
Here are the two quotes from my new ball. One given to me by one of my students and the other from poet Suji Kwock Kim in her poem "The Tree of Knowledge"
Be who you are and say what you feel
because those who mind don’t matter
and those who matter don’t mind.
Dr. Seuss
O Ghost Brother, Ghost Sister
Silence like nothing but not nothing.
Dream vowel, implaceable O-
Lie to me. Say you forgive me
for being born.
Suji Kwock Kim
Be who you are and say what you feel
because those who mind don’t matter
and those who matter don’t mind.
Dr. Seuss
O Ghost Brother, Ghost Sister
Silence like nothing but not nothing.
Dream vowel, implaceable O-
Lie to me. Say you forgive me
for being born.
Suji Kwock Kim
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