Bergman's Virgin Spring

Every time I think about the final scene in Bergman's Virgin Spring, I say to myself "I am small, and without knowledge, but my my soul yearns, and calls out to God."

Marriage

In little more than two weeks, K and I will be married.  I'd love to be able to say that means that I know who I am now, or how I am supposed to be right before God, and be encouraging always, and how to keep faith, ever constant.  But, rather, I think that my looming marriage makes it even more important to remember how little I know about myself, how much I will change, and how that is true for K as well.  We will have to grow together.  Sometimes with plenty of space to stretch our limbs.  Never apart, yet never static.

God, give me humility.

I am working as a temp until I start law school at Michigan in May.  Temp work, now, that has been a humbling experience.  Not because I look down on the work.  Rather, because I'm not very good at my job, and I feel I should be better.  I can't get any temporary clerical work right now that would make use of my work experience and skill set.  All of those positions are long term, much more than three months, and I feelt guilty applying for a job I know I don't want to keep when the term of employment ought to be at least a year.

And so, I am calling businesses, trying to recruit managers and owners to participate in the Muscular Dystrophy Association's annual, local lock-up fundraiser.  It's a great cause, and I love my work in some ways, but as I said, I'm not as good at it as I would like.  I'm not a very pushy person when I know I'm incoveniencing somebody, especially when they have every right to say "fuck off, I have work to do."  But, that is my job.  And, although it may annoy some people when I call them, it does real good in people's lives.  And, in this interim period, when I'm starting my own household, it helps the ends meet.  But, I am underperforming, and I am not sure how long they are going to keep me on if I don't bring my numbers up.

I have helped schedule events for sitting US Senators, I have filed reports with the Federal Election Commission which could have put my relatives in jail if I screwed them up, but I have never been quite so scared of failing in my entire life.  Because, if I fail, my fiancee, soon to be my wife, could suffer for it.  Protecting her and providing for her (at least, providing what I am responsible to provide) is the most important thing in my life.  And, no matter how hard I try, I might get fired, I might have a hard time finding a temporary job in our local economy.

And, maybe I won't.  I just can't say for sure.

And, I guess this brings me back to marriage, again.  It's a big deal.  Aside from kids, it's the biggest thing I will do in my whole life.  And, just as I had no control over my fate as an individual, I have no control over the fate of K and me.  As a single man, my pride could survive.  Even without control over my destiny, over the unfathomable complexity of this living society I am a part of, this breathing and heaving earth I reside on, I always told myself "I can roll with the punches.  I am tough."

But now, I don't just want to be tough.  I want to make sure that K's life is wonderful.  That our life together is perfect.

And I cannot.

God, scrub me clean of the pride I have clung to my entire life.  Let my pride fall away in favor of faith in you.  Let me always remember that, as much as I would like to control my destiny, I can only try to do what's right, and remember that no matter the outcome, no matter what I feel is important, only one thing triumphs.  Your glory.

So, let me be the best husband I can.  Let me be the best provider I can.  Have mercy this sinner, O Lord.   And I will remember that, as caught up as I am in the turning of this world, your faithfulness and your judgement are all that is eternal in my existence.

Lord, make me humble.  But, Lord, please also make me better than I am.  In order to balance my vocation and my family and my own survival in the years to come, I will need to be.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,

RRK

The future looks good.

K. seems very happy about some new revelations she has been having about what she wants to do with her life. That makes me very happy, too. I'm really looking forward to sharing many cups of coffee in the morning with her, and many glasses of wine in the evening, and everything in between. And I'm glad that she might be finding something that she loves to do. As much as we love each other, everybody needs to be able to pursue something that they can claim as their own. And, by God, you'll know this woman by her works. They couldn't have been made by anybody else. No matter what she does.

But Don't Worry, Darling

When I ate
the sweetest
fruit I ever ate I
bit deep
and filled my mouth with
soft flesh
and
the
juice
ran
down
my
chin.

When I lick
my lips
I can still taste
phantom nectar,
and then none
of the fruit
shipped to the supermarket
in floating chlorine bath houses
across rough
trade routes
stirs
my appetite.

Humbert Humbert

I'll never get
Humbert Humbert
's hard on
for Lolita.
And it's not just
that I hate the idea
of getting dirty
looks
from the proper sort.

It's because
I
want everything
he does not.
He hungers
for more forbidden
fruit.
The ripe pears
and melons
that tempted old Humbert
Humbert's gag reflex
make my mouth
water.

Misanthrope

His hair is the sun
bleached tall grass,
which had clung
to his scalp
as he lay in the fields,
age eight.

But his hands
are cracked
from bending steel cables
to his will,
a will bought up
and bent out
by Wagner and Warner
Manufacturing, INC.
for the
past
two
decades.

If he ever delved
his finger into the cool
rich soil
of his youth,
the dirt
would only cake
his raw joints
and burn,
burgeoning
infection.

Hamlet

When I was young
I flipped Hamlet
the bird.
"What a useless fuck.
Just do
anything
as long as it's
something."
Back then I knew
exactly
what I'd have done.
I'd have gutted my
Greasy traitor
uncle
but spared my Mom.
It would have been
a play in one
Act.

That's what I
told myself.
Now I think
that deciding
can be a bitch,
and that I would rather jump in
a coral reef
head first
than risk my soft belly being rubbed
raw.

Hamlet still
pisses me off
but for a different reason.
It's the way he drove himself
and eveybody he talked to
bat shit crazy
by worrying whether
he was fucking it all up,
both acting
and not acting.

It's such a drag
always getting riled
up over what is, and is
not.
And maybe his Dad
was just an asshole
anyway.