HALLMARK HOLIDAYS

Someone e-mailed me this morning and asked me what I got Melody for Valentine’s Day yesterday. This was my answer:

I am an eschewer of Hallmark Holidays. I know that Hallmark did not invent Valentine’s Day, but it has become so closely associated with it that the firm has hired Cupid as its East Coast Distributor. As for lauding Melody with such things as flowers and chocolates, I avoid predictability whenever possible. I am a man of spontaneous combustion.

On the way home from work yesterday, I saw a guy emerging from the flower shop with a vasefull of product. He looked so sheepish. He really did resemble a sheep—a sheep carrying a bottle of roses. Getting one’s wife flowers on Valentine’s Day is like going to church on Christmas and Easter. It’s like saying to God, “Okay, God. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do here, so please try not to send me to hell.”

I knew the guy, so I gave him a knowing wave. He yelled across the street, “Marriage insurance!” I had to laugh. Fire insurance, marriage insurance—what’s the difference?

You will never find me at the flower shop on February 14, or at the bar on St. Patrick’s Day, or in Selma on the Day of Martin Luther King. I’m more likely to visit the florist on Wednesday, April 12. Why then? What does that day mean? It means nothing. The day does not exist on Hallmark’s hallowed calendar, and this is why I favor it. It is for this very reason that I may be there. April 12, 2006 is an arbitrary day. It’s a day on which spontaneous love for my wife could very well spill from my heart and land on her desk at work in the form of a professionally arranged bouquet. But now I’m doubting it. Because now that I’ve announced this day as a possible contender for my spilling heart, I am forced by my own doctrine to avoid it. Notice to one and all: I, Martin Zender, will not be seen walking from the local florist with a vasefull of product on Wednesday, the twelfth of April, 2006.

I may, however, venture surreptitiously to Selma.

© 2006 by Martin Zender

DREAMING IN COLOR

I had an intriguing dream the other night that I did not remember until the following afternoon when I was interrupted at the corner of Snyder and Milbourne Roads by a funeral procession.

“That figures,” I mumbled. I couldn’t turn left because the hearse was coming on, followed by seven or eight hundred cars (or so it seemed) with their lights on and the requisite purple flags suction-cupped to their roofs and hoods.

Oh, woeful and wretched man am I. This procession, at first, was but an impediment to my forward progress. I was inconvenienced so that I could not immediately turn left and hurry back to work after lunch. This, while some poor and lunchless person lay prostrate in a box at the back of the hearse, making no forward progress whatsoever. And here was the family, in mourning.

I came to my senses and shifted into “park.” Now I had to watch it; God said, Watch this.

My radio does not work, praise Him. The February sky hangs low and gray this day, as it does on most days here in my state. Lukewarm air comes through my venting system and my car rumbles because God has damned the exhaust system. To His credit, He has granted 235,000 miles of miraculous travel to this machine, my machine. It used to belong to my earthly father, who died himself two years ago and no longer suffers upon this vale of tears.

I could see the entrance to the cemetery from my stop-sign vantage point. The cars pulled so slowly into the place; right turn, right turn, right turn; outside wheels obeying inside wheels; wheels, wheels, scrunching against the pavement and leather-gloved palms. I stared at the wheels and their slower-than-death turns.

Steering wheels; tire wheels; the wheel itself, invented thousands of years ago and still the workhorse of this “advanced” age. By now we ought to be visiting wheels in museums, but instead we surround them with balloons and flapping plastic pennants. Wheels should humiliate us, but instead they excite us. We decorate them with spoked covers and kick them. If they maintain their constitution, we delight in them and incur debt because of them. We take care to polish them. We tell our friends we have got “a new set of wheels.” We “wheeled and deal.” We have become “big wheels.” Wheels are as humiliating as crutches and the rubber-bottomed boots used for casts, but nobody gets it. The race is hobbled and no one notices. As I watched the cars, I though of travel in the hereafter: wheels will be conspicuously absent. But here beneath the modern February sky, I watched the deceased suffer the final humiliation of mortal flesh: transported to the grave by means of the wheel.

At that precise moment, I remembered my dream.

Take this lightly. My dreams may be inspired by the wheat germ I sprinkle on my oatmeal before bed. What I am about to relate to you may not even have been a dream, but a mental picture in the seam between consciousness and sleep. It was real enough to me, though, and it thrilled me.

In the dream I saw colors, but not colors as we know them. You may think that an apple is red and a leaf is green, but what we call “red” and “green” are poor substitutes for the real things. The real things have names that we don’t even know. Red may actually be splerdon, and green florn. What we see now are baby colors; primitive hues; dialed-down driplight. The colors of my dream were mature, ripened, bursting. It was as if God had suddenly cleaned my dirty windshield with a miraculous blue fluid. I saw an apple tree that was so beautiful it made a noise. The colors made sound, so pure were they. They attacked me in a pleasant way and attached themselves to my eyes. A simple close-up of an apple made my breath halt. Even the air had color; even the air made a noise. I realized then that, even while seeing, I had for my whole life been blind. In this dream, God removed the veil and I saw glory.

I knew then the trouble God went to to mute the glory of His creation. He works hard, daily, to keep it under wraps. He must not reveal it before the time. It is as if God has a glory knob and has turned it far left to the lowest notch and nailed it there. But on this occasion and in this seam of unconsciousness, He turned the glory dial up one notch to grant me a glimpse at the real; this reality; these colors; this air.

It was brief, but momentous. My initial reactions was: God! I see now why evil had to come. It’s worth it! This was my instant response. All evil fell away to nothing except for its bare-bones purpose: to reveal glory. I knew in a moment that every evil was justified. Every pain fell into place at my first glimpse of the real world. And God may well have said: You justify me because of this? Greater things than these shall you be seeing!

He had barely nudged the glory dial and I was ready to proclaim Him “The Pure Genius, God! Father of all! Justifier of Everything!”

What a sucker I am for glory.

For now, I endure the trains of death, with accompanying headlights, purple cotton flags, and the endless convoy of wheels. But now I see God behind it all, winking, gripping the glory knob with His right hand, smiling so pregnantly toward my tired face.

© 2006 by Martin Zender

SOCK HELL

I am capable in some areas of living, in others—no. For instance, I am mercilessly incapable in the area of sorting socks.

I can distinguish Melody’s socks from those of my sons because Melody’s socks have a feminine look and feel. The best news for me is that Melody wears a certain variety of black, lacy sock. I know the socks are hers; they better be. I enjoy folding Melody’s socks; I linger over them. I do not do the same over the socks of my sons. I love my sons, but I am afraid of their socks and avoid them. All of my sons’ socks look alike; I cannot distinguish them.

It is an experience of evil that Elohim has given to the sons of humanity, to humble them by it. –Ecclesiastes 1:13.

Darn those socks! There are too many of them. Each of my sons has two feet, making six feet in all. Each foot has a sock, and each sock looks like all the others. To make matters worse, one size appears to fit all. Compound this with the fact that my sons change their socks every day (a habit they learned from their mother), and you can appreciate my dilemma. I am not a patient man, at least not when it comes to sorting socks. I tried to be patient one day last month. I attempted to sort the socks that day; I made an honest effort. But I ended up throwing the socks against the wall and talking loudly to them. The static electricity made the socks stick to the wall, and so I cursed the stuck socks; I cursed them verbally where they vertically lay. I wondered if it was worth it, this sock-sorting business. In a short time, I decided it wasn’t. I was willing to serve Melody, but was unwilling to lose my mind over underwear made for shoes. It was at this time that I devised Plan B.

Plan B, stated flatly, is this: GIVE UP. This strategy has worked wonders for me. I have used it several other times in life, to good result. So I began gathering up the socks and plopping them on the dryer in a pile, much like a sock hodge-podge—a sock-podge. “It’s a free-for-all,” I told my sons. “A sock-podge. It’s a sock give-away. On top of the dryer, you will encounter sock hell. If, by some mad gift of God, you are able to distinguish what is yours from that of your brother, then do so. Now!”

Melody did not like this, at first. She tried to persuade me that I was capable of sorting the socks.

“I am incapable,” I corrected her.

“Try it,” Melody said.

“Oh, Melody. I have tried.”

“What happened?” Melody asked.

“I failed miserably.”

Melody asked if I could demonstrate my conception of “failed miserably.” Being more than happy to, I grabbed a handful of socks, threw them against the wall, then cursed them where they vertically lay.

Melody was impressed. “Does this happen every time?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, “I’ve only tried it once. And once is all I intend to try it.”

So now the socks somehow disappear from the top of the dryer, and everyone is wearing clean socks. I don’t know how this happens, and I don’t care.

I only care that it happens, and that I have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

© 2006 by Martin Zender

PEOPLE ARE HUMBLED WHEN THEIR FINGERS FREEZE OFF

I love to see, when leaves
depart,
The clear anatomy arrive,
Winter, the paragon of art,
That kills all forms of life and
feeling
Save what is pure and will survive.

—Roy Campbell

There is a pomposity to summertime that winter forbids. Summer permits the Beach Boys, squealing tires, hot sliding boards, and rolled-up sleeves. Winter brings cares, caution and the clutching of wraps to the breast.

Winter humbles us, and that’s what I like about it. It does to our character what it does to trees. When ferocious, winter strips bark and stops sap. When cruelly overstaying its welcome, it makes human beings groan and wish for Elsewhere.

Winter is a mirror of the real world; it draws from men the ingenuity to surmount hardship. When the world is cold, a man builds a fire. When the world is tempestuous, a man builds a roof. When the world is so terrible that a man’s skin begins to die, he finally seeks God.

God lives on both sides of a storm window. He inhabits both the crystalline snowflake and the embers of a cozy, Christmas fire. He inhabits the ice dagger snapping from the eaves and the robe belt clinched tight against the absence of heat.

Winter is contrast between sides of a storm window. The storm is without, peace within. The cold is without, warmth within. The wind is without, within are gentle heat-puffs rising from ducts or stovetops. This contrast is as delicious as man and woman, work and rest, laughter and tear.

Here is one way to enjoy it:

The outside of your down sleeping bag should be forest green, the inside silver. Sleep naked inside the bag on cold, winter nights. The bag should be of goose down so that the down traps the air, warms it, and keeps your skin the temperature of palm trees while the outside world quivers and quakes.

Yesterday you wore heavy bedclothes, but today you test comfort against nothing but the feathers of geese. The silver lining is a cirrus cloud that the goose flies through, and the long zipper is the Deity’s man-made wedge against a much crueler world.

Upon waking, you need only a reclining chair and a book. Do not move except at the behest of gravity; this must include the sinking of your heels into the foot part of the chair. Let the book capture you to the point that the world outside the storm window ceases to exist. At this juncture, cars, if they come, will not come, and people, if they chatter, will say no words.

There is a cup of coffee near you, billowing smoke. The smoke, if you watch it, twirls in the cup as it exits, then disappears inside a lamp shade. If you read a fine sentence, savor the words with a small mouthful of the coffee. When the words have exhausted their usefulness (and not until then), let the coffee slide down your throat and pay attention to what happens when it arrives at your stomach.

Winter is a slender thing. I recommend befriending it. Tomorrow it disappears and someone plugs in the Beach Boys. Tomorrow it disappears, and men build no fires, nor do they contemplate roofs, nor do they seek God. This is because, in the green and the blue and the rose petals of summer, God seems everywhere. This, in turn, is because, in the green and the blue and the rose petals of summer, contrasts disappear.

God dwells most heartily in the snowflake, the ember, the icicle, and the robe. These are the best things, the hard and soft things, the things that draw purpose from the breast, around which, today, we wrap our coats.

© 2006 by Martin Zender

DATES & CONTENTS

GREETINGS! Welcome to Zenderville. If you are new in town, read these offerings chronologically. Things will make a little more sense to you that way. The events will not only be chrono, but they will be logical as well. And don't forget to break the speed limit! Martin

1/15/2006
PEOPLE ARE HUMBLED WHEN THEIR FINGERS FREEZE OFF

2/09/2006
SOCK HELL

2/13/2006
DREAMING IN COLOR

2/15/2006
HALLMARK HOLIDAYS

2/16/2006
TENDING TO MY DISCHOCOLATED WIFE

2/18/2006
MONK IN MOTION

2/22/2006
ZENDER-SCHMENDER

2/23/2006
PHILADELPHIA FREEDOM, 1982

2/26/2006
MELODY’S BIRTHDAY

3/02/2006
BLUE HOUR RESCUE

3/04/2006
THAT MAN IN HIS NYLON PRESCRIPTION BOTTLE

3/06/2006
VENTI EXPERIENCES AT THE BOOKSTORE

3/07/2006
FROM THE TREES SHALL COME MY HELP

3/13/2006
TOWN JUNK

3/14/2006
THE DEATH OF HERB DIRKS

3/15/2006
PASTOR DISASTER

3/16/2006
IN LOVE WITH MYSELF

3/17/2006
ST. PATRICK’S DUH

3/18/2006
ROAD MAN

3/20/2006
MELODY WHITE VS. MOE & COMPANY

3/21/2006
DAY OF BITTER COMPLAINT

3/22/2006
NPR ANGEL

3/27/2006
HOT SOFT CHEESE ROLLS

3/28/2006
NUCLEAR WAR AND THE BIKINI CURE MALE DEPRESSION

3/29/2006
EFFECTIVE CURES FOR DEPRESSED WOMEN

3/30/2006
SHAMEFUL WEALTH

4/01/2006
CURLICUES OF A WICKED EON

4/04/2006
WITH A BUTLER ON THE LADDER AND A PHIPPS IN HAIR

4/05/2006
A BROTHERHOOD OF CREEPIES

4/08/2006
LAST LAUGH IN AMISH COUNTRY

4/11/2006
TO BE A DUCK

4/13/2006
TENDER BABY IN A NEW WOMB: THE HENNESSY ARRIVES

4/14/2006
PRETEND YOU’RE UNCLOVEN

4/18/2006
SLEEPING APART

4/21/2006
THE MARTIN ZENDER DRILLING COMPANY

4/28/2006
MELODY GOES TO NASHVILLE ALONE

4/30/2006
I MISS MELODY

5/01/2006
MELODY RETURNS FROM NASHVILLE

5/04/2006
LONG COOL WOMAN AIN’T HEAVY

5/05/2006
HOW TO WRITE/HOW TO LIVE

5/08/2006
ANTLERS ON A FRICKIN’ MOOSE

5/09/2006
THE FLIGHT OF THE DOOPSIE

5/10/2006
F15718

5/16/2006
JED CLAMPETT OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER

5/22/2006
GOLD IN THE CAVE WALL