Patty: A Memoir

     We were coming home from church one morning and Jimmy Glennon pulled up beside us as we approached the Sudbury road lights. He didn't notice the well-dressed family of eight scrunched into our old Pontiac station wagon as he revved the engine of his yellow and black mustang fastback. I was crammed in the rearward facing back seat doling out peace signs and air horn salutes, but the scene unfolding in front of me was one of the coolest scenes ever: here was the guy Patty had a date with the night before seeming to challenge my father to a drag race, or at the very least humiliate, the infamous and fiery EJ—on a Sunday morning no less.

When the light turned green, Jimmy pulled away in a squeal of burning rubber and glorious smoke, fishtailing his car as he laid down a patch—a testament of black rubber etched into the road--proof that would give me months of bragging to my friends as we drove by that spot every weekday on the schoolbus: "My sister's boyfriend, Jimmy: he laid down that patch!"  Yeah, that moment sealed it for me: I had now the coolest big sister in Concord—and now I could prove it in the hardscrabble, myth-making cauldron in a crowded, kid-filled neighborhood; I could now glow in the reflected light of her infinite coolness, and I still live in that light, but it is now deeper, richer, and more penetrating, with a lingering and haunting pain that still leaves me numb and lonely and lost; but, in so many other ways Patty is as real and present and alive as when she was here and with us. Through every memory of Patty we can all be as cool s she was; we can live with a richer understanding of our dreams, our struggles, and our potential to embrace the scope of the day, and we can simply share the patchwork mosaic that she wove within the divergent strands of our divergent lives.

When I was young, Patty lived in another age. She moved as a phantom through the house because she was like eighteen when I was eleven; she had friends who would hoist me to the top of the basketball hoop bolted above the garage door; she had friends who played guitars in the basement and pierced each other's ears, and she had friends in prison and friends who died in the Vietnam war, and she had friends that she kept for all of her shortened life—most of whom are here today. My other sisters were never as cool as Patty. Eileen, in her quest for perfection, would charge me a quarter if I didn't make my bed right; Mary Ellen would lament that I was embarrassing the whole family because of my bad pitching in little league, and Annie, who was almost as young as Patty was old, was too little to be cool and did things like take our meal orders before supper on a stolen Friendlies waitress pad. My little brother Tom never seemed to feel the need to be cool. 

So it all fell on me.

I really wanted to be cool. I wanted a different and clear slant on life like Patty, but I certainly did not want to work as hard as her; so, like so many other people, I used her as my mentor—my guide through the vagaries and vicissitudes of life.  And she guided me well: she had a way of making your little adventure or undertaking be one of immense importance, but, equally important, she would put her life into your venture by helping to make it become real.  She knew that anything worth trying was worth doing, and so any dream could be pounded into reality; any project could be finished, and any problem or struggle had a way through, and her hand was always there to help it happen. 

Patty gave me faith in all that is infinite and eternal because that was the nature and source of her energy.  Need a book typeset? Just drop it off. Need a sweater? Just drop a hint. How about a party or a place to stay? A weekend at the cape? A babysitter for the weekend? How about a car? Patty would hand down her cars like other people would their sweatshirts.  Patty had that rare thing: a wisdom that was not proud of itself and a door that was always open.

The more you knew Patty, the richer you would become. The best part of going to U-Mass was the chance to live near Patty. I mistakenly thought that living near Patty would put us on equal footing. It was there where I lived, not only in the light of her coolness, but in light of her kitchen, where I would show up on a regular basis with a regular stream of spiritually and physically hungry friends, all of whom found that cool as she was, Patty was also warm and magnanimous beyond compare. It was in her kitchen where I first got to hang out with her as a friend, confidant, and cheerleader. My first night at U-Mass, we met for beer down at The Drake, a classic dive of a bar with smoke and pool tables and peanut strewn floors. It seemed strange and normal to be sitting down with her and Donald—her avowed Marxist, long-haired, archaeologist boyfriend who complimented her so perfectly and would soon become her perfect husband and partner and soul-mate until death parted their life together.

It may seem dumb, but it was like a first date for me.  But, it was better than Jimmy Glennon burning rubber at the route two lights; it was better than her taking off with Tubby in an old Triumph Spitfire—and Mary and EJ panicked that she was eloping—with a Jewish boy at that.  Better than when her and Mary Ellen got caught pinning up their catholic school skirts at the bus-stop; better than when one of her friends escaped from prison; better than hearing that her dorm in Southwest was the target of another drug raid; better than when her and a couple of friends hopped in the back of an old bakery truck and moved to Oregon—and EJ making me promise not to tell her mother that it wasn't a real bus. It was better because it was finally real and not just my vision of some more exciting reality.  We were in a smoky bar and laughing and talking and telling stories, and she was with a guy who made her laugh and made her incredibly happy. I could feel her knitting together the best fibers of our family and creating a tapestry that nothing can undo—a tapestry that has stood the test of time.

Patty showed that small gestures are huge, and that huge actions are always doable. She would call and be as excited about her student Rodney's wrestling match as she would winning teacher of the year. She would drive five hours to have dinner with my mother, or to bring a swimming list to Alba, or to drop off a present for one of your kids. She showed how simple it is for giving to be a gift for everyone involved. 

In the perfect memory of love, Patty will always live on. And we will always be amazed, humbled, and for me, sometimes simply awestruck.

Simple Things

   There is a heaviness in this morning heat as I sit and sip my morning coffee. From my back porch the half moon hangs in a hot dull blue above the soft green of the trees lining my yard. On the street, the trash truck is beeping incessantly in reverse. (Why, I don't know.) The muffled traffic on 117 seems more distant than ever before. The yard is as the kids left it: the mower parked in front of the soccer net, trucks scattered in the sandbox, towels hanging on the porch rail; and the balls—footballs, baseballs, soccer-balls, basketballs, and whiffleballs—grow like fungus scattered on a feral lawn. The kids will return next week. I can already hear them screaming as they jump out of the bus. They will disperse like a flock of startled grackles into every corner of the yard; they will try to catch up on everything at once. Every ball will be chucked to a new home; the swings and the slide will be tested; the blackberries will be gorged; the cats will be chased under the shed; the sprinkler will go on—and so will life as we know it as the beautiful panoply of seven kids returns to their other Eden.

It is strange to be here alone. Denise and the kids are up in their other paradise at Windsor Mountain. I came home yesterday to do a couple of shows and pad the bank account before I head back up later today. From there, we'll load everyone on the bus and keep going north for a weekend in Vermont with cousins and friends on Pete's mountain tree farm. We'll climb the mossy waterfall and fish for bass in the pond, and roast and sing around a massive campfire. We'll flip pancakes and make challenges and boasts for 'capture the flag', and we'll climb the small peak and look south and lie about how about far we see: “There, past the far mountain, I see Maynard, and I see Gramma Mary knitting on the porch—and there's Soren knocking on our door. He's yelling, “Where are you? Are you ever coming home?'” In the mid century of my life, every memory becomes a blessing—a host offered to a loving and waiting deity. In every moment there is nothing more that can be done. We simply are what we need to be.

Summer for us is a time to live and relive every moment. It becomes a tapestry that we hold like a child's blanket throughout the rest of the year. It is the promise that we repeat to ourselves when dragged back into the rituals of our other life. We wait in expectation of the returning dawn. We gather our scrapbooks and laugh at the memories. We go back to the pond. Tommy paddling around on a surfboard singing, “Merry Christmas, I can swim.” EJ caught in mid air trying to back flip off the rope swing, his body a tattoo of bug bites, scrapes, sunburn and muscle; Margaret celebrating her first headfirst dive, the wet jangles of bracelets she wove during some craft’s class glistening on her ankles, wrists and neck; Emma squatting at the edge of the dive tower peering in her solipsistic intensity into the waiting abyss of joy; Pipo neck deep in the pond counting out the seconds he can tread water: “One- two-threefourfive six!” Kaleigh, bedraggled and smiling after two weeks of paddling and climbing and becoming a young woman, is surrounded by friends who think she's the coolest kid on the planet—and Charlie—everything to Charlie is joy: seven years old, his long blond hair in dreadlocks, soaring higher and spinning wildly off the rope swing as if gravity only applies to the timid. Always near, always one clutch away, Denise leads them everywhere: cheering, brokering, warning, and loving—and loving, too, every second of every summer day.

Nothing we do is grand. No place we go is uncommon, but in the steady flow of simple actions we flow into the greater sea of common, ordinary joy—and that is all we need. It is all anyone needs. As you write, don’t forget to celebrate the common and the ordinary. Don't wait for inspiration. Don't wait for something extraordinary to write about. Simply look around you and within you. Weave your own tapestry out of the life you live. If what you see gives you joy, it will give others joy to read about it. If what you do is hard and moiling, let your writing capture that toil, and we will live more fully and think more deeply through your efforts. We often travel too far to see too little. Let your own backyard—the life that you know best—be the place where you begin.

In the end, we can only write well what we truly know. Start there.

Fitz's Paragraph Rubric Diagram

A sentence is a thought fully expressed...

A paragraph is a thought fully explained...

An essay is a thought fully explored...

     A wise thinker once said, "Show me the universe, and I'll give you a pebble. Give me a pebble, and I'll show you the universe."

     This is how we need to think about writing paragraphs. We must learn to move from broad themes to more focused and broad themes; likewise, we must practice relating specific details to a larger and more important whole. This is the whole purpose of our using the paragraph rubric is to practice paragraphing skills and help you develop a more natural fluency. 

How to Create a Weebly Portfolio

Weebly Tutorial from John Fitzsimmons on Vimeo.

How to Change a Google Blog from Public to Private

Watch this short tutorial if you wish to know how to change the settings on your blog so only readers you want can see your blog. It is fairly quick and easy and adds a layer of protection when and if you do not feel like sharing your work with the world. It can always be undone in either direction.

Fitz's Top Three Haiku Techniques

Fitz's Top Three Haiku Techniques

To count or not to count? That is the question...

     The writing of haiku is probably one of the most dumbed down exercises in our collective poetry curriculums around the planet. Every year I ask my students the same question: ‘What do you know about haiku?’ And invariably the entire room is shouting 5-7-5 as if it is the code that will stop a bomb from going off. It is almost like asking, “What is baseball?’ and having everybody shout “FIELD” at the same time. Baseball is certainly played on a field, but the answer is a long way from the nuance, practice, and reality of the game. Haiku has survived as an art form for so many thousands of years because there is something quintessentially cool, fun, and thought provoking about the writing and reading of haiku—but too many of us teachers forget to keep that in mind and impose a creative rigidity at the start by insisting on a metrical structure that is as unquestioned as gravity.  

The writing of haiku has to be kept fun and thought provoking. In fact, the term haiku is derived from the word "Hai" which means "insightful," and the term "Ku," which means "fun." (Or something very close to that.)  

How to Write a Literary Analysis Paragraph

Fitz's Literary Analysis Paragraph Rubric from John Fitzsimmons on Vimeo.

Here is a link to the google doc: Fitz's Literary Analysis Paragraph Rubric (full version with example)

Preparing for an Essay on Thoreau

We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.

            ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

       It is nigh about impossible to write any sort of convincing essay about something you know little about, which is the main reason why so few of us read essays for pleasure--we sense the fraud and deceit of the writer's argument, and so we turn away from the writing piece like we would a piece of cheese gone bad. Still, as teachers, we fire away on the front against an overwhelming army, thinking we can win a battle that is lost from the start; we expect you to know, and if you don't know, we want you to figure out a way to make it sound like you know. This goes on from middle school through college--and then you graduate, and ninety percent of you will never write a true essay again (thank God for the ten percent) because you never will have written a true essay from the start. To write a true essay you must begin from the ground you know well. Thoreau knew this and admonished every would be writer to start from this unflinching ground of oneself: "Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives."  [Economy: Walden] This is the spirit you must embrace in this essay when you explore this question: "What did the first chapter of Walden offer you, and what did you take away?"

      Sometimes it is best to start with what you don't know, and since you are writing about Thoreau at a fairly young age, you probably don't know enough about his tome of writings to overly praise or condemn him; you probably don't get all the complexities and nuances of his arguments in what you have read, so if you decide to attempt a strict literary analysis, you run the risk of sounding uniformed at best and arrogant at worst--but don't let this dissuade you from writing about Thoreau! This doesn't mean you have not had a profound and transformative literary experience; it does not mean that your thoughts, insights, and opinions are not as valid as those of the most seasoned critic. It simply means that a narrative essay--since its genesis is in the undeniable validity of you--is probably your best approach to writing about your experience reading and reflecting on the first chapter of Walden--that maddening treasure trove of pithy wisdom and parables simply called, "Economy--"  

Finding Your Voice

     

       If you want to be a writer, you cannot simply read. You need to return to what you've read and think about and reflect on that reading, because it is only through the process of reflecting that we can truly discover our writer's voice.

      We discover that if we write enough, our writing takes on a unique personality. Sometimes that personality reflects who we are in our public lives. Sometimes it is a very different voice. Sometimes our writing voice explores that part of us that our friends rarely see. I know that this is true with me.

       For most of my writing life, (which started my junior year in high school) I kept my writing mostly to myself—different entirely from the more public writing we do in our blogs. After I published my first book of poetry, even my closest friends seemed surprised that I wrote as much poetry as I did; but, I know that when I started to prepare my poems for publication, I also prepared for them to be "public," and it did affect and shape the way I wrote when I realized there were real people that wanted to read what I wrote. It both energized and scared me.

Fitz's Narrative Paragraph Video Tutorial

Here is a video for how to use my rubric for writing narrative paragraphs. You can upload the rubric by following this link: Fitz's Narrative Paragraph Paragraph Rubric

Be sure to go to: File/Make a Copy and rename it with your last name in the file to create your own paragraph using the rubric.