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 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.

Don't Do It

My bus on the fourth of July, 2013!

    I was eighteen and designing a production line for making stepladders at Fitchburgh State College—the only college I could afford, and probably the only place that would have me. I remember thinking, ‘Man, this ain’t no life for me.’ I barely had a working idea of what life meant, but I was pretty sure it meant I didn’t have to do something without any meaning or purpose—and I certainly didn't want to spend my life designing a better stepladder.’

     But, what did I want to do? Did I have the courage to even make a change in my life? If I had read The Odyssey, I might have known what to do; I might have known that I was on a heroic journey and that my call to adventure was the churning confusion in my gut, and I might have known to look for a helper and an amulet to get me over the threshold—that no quest is real until you realize that you cannot go it alone.

Ten Ideas for Writing in Your Blog

     Doing something which is "different" does not come easily to most of us. The wrestling team I coach will look at me sideways if I ask them to practice cartwheels. I've even heard that some professional football teams bring in dance instructors to teach their behemoth linemen the art of ballet and foxtrot. My point is that practicing "any" athletic sport develops your skill in another seemingly unrelated sport. The same is true in writing. Through practicing the skills and techniques used in different genres of writing, we can enhance the overall quality and effectiveness of the writing we love to do (or are required to do because of schoolwork or employment.)  By practicing different styles and genres of writing, we learn to avoid the rut of developing a formulaic, predictable, and downright dull writing style--plus, you might even discover a renewed love and energy for a "new" kind of writing when you practice writing in an unfamiliar genre.
Over the course of the next few weeks, try and write in each of the following genres and styles of writing.  I will post more detailed descriptions and writing prompts that span the many different types of writing, but it is up to you to give them a full-hearted try.  Good luck and have fun!

Five Rules for How to Tell a Good Narrative Story

How to Tell a Good Story

Call me Ishmael

~Herman Melville

     We are born to tell and listen to stories of all kinds, but the most popular and pervasive of these is the narrative story—a story which retells an experience you have had. Every time someone asks you: “how was school? how was your trip? did you catch anything? what do you like about him? “was it a good game”? … and you answer with more than a grunted single-word response, you are telling a narrative story and YOU are the narrator. The only difference between a narrative story and a fictional story is how much you can play with the truth. The art of the story is the same.

     Of course, some people tell better stories than other people, but why? The answer is probably because they tell more stories or they read more stories. They are not satisfied with the single grunt because they love and want to recreate the moment as vividly and compellingly as possible, and by the process of elimination and addition they have figured out how to tell a good story. Good storytellers know what goes into a good story, and, just as important, they know what to leave out. They know that a good story, well told, brings great satisfaction to them as the tellers and writers and to their audience as listeners and readers.