John Fitz

A Mother's Day Memory

This past Sunday night I walked into my mother’s room at the assisted living center in Concord—and went straight to the refrigerator.  It’s the same ghostlike motion I’ve made every day that I’ve walked into her kitchen since I could put one foot in front of the other. I don’t even know what it is I m looking for. It’s like some Pavlovian response to my mother’s presence and the coolness of coiled condensers. Maybe I am still hungry to know that my mother will still feed me. The refrigerator from my childhood—bursting with an unending gaggle of epicurean delight to feed six ravenous kids and a steady stream of friends—is now an obscenely small countertop square in the corner of an uncluttered kitchenette.  I open it and stare at the small bottle of ginger-ale, the pint of milk, the dainty plate of cookies and the half a sandwich and drift into the memories that persist and gnaw and flow out of that small space. I still expect to see gobs of grapes, oranges, and apples; chocolate pudding, leftover tuna casseroles and Shepard’s pie, Appian way pizza, kool-aid, custard, baloney; and eggs: pickled, deviled, scrambled, and boiled; and potatoes fried, mashed, hashed and rehashed in the unending evolution of necessity. But sometimes, when times were harder—times that were never actually mentioned—we made potato buds: dry flakes mixed with carnation instant milk and two tablespoons of butter and mixed into a pudding like potato whose greatest benefit to childhood was to hide the peas, beets, boiled onions and other scourges of an Irish Catholic childhood that kept us at the table long after dinner poking and dabbing at the utterly unpalatable goulash of tyranny until some one relented in their stubbornness and the cold remains were either scraped into garbage bin or  or forced down an unwilling gullet.  And there was always the whole milk with cream tops in glass bottles with paper caps; and there was always my father pawing the top shut and shaking the heavy cream back into the milk itself, exhorting us to imitate his practiced perfection--which none of us could do--and we always spilled the milk on the cracked formica table and vinyl chairs, and he always screamed, “Every night! Somebody has to spill the milk every single night!” And then, after the mopping rags and sullen face, dinner resumed in the chaotic recollections of the day: fights about whose night it was to do the dishes and who didn’t mow around the trees; who got seconds last night, and who got a C in penmanship, and who shouldn’t get two hydrox cookies for dessert because they weren’t smart enough to hide their peas in the potato buds! And I sat in the same seat with annoying little sister Annie on my right and annoying little brother Tommy on my left and my big sisters staring across from me: Eileen with her studious perfection; Mary Ellen with her jocky, untempered cockiness, and Patty, so old I hardly knew her, until she died so young that I can’t forget her; and in the overstuffed kitchen dad’s back crunched against the basement door, and mom was pressed against the dining room wall—the room with the walnut table and eight matching chairs that we never used—a museum stuffed with bone china and silverware we polished every Christmas, bought, I’m sure with green stamps and coupons.  We would avoid the dining room; but we lived and grew and gathered in the kitchen like chattering birds drawn to a stubbled and time-worn field—and out of that space we were reborn each day.

Every morning mom poured the wheaties, boiled the oatmeal and cut the grapefruit while we listened to Joe Green in the BZ copter mumbling unintelligible warnings about tie-ups at the Alewife circle, and we'd sang along to “Watch me wallabies feed, mates, watch me wallabies feed," and dad would grab his briefcase and we’d all try to be the first one to scream “Bye dad!” in a cacophony of competition, and, as if on cue, mom would sneak behind me and hold my head while I jerked convulsively, and she’d rub a warm wet cloth across my face and straighten my clip on tie and try to force down my cowlick and pick at my ears until I was fit to be presented to Sister Jean Beatrice—and, by some sort of convoluted math, to God.  And then she’d sit in her chair, quietly, and write her own mother a letter.

Every single day she’d write grandma a letter: one of us could get the letter paper; and one of could get the envelope; one of us would get to lick the stamp; one of us could put it on the letter; one of us could carry it to the mailbox, and the last one could lift up the metal flag. I never knew it was a ritual of perfection—a continual journey into the heart of the mystic love of family.

You never know, but still, you remember.

I never know exactly who I’ll see when I visit my mom. Over the past two years, Alzheimer’s disease has slowly chipped away at the edges of her memory.  One day she’ll remind me that it’s my childhood friend Danny Gannon’s birthday, and on the next day she’ll ask me who all my pretty children are…and like polite grandkids, my seven children will dutifully tell her their names once again, except for Tommy, who screams.  “You know me Grandma, I’m Tommy!” who then jumps on her lap and asks for a kiss—“Not that kind of kiss—a chocolate kiss.” And she smiles and says, “Of course, I know you. You’re Tommy.” I wonder if she thinks my Tommy is her Tommy

When I went to see her last night, we looked at ads for cars in the Boston Globe.  She wants a Toyota. “Your father loved his Toyota.” I smile to her, “That’s because Toyotas were cheap, and dad loved cheap.” It doesn’t matter that she will never drive again. It doesn’t matter that we will have the same conversation tomorrow. It doesn’t matter that soon she will slip into a cloud of unknowing. It only matters that she is here, and in the magic and mysterious majesty of memory, she will always be here.

Your memories will grow from different soil in a different garden. We live through memory. Nurture those memories. Hold them. Cherish them. Don't let go.

Morning Thoughts

"Don't let school interfere with your education."

-Mark Twain

I slow down when I see the fog and the breaking morning sun over the Concord River. I feel the wet fields slopping up my old leather boots--boots I haven't laced on for years; boots I used to scrape and oil on many a quiet night in my cabin by the river. I feel a bit foolish in my tweed jacket, sipping my morning coffee, listening to Imus in the Morning, trying to get to school with enough time to figure out my day, throw together some lesson plans, grade and comment on some papers and re-read the chapters of Huck Finn we will be discussing today in class.

I step on the gas as a car pulls up behind me. I smile and grasp what little I can of the remaining beauty; I am content with a small rush of memories, but today my shoes will remain as dry as my thoughts. I will be there for recess duty; I will tell wild young boys to tuck in their shirts; I will probably drone on about the overuse of adverbs and linking verbs, but I won't ask you to do what I want you to do. I won't open the door and say "Go!: Run to the fields, kneel in the mud and poke the ground; ask yourself questions you've never asked before; listen to no answers but your own; taste the sweetness of the indian cucumber and the tartness of the fiddelhead; call the birds and the tress and the rivers by name. climb the tallest tree you can find and call for the wind to bring you the news from Acton and Maynard and Monadnock. Don't be afraid to be lonely and lost; don't be afraid of tomorrow, and never run from yesterday. You are the inescapable you drenched in the beauty of today.

Beginning The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Huck Finn's Life & Your Life

                                                                                   

To read well, we need to read imaginatively. If we can't let ourselves be "carried away" by the plot of an old book, we will never experience the true potential and power of literature. Simply put: if you can't find something in common with Huck Finn, you are brain dead. Huck Finn is an archetypal boy; he represents the simple audacity of childhood; he traces the footsteps of our early lives--the wonderment, bewilderment, discontent, joy, fear, superstitions and dreams that make up our lives. To some of you it might seem so different as to not be real, so you must open your mind deeper, open your heart wider and let the imaginative force take over. See the book happen. Don't just read it!

Writing is like Shop

Lazy Sam's Blog Entry

Yesterday, during the soccer game, I had a breakaway on the goalie. I charged down the left wing and kicked a rocket shot at the goal.
--The end.

Once, in my days as a woodshop teacher, I was watching some fourth graders cutting wood in the shop. Afterwards, I asked them what they did in shop today. They all said they were working on some project or another. So I asked them "specifically" what they did in shop, and they all said, "We cut wood." I asked them one more question: "Did you cut the board all the way across?" They looked at me like I was an alien. "Of course" they cut the board all the way across!

I thought to myself, that's the way we should approach our writing in our journals. We don't have to make a tremendous project everyday, but we do have to cut the boards all the way across; we have to get from the start to the finish of our thoughts; we have to follow our thinking long enough for it to be a complete thought--a board cut all the way across.

So...whenever and whatever you write, don't stop until you've finished. Make everything you write, no matter how brief, have a beginning, a middle and an end. If you are writing a song, finish a verse. If you are describing a game, tell us about at least a part of the game all the way through. (see above)

Something in me is convinced that getting from the beginning to the end is the life blood of a writer and a thinker. I don't want you to rush, but I do want us to slog through the mud of our lives.

Tell me about your journey. More importantly, show me the mud!

Fly, Baby, Fly

Rising from the ashes is one of the most enduring metaphors of humanity. It is the hope of transformation that gives us the strength to crawl in the mud and squalor of a diminished life. The animal shivers in her den with the expectation of spring, but only we can create a new spring within ourselves; only we can share in the miracle of creation simply by an act of will. That is the magic of our lives; we can do and undo all that we've wrought on ourselves and others. We pledge ourselves to each other simply by saying "I do." We can change course with an ease that is astounding, but only if we break the shackles that hold us to the beaten ground and only if we stop pushing the unwieldy stone before us while dragging a sack of regret behind us. We never fully open our eyes. We content ourselves with living in the half light between sleep and wakefulness, and in this groggy state we chew on the bones of the day. Half starved, we look to the sky and bleakly remember the story of the phoenix. We remember that bird not for everything it did, but for the one thing it did. Do that one thing.

Breathing Air

The last advisor letters are in; thje 7th grade comments and grades have been filed (I'm blocking out secondary schgool recs) and now I feel like I can get back to what I love the most: Reading what you write and hearing what you think. I'll spend the next few days grading your essays, reading your blogs and helping make sure you are on track with your mini series. Maybe I'll write a poem.... (four dots; the ellipsis; it seems like so long ago. You guys have been real Edisons this week. Thanks.

Dumb Writing

I was talking to a teacher friend yesterday about the blogs. She seemed concerned that some of the writing sounded so “dumb.” My first response was a defensive reminder that there was also some “fine” essays and “insightful” literary reflections in the blogs as well. No teacher wants to be labeled as the one who let’s their students be dumb. Later—after I “reflected” on her observations—I wished I had said something different, more profound, and less defensive. I should have said, “Yeah, there are a lot of dumb entries! Did you like any of them?” I wish I responded with the confidence I feel in where you are going as writers. I wish I said we are just at the beginning of our journey—that we can’t reach the stars unless we break free of the gravity that holds us down.

Laziness and inexperience are the forces that hold us down. Sometimes we are too lazy to give a damn about an assignment or a stupid little journal entry; other times we are at a loss for how to put into words and phrases what we desperately want to say. Laziness is an approach to life that you have total control over; just get off your seat and do it—there is nothing holding you back but yourself. On the other hand, inexperience is just a reality that “you” have to work through; that work becomes the experience you need. That “work” might just be the journal entry that sounds dumb; it might be the awkwardly worded reflection that didn’t come out like you hoped it would; it might be the poem that no one but you understands—but they are all important steps in our collective journey’s as writers. If you care and you try, you will succeed. If you don’t care and you don’t try—good luck; you’ll need it!

Only you know when you truly care about what you do. There is nothing wrong with a fun and goofy journal entry, but if your highest aspiration as a writer stays at that level, then something is not right: I am not a good teacher or you are not a good student. We become a better writer first by caring about how and why we write and then by doing what we need to do to become a better writer. There is a self sustaining cycle to being a good writer. We need to read, reflect and write. Reading good literature immerses us into a world of thought, imagination and possibility. Reflection allows us to create meaning out of that literary experience; and finally, writing allows us to be the original creator of experience—and that is an awesome and awe-inspiring power.

Let yourself be a part of that power; tap into the cycle of creation. Don’t let yourself down. Don’t be dumb.

Of Rambles, Reflections & Essays

The Boy and His Teacher:
Boy: Why do we write reflections?
Teacher: Because it creates meaning out of experience.
Boy: What is meaning?
Teacher: You tell me.

No doubt, I ask my students to create a lot of writing. Sometimes I want you to ramble; sometimes I want you to think more deeply and write a reflection; and then sometimes I want you to create a real doozy of writing that is fit to be published in a literary magazine—probably called “an essay.”

For now, when you write in your blog just ramble and reflect; it’s the best way to become a more confident and engaging writer. ALWAYS punctuate and paragraph to the best of your ability!!!

A “ramble” is just that: a jumble of words pouring out of your head spilling out along the path of your thinking. A ramble is like driving through a tunnel with your headlights on; all you see is what is directly in front of you. Keep writing until you reach “the light at the end of the tunnel.” I write rambles all the time; sometimes it is the only way I can start writing; and after a few hundred words I might even have an idea of what I am writing about or what I want to write about.

Oftentimes, out of a ramble comes a “reflection.” A reflection is not always more thoughtful, but it is more dedicated to crafting a coherent piece of writing. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A reflection follows a certain theme or mood, and it gets rid of everything not related to that theme or mood. In short, a reflection has a purpose. You write a reflection because you trust that you have something worthwhile to say. I trust that you have something worthwhile to say, and I will read everything you write in the same spirit in which you create your writing.
We’ll get to essays. Don’t you worry.

Literary Reflections
These are just guidelines. You do not get extra credit for “sticking” to these thoughts. I write this for those of you who have asked for more clarification as to what a “literary” reflection means to me. If it helps use it; if it doesn’t, dump it.
1) Read the story and tell your reader if you "liked" it or not. Craft a catchy and engaging first line that points us in the right direction. Don't give a heck of a lot of thought to your gut impression. Save that for later in your reflection.
2) Give a brief “synopsis” of the story. Again, not a lot of detail, but a summary of the setting, characters and major shifts in the story.

3) Tell how you felt while reading the story. Did it affect you emotionally? Intellectually? Was your thinking more clear or more confused after reading the story? Were you engaged, or did you wish you had gone to the mall instead?
4) To figure out the theme, ask yourself why you think the author wrote the story. Did they have nothing else to do that day, or do you think they had a reason for writing the story? Is there a message? A hidden meaning? Does any part of the story seem like a metaphor or allegory for something else?
5) Wrap up with a wrap up. Condense everything you've already written into a cool and real paragraph—a paragraph that is somehow tied to your first paragraph. Conclude with a yay or nay for others to read the story themselves. Give the story a star rating on a scale of 1-5.
6) Give your writing a title that indicates the content in an interesting way.

What Do You Know About Yom Kippur

For most of you, Yom Kippur is a mystery. To have a night off from something you don't understand seems foolish. If you don't know what Yom Kippur means to the Jewish people, please feel free to read this.

YOM KIPPUR:
Origins

By: Amy J. Kramer

Yom Kippur, the Sabbath of Sabbaths, is observed the tenth day of the Hebrew month of Tishri, September or early October in the secular calendar.

The first Yom Kippur took place after Moses returned from his second trip to Mt. Sinai with the replacement set of tablets containing the Ten Commandments. He had broken the original set when he returned the first time to discover the children of Israel worshipping a golden calf rather than G-d, who brought them out from Egypt.

Since You Don't Have Homework, Maybe You Will Listen To Me Ramble on About 500 Word Essays

Fitz’s Ramble on Writing 500 Word Essay’s

The main idea in writing an essay is to express your thoughts clearly and concisely in a voice that feels very natural to you; It is, in fact, you. You have something important to say and an essay is the pickup truck that will deliver the goods. Consciously, and unconsciously we use the essay form to convey the essential information of our lives. Here are a few things I keep in mind:

Holy cow! A thousand words! It’s easy to be intimidated by a mandatory minimum length for an essay. The length of an essay is an attempt by your teacher, editor, publisher or director to help you determine the scope of what you are writing about. Excess words in an essay are like boulders in a backpack—they aren’t much use; moreover, they make the essay harder to understand and less pleasurable to read.

There is often a stigma attached to writing an essay, as if the form is as strict as a haiku written in Japanese: Introduction, Body and Conclusion. An essay is simply a story well told. Stories take on many different shapes; but all good stories have a beginning that grabs your attention and draws you into the story, a middle that is enlightening and interesting and relates well to the beginning, and an ending that is satisfying—something that feels like an ending—something that doesn’t leave a lot of loose ends hanging.

Whenever we tell a good story or relate a memorable experience to a friend we are speaking in the form of an essay. How often have you told a friend after they make a comment out of nowhere: “That’s a random thought”? It is usually when they say something without an introductory statement—when they jump right into some story without telling you in some way shape or fashion where they are coming from.

We sometimes hear the introduction without the body or the conclusion, e.g.: “I had the most amazing game yesterday…” And the listener is left hanging, mouthing the exasperated words “well…what was so amazing?” We naturally want to hear the details (but maybe not all the details!) of an amazing story.

A conclusion without an introduction or a body is the worst. Not only do you sound like an opinionated fool, but, it’s as if you have to listen to somebody middle of watching The Simpsons shouting, “Yes, it’s very important to master the fundamental skills of the game.” What game? What skills? What planet are you on?

With that said, I’d like to add that there is no skill more important to master than the ability to write a good essay. It is literally a skill that will save you time and time again in this great adventure called life. It is a skill and a craft that can be learned and mastered by almost anybody. But you have to care, and you have to try to learn, the only way to learn is to do.

(This essay was exactly 500 words)

Midnight Rain, Blogs and Ruminations

The gentle rain is now a waterfall pouring off the roof of my front porch. My inner clock is telling me it is after midnight and I need to sleep, but my outer self is immersed in words and the warmth of a crazy fall night in New England. Three hours of reading blogs. Most of the time amazed and excited by what I've read, and only occasionally disappointed (mainly by what I have not read). It's good to see you guys writing and giving your heart and soul to the process. I know that a lot of you must have gone way over the homework limit, but ,in a real and palpable way, this is more than homework; this is preparation for life itself. In the same way you probably practice your pitching and juggling and basketball outside of your required practices, so we often lose ourselves in the challenge of trying to get our writing to do and say what we want it to. I just want you to know I appreciate what you do.

The entries ran the course from the mundane to the profound and from the silly to the solemn--but most all of them were great efforts put forth with a sense of purpose. All of them, too, could be better. When I was your shop teacher very few of you were satisfied with a pile of boards loosely banged together; you came to shop eager to put on another coat of varnish or to putty up your screw holes, or to put one last finishing touch before you "brought it home." A good question to ask ourselves as writers is, "Is this ready to bring home?" Ask yourself this question as you prepare to hit "save" on your final two writing pieces this week. Don't be afraid to pick up that big essay book I gave you and measure your work against the great writers of the last few hundred years. If you don't aspire to greatness in everything you do, then you will one day rue the melancholy of mediocrity. You need to be able to walk away like Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and say, "At least I tried, damn it; at least I tried."

Thanks for trying (and for succeeding!)

You As a Writer

Maybe you have never thought of yourself as a real life writer, but there is no way around it now--you are a real writer--and you already have a ready and eager audience waiting to read "everything" you write--including the good, the bad, and the ugly. This week we are going to spend our time writing about what we know--specifically, our lives and our passions, and our pursuits and our thoughts; we are going to experience what professional writers experience all the time: a writing piece produced by the deadline. Our deadline is everyday--not unlike most columnists and sportswriters.

Everyday you must come up with a new writing piece which is at leat three paragraphs long; which is focused on a single theme, and which is written to an 8th grade audience. I would suggest writing in microsoft word and then pasting the completed entry in your blog, so as to not lose your entry due to internet breakdown or to just help you with spelling and grammar.

At minimum, each piece should start with an introductory paragraph that tries to hook the reader (We will discuss some various "hooking" techniques in class.) and "points" or "guides" the reader in the direction you want them to go. Make sure the direction is narrow and focused; you only have a short amount of time to finish these writing pieces. The following paragraph(s) tell your story as effectively as possible. Your final paragraph simply concludes your piece; how you conclude your piece is as important as how effectively you engage your reader in the first paragraph. Remember: In class, we have to read each other's works, but in real life people don't have to read what you write--you make them eager to read what you write by learning the craft of good writing.

You must also go to the other blogs and read what your classmates are writing. Try and emphasize the positive aspects of their writing piece, and be as specific as you can. Maybe point out a good sentence, or image, or use of dialogue, or subject matter; you can also suggest ways that they could more tightly focus their writing, --in short, be a good and sensitive critic, not a know-it-all, because God knows when it comes to writing, the top of the pedestal is pretty small.

Remember GAD, and remember the deer scampering to the top of the tree. It's almost that easy:)

The Odyssey

Every class for the past week I have been reading The Odyssey to my 8th grade boys.  I've set up a small sound system in the class.  I recite and I enlist one of the students to play the guitar or keyboards as a backdrop.  I am not quite sure why, but I find performing The Odyssey as an oral poem to be an amazing experience.  We will spend the next six weeks reading the entire epic aloud in class.  At night the kids write about anything they want--in any style they want--as long as they use a quote from The Odyssey as inspiration for their writing.  It's pretty amazing what they are posting in their blogs, and what they post as comments.

These are the great days of being a teacher: doing what you love to do; no one bothering you or questioning why you are doing what you are doing; parents happy that their boys are reading classic stuff--and hey, it's time to go pitch baseball practice to 7thgraders.   For this I get paid.

Sunday

Damn this cold weather.  My heart and soul are already geared towards spring, but this weather is keeping me from all my "spring" activities: turning over the garden; scraping, sanding and painting my small fleet of boats;  working on the bus, playing baseballfootballfrisbeesoccer with the kids until it's dark; grilling up steaks and eating out on the deck.  I'm just ready, pure and simple.

The cold weather has given me the time to tinker with some blogging ideas, and I sat down and started working on a new website using the Apple iweb software.  I'm kind of a gearhead when  it comes to Apple stuff.  I've drunk the kool-aid.  My website now is made using Adobe go live software.  It's not that difficult to create and maintain my site, but it's just not as fun as using the Apple software.  I love how Apple creates a seamless transition between so many different programs.  The apple programs likeiweb, iphoto, garage band and imovie are all much more limiting than using dedicated professional apps like Dreamweaver, Photoshop, or Pro-Tools, but by the same token, I can focus my energies (or I should be able to focus my energies) on more of the creative aspects of my life.

I wish our school would switch to macs.  I think we would then use the technology a heck of a lot more than we do.  Teachers aadn kid would find it easier and more fun.  I state that with 100% certainty, but we won't change, and they probably would not appreciate my advice, anyways.  So, I'll leave my bitching here and move on.

The cup of espresso that I had at nine o'clock is wearing off.  I have the next few days with the kids while Denise goes down to the Cape with Jen.  Tonight, Denise is organizing all the kids clothes.  My sense of wardrobe is not incredibly noteworthy, so I think she wants to make sure the kids are at least moderately groomed.

There's no graceful way out of this little ramble.  One minute I was pretty awake; now here, less tan three minutes later I hit the wall.

Goodnight.

Vacations Over

A Somewhat Strange Introduction To Ballads and Poems

                                                                                   

Imagine skipping your childhood completely. Imagine waking up this morning and looking in the mirror at a perplexed and frightened creature. Today is the first day of your life and so you begin.

You see kids your age listening to music. Everywhere you go there is music; all of it new: all of it strange; some of it is soothing; some it jarring and even scary. You meet people and start to hang out with them. You listen to music together, and soon you are in the groove; you’re moving to the beat, agreeing with the lyrics. In a weird way you become the music you love, but you never ask or even wonder where it came from. It just is, and that’s fine with you.

When I was your age I listened to The Who, The Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash, The Animals and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I spent my summer after 8th grade learning every song on an album called Four Way Street. I bet a lot of your parents did the same thing. I thought I was pretty cool, but I still had to work up the guts to hold Meghan Tasinni’s hand; I still just went along with whatever was put on the turntable…until the night we (we being the gang of kids—all older—who I hung out with each summer at our summer cottage in New Hampshire) climbed Stinson Mountain to sleep in the abandoned fire-tower. We made a huge campfire and listened to some guy play the guitar. My friends were teasing me because I was the only one who hadn’t kissed a girl yet—and the summer was almost done. And so the guy sang a verse from a song:

Dear Abby, Dear Abby
You won’t believe this
My stomach makes noises
Whenever I kiss.
My girlfriend tells me
It’s all in my head,
But my stomach tells me
To write you instead…

I was able to laugh at myself. And it made me feel a lot better. The thing is, it wasn’t just a stupid camp song. It was a song about dealing with your fears—and I had plenty. I found out who wrote the song (John Prine) and I started looking for music that spoke to me and for me. Every singer I listened to and liked forced me back another few years: You can’t listen to John Prine and not listen to Bob Dylan; you can’t listen to Bob Dylan and not listen to Woody Guthrie; You can’t listen to Woody Guthrie and not listen to the folksongs of the farms and prairies of the mid-west. You can’t listen to traditional American folk-music and ignore the ancient European and African roots of that American folk music. You can’t go back to the old world and ignore the ballads that sprung from the primal consciousness of humanity seeking higher wisdom and a common expression. It goes on until you are lost to The Sirens of Titan and mesmerized by a cycle powered by rhythm, melody and words. Everytime I stop, the hands point back to the old ballads; and the ballads point to poetry, which in turn points to prayer.

There is still so much more I need to learn.

I didn't embrace the world of balladry because I wanted to be good at something very few people care about and/or ever listen to.I am not trying to make these old ballads seem relevant; these songs are relevant because actual real people, wanted—and needed—to hear these songs, at least for a while, and sometimes for a long while. The old balladeers were the first singers brave enough to use words to scratch the shell of their fears and desires, other people became brave enough to invent new words and new ways to understand themselves and their experiences—and their fears and desires; and so we became a people brave enough to tell stories that look inward; we discarded the epic poems and gallant heroes for tawdry songs of murder and deceit, illicit love and raunchy rhymes, because that is more who we are. Not flattering, but infinitely more real. We let the heroes go like a child discards a toy; we need something closer to reality.

They still needed heroes, and we still need heroes, but the new heroes need to come from among us. No longer could they come out of an enchanted forest; they have to be the power and courage within all of us. We have to look at ourselves and know we can overcome the physical and emotional adversities of life. Our greatest strength comes from the power of music, poetry and prayer. It is a heroic trinity and one we should respect by exploring that power with an open mind and a willing heart.

You are back with your friends. You wonder sometimes about your childhood. There’s even a door that says, “Your Childhood.” All your friends seem to have had a childhood; they talk of their earliest memories. They laugh at how they babbled their way through school and life—and now they’re here listening to music, being cool and being fourteen. Would you open your childhood knowing it might change everything you know and love and understand? Would you open the door knowing it is the start of a long journey that begins a long time ago? Poetry is the bravest art.

Beginning Wednesday, if you are with me, we’ll begin with some ballads from a long time ago.

It's Good To See

It's good to see so many of you blogging on your break. I should practice what I preach. I'm sitting down here watching late night Teletubbies with Tommy. (Don't laugh, because you'll be there (here?)someday.) I've had a long emotional week. Phillipe was admitted to the hospital in Boston on Tuesday. They let him come home today. The poor kid was poked and prodded and IVed all week. When we took him on Tuesday, we stepped in the elevator and hit the button without even thinking that he'd never been on an elevator before. He cried and held us the whole way up. If it wasn't so sad it would have been funny--if that makes sense.

The receptionist motioned us into a waiting room at the New England Medical Center. We had spoken briefly with Dr. Millner a week earlier. Denise e-mailed hom out of the blue: "We've got a sick kid, but no health insurance for him. We think he needs you." He called us back on the phone less than five minutes after we sent our e-mail. We only knew that he is considered one of the best kidney doctors in the country. What we didn't expect was an old and ambling Jewish doctor from South Africa to walk into the room and hand us his wisdom, his heart and his expertise as if we had been family friends from childhood. He sat with us for a couple of hours and laid it all out: Phillipe kidney disease is pretty bad; his heart is racing at 140 beats a minute; he is extremely malnourished; his legs barely get him up a small flight of stairs; it took the doctors over an hour just to find a vein big enough for an IV --and it was IV's all week. Denise sat with him for three nights and four days in an isolation room. I stayed home with the kids and found out first hand what it's like to handle six kids alone all day and night. By this morning I found myself frazzled and muttering under my breath: "Your socks do not have to match; you don't "need" to have you Cocoa Krispies in the green bowl; you need a hat--and you definitely need another boot on before you get any further out the door; and, yes, it is very common to have a hamburger without frenchfries; and, just because Mom does it that way doesn't automatically make it the right way...

It's amazing how one reality is dwarfed by another, but we don't always realize that, and we get caught up in a self-centered idiocy. Some people seem to be able to keep the big picture in front of them, and so they simply do the right thing--always--because to them it is so obvious. This week my life has played out in front of the big screen. As hard as it's been, I still feel like the luckiest guy alive; I feel like I've received a gift from someone I love

The long and short of all this is that I was hanging out with Phillipe tonight while Denise went out Christmas shopping (another thing I'm not great at). We watched Batman Returns together. I honestly think I was afraid of too much quiet time. My Creole is awful--perhaps more like unintelligible and I was nervous that Phillipe would get frustrated dealing with me. The movie ended and so I turned off the TV and he yelled, "NO" at me. So I yelled "Yes" back at him--and then he smiled at me with a smile that would stop the world and began to laugh, and then he began to sing a song about a butterfly--Papillion--I only know what it meant because he drew me a picture; and drew every detail slowly and earnestly: "Butterfly. Papillion." I shouted triupmphantly. Then we sang the alphabet song together and criticised each others pronunciation--and then he began sing "Frere Jacque" in Creole, and I joined in in English. I figured out that domi means sleep. I repeated domi and he smiled again and led me upstairs to his bunkbed and climbed in with a big smile and waited for me to blow his ears out and kiss him on the forehead.

And yeah, it was good to see.

This Morning

Each morning I am on of the first few to make it in here to school. The ritual of claiming the same parking spot sets a rhythm to the day.  I've rearranged my room so I can sit at my desk and look out over the bird sanctuary--probably soon going to be the new academic wing.  It' where I am now, thinking about this life, my job and my dreams.

I wonder how much doing all the secondary school recommendations will keep me from my dreams.  The van started rough this morning; will that keep me from my dreams.  Oil costs around three dollars a barrel, and we live month to month on my teacher's check; there's a bump.  Maybe you need to know my dreams; that can't keep me from my dreams.

There was a brilliant, rich,  and arrogant man on talk radio this morning.  I only wanted a part of his wealth.  I knew I wouldn't get it here.  I knew I wouldn't get it living the way I live.  I solaced my soul by convincing myself that he would probably trade all he has for what I have. I wondered how much "smarter" he is than me.  I wondered how important it is to be smarter than you are.  Life is limited; where do I need to be smarter.

Maybe this is the beginning of the mid-life crisis.  Maybe I'm looking at the years of trying to be a decent guy, of following romantic dreams and impulse and seeing that I missed out here and there.  There are a lot of reasons that teaching is a blind art.  I direct cars through the parking lot and don't think twice how demeaning that really is. Why do they need a whole slew of us to stand in the rain point  seventy thousand dollar cars in obvious directions?  I write lengthy letters home to parents days after spening an hour on the phone with them...

This is not a good way to start the day.  It's hard to smile before a dream deferred.

A Letter to Huck Finn (but mostly to my class)

Dear Huck

Is there room on the island? I just got back from four hours of singing in a club; I'm tired and kind of grumpy. I'm not sure why. Maybe it is all the negative comments about my weekend assignment, but I need a break from everything. You've got it made; you sit around all day, catch catfish and drift logs and talk with Jim. Hey, I could even deal with the rattlesnakes. Sorry about Jim and the snake. I know you didn't mean for Jim to get bit, but it was still pretty stupid--and mean-- though I know you thought it was going to be funny. It's strange how easy it is to screw up. Like with me, I wasn't meaning to get a bunch of my kids mad. I really didn't think that taking a walk in the woods and sitting for twenty minutes was a big deal. And I didn't think reading a good book for an hour was work at all. I actually thought it would be fun and interesting. I hope I have time to walk for a half an hour this weekend. You probably walk around and sit whenever you want to sit; and thinking--I know you can't keep from thinking. You're always thinking. Man, you've got a lot to think about--more than I'll ever have to think about, because your thinking is probably mostly worrying, and Jim's worrying is probably worst of all. If you get caught you'll be whipped by your Pal, but Jim will get whipped and sold down the river. It makes me feel stupid to worry so much about how mad some of my students are right now. I bet some of them will stay so mad that they won't get anything out of the assignment; they'll just be mad the whole time. I'm sorry if some of them don't seem like they care about you in their letters. They have busier lives than you. Seeing as you have so much time on your hands, maybe you should write them a letter. I would, but I'm afraid they'd tear it up before they read it. They're really good kids, but I worry sometimes how they'll handle the really tough times in life. I mean, my assignment ain't tough like you got it tough; it'll just take some time--and I don't imagine Jim has had free time in his whole life. I guess where you stand depends upon where you sit.

Sorry for the long ramble. I'm wicked tired. I really don't want to go to the island. I was just saying that. Tell Jim, hi; and be real careful; it ain't so nice here either sometimes.

Good luck,

Fitz

                                                                                               

Posted by Fitz English at 12:40 AM |

Getting Back to It

Charlie is clammering to go on a whalewatch. Eddie is practicing optical illusions.  Margaret and Denise are off to a soccer game.  Emma, Tommy and Kaleigh are still asleep.  Me and the boys are killing time until Charlies mini soccer tournament.  Thoreau once write in a poem: "My life is the poem I would have writ, but I couldn't both live and utter it."  I feel a bit like that myself.  Aside from time, I have pretty much everything a guy needs: a great wife, good kids, awesome job, a fine house in a fun neighborhood, close friends and a few toys.  Time ain't going to just appear, so I will need to make it appear, specifically the time to write.  I rarely start or finish a poem or a song nowadays.  In my writing days I was able to block of huge chunks of time everyday for weeks on end--sometimes months on end.  I always bug my class about the need to be a creator when you have a problem; I tell them to create a solution to the problem because it is rarely just going to go away. 

And so it is with my songwriting and poetizing.  I convinced myself that I needed those big chunks of time to write. I shrugged my shoulders at the injustice forced upon me by fate--a beautiful and wonderful fate, but fate, nonetheless.

I've got a few chunks of songs and poems.  I'll start putting them in here in their incompleteness.  Better here than in an old journal on my shelf.  Here I'll try and learn to peck away at writing, and I'll let my genius blossom in adifferent way.  And if it ain't genius, so be it.

Why Dramatic Readings?

"A calm sea never a captain makes."

I've sailed for years--and thought I was a darn good sailor, but it was not until I was caught unprepared in a wild storm off the coast of Maine did I learn to appreciate the power of nature, and, more importantly, my own limitations and arrogance. Through a combination of luck and grit we made it through the storm, but it taught me to be prepared whenever I venture away form the safety of the harbor (a metaphor for life!). In the same way a classic old book can catch us unprepared: Unprepared for the language; unready or unwilling to immerse yurself in the time period; unready to enter a different genre of literature, and so we need to become a Captain of our fate--a master of our own destiny. We have to accept that the wind and the waves are coming at us in the form of Huck Finn. We have to figure out the best way we can to get through the book; we have to "work" at understanding the text and to discover what it tries to teach us about life, and love, and friendship, and society. Most importantly we need to discover why this book has such meaing for so many people. Obviously, I hope you love the book, but if you don't, I can't slow down to care; it is not going to sway me from teaching this book with all my heart and soul and being. It is your job as a student of literature to immerse yourself in everything we do in class. It is your job to show each other--and me--that you care; it is up to you to essai!

This is why we do the dramatic readings. This is why I want you to know what you are reading. I want you to know your words inside and out. If there is a particularly hard sentence--and there are many of them in Huck Finn--I want you to practice them until they flow from you like honey--until they are you.

A good book only works if you do.

Two Minutes

I feel like Tom Brady.  There only ever two minutes to spare to win the game.  Life gets a hold of me and the time slips by...."like a broken down dam."  Each day there are words lost inside of me. It's not that there is anything more important; it's just that it's more pressing.  I needed to get my grades and comments in by today--so there goes the weekend.  I needed to post my homework assignments--so there goes the last hour, and it becomes a cycle of catering to the small inanities of life.  In two minutes I have a meeting; somebody will ask me to clarify something...

I wish I could tell them what I'm really wondering about.

A Great Line from Rich

"...only 2 more blogs "left" in me. I'll be fresh out of things that I know!"

The Beauty of Maybe

8th Grade Fitz English
Weekend Non-Homework

"My life is the poem I could have writ,
But I couldn't both live
And utter it."
--Henry David Thoreau

I don't care about the rain. I don't care our party is washed out. I'm happy that I've written most of the comments I need to write. I'm happy that there are no soccer games or church school or birthday parties. I'm happy to just hang out with my kids and Denise and do whatever we want to do. Maybe we'll go drive around some old boatyards and find a clamshack. Maybe we'll go to the Museum of Science and pretend we're astronauts. I don't know. Maybe anything. If you're not a barber or a doctor, a little indecision is a healthy conundrum.

I woke up this morning knowing exactly what I am going to do today--all day and into tonight. I can say the same for yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that, until the routine is so ingrained that we accept it as normalacy; we assume we are acting as natural as an acorn. Even if we don't like our ways, we accept them with an equanimity which is startling. Like old draft horses oblivious of their yokes cast off, we still walk a straight line through every field we cross. We still look behind ourselves and measure our accomplishments in neat, ordered rows. We can't stop thinking, "There must be something I can get done today."

I need three days of not looking behind myself. I need to walk slowly and search for the perfect rock--and then throw it as far as I can. I'll wink wisely when the kid ask where we are going, and I'll say,"we'll see." And then we will.

So, no homework.  If the words come, let 'em fly, but if you need to simply live and breathe, so be it.

Getting back to things

I guess this is a big day for us. We're singing at the Boston Folk Music Festival. I wish I wasn't sneezing like crazy. The exhaustion and pace at the beginning of the school year has pretty much run me down. It is a blast to be teaching all English, but to do it well the kids have to write, and for them to write well they need the boost of attention that a few nice comments scratched on their paper creates. I just restrung my guitar, so I imagine I should look at the set list and do a bit of practicing--something we never do as a group.

On another note, this will be my first entry in my Inn Crowd journal. Since I have the ability to create unlimited weblogs, I am offering free blogs to anyone who hangs out--or just occassionally shows up--at the Inn. It's tough to write in isolation. I know:) Hopefully, I will be down at the Inn tonight regaling the "crowd?" with stories of our amazing reception at the festival.

If you want a blog, let me know.

Just Do It

Confidence is a crazy pastime. I never thought that somehing as innocuous as doing a bunch of mechanical work on a 27 year old bus would give me the boost it has. Maybe confidence isn't something that should bloom when you are 47 years old, but it has! What my neighbors probably see as an obsession and a burden is an energizing immersion into the possibilities of life.

I look at our old motorhome and its big Cat diesel engine; the hoses and fan belts and radiator all dis- assembled, and I know I will put it back together today. I know that it will run better than it has in years; I know I've covered my bases. I took it apart and put it back together again, all the while cleaning, replacing and resetting everything in need.

If you live by metaphor, there is much to learn from a descent into the machine of our being.

Damn

Just wrote a long post, forgot to hit save and lost it in the cyberworld.  Oh well, time to practice the wisdom and restraint I preached about in the post:)

The Stuff We Own

I am wondering about the stuff I own. I am curious about the true value of the things scattered around my life.  Today is a day to putter and clean, prioritize and discard.  Easier done with the material than the spiritual, but somehow the two are related.  I will post later with my failures and successes.

True and Untainted Love

A cool morning.  It's good to be back on our porch.  The bus ran beautifully on our trip up to Windsor Mountain--four days of hanging out and singing at a summer camp in New Hampshire.  I see on the news that there has been a series of bombings in London.  Why does it feel like I am constantly in and out of a bubbles?  The world needs to begin a mass movement towards a new and radical peace.  My initial reaction is one of anger at the bombers and their audacious and ignorant idiocy.  I have friends who see everything as the fault of the US government, but the bottom line--and there is always a bottm line--is that the US did not explode those bombs.  The US did not deliberately target those absolutely innocent men, women and children to further a myopic ideal.   It does not work for me to hear the common litany of complaint that traces everything back to our nation.  As Thoreau would point out, the US is one of many countries that can be seen as a branch of evil , but as individuals and sojourners in this world, we are the root of evil; we condone evil both by our actions and by our inactions.  Only a collective expression of solidarity coupled with an enlightened desire for a peaceful coexistence will turn the tide of this madness.

Every government on the planet should be taken to task for their self righteous attacks on both their own citizens and against sovereign countries; and equally so, every citizen of every country has live out the principles of their individual moral conscience and peacefully resist what is clearly wrong.  I have to believe that a moral conscience is the innate and immutable force of our creation;  I have to believe, as Tiellhard De Chardin speculated a hundred years ago, that we are evolving  spiritually towards an omega point--a point at which we are in union with our creation.  We are born to nurture and explore goodness; we are born to create more life, life that is ever more focused and directed towards true and untainted love. 

True and untainted love is not easy or hard. It simply is.  True and untainted love cannot preach from a book. It lives through the heart, and as such, it is an unending action away from our anger and solipsy, and towards a re-concilliation with the force of our creation.  The greatest problem of the world is that political power is centered  and directed by so very few.  It is loud and brash and unforgiving; whereas the goodness and magnanimity of the world, as expressed in billions of small loving actions, is lost in the breadth of its distribution.  These actions die like mayflies in the spring; their life cycle, though short, is as real and meaningful as today's bombing.  What is small goes unnoticed;  we don't seem able to tap into the collective power of these actions.  Instead we are captured by the power of headlines and the allure of the few and obvious.  We need to renew our senses, and listen and watch and be strengthened by our attention to the trickles of love around us.

As I write this my neighbor walks by with his dog and strikes up a conversation about the weather.    Kaleigh is playing the piano.   Eddie is throwing paper airplanes.   I pray that somewhere in a  Haitian mountain village Phillipe is getting his medicine.  Charlie is blowing bubbles on the porch.  I am glad the metaphor does not escape me

Everything is happening.  And nothing is happening.

Is it joy or sadness?

What is Duty?

I'm sitting on the adirondack chair on our front porch. The kids are riding their bikes in the driveway--tricycles, skateboards, two wheelers and training wheels.  Margaret just earned two dollars vacuuming the bus;  Eddie is analyzing the contents of his tackle box; Kaleigh gives me a dirty look when I say, "Oh, finally got up?" My guitars are out to restring and get ready for a couple days worth of singing and storytelling...so finish this coffee and another summer day begins.

We were approved yesterday as a "fit family" to adopt Phillipe.  It is a tribute to the power of love that I can't imagine giving up on a sick little boy we've never met. We have a long (and expensive) road ahead of us, but it feels like we are moving in the right direction.  Haiti is in a bit of chaos right now--and getting worse.  Phillipe is somewhere in a mountain village. And we are here playing the waiting game.  It might be I need to go down there to make the adoption possible.  The Peace Corp pulled out yesterday and the embassy is pulling all their unessential staff.  It's so different where I am now.  10 years ago, before I had this family, I wouldn't think twice about going anywhere in the world.  I think the word is "insouciance." 

Now, I admit I fear for my family--not myself, but for the lives I've "vowed" to hold most dear forever.  It is a quandary.  How far am I willing to go for Phillipe?  Am I willing to put my life in danger for him--yet?  He is alive and knows nothing of our efforts to adopt him.  He only knows that he wants to be adopted; that he trusts Conor and the dreams and hopes he has for him.  I think of all the servicemen and women who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, ostensibly for us, but who in reality destroyed the fabric of their families.  I am angry with Bush for putting men and women with families on a battlefield which seems hopeless and myopic.  It's weird and maybe heartless, but I feel that battle is the domain of the brave and unattached--young men with open and willing minds committed to life as a warrior, not for a father or mother with a more sacred duty at home.  Equality should not be a doorway for  idiocy.  We would all die for our children, but we should never die in spite of them.

So I wait and pray, e-mail and hound in hopes that it "will all work out." 

Adoption

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Denise and I are off to Lowell this morning to begin the first steps in adopting Phillipe from Haiti.  Phillipe is an eight year old orphan I first heard about through Joe Shapiro's brother, Conor.  He works in an orphanage at Font De Blanc.  I know a lot of people privately think we are nuts to be adopting when we already have six children.  A few people have even surprised me with their concerns--as if we had not considered the implications; others have sincerely offered to help in any way that they can.  But to start to answer why we want to adopt.

For me it all stared 25 years ago when some friends in China wanted me to adopt their ten year old boy and bring him back to the states with me.  I was 21 at the time and seriously thought about it.  His parents had me "kidnap" him one weekend and sneak him down to Shanghai on a train.  I hid him under my berth until the rain was on its way. The conductor had a fit.  Back then I spoke a pretty fluent chinese and I told him with a smile that "he was my youngest son."   The rest of the people convinced him to just let it be, so enamored were they of the scraggly bearded american and his young son.  Chinese culture is strange sometimes; his parents really would have let me take their kid away--and they were great and caring parents.  They sincerely wanted a better life for him--and maybe he would send them back money someday.

And then seven years ago, when Margaret was only a couple of months old, I took a bunch of Concord kids on a service trip to Honduras.  While there I worked in a small clinic we had helped to build. One small boy caught my atttention.  He was malnourished and extremely small.  Denise just said to bring him home.  I really wish I had put more effort into making that happen, but it was expensive and daunting to me at the time, but I did vow that we had to take in another child someday--a child truly in need of a home.  Phillipe is that kid

Phillipe lives with his grandmother--who from all accounts, just cannot care for him or feed him.  He also has a kidney disease which has kept him on steroids for most of his eight years.  The nuns have left the orphanage for reasons I am still not sure about.  A friend of mine who was down there said it was because they wanted to spend the money on building churches--not on helping the children.  Having worked with a lot of nuns in some pretty rough places I knew he was ignorant and full of shit, but I didn't want to get into it.  At any rate they cared for Phillipe for the last few years, but they are not around and we want to be, so that is why we go to Lowell this morning and spend a couple of thousand dollars we don't have on a home study that will figure out if we are fit to be parents.  But it's what you have to do.

And for us, adoption is what we have to do.