John Fitz ~keeping music alive~

Remembering Mum

Some day, when my memories are more distilled by the streams of time, I will write another memoir for my mum, but I woke up this morning and found these words I wrote when we and Mum said our final goodbyes.

     I ran into an old friend one day after visiting mom. Struggling for words to express his sympathy for both myself and my mom’s condition, he said, “Mary is not the mother you knew.” I guess in a way, none of us are ever that person whom we knew. Every day is a new contract with a life that simply—and often painfully and poignantly—comes with new terms and conditions that we have no choice but to accept and embrace with dignity, grace, and wisdom. No matter what life threw at mom, she accepted the terms; and the world—and especially our world—was always a better, more loving, and infinitely richer place because of her; and though at the end she was not the person we remembered, she was always the mother we had, and she somehow managed to make everyone around her feel “mothered” right up until the very end.

    She hated whenever I called her “Ma,” but, still, she was always “Ma Fitz” to anyone whose own mother was displaced by time, fate or distance. Even the toughest kids in town knew that as soon as any one of them placed a foot on Fitz territory, the rules of Ma Fitz were all that mattered. But, along with those rules came a woman who accepted anyone, anytime into a house already crammed with kids. We learned early and often that it is not the size of the house that matters, but rather, the size of the door—and like loading a dishwasher—there’s always room for one more.

    On a Sunday night some months ago I walked into my mother’s room at Concord Park, and without thinking, I went straight to the refrigerator. It’s the same mechanical motion I’ve made every day that I’ve walked into her kitchen since I was a little kid—no matter where she lived. I didn’t even know what it was I was looking for, but I knew that mom had to have something in there for me.

    Maybe I am hungry to know that ma will still feed me. The refrigerator from my childhood—bursting with unending trips to Stop and Shop, Triple A, and Star Market is now a 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 back 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—those times that were never actually mentioned but were full of green stamps and coupons—mom made potato buds: dry flakes with carnation instant milk and two tablespoons of butter, mixed into a pudding like potato that was a perfect place to hide the peas, beets, boiled onions, liver, cod and other scourges of an Irish Catholic childhood that kept us at the table long after dinner, stubbornly poking and dabbing the edges with tears and a fork until someone—and rarely mum—relented in their stubbornness. And when we were really young and the milkman came everyday, we pulled out the whole milk with cream tops in glass bottles with paper caps; EJ, our almost epic father, would paw the top shut and shake the heavy cream back into the milk itself, exhorting us to imitate his practiced perfection—which none of us could do—and someone 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, 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 we sat in the same seats: I had little sister Annie on my right, always holding on to her waitress pad from Friendliest that she used to take our drink orders and would nod her head and say “thank you very much” and move on to the next of us; and little brother Tommy on my left who we could always get to laugh (and eventually spill his milk) even when he had no clue why he was laughing; and my big sisters staring across from me: Eileen, with her studious perfection and black and white perception of right and wrong, who for some reason Mum put in charge of making sure my bed was made and my room was clean—and who fined me a quarter when it wasn’t, but still I took her to Russo’s on my birthday when I could only bring my best friend; Mary Ellen with her CCHS sweatshirts and unending commentary on everything good, bad, cute or not under the sun—a gift she keeps to this day, and who came to every game I ever played and made the scrapbooks I would never make; 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 was crunched almost 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 seemed to use—like a museum stuffed with bone china and silverware that we polished every Christmas, bought, I’m sure with the green stamps and coupons. We could live without the dining room; but we lived and grew in the kitchen. We gathered in that kitchen everyday 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 sang along to “Watch me wallabies feed, mates, watch me wallabies feed.” 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 himself. 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.

    Over the past few years, Alzheimer’s has slowly chipped away at the edges of her memory, but never to the point where she lost any of her true self. One day she’d remind me that it’s my childhood friend Danny Gannon’s birthday, and on the next day she’d ask me who my pretty children are…and like polite grandkids they would dutifully tell her their names once again, except for Tommy: “You know me Grandma, I’m Tommy!” and who’d crawl on her lap and ask for a kiss—“Not that kind of kiss—a chocolate kiss.” And she’d smile and say, “Of course, I know you. You’re Tommy.”

    I’d go to see her and we’d look at ads for cars in the Boston Globe. She wanted a Toyota. “Your father loved his Toyota.” I smile to her, “That’s because Toyotas were cheap, and dad loved cheap.” It didn’t matter that she would never drive again. It didn’t matter that we would have the same conversation the next day. It didn’t matter that soon she might slip into a cloud of unknowing. It only mattered that she was there and in the magic and mysterious majesty of memory, and she will always be here.

      We all remember mom, Mary, Mrs Fitz, and Ma Fitz in our own ways, and I know all of you remember her for what she did “for” you.

    Maybe she knit you a sweater, or sewed a first communion dress for you, or showed you how to quilt or bake or fry or can, or freeze.

       Maybe she made you dinner, washed your clothes, gave you a room for a few days, weeks, or months or a place to come on Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, or any common night when you were hungry for love and acceptance.

    Maybe she played bridge with you, or took you to White’s Pond, Stinson Lake, Tenney, Waterville or Cannon, or took you to dinner at Russo’s, Friendlies or Jimmies, or drove one or two or three hundred miles to be with you on a special day—or on any given day—when life was too special to go uncelebrated or too crushing to be alone.

    Maybe she taught you how to be a mother, a friend, a wife, or simply a good person.

    Maybe she let you marry one of her children and then loved you more than her own kids.

    Maybe she taught you how to never yell, but just give you that look…..only Patty seemed to have mastered that look….The rest of us find it easier to yell.

    It is easier to remember Mrs. Fitz than to be like Mrs. Fitz.

    Sometimes God takes one to touch and teach many. Today is that day.

    God has blessed us by putting mum into our lives. Our memories grow from different soils in different gardens. We live through memory. Nurture those memories.

    Hold them. Cherish them.

    Happy Mother's Day. Mum always loved a party.

Do What You Need to Do

       So, you are now, hopefully, immersed in your writing project. You are doing everything it takes to create a compelling story, script, blog post, essay, poem or whatever that simply and indelibly "works" for the audience you are trying to reach. And finally, you are finished. Basically, done.  Just a few bits of fixing here and there, and voila, there you have it—“Good enough!”

      Thank God you are just a “writer.” I bet you wouldn't want to hear your heart surgeon say, "Ah, voila, that's good enough." You need to know and believe that your doctor is performing the damn best surgery of his or her life. You need to know that your surgeon is Dr. Perfect: not a hack. A loser. A lazy ass.

      Because, with a heart surgeon, there is that much at stake. It’s life or death, not good or bad, and so it is tempting—and for some few of you nigh about appealing—to think that 'Oh, this is just an English assignment,' and go on your merry, lazy way, writing occasionally, re-reading maybe, but never, ever, god forbid, no chance, no way Jose actually revise your work and craft it into a more effective and more powerful writing piece.

      And that's too bad for you, if you are that lazy guy.

       Revising is to writing as a baseball is to a baseball game: the one cannot fully exist without the other.  All of us revise for different reasons. Some of us are horibell bed pillars, while some of we are pronoun challenged. Many of us need homophone assistance because we don't know weather a castrated goat is a whether or a weather (or even ether of the to).  Some of us are so, nervous, that we put, punctuation, in the most, random! of places, while a few of us figure less is more so you never ever use good effective punctuation  as shakespeare said to thine own self be true so you do and you can ramble along the highway of life without a care in the world who needs punctuation anyway)

      Ironically, all of the above junk is the stupid stuff. Editing errors are just a part of life. We are more or less destined to live with limitations on what we know and what we can do. Few of us so called adults have the ability to tackle even the most basic home repair jobs like plumbing a sink, wiring an outlet, or framing a door. We don't try to tackle these jobs because we know what we don’t know, even though we sort of know how to do it, and even though these are not particularly difficult skills to learn; however, for some reason, we demand more from you guys, our noble youth: we expect you, our young students, to master the writing skills that stymie these same adults—and have stymied them for generations. The solution for everyone is simple and rather inelegant: know your writing weaknesses and figure out how to overcome them. There is always a way, and it is rarely all that hard.

       The biggest bugger for a writer is to say what you want to say in a way that your readers, feel, think, see, and imagine just like you are imagining as you write. As Robert Frost said, "No tears for the writer; no tears for the reader." We usually do know when we write something that's really "good." It is as simple as knowing when we read something we like reading. Like seeing a shooting star. A dive into a cold pond. The sight of an old friend. In these moments there is always a moment of clarity when we're like...oh man, this is awesome....

       And we cherish that sentence, phrase, poem, paragraph, or story like a fragile crystal glass, almost afraid it really is too awesome to last, too breakable to be real, too uber something to still be there tomorrow.

       But it does last—if you make it lasting—if you find some way to instill permanence to your words. It is only through revision and reconstruction that there is a hope for that permanence. The problem is that most writers are (sorry) dumb and build stories out of sand on beaches that flood at every tide. Weak words are gathered and carved and packed together to look, at first glance, like a real castle, but the first overwhelming waves of a spring tide wipes it inexorably from the beach. All that is left is the writer, alone, with nothing more than a wisp of a memory of what should have, could have, might have been.

       OK. Maybe it is not that dramatic, but it is certainly true that too many great ideas, thoughts, story lines, and narratives are swept away as the detritus of a calamity beyond the writer’s control. And so too many words are left unread, and too many voices are left unheard. There is too much potential abandoned, sometimes, but usually, orphaned by writers who push their young out of the nest too early; who build pretty shacks on windswept beaches; who can’t stand having hard callouses on worn hands, hands that turn boulders and make gaps even two can pass abreast….

       A good writer is not afraid of a hard day’s work. A good writer is both builder and renovator, collector and curator—a journeyman constantly sharpening, honing, remembering.

       Whatever you do and whatever you are is up to you. I am just an English teacher hoping you will edit and revise your work before class tomorrow.

Tap In. Don't Tap Out.

"Sua Sponte"

      Really. One more time: You are a writer, and no one cares about you. OK, your parents do; your grandparents do. Probably a few friends, and maybe a teacher or two, or a coach if you are freakishly good at some sport; but as a percentage of the world population, you are in a pretty lonely spot. It's you against, like, six billion or so. 

 
     So the dilemma of a writer is how to get a good chunk of that six billion--the 750 million speakers of the English language--to want to read what you have written. Luckily, it's is easier than you think, because when everything else is stripped away, we are pretty much the same as each of those 750 million: we cry when we hurt; we laugh when it's funny; we're mad when maddened and happy when gladdened; we search for the perfect mate, friend, or mentor; we live for each other, and we die for each other; we recognize greatness in large actions and small gestures; we seek and nurture love in an infinite variety of ways; in short, our flesh and blood and heart and soul is our communal bond; and if you can, as a writer, tap into that communal bond, the hardest part of your journey as a writer is over. The next thing you've got to do is tell your story and tell it well. Don't tap out of the match just because it is hard to write well. It's hard to do a lot of things, but we still do them. 

 
      If you want to be a good writer, then writing needs to be one of those things.

      All a writer needs to do to succeed is to get the reader to want to read the next line...and the next, until that final moment--that final word--that closes the page with an almost sacred appreciation of the moment. If you succeed in that, you can ignore just about everything I have ever preached to you about writing. Heck, I will learn from you, because no writer worth his or her salt reads without wondering how or why a piece of writing works--or doesn't work; and no writer with a vested interest in creating good writing reads without some part of their psyche focused on the craftsmanship involved in that piece of writing--like a builder walking into a way cool building and noticing not just the beauty of the architecture, but noticing, too, the strength of the foundation, the intricacies of the construction, and above all--the purpose and effect, and asks: does the building fulfill the promise of the builder and meet the expectations of the buyer? and then proceeds to weave what he or she has learned into a building that attracts a buyer, a reader, and maybe even a follower--or 750 million followers.

      That's pretty much what writing is all about: witness and reflect--write, read, learn, practice, and figure out how to get  better at writing--figure out how to play the common chords and scales of life in a new and vital way that draws a curious ear to the song you sing. The ironic journey of a writer is to create in solitude what is shared in solitude, yet gifted and regifted to a larger community of readers seeking to improve their own lives, or even just a given space of time in their lives, but not yours. So, yeah, no one really cares about you, especially as a writer. But you have to care about them. And that's the rub; to fully know "them [the readers]," we have to fully know "ourselves [the writer]," so what is commonly called "writer's block" is really just emotional and intellectual avoidance of ourselves. Like, "whoa, I really don't want to go there...." But if you give a damn, you do; and if you do it well, people will come to you--and even come back to you--for your words. And that's pretty cool.

      Would be for me, anyways.

      Right now I should be grading the essays you wrote over the weekend, but honestly, you should be the ones grading your own essays. You know all the stupid little things I want: Times New Roman 12 font; a good setting of the scene in the opening paragraph; a cool, clear, and concise theme; good flow in your paragraphs; a compelling voice that is real and thoughtful; images and actions and on and on.... But what I want from your writing should pale beside what you want from your writing. That's the grade only you can give, and you should give!. What the reader wants is simply to want to read on. And when or if they want more, there is money to be made. Or as in many artistic ventures, when there is no money to be made, you will be "appreciated."

      Though I am no great shakes as an artist, I do appreciate being your teacher; however,, as Buddha says, "Don't mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself." You can learn from me, but I can't help you grow. That's up to you. Writing will always be a tough match between the reader and the writer.

      Either way: tap in; don't tap out.

~Fitz

3/31/2013

The Death of the Semi-colon

;?

"Let it die the death it deserves," came the tough talk aimed at me by a devoted (and excellent)  teacher, trashing one of my favorite punctuation marks—and, still, he went on: "No one knows what a semi-colon really does, so why even use it in a sentence?" At first I took it like an affronted and indignant grammarian: "Why you..." and reminded him that I am also the wrestling coach. But then I relaxed, because I realized that most people don't really give a damn about punctuation marks unless it screws them up when reading? (kind of like that). If my friend has a problem with semi-colons, then it is his battle with his demons--not mine. Perhaps his animosity should be geared towards whomever taught him (or failed to teach him) about semi-colons in the first place. From my point of view, semi-colons are a pretty cool writing device--but, like strong medicine--best used wisely; otherwise, you'll be like an obnoxious rich kid flashing money around just because you can.

The coolest ways to use a semi-colon is to use it as a super comma—especially when you are trying to capture the nuances of a powerful image or thought. If the commonly used phrase to describe a sentence is to say that a sentence is a thought fully expressed, then why kill the thought early? We are not all as laconic as Hemingway or Calvin Coolidge.  We keep telling our kids that an important skill in life is the ability to “extend a conversation” when speaking with someone else—especially someone we don’t know well; and it is the semi-colon that lets us extend the conversation in a sentence; it works to keep the magic flowing.  For the most part, it seems like writers of old enjoyed their thoughts better than we do, for on the whole the old-timers used semi-colons more than we do to extend that special deliciousness of a good thought—like a long note played on a violin. Here is Mark Twain playing a long note in Huck Finn: [Note: when reading commas, let your breath hesitate briefly or breathe in slightly. Use a bit more of a stop with a semi-colon, but keep the flow going and don’t let your voice trail off or lose steam—because you got to keep on going, baby; you’ve got more that people need to hear, and you don’t want to lose whatever precious audience you have.]

It was one of these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby; and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale under-side of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest -- fst! it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs -- where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know.

Now that is a writer who appreciates a good storm, and Twain certainly wasn’t going to let us out of this sentence until his thought was fully expressed! By not forcing a full stop by using a period, the effect of the imagery layered upon more imagery (but all describing one storm) is more heightened and more “storm-like,” which is precisely what Twain probably set out to do.

And here is Henry David Thoreau in Walden using semi-colons in a similar way; except here the semi-colons are used as a sort of super-commas that deliver a series of thoughts—all of which are directly connected to the scathing and damning thought in the first clause of the sentence.

 It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offences; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little.

Now that’s one sam hill of a sentence, even if you don’t live a mean and sneaking life! In both of these passages, two of America’s greatest writers use the semi-colon as a super-comma to tie together a series of images and/or thoughts. If only commas were used, both sentences would fall apart after a few clauses; if the writers chose to write a series of more compact sentences, the urgency and freshness of the thoughts would be deadened and lose a good part of their effect, but with the semi-colons acting as a loose glue holding together the clauses and planks of images and thoughts, we, as readers, share in the immediacy of the cascade of words; we give ourselves into the moment; moreover, we are rewarded by a thought that is fully-expressed, clearly-stated, and, above all, memorable.

So, my angry friend, if you are still not convinced that a semi-colon deserves at least some respect, can you let it survive for another profound reason—one that is based on our almost mystic response to the sound of words strung together in groups of three. For some reason the power of the trinity in writing is immense. It even has a name. When you group a series of words, thoughts, phrases, or clauses into three’s, it creates something called a Tricolon. Tying together three clauses to make one amazing (and mystically enchanting) sentence out of three connected thoughts is a skill worth learning how to do. All it takes is three clauses, one semi-colon, a comma with a conjunction, and an end mark of some kind.

You can’t let other people dictate how you live; you can’t let other people impose their narrow prejudices, and you certainly can’t live someone else’s life!

Just by using that single semi-colon to connect the first and second clauses and the conjunction to lead into the final clause, the full sentence reads as a passionate plea, instead of a list of reasons.

At least it does to me.

In fact, anytime you have two clauses connected by a comma and a conjunction, you can always replace that comma and conjunction with a semi-colon—if (a big if) it sounds right to you. It is less abrupt than using a period. Instead, it creates a brief, yet connected, terseness. You can also just put in a period and create two sentences. If, woe to you, you insert a comma without the conjunction (Soyet, andor, norforbut; FANBOYS—or however you want to remember these “subordinating conjunctions), you create the dreaded comma splice and will no doubt incur the gleeful wrath of your teacher who has finally found something of substance to lower your grade even further.

I love the water, but I hate swimming. Perfectly fine.
I love the water; I hate swimming. Perfectly fine.
I love the water. I hate swimming. Perfectly fine.
I love the water, I hate swimming.  AAARGHH!  YOU IDIOT! HAVE YOU ANY BRAINS?

So what else justifies the existence of this punctuation mark?

Here is a good one: You can use a semi-colon to separate different states and cities in a list of cities and states (not that this is a common writing practice).

We are going to Boston, Massachusetts; Manchester, New Hampshire; Hartford, Connecticut; Minnesota, Minnesota; New York, New York; Utah, Utah; and Washington, DC.

Got you there, didn’t I?  Otherwise, it would be comma madness. (And yes, I had to look up the cities and states that had the same names—except, of course, New York, New York.)

OK. I am scraping the bottom of the barrel here, but there is one final—albeit a bit pretentious sounding—use of the semi-colon, and that is how to use a semi-colon with a conjunctive adverb and a comma to connect two otherwise perfectly happy sentences. But I’ll admit, I do feel smart when I use these, and you will, too--especially if your teacher is impressed by academic sounding language; however, (here I go) if you use too many conjunctive adverbs, you will have to sign up for a dating service to find friends. I won’t list all the conjunctive adverbs because I don’t want to be too closely associated with their use (and misuse); moreover, I am sure by this point, I have lost the few readers I had when I started this foolish and vainglorious exercise. Suffice to say, conjunctive adverbs are words like these: nonetheless, actually, accordingly, however, nevertheless, therefore, otherwise, etc.,….

I do appreciate that you have stuck with me this far; nevertheless, staying up late reading about semi-colons is not something you should brag about to your friends—both of them.

Only kidding, of course. Thanks for reading!

~Fitz
  3/25/13

 

Dad

As if trapping a lost whale

the thin ice moaned

and bellowed behind us,

then cracked and snapped

like spit from a whip.

The sharp steel of

my over-sized skates

etching unspeakable joy

into the slate-grey,

reptilian skin 

of Walden Pond.

Our mismatched hands

gripped together

in the fading light

of a January afternoon.

No remembered words.
No unison of motion.
His heron-like pulls
matched by my choppy
lunging
and flailing.

Breath frozen in wool scarves.
Sun sliding into pines.

And then you pulled me

onto untouched darker ice 

where fathers 

should never take sons.

And circling concentrically tighter

then, spinning like a bullfighter;
my feet, like injured wings, lifting
off the tarmac,
my hands slipping

You finally let me go

spun across the ice,

arms outstretched, legs splayed,

screaming back to you

falling
into the cold,
dark hole
of memory.

~fitz

Preparations

Charlie slurps the sky with his snake tongue
and catches the invisible first flakes
while spinning wildly through the backyard;
It is the moodiness of New England
turning winds steadily to the northeast—
the perceptible shift from calm to storm.
A cacophony of maddened grackles
dart through white pines tilting in stilted dance;
Dell starts his old snowblower one more time,
and then points at me like an old school-marm,
reminding me of the work to be done:
I tighten the flapping tarp on my boat
and oil the boots I should throw away;
I remind the kids to check their cubbies
and to unload the groceries from the van.
My wife begins filling up the crockpot
and sings, "It’s a Great Day to Be Alive."
There is a constancy to our motions—
The deer are bedding down in crisp oak leaves;
the town trucks are loaded down with salt;
I hear weather reports from passing cars
and see whole families looking upward.
Leddy wonders who will shovel her walk.
The dogs know to prepare for a long sleep.
Nana and Papa will call from Florida
and tell us of the news reports from there;
We’ll make vague plans for weekends in the spring.

I know as soon as the snow starts to fall
I’ll remember things I forgot to do.

I’m glad for unexpected today.
I need to be reminded once again
how we follow our inbred traditions,
and in the passing of a single storm
we are able to share in this one day
the same unaltered, unspeakable God.

Nurture Passion: A Note to my Class

     Few things in life are more important than having a passion for something. It is an offshoot of "give damn." To have a life without a focus on some something or somethings to do and explore and develop on your own is a pretty pitiful life. When I was your age, I had a rock collection that filled a bazillion egg crates with chippings and scrapings; I had snake and reptile aquariums that had specimens of most any cold-blooded creature in the White Pond area of Concord. I had a shortwave radio that I made with my father--and a huge antenna on the roof to help pick up conversations happening anywhere in the world. I had a collection of fishing poles and rods and reels and lures and baits to somehow tease trout, bass, horned pout, kibbers, pickerel and anything else out of the Concord River, Walden Pond, the Assabet, Nashoba Brook and Warner's Pond. Best of all my family had a plywood sailfish sailboat my father built in our garage from plans he got in somehow to magazine, and in that 12 feet of arc, I got my first taste of sailing--a taste that is as strong today as it was back then. My bedroom was a mess of magazine both strewn and piled--but always read: Boy's Life, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Field and Stream, Sears Roebuck, National Geographics and any other magazine, book, or journal that fed my passions. Most of those publications are still around to buy in some way today, but there is an even larger world of bloggers out there who cover everything those magazines covered--and a whole lot more. These blogs and websites are where people go to feed their passions and develop their own knowledge and skills. It is where you go and where I go, and the better the blog or the better the site, the more often we return, and the more we return--the more of a mark that writer has left on the world. And that mark says something about that person. You. Something good, I hope.

     In ancient Rome there was a saying: De gustabus non disputantum, otherwise known as "There is no accounting for taste," which is a good thing because it keeps the world to this day interesting, diverse, and dynamic. We don't have to like what other people like, nor are there any compelling reasons why we should--but we should like something; we should want to be knowledgeable about something, and be good at something, and to constantly be getting better at something. Think of your passions, and think of what you can do to live out that passion or passions and share it with the world. Think of what you are going to leave behind as your footprints in this life. You do not want to be like the drunk sailor Elpenor who fell off the roof and died a death that no one remembers or cares about. As Odysseus himself said: "No songs will be sung about him." Your "digital footprint" is the song that is sung about you.

     When I first started blogging with my classes--now close to ten years ago--most people were paranoid about kids names being "on the internet," and so we built firewall on firewall behind private servers to keep you safe and removed from the real internet. In most ways it has been great. It gives you guys a safe place to practice living and sharing in the digital world without the dangers of anyone knowing you are out there. But times have changed. Soon you are going to want your name be out there--and out there in a good and positive way. You are not going to want someone to google your name and come up with...nothing. I am really proud to have discovered that it is relatively hard to study haiku and not come across my website at some point in your studies. I like that if someone googles my name they get the best of me and not the worst of me. I want that for you, too.

     If you've got a passion, then keep learning and practicing and experimenting, and then share it with the world.

     If the seed dies with the flower there is no beauty left behind.

     Start writing.

A New Thanksgiving

I am surprised 
By the suddenness of November: 
Beauty abruptly shed 
To a common nakedness—
Grasses deadened by hoarfrost,
Persistent memories of people I’ve lost.

It is left to those of us
Dresses in the hard 
Barky skin of experience
To insist on a decorum
That rises to the greatness
Of a true Thanksgiving.

This is not a game
Against a badly scheduled team—
An uneven match
On an uneven pitch:

This is life.
This is life.
This is life.

Not politely mumbled phrases
Murmured with a practiced
And meticulous earnestness.

Thanksgiving was born a breech-birth:
A screaming appreciation for being alive;
For not being one of the many
Who didn’t make it;
Who couldn’t moil through
Another hardscrabble year
On tubers and scarce fowl.

Thanksgiving is for being you;
There are no thanks without you.

You are the power of hopeful promise;
You are the balky soil turning upon itself.
You are bursting forth in your experience.
You are not the person next to you,
Not an image or an expectation—
You are the infinite and eternal you,
Blessed and loved and consoled
By the utter commonness 
And community of our souls.

We cry and we are held.
We love and we hold.
We are the harvest of God—
Constantly renewed;
Constantly awakened
To a new Thanksgiving.

Rethinking

     Writing an essay for me is relatively simple. I choose what I want to write about, and I start writing. I don't have a teacher pushing me in any one direction--like I am pushing you. The writing prompt and the inspiration is already in me; and though I try to write well, there are no real-life repercussions when I don't write well.  My audience for this (which is you—my upper school English class) is remarkably small and polite, and as much as I'd like to think that you are captivated by my writing, I know that in reality you are a "captive" to my writing, because, as my students, you are a prisoner in my classroom. You are somewhat doomed to read what I write, but your actual freedom to write is hobbled by a teacher who is intent on extracting (by what must sometimes feel like any means possible) what you know and think about a narrow range of literature--in this case, the first chapter of Walden: the essay called "Economy." Throw into the mix your other classes and your other teachers and what do you get--a few more books, an era or two of some history; some idea of why leaves turn red; a handy way discerning volume from the breadth and width of a fruit--a smattering of Spanish words or Latin roots: a bookshelf from shop and an abstract oil painting for your wall.  And then you soccer and football teams, the school play, band, and student life...and now your day is completely filled.

 

     But is it full?

 

     It is certainly filled with an exhausting range of activities designed and structured to educate, enlighten, inform, and inspire. Your teachers are a diverse mix of people who really do give a damn about you and who spend more time than you might ever imagine trying to create and perpetuate this living and breathing machine called school, but, as Thoreau writes, " we[teachers and students] labor under a mistake.” We fill the day, but we rarely fulfill the possibilities of each day, and we never will until we remove the blinders that keep us on the beaten path. Frightening as it sounds, the lunatics must run the asylum: students must be allowed to take the reins and become learners and explorers, while teachers and administrators must adapt or die.  "New ways for the new; old ways for the old ." (HDT) The world really is a different place now. The "noosphere" or "omega point" predicted by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin almost a hundred years ago is becoming a reality.  People can be--and are--connected in ways unimaginable to the visionaries and teachers who broke the backs of tradition to create the schools we have today. But times have changed. The desk is more a ball and chain of myopic restraint, while our opportunities for true learning--for all of us--have never been greater.

     In a narrow way of thinking, it is the good teachers that are holding us back because good teachers are often the most blinded. Blessed with oratory skills, charisma, knowledge, empathy, and passion, the popular and powerful teacher can easily misconstrue his or her students' enthusiasm and engagement in the classroom for deep and inspired learning. To these masters of the classroom (and in my vanity, I count myself among these master teachers) there is no need for change. Everything works: kids are happy, parents are happy, and the school is happy. and so the case for change is closed by those most empowered to change it.  The power of a magnetic personality should never be confused with the power of sound pedagogy, nor should we put pedagogy over personality. Most schools have thir share of dull teachers practicing "sound" pedagogy to little or no great effect; likewise, many children come home loving a certain class because they love their teacher, but at the end of the the year their skill-sets are still shaky, and their enthusiasm for the subject matter will dissipate unless matched in next year with an equally amazing teacher. The reality is that our schools will never be full of amazing teachers, and so our best bet has to be to implement amazing ways of teaching way sooner than later. A teacher should be amazing for what he or she implements, nurtures, and sustains in this new educational paradigm.

 

     There has to be a new somethg. Something has to give. Society and its schools have become as much slaves to assessment as we are creators of destiny. Measuring someone by "the content of their character " seldom makes it onto report cards. Instead, we measure your progress and achievements with a reptilian calculation of the merits and deficiencies of your responses to specific inquiries and lessons we are convinced we have taught well.  We critique what and how you write, but rarely consider why you write.  Though we seem compassionate and practice empathy, we still erect a barrier that only a few of you can get over unscathed--and those are the celebrated few:  the smart, hard-working, and diligent students who somehow manage to do it all. Everyone else plays catch me if you can, and so this paradigm is set in motion, and it becomes the foundation of almost every school and university in the world. The gifted student becomes a recognizable icon, sculpted, shaped, and polished by the whims of academia. As parents we stumble over each other trying to weave our child's place on the honor roll or his or her SAT scores--or even the average score of the whole town in comparison to every other school in the district--into the most casual of conversations. On the flip side of this coin, these honors are hardly as respected by peers and classmates (perhaps because  they sense the inherent fraud and advantage to the system) and past prowess as a student soon makes for unsavory and indelicate talk even just mere hours after graduation. 

     Maybe doing well in school is not such an impressive accomplishment. It is pretty cool that we have a black president raised by a single mom--and we use this as praise for what educational opportunities can do; but history is full of great individuals who rose from humble beginnings. It is a recurring theme of humanity itself. It is part and parcel of what Joseph Campbell termed "The Heroic Cycle."  Schools do not create greatness; our primal need to be great is what creates greatness. No one reading this is precluded from realizing his or her individual greatness because they have or have not gone toschool We don't have to be Telemachus facing up to the rowdy suitors in his house, but all of us have challenges that are unmet and untested, and we must meet them and we must test them if we want to be a hero. There is courage and strength of each of us, but not as much motivation, perhaps because the tools we use in school are not the best motivators. We instill as much fear as desire, and there is a subtle paralysis that takes hold. Only if the doors open wider and the walls fall down will we see the expanse of our opportunities--and only if you give enough of a damn to reach for the dream at hand, and then only if you see the dream. Realizing your dream should be your accomplishment, and layering dream upon dream should be your life.

 

     Life has a way of doling out hardship in unequal proportions, but school--and more broadly, eduction--should not be one of them. There is certainly very little that is fair about who goes to what school, but that is the unspoken inequity. We praise the notion of an egalitarian educational system, but we shudder at the thought of implementation.  Few of my Concord friends would ship their sons and daughters to our schools in Maynard because...well, just because.  Ironically, few of my Maynard friends would feel comfortable with their sons and daughters trying to mingle in a Concord milieu.  And so we keep up a pleasant caste system that feeds off the tension between the rich and the poor. It's like the old camp song: "Don't chuck your muck in my backyard/my backyard's full," but there is a monster in the neighborhood. Because of the internet, our backyards have merged; the demarcation line is blurred, the walls have literally come down, and there really is a chance for every kid to play on the same field--if we let them.  Caesar accidentally burned down the Royal Library at Alexandria; we shouldn't do the same with our new library of knowledge. During the first solo circumnavigation of the world, the Afrikaners in South Africa scoffed at Joshua Slocum's claims that the world was round, even as he was ninety percent of the way around the globe!  Wouldn't it be ironic if our schools lost the race for knowledge because we dithered at the starting gate? 

 

     I certainly did not start this narrative with any plans to take on our educational system.  Sharper minds than mine could tear this essay apart, but only because they have had so many generations to practice. The hurricane yesterday gave me a rare gift of time today, so I was just hoping to give you a few words to help you get started on your Walden essay. Words have that effect on me.  Maybe my own rereading of Walden made me listen more closely to the drumbeat of my heart no matter how measured or far away; maybe in these political times of gloating,  bitching, and belittling I didn't want to be one of the thousand hacking at the branches of evil; I wanted to be the one striking at the root . The beauty and bane of Thoreau's words is how easily they can prove either side of an argument, and my mind is so scattered that I could never get around to organizing all the facts; instead, I've simply scattered some seeds among the compost of my experience. Hopefully, one or two will be like the mustard seeds in that parable of Jesus. If not, I'll have to till again and plant more thoughtfully. All I know is what I sense: change is coming, and if you have your wits about you, you will be riding the edge of that wave.

 

 ~fitz

10/30/2012

A Veteran's Day Song

I wrote this song back in the winter of 1989 in the dining car of a steam driven train 
somewhere along the Trans-Siberian railway after meeting a group of Russian soldiers fresh from battle in Afghanistan—
that poor country that has been a battleground for way too long. 

Ghetto Of Your Eye We stare together hours the snow whipped Russian plain—
rolling in the ghetto of your eye.
We share a quart of vodka
and some cold meat on the train—
you know too much to even wonder why;
I see it in the ghetto of your eye.

He turns to me and asks
if I’ll play a song about our war.
I know the war,
no need to tell me more—
asking with the ghetto of your eye.
So I play the most of Sam Stone,
in words he cannot understand;
still the tears fall as from a man—
falling from the ghetto of your eye.

I pass to him my guitar:
‘Man, I know you’ll play a song;
something where nobody plays along—
no, nobody play along.’
His friends they gather ‘round
and put their arms around
the shoulders of the soldiers of the war,
their cold and crazy mountain war.

His song is barely spoken;
it’s more a whisper in the night:
whistles blow, trains pass each other by—
riding in the ghetto of your eye.
And Pasha, the young soldier,
whose strange and childish smile,
breaks down wailing like a child:
He tears his shirt; the shrapnel is all gone:
“Pasha, boy, the shrapnel it’s all gone—
Pasha boy, the shrapnel is all gone.”

Drunk to hell I leave,
and then I lay awake all night
waiting for the sunrise on the plain—
cold and snow-whipped Russian plain.
Songs of love and brotherhood
blow like rags of empty wind—
blowing through the ghetto of my eye;
building the ghetto of my eye;
staring from the ghetto.

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—“  

        Use your journal as an extension of your head and heart and soul. Thoreau kept a daily journal—thousands upon thousands of pages—which was filled with detailed observations on the world around him and piercing reflections on the world within him that helped him see—from the vantage point of distance—the world as it really was (and in most ways still is). Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond was not a place for Thoreau to escape society, but more of a “place” for him to see and report on society with all of its frauds, hypocrisies, and glories in full and unhindered view. Thoreau knew, as Buddha said (Thoreau was well-versed in the literature and traditions of the east) that “a muddy puddle only clears if left alone.” It is in this way that you need to reflect on what you’ve read and taken away from a first reading of “Economy.” You need to step away and fill your own journal (and many of you already have) with your thoughts on your initial impressions of Thoreau, and, more specifically, “Economy.” A wise person will step away and think. Only a fool would run away.

        Wisdom is not in knowing an answer; wisdom is in knowing and balancing the answers. If you really want the glory of insight, then you must tackle great literature humbly. Walden does not yield its secrets easily, and so it is important that you approach this essay as you would a bird in a bush—slowly, quietly, and with a determined focus. Be confident in your thoughts, for a good question is often better than a good answer. Your readers will embrace your odyssey of discovery; they will be drawn to your search for meaning and method in Walden. Retrace your first tentative steps. Go back to your text and look at again at your scribbles and highlights and underlines. These are the cairns you leave behind as you move ahead in your journey. Something caught your eye; dig deeper than you did on your first read. Question your initial assumptions and opinions and weigh the possibilities of truth. Write down your thoughts, for it is only through words that our thoughts are made real. Stare at the blank page until drops of blood form on your forehead!

        A writer reads the writer as much as the writing piece. Get to know “Economy” in the most real and in depth way you can. This is the best way to prepare for a “true” essay. Aside from your classmates, it will probably be hard to find someone to talk to in your circle of friends about Thoreau, and “Economy” in particular; however, the internet is full of people who have already shared their thoughts about Walden in some pretty insightful pieces of writing. Find them.  Read what they have to say. Measure their words against your own words or your own thoughts. Throw the thoughts into the air and separate the wheat from the chaff—and then collect only the best grains you can find.

        For homework, assuming you have read this far, prepare yourself for writing an essay. Prepare to fully explore a thought. “What did the first chapter of Walden offer you, and what did you take away?” Write a journal entry about what you are doing to prepare for writing this essay. We’ll see on Monday who is preparing and who is not. Don’t injure eternity.

Superman

Superman 2

 

      Denise has always had a poets way with words, a painters sense of imagery, and a photographers knack for capturing the power and pathos of a moment. She sees with a clarity that is unflinchingly honest and real, and she feels with a heart that is as open and loving as a Caribbean doorway. I know this song  stirred inside of her for a long time; I know it was not easy for her to write, but one day she just sat down at the kitchen table and wrote this absolutely stunning song and asked if I could set it to music. 

        I’ve been playing it for the last several years around campfires, in pubs, at concerts, and in classrooms. Every time I play this song, I see the powerful affect it has on people. It is a song about the power of love--pure and unfiltered love. 

       I  hope it works for you as well.  If it does, please share this song  with anybody you think might like this song, or anybody you might know who could get this on the airwaves.

      You can download this song for 99 cents. Just check out the link on my sidebar.

      Thanks for listening, and thanks for sharing.

 ~Fitz

There’s a little blonde boy in a superman cape
Racing around the back yard
Sayin’ “Daddy don’t you know I can fly to the moon”
“I’m gonna bring you back some stars.
And after that I’m gonna save the world”
Cause I’m superman today.”
Well I scoop that boy right into my arms
And this is what I say…
 
You don’t need a cape to be a hero
You’ve got all the special powers that you need
Your smile’s enough to save the world from evil
And you’ll always be superman to me
 
That little blonde boy in the cape again
Says he’s gonna jump off the deck.
I say: “Little man can’t you slow on down?
One day you’re going to break your neck”
He says, “Don’t you know that I can’t get hurt
Because I’m superman today”
Well I scoop that boy right into my arms 
And this is what I say…
 
You don’t need a cape to be a hero
You’ve got all the special powers that you need
Your smile’s enough to save the world from evil
And you’ll always be superman to me
 
One day he woke up and didn’t want his cape
And we knew that something wasn’t right
The doctor’s said, “We just don’t know.
We better keep him here for the night.”
So, I held his hand and stroked his hair
Until somehow he fell off to sleep,
I knelt at the window 
and prayed to the stars:
God, help me own leap:
 
I’ve never been much of a prayin’ man:
I’ve never had a faith very clear,
But give me a sign and I’ll step into line;
Just get my boy out of here—
I’ll give you everything any man’s ever got:
I’ll give you every bit of my love—
And a prayer came back to me
In a whisper from above…saying:
 
You don’t need a cape to be his hero
You’ve got all the special powers that you need
Your smile’s enough to save the world from evil
And you’ll always be superman to me
 
That little boy woke up in a hospital room
Looking so quiet and sad.
I bring him in his cape and I say “Big boy,
“How about a smile for Dad?”
And those wide blue eyes fill up with tears
“I’m not superman today”
Well, I scooped that boy right into my arms 
And this is what I said…
 
You don’t need a cape to be my hero;
You’ve got all the special powers that you need.
Your smile’s enough to save the world from evil,
And you’ll always be superman to me;
Yeah, you’ll always be superman to me
 
©Denise Fitzsimmons
 
Vocals: Fitz, Seth, and Hatrack
Produced and arranged by Seth Connelly
Recorded at Humming Lake Studio

 

Joshua Sawyer

 Joshua Sawyer 

I doubt I’d ever have taken this road
had I known how fallen it really was
to disrepair: driving comically,
skirting ruts and high boulders, grimacing
at every bang on the oil pan.
I tell you it’s the old road to Wendell —
that they don’t make them like this anymore.
 
We’re bound by curious obligations,
and so stop by an old family plot
walled in by piles of jumbled fieldstone,
cornered to the edge of what once was field.
The picket gateway still stands intact,
somebody propped up leaning on a stick,
an anonymous gesture of reverence.
Only nature disrespects: toppling stone,
bursting with suckers and wild raggedness.
A gravestone, schist of worn slate, leans weathered:
 
	Joshua Sawyer Died Here 1860
 
Another stone, cracked, has fallen over.
I reset the stone, and scrape the caked earth
as if studying some split tortoise shell,
and have keyed in to a distant birth —
His wife Ruth died young; so I picture him
stern with his only daughter, only child —
speaking for a faith which could defy her.
There’d be no passing onto when she died —
twenty-two, more words beside her mother.
Still these stones and fields you kept in order,
long days spent forcing sharp turns on nature,
accepting the loose stone and thin topsoil.

A Wendell neighbor must have buried you
whispering a eulogy which is as lost
as your daughter, your wife, and this farm:
 
—Joshua Sawyer

I've never been down this road before
I would like to speak with you of faith.

 

Fixing Things

Sometimes it is the simplest problem that is hardest to fix. Usually this is the day of packing--when a steady stream of my kids with dufflebags, tackle boxes, armloads of books, soccerballs, late remembered krocs and sneakers and floppy hats file out of the house and onto our 35 year old converted school bus that will be our base-camp for the next two months; but instead, our living room has become the holding cell of our summer dreams, for the bus is drydocked at the truck repair shop in Bedford waiting to "pass inspection" before we can head up to Windsor Mountain in New Hampshire.  And all because of two little lights on the back of the bus, but more because I waited until the last moment to get the ball rolling.

For many years the local Mack repair shop  would do whatever work needed to be done on the bus that was beyond my skill set to fix.  They are a good bunch of guys who know me and the bus well; however, the state has a new mandate that only certain repair shops can give an RV an inspection sticker. In our case there are only two shops anywhere close by that can do this work. Both of these places are huge truck dealers who seem to have little sympathy for one guy with one old truck (and believe me, our RV is classic truck--a 1978 solid steel Bluebird with a 3208 cat diesel). It was supposed to be done on Friday ( so I told the kids we'd just have to leave on Saturday) and then it was Saturday (so I told the kids that we'd just have to leave on Sunday) and now it is Monday, and I can only pray that there is no another bump in our metaphorical road to keep us off the highway heading north.

Every experience can--and should be--either a lesson, a celebration, or at the very least, a memory that lives on in some way shape or fashion.  For me, as a writer (and an explorer of the literary sort) I hope to find some nugget of gold out of this setback that I can weave into a gaggle of words, which will serve as a story I can retell to others--and to myself-for many years to come. It is easy and handy for me to blame the repair shop, but the reality is that I had many months to prepare the bus for inspection; I had plenty of time to fix the tailights, and I actually know how to fix most anything on the bus--something which is usually a source of pride for an old shop teacher and tinkerer in the yankee tradition of a true New Englander, but instead,  I am no different than my students that I criticise for putting off their assignments until the last possible moment. I can hear my own voice saying, "It is not as if I didn't give you enough time to finish your essay..." Some of my students reading this might be smiling and thinking: "Ha, serves you right."  And it does.

There is a great scene in The Odyssey when Odyyeus and his ships are faced with a choice as they approach the "Straits of Skylla:" On on side of the strait is a six-headed monster that will devour them whole, and on the other side is a monstrous whirlpool that will suck his ships--and all if his crew--down to a watery grave. As is often the case in life, there is no turning back; the only way out is through, so Odysseus chooses the lesser evil and deals with the six-headed monster.

Though I am no Odysseus, I am still left with a choice. I will leave now and make my peace with the repair shop. It is my way through.

Maybe I will even bring them coffee and save my newly earned wisdom for another day.

 

 

Writing Prompt #1:

Five Must Do's for This Summer

The joy of summer never fades, even as you grow older. It is always a time of hope and promise and expectation ... but sometimes your summer ends, and you just didn't seem to do that one thing you really wanted to do.

Our first writing prompt this summer is to make a pact with ourselves by writing down "five" of the things you most want--and can--do this summer. They can be exciting adventures that you have been waiting to do all year, or they can be simple things you are thankful to have the time to enjoy.

For me, I am going to go simple, and you might even think, kind of unexciting; but, for me, they are things I just have not had the time for during the busy school year. So, now I begin the first step of being a writer--I sit and think....

...OK. I sat and thought, and I am ready for my number one thing  I want to do this summer. I'll use the list icon on the tool bar to start my list:

1. Take a walk every day: Taking a walk is good for the body, and good for the soul, and walking ( for me) is an activity that I don't take for granted. For eight weeks each summer I go off to Windsor Mountain International camp in New Hampshire with my seven kids and my wife Denise. My oldest daughter, Kaleigh, is a counselor; my wife works in the nurse's office, and I sing songs around the campfires, and I take kids from all over the world and the United States fishing in Black Pond--as clean and cold a pond as any in New England! The camp is right on the pond and there are miles of trails wending up mountainsides and around the woods surrounding the camp. This is where I want to go walking every day. But I don't just want to walk. I want to explore and keep a record of everything I see and think while I am taking my walks. Some days I'll walk alone; other days, I'll walk with campers, or my kids, or other counselors, or with Denise. For those of you at Fenn a year ago, you might remember seeing me on crutches during the last month at school. That's because I had both of my knees replaced. Bad knees kept me from taking long walks for the past ten years, but now my knees feel great, and I feel especially blessed that I can now do what most people take for granted--go on a simple walk and enjoy the beauty of the woods I love so much. You should try it, too!

I'll have to sit and think some more before I continue my list, but at least I got one thing down. I can always come back to this post by clicking on my "Posts" icon, and I can continue writing more in my "must do's" entry.You can also do this by saving your post as a "draft" and finishing your post later when you have more time.

I hope you noticed that I did not simply tell you what I want to do. I expanded on my idea (or topic) by using the tried and true motto of all reporters: I included the who, what, when, where, why of my idea or topic.

I tried to show my reader who was doing this: (me); what I was doing: (walking); when I was doing this: (every day); where I was doing this: (up at Windsor Mountain); and most especially, why I was doing this: (because I am so happy just to be able to walk again. Most readers don't like to be told things; they like the added detail that whowhatwhenwherewhy (say it five times fast) adds to your writing piece.

You might also notice that I used punctuation to the "best of my ability," which is something you should try do, too. I also proofread my piece before I clicked publish to make sure I didn't have a lot of errors in spelling or capitalizing and stuff like that, but even I make little mistakes sometimes, so don't be overly worried it.  Your ideas and your words are more important than commas in the right places!

I'm pysched to read your must do's, so make answering this writing prompt your first must do:)

 

Test

 

The Gift of Time

Do not go gentle unto that good night;/Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

—Dylan Thomas

 

Most of you are pretty good writers—when you want to be. However, just as many of you live in a land of shortcuts and laziness. You are myopically content with your grades—as if that is all you will need to remember in an unwizened old age. I can say it a million times–and I probably already have—that writing well is as much craft and sport and practice as anything—but I wonder if it will fall on ears that hear. Writing well is not a skill we are born with; it is not a gift bestowed upon a chosen few, and it has surprisingly little to do with the grades you get in English class. It has to do with you and how willing you are to put in the effort to become a better writer. You already have the motivation within you. You simply have to write with the same focus and effort that you put into your favorite sports, hobbies, or other pursuits that captures your heart and mind and soul and being, and in doing so you may, perhaps, leave behind your own testament to eternity, a beacon on a rocky shore, a balm in an uneasy time—an unexpected gift at an unexpected time—words wrought from the iron of experience and nurtured from the seed of speculation.

 

Or lives are full of the parables that can be recreated in words and woven into stories, songs, poems, prayers, and reflections that not only give our own lives meaning, but also give meaning to the lives of our readers. What self-respecting woodworker, when given a warehouse full of tools and lumber and time, would be content with building a hatrack? At some point we will be nothing but memory, and we will be remembered for what we did and said and built, and, sadly, for what we didn't do, and didn't say, and didn't build—and though it is our dreams that lay the foundations of accomplishment, we are seldom remembered for anything not felt or seen or heard. Words are felt and seen and heard. I hope that your own reading and writing makes this even more true.

 

Why give up when you can give a damn? Any one of us at anytime can improve the nick of time because we are are all continually gifted by the grace of unfolding hours. All the same, most of us are too lazy to even welcome the sunrise because all we remember is the dissipation of the night. We wake with the same drunkenness as we lived the night before. We start the day two steps behind, and we never really catch up with our potential. At the end of the day people point at the "Ben" brothers and say, "There goes Woulda', Coulda', and Shoulda'." We remember vapid and insipid TV with stunning alacrity, but can't remember the last poem we read or the last line of a good book we put down.We are busy and bored in equal measure: we are peeved when some obligation robs us of an hour of precious time, and we fidget an hour away that is given to us.

 

We don't look in the mirror and see our real selves. We barely glance at our potential but stare incessantly at our imperfections.

 

We don't try because we might fail.

 

We don't really believe that anything worth succeeding in is worth failing in, but it is.

 

Make something real and lasting. Put your thoughts into words. Rage against the dying of the light.

 

Fitz's Top Ten Comma Rules & Review

Sorry: This is the correct version!

Below are the comma rules I use with my 8th grade English class. It is a flash video, so you might have to update Flash on your computer.

If you can master comma usage, you are probably most of the way to writing grammatically correct sentences because misuse (including omitting and overuse) of commas is the most common mistake in writing. The video includes a comma test that will help you assess how well you understand comma usage. 

Have fun!

Download Fitz's Top Ten Comma Rules Review

Poetry

    Don't let anyone tell you what makes a poem. Like a good meal, you know when you taste it. If I were talking to a farmer friend of mine and he said, "Ya know Fitz, so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens," I might simply respond, "Yep, good thing you have a red wheelbarrow!" But, if I saw these same words framed in a poetic structure, I would be astonished at the power of the words:

so much depends 
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

    I read this poem by William Carlos Williams, and I don't think of it as a tribute to wheelbarrows as much as it makes me wonder about the importance of importance and the dependence and interdependence of our lives, and so my mind drifts into the world of poetry that somehow transcends and reinvigorates common thought. I now wonder why three simple images--none of which are all that interesting--prefaced by the simple statement, somehow become transformed into something powerful when written as a poem. 

    Sometimes a poem transforms a simple story into a powerful emotional and intellectual experience. The poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost, is one such poem. The story of the poem is not interesting in the slightest: A guy is driving his horse drawn wagon or sleigh through the woods on a snowy night, and he stops for a bit but then realizes he has promises to keep--and many miles left on his journey, and so he needs to get going again; however, Frost tells this story as a highly structured poem, and it becomes vivid, evocative, and haunting enough to become one of the most admired poems in the English language--and certainly one of my favorite poems:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

    I don't need anyone to analyze or tell me why I love this poem: I simply do! All I really know is that the older I get, the more this poem speaks to me, and so I keep returning to this poem as if it is an actual physical place that I need and want to revisit time and time again. I don't think about the poem; I just let it make me think....

    For all the poems I love, there are hundreds that I have read and discarded because they did not speak to me in a powerful way, or move me, or make me want to return to their words. This does not mean they are bad poems. It probably means I was not ready for them, or I was lazy when I read them because reading poetry is an exercise, not an amusement. By being attentive when you read a poem, you become a better reader, a deeper thinker, and a better writer. You should read poetry like you are flying a plane for the first time, or climbing a precarious tree on a windy day; if you lose your concentration, you lose--you lose the poem!

    For this week's writing prompt, share a poem with us that you like and think is a really good poem. If you can't think of any poems, ask your parents or grandparents what their favorite poems are and see if those poems "speak" to you, too. Copy the poem (or poems if you wish) into your blog and write a paragraph or two about who wrote the poem, how you found the poem, and why you like the poem. If you want to go one step further, share with us a poem that you wrote. 

    And have a great week!

~fitz

 

Jay Samoylenko

    Everyday since Monday night, I have been trying to squeeze some words that give any kind of solace, meaning, or context to Jay's (Mr. Samoylenko's) disappearance and drowning. I answer the million questions from my own kids about the fun and gentle man who won't be by for dinner any more like he has some many times before. I call friends and we talk in endless circles and we all feel better for a while. Down here at the cape I sit and stare at the surf until I feel Denise's hand in mine and we walk back to be with the kids. Sometimes I just start crying, and sometimes I smile when I think of all the times he and I plotted and planned our next twenty years together in the woodshop, making enough money on the side to support our families, and never, ever, letting the system fool us--though it probably did so without even trying, for though Jay was easily the most brilliant person I knew, he was also a a gentle and loving saint who accepted hardship and heaven with equal magnanimity. He was a teacher who taught kids, not classes; he was a friend who came to you, not the party, and he was a husband and father whose every motion of the day was meant to help Lisa and Seija, not himself.

     I don't just miss Jay; I grieve for him in an almost inconsolable way.  If I have learned anything from life, it is the myth of being strong when your heart is heavy and sad.  Even if you feel like you did not know know him well, he knew you. It doesn't matter if he only taught you in one class or coached you in one sport, or talked with you once around the butcher block in our kitchen, or sat with you through a long and semi-absurd professional day. Jay had a gift for remembrance and a love for telling stories about life and stories about you (often some very funny stories about you), and so It is an even larger myth that we shouldn't laugh and tell stories about Jay-- as if somberness should rule over the joy of remembering a really fun and vivid guy. 

     From out of the tears, the hurt, the anger, the confusion and utter sense of senseless loss, Jay will always rise as a beacon and inspiration as a good person and good friend who lived a good life for good reasons. I am crying now and maybe you are, too, but I know I will always be a better person because of Jay. How can I not? He was a seed planted in our lives, and it is up to us now to bear the fruit of Jay's shortened life into eternity.

 

 

Three Haiku Techniques

Here is this weeks writing prompt. It is our first "poetry" prompt. All of my students at school will vouch that the quickest way to a good grade from me is to write lots of poetry in their blogs. I can't say that is true, but what I can say is true is "Great writers don't always make for good poets; but good poets always make for great writers!" So try out this prompt. It's pretty easy, and (I think) pretty fun.

The prompts are not required, but they are helpful if you want to develop your skills as a writer. What I would love to see, though, is more commenting on each other's blogs. It's not as much fun if your work really hard on a writing piece and Ben or I are the only ones to leave a comment. So take a few minutes and read what your blogmates are writing, and leave a comment that is nice and supportive of his or her efforts as a writer.

 

Writing Haiku

    Imagine if at every meal you were blindfolded before you started eating.  Without being able to "see" what you are about to eat might make you more hesitant (to say the least) whenever reach for your first mouthful of food. As humans we are sensory creatures, and we like using our senses. Being able to see, touch, taste, feel, and hear gives us a multi-dimensional way to experience and understand the world around us. A good writer uses techniques that helps his or her readers heighten those senses when reading their writing pieces. Helping your readers to "see" in their own minds what you are creating in your mind is an essential tool of the writer.  Once your readers can see what you are writing, then you can add your thoughts to help further tell and expand the story. 

    Using images and actions to create a vivid and visual experience for your reader is a powerful method for engaging and keeping your audience interested in what you are writing--and that has to be the primary goal of all writers. The most effective images and actions are created using specific nouns and verbs (and very rarely adjectives--unless they are needed and specific). I like teaching haiku as a way to practice this basic skill of writing because haiku not only use images and actions, they also add in a thoughtful element into each poem.

     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.) Haiku are poems of 20 syllables or less constructed in three lines using an images, actions, and a cutting element (usually a punctuation mark that sets up the twist)  that separates the  haiku into two sections.  This might not be the definition you know, but it is the one we will use for the haiky we create this year.  It is not a bad idea to stay close to the traditional 5-7-5 syllable scheme, but it is certainly not the end all be all of "effective haiku."   Only a pedant is going to sit there and count syllables on you.  A good haiku has neither too little or too much, and it just feels like a haiku when you read it or hear it. It makes you want to say, "Ahhhhh ku..."

     Here are my three Haiku Techniques that are time honored traditional ways to approach the writing of haiku--and it will help you with any other kind of writing, too!

Technique # 1: Image and action + cool twist: See the description below

 

In her nest of grass
The robin sleeps all day;
It must be Sunday.
     ~fitz

Technique # 2: Image on Image + Cool Twist or Thought: Juxtapose images + actions that helps us see those images in a new and interesting way:

    This is  where you use "prepositions" to place two images in relation to each other, and then you add an action that adds some kind of cool twist--as in my poem above, or this final haiku that might also go with the scene from chapter ten.
               

Outside the bombed cottage
the old soldier smiles
and flips the pancakes.
     -fitz

    Technique #3: Big to small, and small to big: This is not only a haily technique, but it is an effective way to approach any kind of writing. It goes along with one of my favorite sayings: "Give me a stone and I'll show you the universe.  Show me the universe and I'll give you a stone." The point is that whenever you are writing about a large and/or broad subject, it is important to break it down or narrow it down to something your reader can relate to an a more specific level; likewise, if your topic or subject already feels narrow, then it is important to relate your subjuct to something larger and more universal.

All that's left
of the long winter--
a mitten in the daffodils
~fitz

Here is a way to practice technique #1:

    First create a series of images and actions and make the first two lines of a "potential" haiku.

    •    Nature, and especially the seasons, is the best raw material for haiku.  Go outside and watch nature.  (Yes, move away from your computer and grab a notebook and a pencil!) Find a place where you can just sit and observe what is happening around you. Whenever you "see" something happening, write down that image and action using only nouns and verbs--and occasionally a necessary adjective, and rarely an adverb! The most common sights often make for the best haiku.

For example:   

• In her nest of grass
  The robin sleeps all day

• A single earthworm 
  Inches across the wet pavement

• Three painted monarchs
  Dance around a single flower

• Lightening flashes
  And distant rumbling

Next, take those images and actions and create a haiku by adding a short thought, question, or statement. In traditional haiku this is called the "cutting."  The cutting adds a "twist" into the poem and lets your reader experience the image and action in a new (and often profound--and sometimes funny) way.  A good way to set off this cutting is by adding a semi-colon, double dash or colon at the end of the first section. I generally use a semi-colon in place of a comma and conjunction (so, yet, and, or, nor, for, but).  I use a colon to introduce a statement or a list.  I use the double dash when I want to add a cool thought or sudden insight to complete the haiku.  Try to keep this line between four and seven syllables.

In her nest of grass
The robin sleeps all day;
It must be Sunday.
~fitz

A single earthworm 
Inches across the wet pavement:
Stop the speeding car?
~fitz

Three painted monarchs
Dance around a single flower--
Sweet waiting nectar!
~fitz

Lightening flashes
And vague distant rumbling:
Somebody's getting wet.
~fitz

    These may not be the greatest haiku in the world, but I hope you get the basic idea of what I want you to try to do.  The important part of this exercise is to practice creating images and actions using nouns and verbs and essential adjectives. By adding the cutting I want you to see that even the most common of experiences can have profound and unique meaning.

 

Here is a way to practice technique #2:

First you need to create juxtaposed images--especially if the images are "out of place"--that are usually connected with a prepositional phrase. 

For example:

• The rubber ball
  in the new snow

• A dark puddle
  on the dry street

• On a withered branch
  the black crow

Now add an action of some sort  to the beginning or the end that helps add a new dimension and twist to the images and so create a haiku:

The rubber ball
in the new snow
will soon be lost
~fitz

When will the kids find
the dark puddle
on this dry street?
~fitz

On his long grey branch
the black crow
waits all day.
~fitz

 

Here is a way to practice technique #3:

The technique of expanding or narrowing is effective in all types of writing. To use this technique to create haiku you simply need to start with either a big or a small image.

For example:

• The last oak leaf [small]

• The moon in the night sky [big]

Now expand upon or narrow down the image:

 

Yesterday's winds:
strong enough to carry away
the last oak leaf.
~fitz

The moon in the night sky
walks with me
down this wet road.
~fitz

 NOTE: Haiku never have a title, but you should note the author's name just below the haiku. Haiku work especially well when paired with a black and white photo.

 

Writing a Great Narrative Paragraph

    If some alien linguists came to earth to study how we communicate with each other, they would probably return to Alien World University and tell their scholarly alien brethren how we create and assign words to our thoughts, and then we share these words either by sound (by talking with each other) or by changing those sounds into a strange and silent written language (written words) that tries to recreate the way we humans talk with each other. Further study would show that we group our thoughts (and hence words) into blocks that we call sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes we group a series of related paragraphs together into an essay, or a speech, or a story. In short, they might say that we communicate using a trinity of expression: a sentence is a thought fully expressed; a paragraph is a thought fully explained; while an essay (or any longer writing piece) is a thought fully explored.

    The perceptive alien would notice that we humans have no difficulty speaking in sentences and paragraphs, but we sometimes have a heck of a time trying to do the same when putting our words into writing because most of us humans do not really know (or even have to care) what is and what is not a paragraph. But we should care, because a well-spoken or well-written paragraph adds detail, clarity, and beauty to even the most common thought. It is important to remember that a paragraph is always born in a single thought, and that paragraph ends with the original thought more fully developed and explained. In a way, a paragraph is like caterpillar that transforms into a butterfly. The original thought ends the same, yet different.

    How long it takes for that caterpillar to become a butterfly is up to the writer. There is no minimum length for a paragraph.  The maximum length is just before the writer drifts or shifts away from the original thought. Generally speaking, the more deep and complex the original thought, the longer a paragraph needs to be; however, if a writer is simply presenting the facts of a story (as in the news) the paragraphs are often remarkably brief--oftentimes just one or two sentences. Check out CNN or The BBC News and see how long their paragraphs are in today's news stories.  Now check out the longer lengths of the paragraphs in a recent New Yorker article about the basketball player Yao Ming. In short, a paragraph simply needs to do what you (as a writer) need it to do.

    All of this might fly in the face of those of you who have been told that a paragraph needs to be five sentences long, or have three supporting facts, or a topic sentence at the start, or it needs a quote. Really all a paragraph must do is explain, elucidate, expound, and/or explicate an idea, thought, experience, or fact.  Once that is done, after ten words or ten hundred words, it is time to end the paragraph and move on to the next one.

    One of the ironies of my life as a writer is that I have always felt that writing is an organic process that tries to recreate the voice that speaks within us; but, here I am as a writing teacher creating all these "rubrics" and "formulas" to help my students write more effectively. My hope is that the rubrics will help them any aspiring writer find and develop that inner voice that is completely and uniquely his or her own. 

     This formula for narrative paragraphs is based on the way we would naturally talk about something: we introduce what we want to talk about; we narrow it down to something specific and more focused; we offer proof that we have had the experience, feeling, or thought, and then we add some commentary or further explanation. Anything less than this, and we run the risk of sounding disjointed, confusing, and random. There are no laws for writers, nor are there really any rules aside from what teachers or employers impose, but there is an audience out there, and if confuse them, you lose them. At the very least, if you try this formula, you will write a focused and logically structured paragraph; moreover, with a little bit more effort, you can write paragraphs that ring with beauty, clarity, and resonance!

    So, here is my formula for writing a good narrative paragraph. In narrative writing we write about our own lives and thoughts and feelings, and so we write in the first person (except where noted).

Week Four Writing Prompt: Upload the narrative paragraph rubric. Download Fitz’s Narrative Paragraph Rubric  Using this paragraph rubric, write a paragraph about an experience you have had that has taught you a life lesson--a lesson that you feel will be valuable for other people to hear. When you are finished, post your paragraph on your blog, and we will all comment on your work.

Have fun! 

FITZ'S NARRATIVE PARAGRAPH FORMULA

1. BROAD THEME: Write a short declarative statement that touches on a broad theme [the theme is simply the main thought you are writing about] that all of us can relate to in some way or other.  This acts as a "hook" that will attract your reader's attention. Despite what you might wish, no one really cares about you when they read; a reader cares primarily about himself or herself. This broad theme is a theme that almost any person can relate to on some level, and hopefully it is intriguing enough to make your reader want to read on.

    For example, if you want to write about the importance of family, here is an example of a broad theme:

It is only our immediate family that gives us unconditional love.

NOTE: Because you are trying to show the universal nature of your theme, do not use the I voice in your broad theme. I did not write: It is only my family that gives me unconditional love. Omitting the I will help your reader feel that your paragraph is for them as much as for you!

2. NARROW THEME: Narrow down your theme by writing a sentence that captures how your chosen theme is used in a specific way in an experience you have had, a feeling you have felt, or a thought you want to explore. Make sure this sentence is "clear, concise and memorable" because it is what you want your readers to remember "as" they read your paragraph. Don't make it a long sentence--unless you are writing to very sophisticated readers! This is the sentence that "steers" your reader in the direction you want your paragraph to go, and in that sense, it is what your paragraph is going to be about. Many writers call this the "topic sentence."

NOTE: The broad theme and the narrow theme can be combined into one sentence by connecting the two sentences with a semi-colon or a conjunction (so, yet, and, or, nor, for, but) or you can simply leave it as two sentences.

It is our family that we turn to when there is no place left to go.

3. ONE/TWO PUNCH: Follow your topic sentence with one or two more sentences that add detail or explanation to your broad theme and narrow theme. These sentences can (and maybe should) be longer sentences.

When we are alone in the world; when nothing is going our way, we know that the door of family will always open for us and welcome us back into the arms of those people who love us without reservations.

NOTE: For dramatic effect I used two clauses starting with the word "when." Using repeating words, phrases, and clauses in your writing is called parallelism or anaphora. For whatever reason, used wisely, it helps to add more power and passion to your writing.

4. SMOKING GUN:  Since you are writing about a personal experience, chose a specific personal experience you have had that explicates, illustrates, and amplifies the theme of your paragraph. This experience is proof that you have been there and done that. It is like text support in a book review, or indisputable facts in an expository essay.

At no other time in my life was this more obvious than when I returned to my family home in Concord after a three-year's journey to the Himalayas to discover the essential truth about life. Broke, disheveled, and disenchanted, I stood on the doorstep and tentatively rapped on the door. No smile was wider than my moms; no arms were wider than my dads as they pulled me into their arms and into the living room I left so long ago.

5. HEAD & HEART: Show your reader your thoughts! Write as many more sentences as you "need" (but at least three more) to illustrate and elaborate upon whatever you introduced in your topic sentence.

It didn't matter that I left home without even telling them where I was going. It didn't matter that I had once criticized their lives as dull and meaningless, and it didn't matter that I never called and never wrote.  It only mattered that I was home again.

NOTE: Here I used parallelism again, but this time I used the same repeating structure "It didn't matter..." three times.  Writing in groups of three is called a tri-colon. It is another technique of writing that seems to work well because it captures our attention, it sounds good, and it creates a natural rhythm to our writing. (See, I just used it again:)

6. GET OUT or GO ON! This sentence either wants to close out your thoughts or, if you are writing a longer piece, transition to a potential new paragraph.

For me, it only matters that I will never turn my back on my family again because when times are tough, family is all that really matters.

    Here is the complete paragraph.  At 220 words, this is what I (and probably most English teachers) would call a "full" paragraph.  

    It is only our immediate family that gives us unconditional love. It is our family that we turn to when there is no place left to go. When we are alone in the world; when nothing is going our way, we know that the door of family will always open for us and welcome us back into the arms of those people who are love us without reservations. At no other time in my life was this more obvious than when I returned to my family home in Concord after a three-year's journey to the Himalayas to discover the essential truth about life. Broke, disheveled, and disenchanted, I stood on the doorstep and tentatively rapped on the door. No smile was wider than my moms; no arms were wider than my dads as they pulled me into their arms and into the living room I left so long ago. It didn't matter that I left home without even telling them where I was going. It didn't matter that I had once criticized their lives as dull and meaningless, and it didn't matter that I never called and never wrote.  It only mattered that I was home again. For me, it only matters that I will never turn my back on my family again because family is all that really matters.

    This paragraph might not win me a Pulitzer prize, but it does what it sets out to do, and that is the primary aim of all writing.   As with everything you write, always go back and re-read what you have written. Find three areas or sentences that you can make better. Often you can find a better topic sentence somewhere else in the paragraph. You can almost always find a more clear and effective way to write a sentence than you wrote on your first try. If you have too many short sentences, try combining sentences using conjunctions (so, yet, and, or, nor, for, but) or semi colons; likewise, if you have sentences that feel too long and confusing, try shortening the sentence into two or three sentences.

    The more you use this formula, the better you will get at writing paragraphs.  Keep at it.  Your efforts will be worth the time and effort you put into it!

Week Three: Writing a Prose Memoir

We all have people in our lives that are really important to us.  A "Memoir" is a story we tell about that person.  This week, try and write a memoir about a person in your life who is important to you. This person can be a friend, a grandparent or parent, brother or sister, or aunt or uncle--anybody whom you know well and who helps you feel special and loved, or who has helped you through a hard time in life, or who is inspired and inspiring.

There are many ways to write memoirs. Here is a simple and straightforward way to write a prose memoir. Here it is in rubric form. Click on it to upload:  Download MEMOIR RUBRIC

1st Paragraph: Set the scene. Start with a scene where you and your memoir person are doing something together. Describe everything about that scene.  End the first paragraph by telling the one thing you like most about that person.  That becomes the "theme" of your memoir.

2nd Paragraph: Say what you mean. Write about why this person is important to you. Tell us your thoughts and feelings, and describe the specific "actions" this person does for and with you that makes him or her so special. Try and write at least five sentences--more if you can write more!!! 

• There is no reason why you can't add more paragraphs in here as there must be several reasons why this person is important to you--and each reason should have its own paragraph.

3rd (or last) Paragraph: Finish it clean. Start your last paragraph by telling us why everyone should have a person like your memoir person in his or her life. End the paragraph with one short sentence that"captures" why your person is so great--and use an exclamation point at the end. For example: "Uncle Tony is the coolest guy in the whole world!"

You can do other things like add pictures or video to help add another dimension to your writing piece.

Writing a Review

One of the hardest things to do as a writing teacher is to get my students to write focused paragraphs. To help them (and me) I have created a series of rubrics to help create and organize all sorts of writing genres. One of my most popular and useful rubrics is my book review rubric. 

For this weeks writing prompt, use my rubric to write a book review about any book that you have recently read. The rubric can be uploaded by clicking here: Download Fitz’s Book Review Rubric  It is a Microsoft Word document.  After you have uploaded it to your computer, save it with a different file name. If you use a mac and need a Pages or pdf version of the rubric, please let me know, and I will send you one.

When you are finished writing your review in the Microsoft Word document, upload a picture of the cover into a new blog entry by using the insert image icon in the toolbar on the dashboard (the place where you write entries). Set the image to 300 pixels wide by clicking on Custom when you upload your picture. If you cant figure this part out, dont worry about it. Cut and paste each section of the rubric as separate paragraphs.

I know this seems like a lot of work for a book review, but believe me, it works, and once you get the hang of it, you wont need to use the rubric! I can guarantee if you use this rubric, you will receive awesome grades from your teachers whenever you write a book review. [With a little bit of tweaking, you can also use the rubric for movie and game reviews, too!]

Keep writing your regular journal entries and be sure to post comments. I know a lot of kids are off at different summer camps, but if you are around, keep writing. Nothing makes me happier than to look in the blogs and see a new entry.

If you feel like you need some more help, I am around on Thursdays. We could meet then.  Just send me an e-mail if you would like a private tutoring session.

I hope your summer is going well so far. My summer is great. I am doing a lot of writing, reading, and recuperating from my knee surgeries. 

All the best,

~Fitz

Here is an example of a good book review, written by none other than our own master blogger, Adam Jolly:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     The Odyssey is an epic story of full adventure, love, hope, suffering, and pain. Written by the famous Greek poet Homer, this 500 page poem is naturally a "classic." Although written in the times of Ancient Greece, the version being reviewed was copyrighted in 1990 when Robert Fagles did a new translation of the story.

     The story is actually in epic poem form. The author in this case, is telling a story about great, cunning Odysseus. Odysseus is a relatively old war hero who became stranded on an island after his war-ship crashed on the way home. The book starts out when Odysseus is leaving the islandof Calypso. He had been trapped for around twenty years, until Goddess Athena stands up for him. This part was a little confusing because it doesn't say how he got to the island until the middle of the book. Then he gets stranded at sea, again. He goes through all of these hardships until he finally gets found by some young ladies. They bring him back to the kingdom, and he tells them the story of all that has happened. Here he talks to the King about giant beasts, water-monsters, and Cyclops. Meanwhile, Telemachus, Odysseus' son has set off on a journey to find his dad and get rid of all the suitors from his home. Odysseus' one goal is to make it home, and Telemachus' goal is to find his dad. This is a very strong sense of fatherly love. Does Odysseus ever come home? Will the suitors ever be drove off from Odysseus' old castle?

     This book has made a different person. It has taught me to stay strong when things are hard and to persevere through even the toughest times. It also taught me how important family is. Most of us take our family for granted. For example: how many of us say, "I love you mom!" when she drops you off at Fenn each morning? I have learned to not take my family for granted when I read this book. One thing I noticed when reading this, is that you get something different out of it for each age you are. For me, I was relating myself to young Telemachus. While older people might compare themselves to Odysseus.

     No matter how old you are, you will love The Odyssey. It is a story that has endured many years for one main reason: It is a great story.

 Adam Jolly

3/7/2011

~Rating: ***** 5/5

 

Fitz's Rule # 1: Tell the Whole Story

    It's good to be a woodshop teacher as well as an English teacher. The palpable smells and sounds of sawdust and hand-saws mixes with the intense focus and energy of a pack of ten year olds trying desperately to cut along their laboriously measured and scribed lines.  After class one day, I asked them what they accomplished. They all said they worked on their toolboxes. I asked them to be more specific about what exactly they did, and they told me, "We cut wood." I asked them one more question: "Did you cut the board all the way across?" They looked at in curious disbelief: Yes—they did cut the board all the way across. Who wouldn’t?

    The English teacher in me thought that this is how we need to approach our writing. We don't have to make a tremendous project everyday, but we should, at the very least, cut a metaphorical board all the way across; we should get from the start to the finish of our thoughts, and we should follow our thinking long enough to create a complete thought—a board cut all the way through—a line finished. Whenever, wherever, and whatever you write, don't stop until you've finished cutting along the line. 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 writing a story, finish a scene; if you are writing in your journal, finish what you are describing or thinking. Always leave your page with some semblance of success, be it a large or small success because something in me is convinced that getting from the beginning to the end is the life-blood of a writer and a thinker. It is up to us to make the time and make it a practice to cut the board all the way across and finish what we start.

    So tell the whole story: mark your line; make your cut, and leave only the sawdust behind.

 

It's What You Make of It

       Sometimes I hate it when cliche's ring true to my own life, but it is tough to argue with the notion that our attitude towards something shapes and alters that very "thing" that we are dealing with, trying to do, or trying to nurture in our own lives. Every shift in the season rings in the opportunity to live differently, to do and try new approaches to old problems, to subtly change our attitudes and actions, or even to make a huge paradigm shift in the way we live. But if we do not seize the moment, we often lose the opportunity--and when we lose opportunity, we lose the chance of bettering ourselves. We can convince ourselves that we can try again tomorrow, but making pacts with the future is not a way to live out today. I need to wake up every day and remind myself that I teach writing because I am a writer who believes in the mystery and majesty of words and who believes that it is my duty to pass on what I know about writing to those who are interested in learning. 

        At the summer camp where we spend our summers there is a huge rope swing attached to an old maple tree that hangs like a great fishing pole from the shore of a cool and dark New Hampshire pond. Every afternoon at camp there is a shivering line of campers and counselors waiting their turn to climb the rickety wooden platform that leads to the swing. After the rope is handed to you, and after you find the courage to leap, you soon find that there is no turning back--the rope is not going to swing you back safely to the platform; and so you need to let go--in a sense, you simply "put yourself out there." It is at the moment of letting go that the show begins: for first timers it is usually a feet dragging, face-planting dose of humility, but it is also an epiphany because it is never as hard as you supposed it would be. You survived and were now part of a club of "doers" who tried and did something new, and it is a rare person that does not get right back in line intent on redeeming the day with an even better and more impressive leap. I always think to myself that writers, too, need not only to make the leap, but to get back in line for more.

        Every summer for the past eight years I have run several small writing communities for both kids and adults. The communities are built around each person having their own blog within a larger community of writers and writing what they want to write over the course of the summer. My job is that of provider, nurturer, cajoler, and provoker. I try to create a safe and supportive place for people to write at whatever level they are at, but I also try to roil them out of their comfort zones and to help each person engage writing at a higher and more engaging and attentive level. It works if we all work; it works when I care and my students care, but it falls apart as soon as one of us does not hold up our end of the bargain: if I am lazy and begin to rely on cookie cutter assignments, my students will inevitably sense an opening to produce cookie cutter responses; if I expect or accept minimal efforts I get what I deserve, and my students don't get what they deserve; likewise, if a student puts in a minimal effort, they should expect minimal growth as a writer.

        It is easy for me to say, "Write what you want to write," but it is certainly hard for new writers to do that because they don't really know what they want to write about or sometimes even how to start writing about something. If I assign writing prompts, they only work for a small percentage of people because the prompt may not even remotely spark his or her interests. So we have to meet somewhere in between. My students need to be willing to climb the tower of the metaphorical rope swing and make the leap, and I need to be there to help make them leap again, or to try a new spin move, flip, or dive, knowing that every new swing develops more confidence, more strength, and more skill; moreover, I need to continually recognize that each new writer is a unique person with a unique perspective on the world and, most importantly, a unique reason for being in the writing community.

        The beauty of our humanity is our commonality. We are inextricably bound by our common interests and uncommon empathy--what interests us invariably interests others, and what we "feel" is likewise felt by others. This should not humble us; it should energize us to share in words what we feel in our heart, and know in our heads, and wonder about in our curiosity because "words" are the currency with which we buy and sell and share our thoughts and feelings; otherwise, no one will really know who you are, where you stand, or what you believe. If you want to leave a gift to the world, let it be your words, for words will always outlast the ravages of time. The time to start creating those words is now.  There is nothing stopping you. You are as wise now as you have ever been: your life is full of experiences that have shaped who you are and taught you right from wrong and good from bad; you have tasted fruits both bitter and beautiful, and you have an opportunity before you to seize or shun. The choice is yours. The interesting (and revealing) part is that no matter what you do, you will have made a choice.

        For my students who are reading this, I want you to make the choice to begin this summer by living like a writer, and a writer is simply a person who has made the choice to make writing a part of their everyday lives and who is willing to learn the craft of writing by practicing the tips and tricks and techniques of good writers--for the writer is no different than the woodworker in his shop or the athlete on the playing field: each of them does what they know they need to do to be a better woodworker or a better athlete. I will not tell you what project to build or what sport to play, but I will teach you things that will help you build anything you want to build or to be a better athlete at any sport you choose. I have listened and learned from many teachers and writers who came before me--and I continue to do so! Now it is your job to listen, to learn, and to write. 

        But remember, it is what you make of it, and it always begins with writing. 

        So start writing. 

~Fitz

 

 

 

 

A Sonnet

The parting is the hardest part of fate—

The slow untangling knot still left unwound;

We pause as if the hour is too late

To divvy fair the treasure we have found.

Our words like fingers pointing at the moon;

Whose light reveals the shadows that you teach;

And this goodbye that seems to come too soon

The pulsing tide returns you to our reach.

With each soul you shaped the morphable clay

And lay to rest the fickle thorns of time;

You gave us all an ordinary day

Below some harsh summit we could not climb—

I’ve never asked, but I’ve wondered how and why

You somehow managed to teach frogs to fly.

(For Lorraine Ward on her retirement:
a good friend, mentor, and amazing boss) 

Father’s Day

Somehow I managed to get six kids to clean the house tonight simply by asking them. No complaints: They broke ranks and somehow figured out what needed to be done:  EJ is washing the dishes; Pipo is sweeping the floors and finding all sorts of knick knacks; Tommy is “organizing” the cubbies; Margaret puts on music and sorts the bad mail (bills) from the good mail (Tom and Margaret Curtain 50th wedding anniversary); Charlie seems to find soccer balls everywhere; Emma is chanting, “When in doubt, throw it out.” I am on the couch pointing with my crutches and telling them to disregard the mess on the coffee table (my mess). If I could get this miracle to repeat itself daily, you would see me on reality TV: “Superdad Reveals His Secrets to Subservient Children”.

One by one they break out of their routine and sprawl on the couches and on the arms of oversized leather chairs and laugh at some Disney Channel inanity. Tommy sits next to me with a plastic turtle he made for me (found in the recesses of his cubby) and asks when is Father’s Day?

I give him a hug and tell him: “Today....”

Turning Points

      After our final exams, our annual tradition at school is to take the 8th grade class to Canobie Lake Park for the day. For the kids it is a great day; for us teachers, it is a time to find a coffee shop and grade all of those final exams. This is my first year that I can not make it Canobie Lake as I just had my knee replaced last week. I posted this little piece on our class blog as a final farewell to my three classes of 8th grade boys. It has been about as fun a year as I can remember. Good kids and good attitudes. It makes it easy to go back from year to year to year....

Going to Canobie Lake is always the turning point of the year for me. It is like some primal signal that it is time to turn away from the school year and towards the future.  Obviously, it is my hope that you learned some useful skills this year; but, more importantly, I hope that you have gained a deeper sense of the power and importance of words--and that you will tap into that power in whatever way you need or want over the course of your life. I want you to know that I am always around as another set of eyes for anything you write over these eight or ten more years of school--and many more of simply life--that you have ahead of you. Sometimes, it is simply good to hear from you. This year, this is the last you will hear from me. My last echo...

        Life will change you, and you will change your life. Be willing to change. Recently, I heard from an old student who hated whenever I assigned a "creative" writing assignment. Last year he won one of The Groton School's Creative Writing Awards. Another student who started playing guitar in the shop--and who refused to sing a single word--just released an impressive debut CD of original music. The point is: don't be limited by what you feel you are today. Though you might only see a small stone; there is always a universe of possibilities! You just need to be brave enough  to cross the threshold; you have to accept that no songs will be sung about you if you avoid the pain and suffering and struggle of the heroic cycle, which is part and parcel of every life lived to the fullest.  

        Your life is the epic poem you are about to live, so live! Don't be remembered as Pap, or the The Duke and Dauphin, or Himmelstoss or Kantorek, or a nameless suitor, or even a vain and impetuous god: be remembered as a man (because that is what you are) who responds to the stirrings within yourself and who recognizes these stirrings as the wisdom of Mentes and who acts as if guided by the power of bright-eyed Athena. This is the power that entwined and empowered the actions of Jim and Huck and Paul. Trust in our own individual wisdom is the power that sustains greatness.

        Friendship is a metaphor for caring, persistence, constancy, and courage. Become that metaphor and you will never feel or be alone. Be like Paul Baumer and be willing to risk everything for your friends. Be like the kings and swineherds of The Odyssey and welcome strangers as the friends they should be  for friends will always be true and faithful even when society is not. Be willing to carry or be carried across and through the battles of life. Don't leave these friends you have made; don't lose touch with the cast of round and flat characters who make up your life today or you will become that flat character remembered only as a fleeting scene or footnote buried in the plot of a dull and uninspired story. 

      Your life is a young poem, and it is the soil upon which your future will grow.  Cultivate your mind as you would the garden you need to survive. Remember that poetry is the greatest fruit of your being. Poetry is not always a pile of written words; it is the ability to see like Basho. Life is never a single image.  It is an image and an action given new meaning by the twists and turns of how we take it and act upon it; it is the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated scenes that we pair together to create deeper meaning and purpose and sustenance. 

        Be prepared to sit and let the moon reflect off of you. Nature is the greatest teacher and the only one who is always there for you and who is always waiting. Though you can't enter the same river twice, you can always sit on the banks and be restored--but it will never happen unless you walk to the river--wherever and whatever that river happens to be. The classroom is only the finger pointing at the moon--not the moon itself.

        Above all remember. Remember everything. Memories and thoughts only truly exist when put into words, so craft carefully and treasure dearly the words you create.

        Give a damn. Nothing gold can stay.  

Fitz's Essay & Reflection Formula

Many of my daily entries over the course of the summer are essays and reflections that I share with my summer blogging students.  These entries are part of a compilation about writing that I am editing and revising for a future book length workbook for my work in the classroom. I apologize if you find yourself reading something that you may have seen in my blog before in some way shape or fashion. I included this reflection today because I had dinner with a friend last night who told me that she uses this formula with her third grade students to help introduce essay writing.

A Quick Essay & Reflection Formula

Snap you fingers in 4/4 time and repeat: "Set the scene and state the theme. Say what you mean, and finish it clean!"

One of the hardest parts of writing is finding a way to make sense of what you want to say, explain, or convey to your readers--especially when facing an empty page with a half an hour to kill and an entry to write (or a timed essay or exam writing prompt). Here is a quick formula that might help you when you need to create a writing piece "on the fly." At the very least, it should guide you as your write in your blog, and it will reinforce that any essay (introduction, body, and conclusion) needs to be at least three paragraphs long!

I've always told my students (who are probably tired of hearing me recite the same things over and over again): "If you know the rules, you can break them." But you better be a pretty solid writer before you start creating your own rules. The bottom line is that nobody really cares about what you write; they care about how your writing affects and transforms them intellectually and emotionally as individuals. In short, to satisfy, you must edify, and if you can get your intended audience to want to read your next sentence, you have succeeded as a writer. This formula is simply a way to help that happen!

There are four main reasons that someone will “want” to read what you write; otherwise,(crushing reality) they won’t!  

• Your teacher or your boss (and perhaps your parents and friends) will read what you write because they either have to or they love you enough to care about what you write.
  
• A reader who is already interested in your topic will more than likely slog through anything that discusses what they are already in reading about. For example, I will read anything that has to do with building wooden boats or sailing across lonely oceans.
  
• People will read anything written by writers who have proven that he or she writes great stuff and who never seem to let you down (or let you put their writing down). Wendell Berry falls into this category for me! Dr. Seuss is another writer who developed an extremely loyal fan base. I’m sure you have some writers that do this for you!
  
• Finally, (and this is the best one) sometimes you start reading something and you just can’t put it down. Through practice, imitation, and experimentation, the best writers develop of way of writing that is interesting and rewarding to read--even when they break every rule of writing.

 
These guidelines are not rules, but they try to mimic the natural and logical way of an enlightened conversation. Believe me, it works. Really!

1. Set the scene and state the theme: Use your first paragraph to lead up to your theme. If the lead in to your essay is dull and uninspired, you will lose your readers before they get to the theme. If you simply state your theme right off the bat, you will only attract the readers who are "already" interested in your topic. Your theme is the main point, idea, thought, or experience you want your writing piece to convey to your audience. (Often it is called a "Thesis Statement.) I suggest making your theme be the last sentence of your opening paragraph because it makes sense to put it there, and it will guide your reader in a clear and, hopefully, compelling way. In fact, constantly remind yourself to make your theme be as clear, concise and memorable as possible. Consciously or unconsciously, your readers constantly refer back to your theme as mnemonic guide for "why" you are writing your essay in the first place! Every writing piece is a journey of discovery, but do everything you possibly can to make the journey worthwhile from the start.

A sentence is a thought fully expressed. A paragraph is a thought fully explored.

2. Say what you mean: Write about your theme. Use as many paragraphs as you "need." A paragraph should be as short as it can be and as long as it has to be. Make the first sentence(s) "be" what the whole paragraph is going to be about. Try and make those sentences be clear, concise and memorable (just like your theme) and make sure everything relates closely to the theme you so clearly expressed in your first paragraph. If your paragraph does not relate to your theme, it would be like opening up the directions for a fire extinguisher and finding directions for baking chocolate chip cookies instead! Finally, do your best to balance the size of your body paragraphs. If they are out of proportion to each other, then an astute reader will make the assumption that some of your points are way better than your other points, and so the seed of cynicism will be sown before your reader even begins the journey.

3. Finish it clean: Conclusions need to be as simple as possible. In conversations only boring or self important people drag out the end of a conversation. When you are finished saying what you wanted to say, exit confidently and cleanly. DON"T add any new information into the last paragraph; DON'T retell what you've already told, and DON'T preen before the mirror of your brilliance. Just "get out of Dodge" in an interesting and thoughtful (and quick) way. Use three sentences or less. It shows your audience that you appreciate their intelligence and literacy!

Set the scene; state the theme; say what you mean, and finish it clean is a simple rubric for writing to keep in your head as you read and comment, and to practice in your writing as you reflect and express yourself with words.