Mrs. Fitz's Story Emporium

Being surprised never becomes familiar. It if did, it wouldn’t BE surprise. My lastest  surprise was this week. Hope paid me a visit.

For a quantity of days, the level of violence unleashed by shootings in the country I call home has halted writing my blog the way night cancels light, the way a face slap cancels reverie. I had nothing to say.

I looked for words that smarter people have written about hope because I needed to find me some. I read lots of great words but my hope level remained low. I had nothing to say.

Today, I read this by author Maxine Hong Kingston:

“In a time of destruction, create something.”

Here is the surprise part: Having nothing to say is not for me to decide but welcoming hope IS for me to decide. I can choose to create SOME thing. That’s what hope told me when it paid a visit this week. What a surprise.

The athletes in London are wondrous. Athletes everywhere are wondrous.

Today I saw a big-shouldered man with a left leg and a prosthesis where his right leg should be, riding a mountain bike along a path, a path that skirts Diversey Harbor like a crayon wiggle.

Did he lose his leg or was he born without it? I think he lost it. He’s symmetry interrupted, everything large and in place except for the missing leg, like a brick house with one window blown out.

How did he get on the bike? Did somebody hoist him up and attach him? He probably handled this himself. He had the square jaw of a man whose eyes would dare you to help. You wouldn’t.

By the look of the fake leg, they had been a team a long time. It was worn in like good Nikes, and useful, almost like a real bone-and-muscle-skeleton, minus the rest.

He moved with what I’d call gumption. Was he gumptiony before he lost his leg or because he lost his leg? (original posted 2010).

“Don’t get your hopes up” is not good advice. I’ve taken this advice and affirm it does NOT work. It may be okay to not get your expectations up but this is a hedge. It doesn’t work either.

It is the nature of hope to be UP.  When I have tried to squelch the pleasant anticipation that something I’d like to happen, WILL happen, the only thing that occurs is a dumpy feeling. A grownup, smart and dumpy feeling.

Worse, over time this might become a habit. Hope may just take itself somewhere else where it is appreciated.

Don’t do it. Don’t let anyone you know do it.

There are many reasons why folks don’t write. Lack of talent isn’t one of them. Memory is.

Both fiction and nonfiction tap memory and memory is a squirrely thing. Your memory is your truth in the sense that it’s infallible. It belongs to you and others may question it but they don’t own it.

Here is where it gets tricky. You do NOT own your history. Your HISTORY is shared. You don’t have sole proprietorship over it in the sense that others were there, too.

Here is where it gets very tricky. When you write anything (memoir, novel, travel feature, news story to name a few) your memory shadows you, colors the past, influences your word choices. And this is good but here is the “BUT” that every writer learns about sometime: Others who shared the same history that spawned your memory will react when your memory is different than their own.

It’s reaction that can stop folks from writing because reaction is unpredictable. It can be negative, very negative.  So here’s one tip: Write carefully and with integrity AND don’t expect those who share your history to like your writing. It they do, super-duper. If they don’t, alas.
Honor their right to have their own memory.

I think humor is anything that causes me laughter or amusement, forgetting “humor” was coined many moons ago to describe a person whose temperament is out of balance. Lately I’m reminded what amuses some, is way out of balance to others.

Here’s two:

NUNS ON THE BUS.

Network is the Catholic social justice lobby and this (2012) summer a group of religious order Sisters toured under the banner “Sisters driving for faith, family and fairness.”

The catchy phrase amused those who perceived the incongruity of members of a religious order doing what rock stars do, touring on a bus. However, The Catholic Register ran a story about it with a headline that called this a publicity stunt that did harm.

Incongruity amuses but not always.

THE GOD PARTICLE. In early July news came of the discovery of an elementary particle referred to as Higgs Boson. I will leave to scientists to explain; but this is BIG news. BIG.  This particle was known as The God Particle, a phrase coined by Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman, Director Emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Lederman used exaggeration to convey magnitude. However many scientists found the phrase misleading and harmful.

Exaggeration amuses but not always.

Incongruity and exaggeration are two ways humor happens. For fun, here are three more:

SATIRE. It is satire if it makes fun of human foibles we share, such as men refusing to ask for directions. Okay, only half of us share this foible, but it’s a good example.

IRONY. It is irony if one thing is said but intends the opposite, such as “men who don’t ask directions are the smartest creatures on the face of the planet.”

BUFFOONERY. It is buffoonery if it is acting clumsy and boorish to try to be funny, as when a man who won’t ask directions tells a joke to his hopelessly lost passengers to make them laugh.

Sometimes incongruity, exaggeration, satire, irony and buffoonery amuse, but watch out for RIDICULE. Ridicule is deriding someone scornfully to make others laugh. Not funny. Ever.

Monsignor Plunkett was pastor at Elmhurst’s Immaculate Conception parish when I attended its kindergarten, grammar and high schools so I got to see him during those 13 years, more often than any other man of authority, except Dad.

This may account for his shaping my view of male leaders. Those I admire today share some his traits:

1. When still, he laced his fingers and rested them on his tummy, which was ample. Men who do this are ready to listen.

2. When walking, he gripped one wrist behind his back with the other wrist and moved forward with purpose, like a boat. Men who do this are going places.

3. He repeated one phrase so often, he must have known the middle school kids would imitate him to make each other laugh, which they did. But he said it anyway: “We want to educate the whole man.” Men who repeat one phrase with deep conviction and affection no matter what anybody else thinks, get things done…no matter what anybody else thinks.

4. He sought ways to be around the students, who, trust me, were not always fun to be around. He personally delivered report cards two times each year to about 26 classrooms, each with about 50 students (yup, 50). That’s about 2,600 times annually he bent down, shook a chubby-grubby hand and said something such as “Ah, Billy’s deportment is improving, I see. Very good, Billy.” Men who enjoy children achieve much.

5. He liked being included. I conclude this because he was always smiling in photos with the football team, with other parish priests, with the ladies who laundered the altar linens, with the school band. Maybe he just liked having his picture taken, but I think men who smile are trustworthy.

6. He did not butt in. I never saw him interrupt anyone, even when someone was going on and on and not saying anything. Even a child. Men who don’t butt in foster loyalty.

7. He held his own counsel. I never saw Monsignor Plunkett display attention-getting emotion. No grimaces. No thundering. No puffy chest thumping. Men who hold their own counsel are manly. They command.  They lead.