Mrs. Fitz's Story Emporium

I’m reading a nice book, anthology of short stories all written by women, all written by women not well known, all written by women who are contemporary, all written by women with superb command of language and style and substance.

Round about page 300 of its 320 pages, it hit me that not a single story had a happy ending. Why, I wonder.

The structure of short story depends on hitting en emotional chord promptly and the easiest way to do that is shock, so I suppose a happy ending isn’t very shocking.

If women ARE the emotional creatures we are supposed to be, it’s expected we write about the BIG emotions, like longing and betrayal and deceit, so I suppose happy emotion is small at best and suspect at worst.

Contemporary women writers have a lot of barriers to overcome, since the deluge of entertainment is dominated by sitcom values, gossip, and sappiness; so I suppose a happy ending gets lost in the mix.

Since the writers aren’t famous, in the sense that their names are not branded on our collective brain, it makes sense to write something that sticks in the brain, like girl robots who kill bad guys, sisters who devour meat, couples who die on airplanes. I suppose nobody will remember you if your story ends well. I suppose nobody will remember the story, either.

There. How’s that for an unhappy ending?

I grow weary of folks, a group that includes myself, using the term “innovation” in the wrong way. Whenever something is new, or fresh, or different…innovation!

Innovation is NOT new or fresh or different.

Innovation is communal, cumulative and calm. It shifts everything from what it was to what it becomes. When it shows up, it might seem new or fresh or different; but I think that’s because we aren’t paying attention to the legion of people involved, the simmering trial-and-error of learning, and the quiet little cat feet on which it travels.

It’s hard to illustrate innovation. Maybe diversity is innovative. I don’t know.

I can illustrate innovators. One is Barbara, who is older than 90. When you meet Barbara, she embraces you with her whole personality. She connects. She IS communal. When you talk to Barbara, she shares her experience to support what she hears you saying. She is history. She IS cumulative. When you are with Barbara, time just takes a back seat since she doesn’t pay it any mind. She IS calmness.

Another is Kathy, who is 50-something and so busy, it’s hard to catch her with moments to spare. When you meet Kathy, she is present, as if nothing else is on her agenda. She IS communal. When you talk to Kathy, she shares her remembering of everything you ever told her and gives it back to you like a gift. She IS cumulative. When you are with Kathy, time is enhanced by the way she fills it up and shares it with you. She IS calmness.

If you value innovation, find some innovators. They will help you be it.

Commemorating Martin Luther King’s birthday is fun because dreams are always coming true, slipping in quietly like someone late to church. Today in glumpy and gloomy Chicago, I saw three of them:

1. Near his double-parked car on Wellington, a street known for drivers who honk, alot; a 40ish fellow with strong arms hoisted a senior lady out of her wheelchair, swung her over a puddle the size of a retention pond, into the backseat of his car. Nine cars waited. No honks. A small hand, belonging to the lady he tucked into his backseat, waved and waved and waved out her window like a regent blessing her subjects.

2. A big Penske moving truck backed out of the alley next to the Vic Theater to ease onto Sheffield Avenue, a street where ease isn’t the first word come to mind. Cars in both directions paused while the van driver serenaded them with a jaunty honkety-honk-honk tune he played on his truck horn. Straightened to drive away,he added one more Honkety-honk-honk and four of the delayed drivers tossed him a wave.

3. A mom with three incompatible things – overstuffed shop cart, overheated elevator full of folk, and overly ambitious child too young to walk who figured he’d try it anyway – tried to move her triad off the elevator. One rider held the door open, one rider balance her tipsy cart load and one rider hoisted the would-be walker up onto his shoulder. If her hands weren’t so full, I am pretty sure the mom would have waved her thank-you.

One of the nice things about the demise of print newspapers is I am content no longer that I know what I should know, what I need to know.

Being a journalist, I did acquire the know-how to know newspapers NEVER printed ALL the news fit to print; but as a reader I was smug most of the time that I had pretty much covered what’s important by reading my newspaper. Why, when I should have known better?

1. I didn’t want to know that reading news is NOT knowing in the first place.
2. I didn’t relish the task of searching on my own for the meaningful.
3. I didn’t want to abandon the fun of sharing what I read with other people who read the same thing.
4. Reading the newspaper gave me the feeling of having accomplished something, rather than accomplishing something.

I don’t yet know what I should know or need to know, but I am happy it’s up to me to find out.