The Sunday Times feeds my soul.

I come from Irish roots:
   from County Cork
   and green glens,
   from hills so achingly beautiful
   and desolate misty cliffs.
From lands whispered reverently across grandpa's thin lips.
 
I come from Irish tastes,
   from every meal prepared 
   with some form of potato:
   french fried, home fried, baked, boiled, 
   whipped, hashed, and pancaked.
In shepherd's pie and hearty stews.

I come from Irish storytellers,
   who wrote or lamented,   
   exaggerated tales,
   soliloquies, epistles,
Drunken ballads rehearsed in pubs.

I come from Irish Catholics,
    whose religion taught them 
    to shun birth control,
    and as a result,
    John and Carol had:
Carol Ann, Kathy, John, Mark, Patrick, Robert, Michael, Martha, Thomas, Anne, James, William, Joseph, and Mary.

I come from Irish secrets,
    from hot tempers,
    and too many drinks,
    from alcoholism and frailty, 
    from hush-hush and follow rules.
A nation mourns because of its collective silence.

I come from Irish blessings
    from Danny Boy and fare-thee-wells,
    from 'luck o' the Irish,'
    and 'Brian Barou',
    and whistling tunes from ear.

On this St. Patrick's Day I think of my grandparents,
who both left me this decade,
after 94 and 96 years of living.  

And I remember them with this blessing:

"May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand."

Until I see you again Grandma and Grandpa.
Happy St. Patrick's Day. 

I once got into an argument while conferring with a young writer.  I wanted him to revise an informational text he drafted about his dog.  He thought his draft was fine and needed no revisions.  I thought it lacked sufficient information.  Our conversation went something like this:   
    Brian:  "Perhaps you should talk about what your dog looks like."
    Boy:  "He's a pit bull."
    Brian:  "I know.  You told us that.  But what does he look like?  What color?  What kinds of                    features does his have?"
    Boy:  (sarcastically) "I think people know what a pit bull looks like."
    Brian:  "Do they?  Aren't pit bulls all sorts of colors?  Don't they all look a little different?"
    Boy:  "Sure.  I don't know.  Mine was just a regular pit bull."  

He wasn't budging.  So I moved to another page--a page in which he talks about what his dog ate every day.  His page simply said, "My pit bull has two bowls.  One bowl has dog food.  His other bowl has water."

    Brian: "Why kind of dog food does he eat?"
    Boy:  "I don't know."  (With a bit of attitude) "Dog food."  
    Brian:  "I know.  What what's the brand of dog food?  Purina, which is brown, looks a lot                       different than Beneful, which has chunks of green and orange for carrots and peas."
    Boy:  "I don't know.  Jeez.  Fine, BROWN dog food!"
    Brian:  "I'm suggesting these small changes because it makes it clearer for readers.  If you                   want to inform your reader about what you feed your dog, it's important to be
                 specific."
    Boy:  "Fine.  Whatever.  What do you want me to do?  Want me to just write Purina in                         there?"
    Brian:  "I really want you to care about the reader.  But I'm not sure you do right now."
 
He was frustrated.  I asked him to revise and he wasn't interested--which began to frustrate me. 

I'm sometimes confronted with this question: What do I do with a writer who doesn't want my help?  Typically, conferences are positive transactions.  Through questioning, writers usually discover they can make tweaks or bigger revisions because they want their writing to sing.  But, if I'm being honest, some conferences are battles.  I'm battling a writer's fatigue, his disinterest, her lack of purpose and audience, his low self-esteem.  I'm battling a desire to just get the writing done. 

During these times I have to re-evaluate my role as a conferrer.  If I am a guide for the writer-- a fellow writer offering advice--then should I make demands?  Or, do I need to simply step back and say, "Hey buddy.  This is your piece of writing.  I'm just offering suggestions.  Whether you want to use them or not is up to you.  I'm just trying to help you see this from the viewpoint of a reader."  

I know I'm right about his insufficient details, but do I continue to argue?  He just wants to finish, so he argues that he's done.  But does that make him right?  

Sometimes conferring is presented as an enlightenment--an awaking for writer and teacher.  And sometimes it's just hard, exhausting, mentally-fatiguing work.  

Conferring requires the art of restraint:
   Teacher becomes student.
   Student becomes teacher.
Teacher learns to listen.

The teacher who knows,
   asks the just-right questions,
   to push their young writers,
Towards self-actualization.

Questions like:
    Why are you writing this?
    Who are you writing this for?
    How do you think they will react?

We don't know these answers:
     Teacher becomes student.
     Student becomes teacher.
Students teach us to listen.

The teacher who knows,
    takes a breath,
    waits a moment,
And uses writers' responses to formulate an idea.

After the writer speaks, the teacher speaks:
      "I have a thought,
       writer-to-writer, 
       you might want to try."  

The role of the teacher expands to:
     co-writer, co-reviser, co-editor,
     From a snippet of silence,
     Grows learning.

When we confer,
      we must first listen,
      before we speak because:
Those who know do not speak,
Those who speak do not know.

My childhood yard was once filled 
with dozens of orange trees,
a neighborhood built in the middle of a grove,
each house retaining most their trees.

In spring, orange blossoms blossomed.
White, waxy, poking through leaves,
in small clusters of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6.
Making the way for fat round oranges in winter.

And when winter came, 
we reaped the harvest.  
Fresh, pulpy orange juice, 
squeezed into pitchers, cut with water.

Dad paid my siblings and me,
a nickel for every rotten orange
we picked off the ground 
and threw into a green garbage can.

We were rich in winter.

One surviving orange tree stood
in our fenced backyard,
One last survivor made it through
the frozen genocide of 1983.

The lone survivor was my mother's sanctuary.
Hidden in the back yard, behind the house,
she escaped to Eden, 
and smoked cigarettes.  

Her routine was ritualistic.
She said, "Kids, don't come outside,
I'm going to be on the phone,
and I need privacy." 

She dug into her purse,
excavating a Virginia Slim, 
a pink lighter, a peppermint Mento,
and a travel-sized Estee Lauder bottle of Beautiful.

She still does this same routine,
although it's in a different house,
one that faces an intracoastal,
and instead of an orange tree,

She smokes behind a Sabal Palm.

Second grade, age eight.
   This is the year I would:
   Rise from the kneeler,
   Crawl down the pew,
   Walk up the aisle,
      And enter into the secret society of Eucharist eaters.

We practiced for this moment all year.
   The teachers, using un-transubstantiated wafers,
   taught several lessons, 
   on how to receive the Host.

The mini-lessons included:
    How to walk down the aisle (prayer hands),
    How to hold out your hands (right hand, under left),
    How to touch the Eucharist (a simple pinch of the thumb and forefinger),
    How to eat the Eucharist (let it dissolve, never chew),
    How to give thanks (sign of the cross, facing the alter),
    How to walk back to the pew (solemnly, quietly),
    How to reflect (kneel, pray).

Perhaps the scariest lesson was this one,
Taught by a ferocious nun, 
   who, in a thick Malta accent, declared:
"If you drop the Eucharist on the ground, you are not to pick it up off the ground.  You are to get on your hands and knees, bend down, and EAT IT OFF THE FLOOR!!!"

Practicing Communion was a homework assignment that needn't be assigned.
We practiced every day,
    at lunch time, after school,
    with Cheez-Its, Wheat Thins, Triskets,
    and Cheetoes that stained our fingers.
One friend was the priest,
The other the Eucharist receiver.
We held up the mighty Wheat Thin and declared,
    "The Body of Christ."
    Followed by an "Amen".  

One friend, Rachel, was scolded for sacrilege
   When a Catholic neighbor caught her practicing with a friend
   using Vanilla Wafers.

Then the moment came when I would perform this sacred ceremony,
    before mom, dad, sister, brother, grandma, grandpa, aunt, and uncle.
    I wore my finest plaid, checkered sports coat.
    And I sat through three-fourths of the Mass with sweaty palms,
    Worried that the Host would dissolve right into my hands.

I walked down the aisle, towards the alter.
I held out my hands, looking down at the ground.
I felt the wafer placed firmly into my hands by Fr. Patrick Henry.
My shaky right hand separated from the left, 
    and I pinched the Host with my thumb and forefinger,
    bringing it to my mouth, to rest on my tongue,
    and to wait for the unleavened bread to melt. 
I faced the alter,
    made the sign of the cross,
    walked back to my pew,
    knelt down,
    and prayed a sigh of relief.  

I entered into the Communion community. 

At age 5 I entered first grade,
     already a reader.
         Charles Schultz taught me.

I spent hours upon hours upon hours
     Reading along to books.
          The voices of my friends were
          etched into the grooves of each 45.
     The needle scratched to life the voice of
         Charlie Brown instructing:

"Hi. I'm Charlie Brown. You can read along in your book as you listen to the story. You'll know it's time to turn the page when you hear the chimes ring like this: (sound of chimes ringing). And now we present Snoopy Come Home."
     
I connected most with Linus and his security blanket.
    I had a stuffed dog named Frederick.
    He went everywhere with me--
        in my backpack to school,
        sitting aside me in the grocery cart at the store,
        hidden in my shirt at church.
Concerned about my attachment,
    my father held Frederick over a garbage can.
    And despite my pleas and screams he declared,
    "Sometimes we have to say goodbye to our friends."

Whenever the cruelty was too much, the Peanuts gang saved me.

I hated Lucy.
   She lured Charlie Brown with the promise of kindness.
   And every time he saw the good in her,
       Every time he decided to trust her,
       Every time he gave her a second, third, fourth, tenth chance,
             She ripped the football away. 
Just once I wanted Charlie Brown to say:
"Sometimes we have to say goodbye to our friends."

Over time, I learned to be a Snoopy--
     to be my own Flying Ace,
     and use my imagination to take me to war zones,
        less dangerous than the one at home. 
I sat upon my bed,
     and imagined dodging bullets from the enemy,
     eventually becoming the hero
        celebrated back home.
My imagination was boundless.
It needed to be.

Charles Schultz taught me to read,
   but he also taught me lessons about life:
        Kindness despite cruelty,
        Loyalty despite betrayal,
        Persistence despite failure,
            And never, never, never giving up.

Each Sunday morning,
    when I get that thick stack of newsprint,
    I turn to the comics section,
    and get a visit from an old friend.

My father was wrong.
We don't have to say goodbye to old friends.

The dad of my neighborhood friend
    had a stuffed hammerhead shark
    mounted on the wall of his office.
   
The shark scared me shitless.

I thought it could swim off the wall,
    race across the sea-shag carpet,
    and attack me.
   
I ran down the hall
    as fast as I could,
    my back pressed against the walls,
    sprinting past the office
    and into the safety of my friend's room.

The entire time we played,
    I plotted my strategy,
    to back out of the house,
    without getting eaten.

I don't remember the friend.
I don't remember the dad.
I don't remember anything else about the house.
But I remember the shark.

And 38 years later, I'm still scared to swim in the ocean by myself.

The 42 year-old me,
   looks at 3 year-old me,
   and sees:

The blond hair,
    that eventually turned brown,
    thinned after college,
    and finally fell out.

The big acorn eyes,
    that still change colors,
    facilitating between blue and green,
    a calm ocean, a verdant glen.

The canyons under the eyes,
    that have grown deeper, and more pronounced,
    tired from the constant climb,
    of a career that runs like a hamster's wheel,
    publish or perish,
    wash-rinse-repeat.

The smooth forehead,
   free from worry,
   now wrinkled with the concerns of:
       a child's learning disability,
       a child's plunging self-esteem,
       a mortgage payment,
       an aging car,
       parents growing older,
       time passing too quickly.

The thin-lipped smile,
   that still grows across an older face,
   now with deeper laugh lines,
   from years of:
      laughing easily,
      finding funny,
      and appreciating life's levity.

The 42 year-old me,
    looks back at 3 year-old me,
    knowing that life is half over,
    and yearning to make the second half--
         matter.

To break the monotony of their day,
     my mother, and her best friend,
     ate breakfast at the dinette within Schnucks,
     before they did their grocery shopping for the week.

At age two, I was the last remaining child at home,
     and my mom dragged me along.
     She placed me in a highchair,
     and pushed M & Ms into my mouth,
     to pacify my potential cries.

Mom and Sue drank their coffee,
     and gossiped about neighbors,
     complained about husbands,
     laughed about kids,
     and commiserated in their shared exhaustion. 

Both held college degrees,
     but here they sat,
     and shopped,
     and lamented about lives that might have been.
    
Two women sat,
     trapped in the cultural norms,
     that imprisoned them in homes--
     tethered to irons,
     soaked in raw beef,
     smothered by loads of laundry,
     glued to brooms,
         sweeping away the dirt.
         And wishing they, too, could be swept away
                 to a different kind of life.