My Patch: Appropriate for this time of year…
Writers steal from other writers. It’s a fact. We read a novel and are inspired by the arc of the plot or the way the author used setting. The writer knows EVERYTHING IS GRIST FOR THE MILL–as long as what lands on your page comes from INSPIRATION and not COPYING. So…
John McPhee has a new book. McPhee who has written on subjects from his love of geology to the game of tennis and has appeared over the years in publications like TIME and THE NEW YORKER, saved all his drafts. I don’t know how he stored these “patches” of work–but he has. Now his latest book is called The Patch, as McPhee decided to go on a treasure hunt, rereading works he had filed away and selecting some for this new compilation. Kevin Canfield in the Star Tribune writes: Now, at 87, McPhee has raided his stockpile of stray sentences and used them to assemble an unusual, and at times fascinating, prose collage.
Carol Surges on Goodreads writes: Pulling together bits and pieces of writing, much like sewing together bits and pieces of writing sounded too intriguing. McPhee was in the perfect position to pull this off.
WOULD I BE ABLE TO DO THAT? Well, I’m going to try.
Sitting one afternoon up in the bleachers of the tennis courts while my son Andrew takes a lesson…listening to the thump, thump of the ball and staring into space, I hear HAVEY. The name. Of course, the coach is talking to my son, kidding him on, saying way to go Havey, or something. But my skin is tingling and my heart has skipped a beat–drawn back in time…I’m a teenager hanging around the park near my home, swinging on a swing or sitting on a park bench with girlfriends–waiting to hear the name, that word blow across the baseball field, waiting for the so-young guy who will become the love of my life–waiting for him to show up with his friends… my older brother writes back to me about a recent essay on limiting children. He remembers our mother and her vocalizing that she wanted six children. She only got three before my father died. My brother speaks about the border crisis and says that it is our moral obligation to have charity and provide help for those already living on this planet…which makes me think of my limit, my three. And I remember when my middle child was seven and announced: “When I was three, Mom, and I couldn’t ride a bike or catch a ball or turn on the lights, I thought you were magical because you could.” Magical…like Christmas? Like believing in Santa Claus or like believing as a child that the world would always care for you? That the world was a beautiful and loving place? I remember trying to tell her that eventually she would be able to do all of these things–and realized that when you can do them, maybe they aren’t special anymore. Maybe they aren’t magical….but there is always the magic of making choices…like when I did Dancersize with other women in their thirties and I felt like a Rockette; just for an hour I was part of the blur of bodies…just for an hour and did not have to remember that I was like Janice Ian At Seventeen, always the last to be chosen for basketball…but I learned to accept what I was good at, teaching, writing, mothering…when I was three I couldn’t...now that I’m older I’m no Rockette anymore…but as Christmas approaches, I’m am, so very here. No video or camera or tape can really hold the memories of life. I may ask to have them back, I may have a physical reaction to a smell or the line from a song, or even the texture of some fabric…Santa? Did you hear him on the roof? Andrew and tennis..Andrew now a wage earner and living in Chicago; I remember the first time he was peeking from behind the bathroom door and he discovered that it moved, he could walk and MOVE that door, close that door. He could separate himself from me…Magic. I probably clapped to say I understood his wonder…if you have a child living in your home..yours or your grandchild this time of year, focus on them. My older daughter once looked at Andrew when in his high chair he had his arms raised up in some kind of benediction (her words) over the crumbs he was finding on the chair’s table. She talked about his claiming his small world with his fingers. I think we all do that, whether it’s in total reality or mixed with whiffs of magic. If I no longer dance like a crazy person, but I can still sing…oh and I can pull my children around me and call out Hey Haveys. Now that’s magic. .
For more Christmas thoughts go here…
photo: Thanks to Christmas Santa Album Quilt: Etsy
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