Author Archives: Patricia Wild

July 14, 2011: from Behind the Walls 2

Apparently the last posting, a 3-page letter by an inmate at a Massachusetts facility, to Michael Rezendes of The Boston Globe, had been scanned originally—certainly the document has proven impossible to copy and paste.

But because the letter IS worth reading, I’ll post a few excerpts here:

[From page 1] I have watched for two decades as rehabilitative, educational and job-training programs have been systematically eliminated from the prison system; I have watched the percentage of inmates in higher security triple and [the] number of correctional officers double as the rules, regulations and the enforcement grew increasingly draconian; and equally predictable, I have watched the recidivism rate triple and DOC [Department of Correction] budget quadruple — all of this ushered in by Governor Weld’s “joys of busting rock” philosophy in the wake of the Willie Horton scandal.

Want more? Stay tuned.

July 4, 2011: “Mirror Logic”

One of the things I love to do on the 4th—don’t know why, exactly—is to read the Declaration of Independence on The Boston Globe‘s editorial page. (Yup; they print it every year.) No longer a home subscriber (Yup; finally gave up), it took me a little while to actually find it online but eventually, there it was. (Yup; reading that lofty document online does give me that same mysterious thrill!)

Like other online articles, The Globe’s annual Independence Day offering included the opportunity for comments. And although an inward voice screamed, “Don’t do it, Patricia!” I did read a few. Not surprisingly, given the deep, deep divisions in the good ol’ US of A right now, many nasty, “vitriolic” comments were there to marvel over. (Apparently, Patriotism really means Freedom to Own Guns. I had no idea!)

One commenter, wasting a perfectly lovely summer day to sit at his/her computer arguing with another commenter at some length, used the words “Mirror-logic.” Which, I take it to mean, interpreting the world—or, in this case, an historical document—from one’s own (limited/flawed, all too human. . . ) perspective.

Loathe to waste a perfectly lovely summer morning sitting at my computer AND eager to address my residual fearfulness re riding my bike in the city (what better opportunity to get my bike mojo working than on a holiday when all the traffic’s on the Cape?!), I strapped on my helmut  and took to the bike lane on Somerville Avenue. And eventually to the bike path out of Davis Square. Final destination: Spy Pond.

Seeing my Somerville-Cambridge-Arlington world from my cushy seat ( a HUGE consideration when I’d bought my Trek Allant for my 65th birthday), I saw connections and patterns and features I would otherwise never be able to see.  How the wetlands near Alewife T Station relate to nearby ponds, for example. Or how a couple of co-housing developments celebrate their  bike path access.

And, I gotta say,  I thought I saw The Beginnings of Something Working Right. That in the current course of human events, when dependence on the automobile MUST be severed,  we are declaring our, well, not independence, but Getting Ready.

Huzzah!

June 29, 2011: Talkin’

Whitey Bulger’s surprising, out–of-the-blue capture last week’s got me thinking: I need to deepen Welling Up. Why? Because one of the two main characters of my novel, which I thought I’d finished last summer, is a former member of the Winter Hill Gang.

While  All Souls tells Whitey’s sad/maddening/horrific tale best, it’s a House of Representatives’ report, written in 2004 that’s inspiring me to go deeper. Specifically, it’s the title: “Everything Secret Degenerates: The FBI’s Use of Murderers As Informants.”

Everything secret degenerates. Feels like an open invitation to probe, seek, TALK!

June 20, 2011: Talkin’ Trash

Just got back from a wonderful family visit to Brooklyn where I spent sweet time with my grandson and grand-daughter and their terrific parents. And experienced my first Mermaid Parade at Coney Island.

Coney Island, classic Last Stop on a Subway Line—with attendant amusement park and miles of beach to attract weekend ridership—vigorously holds on to its tawdry past. Not with its crumbling buildings, freak show/side show attractions, cheap thrills, overpriced souvenirs, faded, iconic billboards , incessant noise. And, just to be clear, I’m not talking about the bare-breastiness of the Mermaid Parade. All these are, arguably, charming!

I’m talkin’ trash. On the face of it, aside from Nathan’s Famous, Coney Island’s business owners seem to have made a conscious decision: We will not provide trash cans. (Kinda skimped on adequate rest rooms, too.)

God knows, if you’re walking around holding an empty Styrofoam cup for blocks and blocks, you begin to really wonder: Should I have ordered that pistachio-chocolate swirl softserv in the first place? (Answer: maybe I should have ordered a cone!) God knows, if you’re seated in the outdoor seating area right next to a Nathan’s Famous trashcan so can observe how often a sweaty employee empties the thing, one’s awareness of the sheer magnitude of  disposable crap intensifies.

[BTW: Spectacle Island, one of Boston Harbor’s islands, has a no trash can policy: Visitors have to remove whatever crap they’d brought or bought from the island. AND THERE ARE SIGNS EXPLAINING THIS!]

But, hey. While I’m always overwhelmed by the Big Apple’s muchness, I am also always impressed by its Let’s Make This City Work energy. If NYC kids are currently reading comics starring The Green Lantern, comics which tout (hector?) responsible electricity usage—and they are—surely another Super Hero spouting Disposable! Recyclable! Bring Your Own Utensils! is already in the works.

June 9, 2011: Can We Talk?

Went to my 45th Wheelock College reunion last weekend—an abbreviated, spend a few hours on Saturday version.

Beside the fact that I live just miles from my alma mater (so going on a Duck Tour is not going to be the highlight of my reunion), my reasons for this abbreviated version are complicated and not worth going into here.

What, courtesy of the Internet, I would like to share is this:

Spending time listening to other women talk about their lives is fascinating. (Until it becomes so overwhelming that I gratefully hop on the T and go home!)

This year, I had two opportunities to listen: my class’s traditional, post-luncheon get-together, when the twenty or so of us go around the circle and share. And I also attended a workshop on “Transitions,” open to anyone attending her respective reunion, so the chance to listen to younger and older women was especially rich.

Because I want to respect privacy and confidentiality, I’m going to be a little elliptical: One woman talked about an incredibly difficult situation in her family and then said, in effect: “I, of course, would not have wished for this nightmare. But this horror has allowed me to be fully alive;  a fully present participant in what is really the human condition.”

See why I went?

June 2, 2011:Talking about climate change

Just back from a wonderful, five-day trip to Louisville, KY and still in that never-neverland mood when the sensibilities of that quirky city feel pretty real. I can still smell boxwood.

For this trip, my husband and I had opted to stay at an elegant B & B, the Dupont Mansion, in the heart of Old Louisville and one block from “Millionaire’s Row.” So the scene for this B & B’s making-polite-conversation-with-total-strangers-while-having-a-sumptuous-breakfast-ritual was an elegant, high-ceiling, crystal glassware-filled dining room.

Nine times out of ten, under such circumstances, after collectively oohing and aahing over such palatial surroundings, what would most strangers—sleepy strangers—talk about? Of course: the weather.

Except that it seems as if weather, like religion and politics, is not a safe, banal conversation-starter any more.

This became crystal-clear (get it?) one morning when my husband and I sat across the dining room table from three people from—yup—Missouri. After we’d heard the story about being shunted into a supermarket walk-in cooler for almost an hour with forty other shoppers to wait out a tornado, the five of us began looking into our laps.

Bill McKibben’s Washington Post article playing in my head, I was hyper-aware of how fraught, how layered that lap-studying moment was. Because one simply doesn’t say aloud, “Jeez! This weird weather we’re having scares the bejeesus out of me!” to a total stranger.

First of all,  there’s the possibility you’re talking to a climate change denier—and who wants to get into that over fruit cups and french toast?

But I sensed something else in that heads-bowed moment: A still-working-on-it etiquette: One simply doesn’t talk about the scariness of tornadoes and droughts and deluges and violent weather because it IS so terrifying. It’s a kindness not to speak The Truth?

Well, yes and no. Like discussing religion and politics, it’s a kindness to strangers to tread gently. But now that I’m home, I’m pondering what I could have said in that lap-studying moment.

Or asked.

May 20, 2011: Face Time

Yesterday, Susan Robbins, founder and Artistic Director of Libana, sent her e-mail contacts a link to a TED talk she described as “strangely moving.”

Strangely, huh?

Although we all know TED talks are not brief I watched it immediately.

And, yes, it was moving and yes, Susan Robbins, who is ALL about the power of music to build community and the synergy created when voices join one another would find a “virtual choir” strange.

Irony: an excellent jump-off for a blog.

Maybe I’ll begin by describing that first heart-sinking moment at a Midsummer Sing. Susan had already led the twenty-five or so women in the circle through some community-building exercises, we’ve warmed our voices and now, it’s time to sing. Something filigreed, hauntingly beautiful—perhaps in Hebrew or French or Swahili. A complex round, perhaps. Or in four-part, intriguingly discordant harmony.

Yeah, right!

But we do it. Together. And it’s incredible.

I won’t belabor this. You get the point. Amazing things happen in community.

Conversely, icky things happen when we’re not face to face. Twice, this week, I’ve been called on e-mails their receivers found hurtful.

Ouch.

Being in the same room: vital.

And staying in the same room: Critical. How resilient is a community of men and women who have never met, never grappled with the hard stuff, never spent the time learning one another’s back story? Not very, I’m thinking. It ain’t fun to hang in there when the people you’re trying to build community with are pissed or annoying and what you really want to do is leave, dramatically slamming the door behind you. (Just to be clear: If your Fight or Flight alert is activated, get the hell out of there!) But I’m pretty sure that when Marin Luther King talked about “beloved community,” his back story was all about the squabbles, pettiness, shouting matches, etc. he’d encountered—and endured—among his associates, parishes, and his own family.

I’ll close with this: face time might mean praying together. Intentionally taking the time to collectively acknowledge Something/mystery/The inexplicable which operates when two or more are gathered.

Just sayin’.

May 11, 2011: “Red in tooth and claw”

Like thousands of others, I’ve been avidly watching the nesting red-tailed hawks in NYC and like thousands of others, rejoiced when, waay, waay past its due date, one of the 3 eggs in that messy, citified nest actually hatched.

Pre-hatching, this live feed often offered longish moments to reflect and contemplate.  For hours, Violet stoically sat on her nest, a Greenwich Village breeze occasionally riffling her magnificent feathers. Big Drama: When she’d turn the eggs over or when Bobby, her mate, brought her a tasty mouse or a rat.

But, oh, my, post-hatching! To watch Violet feed that flapping, hugh-eyed bundle of fuzz? Nothing like it.

There’s more drama: Somehow, about the same time the egg hatched,  a metal band around Violet’s right leg became infected. The leg’s swollen; she can’t put her weight on it so uses her wings sometimes to stabilize herself as she’s tearing pieces of mouse or rat to feed the hatchling—unflappable at the sight of mama’s broad wingspan.

The New York Times posted this live feed (Thank you, NYT) but does a lousy job of maintaining the site. (C’mon!) So for updates, like thousands of others, I’ve been reading the comments. A while back, during the bucolic, not-much-happening days, one viewer reminded us that we weren’t watching a Disney movie. This real-time video was live. This was real. And he (partially) quoted Tennyson: “Nature, red in tooth and claw. . . ”

So, now, thousands of us both coo and ooh as Violet feeds her baby AND wring our collective hands over her ghastly leg: “Somebody DO something!”

And, like  thousands, millions of people, I wonder how we “live-feed” the heres and nows so many of us so easily don’t see (as in both viewing and being mindful of). For starters: the ravages of poverty and racism, the relentless destruction of this planet; war.

Re that last one, let’s let Jon Stewart have the last word. (The last bit, right after he slams David Caruso. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.)

May 6, 2011: “Stay[ing] in the room

This past weekend, I went to Muse and the Marketplace, an intensive, two-day seminar/publishing advice/opportunity to network extravaganza run by Grub Street. And am still processing it!

A couple of take-aways: Ron Carlson, the keynote speaker, urged writers to “stay in the room,” to stay with the mystery and the doubt that are so much a part of the writing process.

And as a direct result of what I heard in a couple of workshops, am now tweeting (@PatriciaWild1). Unlike, say, my husband, I did NOT read the manual first; I simply opened an account without knowing much about what I’m doing—except, of course, what we ALL now know re the power of this social networking tool vis a vis the Arab Spring.

But, today, Day 3 of Twitter-ish, am beginning to intuit stuff (I really need to read the manual, like soon!)

Like: Thanks to Twitter, now know that the ACLU is trying to get the Corrections Dept. of —oops, not sure which southern state; doesn’t matter—to allow inmates to receive books OTHER THAN the Bible. Why doesn’t knowing which state matter? Because the process by which inmates receive books here in hip, progressive, Nyah, Nyah, we’ve got a health plan Massachusetts ain’t much better. But I betcha 90% of MA writers have no clue that their books and the books written by their colleagues can’t be mailed to MA prisoners unless coming directly from the publisher! Sounds like an organizing opportunity.

I really, really need to read that manual!

May 4, 2011: Might/Tortune ≠ Right

First thought after hearing that info re Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts came from “enhanced interrogation”: “Oh, Lord, how long will it take for Chaney to assert on Fox News, ‘See, America? Torture works!’ ” (Answer: hours.)

So was delighted read this by Rachel Kleinfeld in the NYT:

I know, some people are saying . . . that torture helped us get the intelligence that ultimately led to the courier who worked for bin Laden. But the facts simply don’t support the claim. Torture produced a lead, but it took nearly five years between that lead and the end-game, which simply shows that torture produces intelligence leads that can’t be trusted and must be verified through other means.

Let’s take a moment to celebrate Ms. Kleinfeld’s conclusion, shall we? Let’s take a moment.

April 25, 2011: Good News—Maybe

“Where’s the outrage?” Denise Provost, a Somerville state representative to the House wondered aloud recently. Good question.

Brilliant, a progressive, an environmentalist—she was cosponsoring a local showing of “Gasland” when she’d said this—and hip to both Somerville’s and Massachusetts’ political minefields, Denise doesn’t need masses of angry people outside her office demanding she vote for or against some issue. She can figure it out for herself—especially since she’s the kind of pol who actually reads documents! Still, like any elected official, she needs both one-to-one interactions and masses of people letting her know we’re mad as hell about X and aren’t going to take it any more.

Which brings me to an ironic statement I made last week to someone I just met. Nancy. She, too, was wondering about the lack of outrage—specifically about America’s 3 wars.

“Oh,” I told her blithely. “Things are really beginning to heat up.”

“Really?” she asked. I could tell she wanted to believe me.  (I’d been introduced as a Quaker so she might have assumed I had the inside track.)

“Well,” I immediately backpedaled. “I live in this lovely little Somerville-Cambridge bubble. So among the people I know, things are heating up.” (There had been a fascinating online conversation the day before re the Somerville peace movement and the Somerville Climate Action people working more closely; “it’s all interconnected.”)

“Yup,” I continued. I’ve received four e-mails on this just yesterday!” And grinned.

So I guess I want to make 2 observations:

1. Those of us spending lots of time and energy e-mailing about issues among ourselves need to remember to go massively public, too. We need to break our bubbles.

2. Having stood on Boston Common for two hours on Good Friday—with 90 other Quakers—to silently witness for peace, I will report that overwhelmingly, the response around us was warm, receptive, supportive. Only one F-bomb? Pretty good, I’d say.

Good news.