Maggie threw a 7 day party at her posh Berkshires retreat and we had a blast: Maggie, Mary, Phran, Cate, Kyle, Ryan, Cameron, Scarlett, Clover, Tristan, Matthew, Maureen, and me.
It was a week that’ll replenish me for a year, the year thus far being fun-filled, and interesting, a new sort of sadness losing a friend to dementia, a dear friend suffering a child’s death, the death of Uncle Billy (the last of my father’s six siblings), and the Leafs dropping another game 7 in Boston.
My six year friendship/tutorial with Donald Hall came to a close with his funeral and burial in New Hampshire the week before the BSO opened their 8 week Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood, so there was/is plenty to write about. I’m getting clued into things that may already be apparent to you.
Thinking about the effect on my ability to write profitably (in re: both Mammon and the Muse) my scant acquaintance with Don Hall only showed me that people are signifiers, not paradigms. And that a writer’s primary and unfinishable project is the fashioning of his own mythology – his best try at making sense, at writing in ink not pencil who I am, where am I, where did I come from, how did I get here, wherever here is, and why – why me?
I became a better writer during that span – in the midst of which sister Martha died, I got gravely ill, and cousins died, including Michael Crawford. Next, I need to revise the myth that I’d disdained writing as a career when I was 24. New version acknowledges the young man’s fear, and proceeds faithfully.
Fitzpatrick kids at the table.
Tristan and Cameron say hi!
Matt, Phran, Scarlett, Kyle at Maggie’s condo
Playground at Maggie’s condo.
Maureen and Maggie downtown Lee.
Mary and Maggie with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood
While there is no reconciliation with death, without it we are carefree; sometimes, death is a catalyst. And a week with seldom-seen family is all the replenishment I need.