Southerner's Voices Tribute
I awoke early Sunday and soon to a sad announcement. So as I often do, I turned to the Floridian sunrise to write and record my early-riser reactions and responses to this news. Writing always lightens and brightens my thoughts and feelings. I knew I had to reflect and share how a talented, troubled soul influenced my life.
As I contemplated Pat Conroy's passing away, I revisited many memorable moments I had spent with him and his stories. His magnificently marshy, muddy, mucked mind made me pause and ponder my own life unlike many other authors. Though most of his tidal waters tales touched my being, I can only say he did so from afar afar. I never actually met Pat in person, but his semi-autobiographical South Carolinian voice resonated with me deeply for decades. Somehow knowing an author through his stories, gives me some kind of permission to announce I knew him and could relate to him. I imagined meeting him or writing him while he was still alive, but for some reason I never did. Maybe I did not want to alter my impression and image of him. To me he was victim and survivor but mostly part hero for his words echoed honesty, insight and pure art. I remember many years ago selfish yearning for his vocabulary and articulation somehow miraculously to appear in my blogging.
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As I contemplated Pat Conroy's passing away, I revisited many memorable moments I had spent with him and his stories. His magnificently marshy, muddy, mucked mind made me pause and ponder my own life unlike many other authors. Though most of his tidal waters tales touched my being, I can only say he did so from afar afar. I never actually met Pat in person, but his semi-autobiographical South Carolinian voice resonated with me deeply for decades. Somehow knowing an author through his stories, gives me some kind of permission to announce I knew him and could relate to him. I imagined meeting him or writing him while he was still alive, but for some reason I never did. Maybe I did not want to alter my impression and image of him. To me he was victim and survivor but mostly part hero for his words echoed honesty, insight and pure art. I remember many years ago selfish yearning for his vocabulary and articulation somehow miraculously to appear in my blogging.
His novels Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, The Water is Wide and My Losing Season profoundly reached me like few other narratives from a single author ever have. When I read them, they all seemed profoundly timely and touching. Almost as if he and the universe had co-authored these stories as personal reading assignments over the span of 40 years. My ego at one time even imagined he had written them for me as some juicy nuggets of wisdom I could apply to my life.
Few of us can tolerate an unhappy ending. And I never felt Pat Conroy sugar-coated this stories for his readership; he told his tales with his unique style and slant. Using fiction as his literary device, Pat recounted his family's dysfunction, he reminded me of Eugene O'Neil's powerful portrayal of family discord in his Long Day's Journey into Night. Sharing and baring his battered and beaten boyhood was sometimes difficult to bear. But his blatantly honest substance and style were so intoxicating for me, I felt I was part of his family. Ah, the talents of a powerful writer to transform his readers into identifying with and relating to his characters. This was one reason why the movie was a disappointment.
The mere fact I had encountered an author opening his own troubled life's window became not only a story-telling adventure, but also a type of therapy session for me. Every good writer makes the reader identify with one or more characters. His voice as author and protagonist almost always spoke to me. I somehow experienced my childhood and adulthood in a clearer light because of Pat's graphic words and imagery. He was a master story-teller.
Though refreshingly flawed, his fictional characters appeared so realistically fleshed-out that his fiction was anything but. His characters always seemed so authentic while his voice echoed an almost confessional quality within his irony and sarcasm. In that vein, his voices became cathartic for me. I had heard and felt his experiences and emotions.
Here was an articulate writer sharing his personal sensitivity and angst through powerful fiction that all readers realized he was telling his actual REAL life story. He wrote about his life using story to defuse and divulge his reality. With such refreshing fluidity and and honesty, his eloquence made me read REALITY within his words. It was not that his and my family dynamics or history were that similar, but it was his dynamic dialogue and human understanding.
Here are the opening lines to The Prince of Tides:
Few of us can tolerate an unhappy ending. And I never felt Pat Conroy sugar-coated this stories for his readership; he told his tales with his unique style and slant. Using fiction as his literary device, Pat recounted his family's dysfunction, he reminded me of Eugene O'Neil's powerful portrayal of family discord in his Long Day's Journey into Night. Sharing and baring his battered and beaten boyhood was sometimes difficult to bear. But his blatantly honest substance and style were so intoxicating for me, I felt I was part of his family. Ah, the talents of a powerful writer to transform his readers into identifying with and relating to his characters. This was one reason why the movie was a disappointment.
The mere fact I had encountered an author opening his own troubled life's window became not only a story-telling adventure, but also a type of therapy session for me. Every good writer makes the reader identify with one or more characters. His voice as author and protagonist almost always spoke to me. I somehow experienced my childhood and adulthood in a clearer light because of Pat's graphic words and imagery. He was a master story-teller.
Though refreshingly flawed, his fictional characters appeared so realistically fleshed-out that his fiction was anything but. His characters always seemed so authentic while his voice echoed an almost confessional quality within his irony and sarcasm. In that vein, his voices became cathartic for me. I had heard and felt his experiences and emotions.
Here was an articulate writer sharing his personal sensitivity and angst through powerful fiction that all readers realized he was telling his actual REAL life story. He wrote about his life using story to defuse and divulge his reality. With such refreshing fluidity and and honesty, his eloquence made me read REALITY within his words. It was not that his and my family dynamics or history were that similar, but it was his dynamic dialogue and human understanding.
Here are the opening lines to The Prince of Tides:
~
As the oldest of four baby-boomer boys, I was raised and satiated by the humid, marshy, tidal tributaries and winds of the Chesapeake Bay's and Maryland's Eastern Shore. I grew up plainly and simply on a 100 acres of flat, fertile waterfront farmland. Parented by an confident, ex-merchant marine, successful chicken-farmer, only-child father and his dutifully dedicated wife in the post WWII 1950's and 60's, I conformed to the small rural world into which I was planted. At first I was primed and subsequently perceived as a responsible, golden boy oldest son, until in my late teens I found myself as something of a southern rebel - not a confederate, but more family renegade and nonconformist.
As adulthood approached, I became the only brother who did not march to the proverbial parental drum. I was always curious, but rarely satisfied with simple answers like "because it is" or "because I say so" or no answer at all. I grew up in a Quaker family where silence and meditative Friends's meetings were once revered. But at home that all changed when inevitable conflicts arose and silent treatments or shallow explanations were employed.
When I was in 3rd grade I asked my father a math question and he wouldn't show me how to find the answer. When I was 10, I questioned my parents about the boy who drown in our pool one summer day and was told not to ask such questions. When at 17, I spent 9 weeks camping through Europe with two classmates and a teacher/coach, my mother asked me upon my return if I were "gay". And she gave me no explanation when I asked her why she asked. When I chose education as a career, my father immediately proclaimed "You're taking a vow of poverty", but never asked why or ever queried my calling. When I lost my vision in my right eye in water polo accident and my parents brought me home to recover, my mother "farmed" me out to the next door neighbor friend to keep me company and entertained. Never explaining why. My father ended up embarrassing me in front of a house full of relatives and guests after that accident by drawing everyone's attention to my eye injury. When at age 27, I sailed across the Atlantic with 7 others, my parents thought I was crazy. One day I by my father's slip of the tongue, I discovered my family had not invited me to pre-Xmas family gathering for 9 years. In that 9th year when I was finally attended this "family" charade, a year after my mother had passed away, I witnessed and comprehended "the family" dynamic like never before. It was then that I realized I had denied and buried much of my family rejection wound for too many years.
Though at the time, I felt saddened by this realization, paradoxically I also experienced incredibly surprising relief and exuberance. At first disappointed my family had excluded and alienated me, I realized I had excluded and alienated them. My being soon felt lighter and freer. On one huge level I felt enormous relief that I no longer felt emotionally attached to them. Facing my father and 3 brothers and their wives and my fears felt so odd, yet so reaffirming and reassuring that I "free-floated" the 3-hour return drive back to Connecticut in a cloud of comfort. Ironically, I somehow felt secretively overjoyed they had not invited me to partake in the previous eight gatherings. Somehow being disavowed by my family had became a blessing.
After my father passed away a few years later, I had mixed feelings. But when I shared my remembrances at their memorial services for how they had contributed to my life, I honored them with respect and memorable. It was my words (not some famous poem) and that gave me some closure. Both had given me life and had done the best they could to give me a strong foundation. So I did appreciate accept them in many ways. While giving voice to my truth was important, it also felt forgiving. This acceptance seemed part of what amazed me about Pat's stories. He loved his family and father despite everything.
When I read the Death of Santini, I realized how devoted Pat Conroy was to his family despite all the battle wounds caused by an alcoholic and abusive father. Like Pat, as I matured I challenged the "family line". I veered off course according to parental plans and expectations. But I did not know what love; it never seemed unconditional. And that was what amazed me about Pat. No matter what he kept his family in his life. That was foreign to me.
Somewhere in me I wanted to help people more than help myself. As I discovered in college, my thirst and drive was to come alive. I had a insatiable hunger to learn. And I found as I educated and coached others', I actually educated myself. But I did not accept or endorse the Lane family materialism so I faced the inevitable consequences of not being loved unconditionally. And over the years I have slowly come to terms, though not always comfortable, with the impact of alienation. What has helped is that I have learned exclusion is always a two-way street.
Unlike Pat's, my childhood experiences were not saturated by physical abuse or drunkenness. My memories were mostly "do as we were told" without much dialogue. Mundane conversation was more the norm; ideas or conflicts rarely shared or questioned. Rarely was there any acknowledgement about anything meaningful in our family.
When I began to realize how ignorance and isolation had stifled and stunted my growth, I began to speak my voice. When I reached college in 1968, it was like a light bulb flashed on for the first time. But what happened gradually was I alienated myself from my family. As a result, I became their odd duck, black sheep and scapegoat. I did not see myself that way at the time, but I could tell I did not fit into this bubble.
I did not grow up in a physically abusive and intimidating family like Pat's; I did not experience that kind of trauma. My weighted youthful yoke felt so much more peaceful and serene in comparison. I have found any kind of comparison rarely clarifies clearly. Bernie to David T. Comparing lives diminishes both to mere compare one life to another subtle and secretive. Silence, isolation and
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| Lane family portrait 1971 taken during Christmas vacation in Sea Island, Georgia. |
As adulthood approached, I became the only brother who did not march to the proverbial parental drum. I was always curious, but rarely satisfied with simple answers like "because it is" or "because I say so" or no answer at all. I grew up in a Quaker family where silence and meditative Friends's meetings were once revered. But at home that all changed when inevitable conflicts arose and silent treatments or shallow explanations were employed.
When I was in 3rd grade I asked my father a math question and he wouldn't show me how to find the answer. When I was 10, I questioned my parents about the boy who drown in our pool one summer day and was told not to ask such questions. When at 17, I spent 9 weeks camping through Europe with two classmates and a teacher/coach, my mother asked me upon my return if I were "gay". And she gave me no explanation when I asked her why she asked. When I chose education as a career, my father immediately proclaimed "You're taking a vow of poverty", but never asked why or ever queried my calling. When I lost my vision in my right eye in water polo accident and my parents brought me home to recover, my mother "farmed" me out to the next door neighbor friend to keep me company and entertained. Never explaining why. My father ended up embarrassing me in front of a house full of relatives and guests after that accident by drawing everyone's attention to my eye injury. When at age 27, I sailed across the Atlantic with 7 others, my parents thought I was crazy. One day I by my father's slip of the tongue, I discovered my family had not invited me to pre-Xmas family gathering for 9 years. In that 9th year when I was finally attended this "family" charade, a year after my mother had passed away, I witnessed and comprehended "the family" dynamic like never before. It was then that I realized I had denied and buried much of my family rejection wound for too many years.
Though at the time, I felt saddened by this realization, paradoxically I also experienced incredibly surprising relief and exuberance. At first disappointed my family had excluded and alienated me, I realized I had excluded and alienated them. My being soon felt lighter and freer. On one huge level I felt enormous relief that I no longer felt emotionally attached to them. Facing my father and 3 brothers and their wives and my fears felt so odd, yet so reaffirming and reassuring that I "free-floated" the 3-hour return drive back to Connecticut in a cloud of comfort. Ironically, I somehow felt secretively overjoyed they had not invited me to partake in the previous eight gatherings. Somehow being disavowed by my family had became a blessing.
After my father passed away a few years later, I had mixed feelings. But when I shared my remembrances at their memorial services for how they had contributed to my life, I honored them with respect and memorable. It was my words (not some famous poem) and that gave me some closure. Both had given me life and had done the best they could to give me a strong foundation. So I did appreciate accept them in many ways. While giving voice to my truth was important, it also felt forgiving. This acceptance seemed part of what amazed me about Pat's stories. He loved his family and father despite everything.
When I read the Death of Santini, I realized how devoted Pat Conroy was to his family despite all the battle wounds caused by an alcoholic and abusive father. Like Pat, as I matured I challenged the "family line". I veered off course according to parental plans and expectations. But I did not know what love; it never seemed unconditional. And that was what amazed me about Pat. No matter what he kept his family in his life. That was foreign to me.
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| Me, Bill and Tom Innocence personified!? |
Unlike Pat's, my childhood experiences were not saturated by physical abuse or drunkenness. My memories were mostly "do as we were told" without much dialogue. Mundane conversation was more the norm; ideas or conflicts rarely shared or questioned. Rarely was there any acknowledgement about anything meaningful in our family.
When I began to realize how ignorance and isolation had stifled and stunted my growth, I began to speak my voice. When I reached college in 1968, it was like a light bulb flashed on for the first time. But what happened gradually was I alienated myself from my family. As a result, I became their odd duck, black sheep and scapegoat. I did not see myself that way at the time, but I could tell I did not fit into this bubble.
I did not grow up in a physically abusive and intimidating family like Pat's; I did not experience that kind of trauma. My weighted youthful yoke felt so much more peaceful and serene in comparison. I have found any kind of comparison rarely clarifies clearly. Bernie to David T. Comparing lives diminishes both to mere compare one life to another subtle and secretive. Silence, isolation and
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| In my father's arms with my 94-year-old name sake. |
Romance often distorts reality. Movies and novels frequently entice and seduce audiences. and readers. Many of us viewers are plain suckers for dreamy romantic tales / themes of love, recovery, restoration, redemption, rescue, glory, heroism....good conquering evil. We all, however, love a success story. Of course, whether we want to accept it or not, we all change over time. Thinking the truth is one thing; telling, divulging and sharing one's truth or reality with the world is an entirely different thing. Many people, after all, have difficulty hearing the truth, seeing or much less facing truths. For some reason Emily Dickinson's words come to mind when I think of Pat's story-telling truth-telling abilities.
Pat knew his sharing his southern slant would open eyes and hearts. It helped him process his pain and his wounds. That is what he did for me. Thanks, Pat, I really appreciate your sharing you stories and truth with the world.
I love this story so much I used it when I was teaching a high school english classed entitled Relationship in Literature Course
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