Dear Maura

A Special Day: April 6th in New York City

April in New York is always lovely. This year I'll be in New York celebrating my late mother's April 6th birthday! I'll be joining more than 7,000 other hearty souls from all over the country who'll be running the MORE Magazine marathon/half-marathon.

Back in her high school days, my mother strolled through Central Park after her prom at midnight. Some 60 years later, I'll be doing the same (well, hoofing it) in my sweats and running shoes, in gratitude every step of the way. You can check out the story featuring my "running tribute" to my mother at BetterTV (soon to be on my web site.)

Thank you, as always, for your letters. Thank you, too, for inquiring about my next book which is a memoir about how I learned to become a woman in the world. As described in the TV spot, my mother always believed in the importance of honoring who we are now, not just who we're trying to become. She taught me the organic power of learning to be myself and to love (actually love) all of life's mystery. Although we have our humanity in common, we are all originals. And therein lies the buried treasure whose magic we tease out our entire lives.

Off to the races...I'll be looking for the orange butterflies (you know what I mean, Mom.) Happy Birthday Dearest Mother: April 6, 1927-December 21, 2000!   I love you...xoxoxoxoxo Maura

From Memoir to Stage!

Many of you have written curious about the latest from the world premier stage debut of my memoir. So, without further adieu, I'm posting a few shots from the play, "FBI Girl," adapted for stage by Tammy Ryan, directed by Sheila McKenna and produced by the one-and-only Pittsburgh Playhouse. It was a treat to travel east and meet everybody involved with the production. Pittsburgh is an amazing theatre town. I am honored to have met so many truly talented and dedicated people!!!!
So, like some of you, I grew up watching the TV show, "The FBI," starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. At the end of the show, he (Inspector Erskine) would review the Ten Most Wanted list. This was the part of "The FBI" I loved to hate to watch! After all, herein were portrayed the dangerous element--those scary criminals my father, Special Agent Joe Conlon, pursued on a daily basis (no doubt running faster than a locomotive and leaping between buildings!) Didn't he know I dreamt of being his partner in crime so we could solve the mysteries of life together?! In this scene, I wonder if the Ten Most Wanted are anywhere near our house in beautiful suburban Los Angeles.

Okay, so it was no big deal that I was voted Most Quiet Girl in my eighth grade graduation glass! I harbored my own dreams of being the first female agent for the FBI and here I am embodying the very cool criminal-gnabbing techniques I've devised alongside the design of my very own FBI Girl special agent wardrobe (thank you Gramma Molly for teaching me how to sew, well, at least how to thread a needle.) Here's a shot of the incredible actor Robin Abramson playing FBI Girl (Maura Conlon), cavorting about with her dreamy secret agent attire!
Watch out world! And here I am...J. Edgar Hoover!

Here my father takes me out for lunch (tuna melt on rye) along with my younger brother Joe who was born in 1966 with Down syndrome. (Joe the special agent loves his son Joe Jr. In fact, he says people like Joe hold the keys to heaven. That's what he tells me in this restaurant scene.) Actor Mark Tinkey knows the power of the language of love and here, playing the role of Joe Jr., engages the waitress, played by Mary Rawson, signing to her how much he loves her. We've all heard the adage: Love Makes the World Go Round. My brother Joe is proof positive. Mark did an amazing job playing Joe with such sweet tenderness and wise delicacy. And veteran actor John Amplas played a true-to-life Joe Conlon complete with all the grit and grin and painstaking forbearance. Fabulous actors all (including Nancy Bach, Michael Fuller, Joel Ripka, Theo Allyn.)

Finding (New) Old Family Photos

Don't you love it when you stumble upon an old family photograph that you'd never seen before? (Well, especially when there's been precious few to find!) I was in Ireland some time ago visiting my now late Great Aunt Johanna. She was the youngest child of the Tubridy clan, most of whom emigrated from West County Clare to New York City in the early 20th century. Anyhow, so there I was, sitting with Aunt Johanna, having a cup of tea and munching on some sweets when I looked behind her and gasped. On the wall was this photograph of my Gramma Molly (her oldest sister) sitting with my father, my uncle (who you've come to know as Father Jack) and their sister, Irene. I asked Great Aunt Johanna, who lived on the farm that's been THE family homestead in Ireland for centuries, how long that photo of my father had been hanging on her living room wall. "I don't know," she mused, "ever since Molly posted it from New York, when Joseph was small." That would be perhaps 1930! I wonder if my father ever saw this photo while he was alive--his hands on his lap, his eyeing the camera with intensity and delight. How wonderful it would have been for him to know this secret photo was being well preserved in Ireland just as once were all the great European texts harbored by medieval Irish monks.

Perhaps one day some future generation will stumble upon our old photograph, become curious and ask about our story. What will they say when they look into the eyes of that child?

I'll end here for now as we ponder those old family photos and stories. And I look forward to seeing many of you later this month for the world premier of FBI GIRL at The Pittsburgh Playhouse.

"SHE'S ALL EYES" TAKES THE STAGE!

You've read the book and soon you'll have the chance to see the play! "She's All Eyes" is being adapted for stage and will have its world premier debut May 23rd, 2007 at The Pittsburgh Playhouse! I am honored and delighted to share the news with you. The play will retain the memoir's original title, "FBI Girl," and will run for 15 performances in one of the country's finest theatre towns. Esteemed playwright, Tammy Ryan, is writing the adaptation for stage. And, voila, here's the poster image for the play! So, more news to come on the tres exciting theatre front!

The Steep Irish Sheep (And How Do They Sleep?)

There's this cliff on the Dingle Peninsula where sheep munch on grass, nonplussed, not a care in the world though they appear to be hanging on a sheer vertical drop, clamped onto tufts of grass above ancient crags and a swelling Atlantic Ocean. Such grace, such attitude, such altitude! This little lamb and his mum came up the road for a visit. I am reminded of my cousin, Joe, who lives in County Clare and says, "Yes, of course, I talk to my cows in the field!" And my (late) father, also Joe, who reportedly conversed with bumble bees as he mowed the lawn. To each their own animal. I exchanged a few private words with these little fellows before we went on our merry way. Here's a synopsis:

Have a delicious rest of the summer. I'll be baaaaaaaaaaaaack, in the fall.

Bathing Suits and Mother's Day

My mother, Mary Hogan, attended an all girls Catholic high school, Dominican Commercial, in Queens, New York in the 1940s.
H-a-t-i-n-g (and my mother didn't hate much) her school uniform, she lived for the summers, when she tossed out the woolen, pleated, holy plaid and settled in for the summer at the family beach bungalow.
I wished she would have saved those lucscious swimsuits. She wore them just as they wore her. In fact it's hard (poetically speaking) to say where my mother's skin ended and the swimsuit material began! These were her selkie skins. In them she glistened in the water, glittered in the sun as if in a gleeful, sensual prayer. She wouldn't be one to ruminate on such things. Being her daughter, I read into the photos, and I know.

Fast forward 30 years. Mary Hogan Conlon poses in our backyard in southern California. It's summer. She's back in her swimsuit with that same toothy smile. I'm 12 years of age, too embarrassed to don a bathing suit for a camera, and far from the world of selkies where women smile in the ocean, gliding in their summer homes.

It's one day after Mother's Day.

Mom, Mary Hogan Conlon, (1927-2000), I know you rest in peace. Now that it's nearly summer, I close my eyes and see you in your suit, hoping you swim in peace, as well.

Easter Sunday, circa 1967

Okay, I can't be the only one who shared the identical Easter dress with her kid (or older) sister. It was always a big deal -- the annual march to J.C. Penney, the tart feel of new fabric on our skins, the tissue paper and pins to carefully remove so those skins were prickle-free. Why did Mom dress Julie and I as sailor girls this particular Easter? Well, we lived just a few miles from the beach, not too far from the Queen Mary, the old, gorgeous ship, newly retired from her life as veritable mistress of the high seas. Back in the 1930s, the Queen sailed to and fro New York City -- my mom's home town -- and Southampton, England. Mom, as a teenager, watched the shimmering ship on many a beach walk. Did she ever dream the Queen would follow her to sunny California decades later? That her eldest daughter, her sailor girl, would dance on the Queen Mary's moon-lit decks the night of her high school prom? Life gets measured in dresses, doesn't it?

Maybe it all started this Easter.

St. Patrick's Day: Alas, or is it A Lass?

It is 1978. I am visiting my Gramma Molly in New York City. In a week, I will be in Ireland, visiting her homeland, for the first time. I will meet my relatives in County Clare. They will say, "Welcome Home!" I, the Southern California lass will, at first, be bemused--and then it will hit me. Yes, Ireland is my homeland, the place where my people came from, come from. They sailed a dizzying Atlantic years ago, the same ocean I fly over, zoom zoom, suspended, in suspense, never to be the same once I arrive, and hear their voices, see their eyes, in them see my own reflected. Here's to the undertow of time, circular and persistent, the ancient currents binding heart and home. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Memoir as Code...Really? (iii)

Memoir, as genre, is still evolving—perhaps that’s why it is surrounded by controversy—for the essence of its truth isn’t pre-baked. So being, memoir holds the potential for an intimacy that has nearly disappeared from our tell-all, fast-paced, media-saturated culture. Wading into murky waters, the memoirist swims with remembered images--as the writing ebbs and flows, the meaning of those images rises from the depths. Memoir is redemption happening in real time as we re-discover the practical essence at the heart of the human condition, called love.

As life unfolds as an array of subtly distinguished moments, so does memoir. We encounter its truth not only in the loud roar of objective reality, but also in the quiet spaces between the lines. Even in quantum physics, reality is paradoxical and discontinuous, for our very observation changes the nature of the observed. This is different from the act of manipulative fabrication. With memoir, objectivity and subjectivity are thus part of the story. This makes memoir not only paradoxical, but also sacred, to be honored, treasured, trusted—never to be abused

Because of the Frey incident, “memoir” may be raked over the coals, and perhaps it is high time for cogent discussion. Meanwhile, people crave true stories where spirit triumphs, and the human heart prevails. Memoir should point the way to open roads of understanding and not lead us back on alleys of fabricated confessionals. We may not be free from sin—but how we tell our stories should be.

"Memoir" as Code. . . Really? (i)

On the day of my First Holy Confession, I waited outside the confessional box with a serious problem: I couldn’t think of any sins. So I made them up, trembling as I knelt in cramped darkness before the gauzy shadow of Fr. Becera. He blessed me with the sign of the cross and assigned me ten Hail Marys, but still I felt terrible lying about my innocence.

Fast forward to today’s debacle about James Frey’s book, "A Million Little Pieces." Frey confessed that much of his “memoir” was intentionally fabricated. We may never know the truth of the controversy as the players involved hold varying opinions. But the story goes that Frey first tried to sell his fall and redemption tale as a novel, then passed it off as memoir with the blessing of a lucrative, publishing deal. This was followed by the coveted and finally retracted endorsement from Oprah.

I remember speaking with my editor after my book, "She’s All Eyes," sold to a major New York house. She asked me why I’d written a memoir rather than a novel. “I never imagined this being a work of fiction,” I answered. “It’s my life story.” In today’s context, her question evokes the temptations some writers feel to fudge major events to make their story, well, more salable. We shouldn’t inject memoir with hormones to garner a fatter price. Just the same, we should not relegate memoir to mere reportage. Memoir’s truth unfolds within a subjective rendering of objective reality. And there’s the rub: it is paradoxical.

(Part II continues below)