Dear Maura

"Half the Sky" -- A Must Read for Global Citizens

My grandmother was the eldest of many children born into a poor family in rural Ireland. There was no work to be had, and so a relative in the U.S. sponsored her sojourn across the Atlantic Ocean. As a teenager, she sailed into Ellis Island in New York City and found work as a seamstress. Had my Gramma Molly been born in another country, however, where poor women suffer exposure to sex trafficking, her life story would have unfolded quite differently.

I thought of her often while reading the stunning book, “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” by Pulitzer Prize winners, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. So many women around the world can survive and thrive if global citizens reach out. Such empowered women, with voices of their own as we read here,  float the boats of everybody—other women, girls, boys, men, economies and societies. As Kristof and WuDunn argue, it’s time to remove our blinders and consider how we might help.

Many of us have similar grandmother or great-grandmother stories, don’t we?  Gramma Molly supported her three children (including my father) during the Great Depression when her husband was out of work for a decade. She passed on the old family skill and taught me how to thread a needle. I suppose you might say she exposed me to Art – for a well-made garment is nothing other than a reflection of beauty.

Our heart is a muscle but it is also a ball of threads eager to entwine with others. Read this book and consider how you and a new sister in the world might weave together a brand, new life. (Your grandmother, great-grandmother, or great-great would be proud!)

Who Knew? My Mother Swims the English Channel, 1930

The New Year: A Gift of the Innocents

I've taken a hiatus from the "Dear Maura" blog for the latter part of 2008. I have no wild alien chases to report nor can I say I'm unpacking from an African safari. Family obligations, our work lives (and book projects) can beckon us toward black holes. But black holes not withstanding, a few highlights I'll share here: 

In October, I had the good fortune of flying to my home town of Long Beach and attending the California Women's Conference organized by California First Lady Maria Shriver's office. I had seen Ms. Shriver interviewed earlier on Oprah; I was moved by her introspection as she wrestled with issues more soul-related than "celebrity" oriented (i.e. asking "Who am I, really?!") At the conference, Shriver spoke to 14,000 women, inviting all of us to name our deepest fears, get brave, and take them on--for that is the only way we blossom into our natural selves. Such advice may sound simplistic, but so often we hide within the comfort of contrived acceptability, rather than face our deepest longings, or, yes, take on that question: Who am I, really?!

When "She's All Eyes" came out and I was on book tour, I answered many questions about life growing up with a Hoover-era, FBI agent father.  It was fun reminiscing about Dad taking me to school in his special agent car (forbidden!) and a hoot to meet other daughters-of-agents (FBI girls!)  It also seemed easier, lighter to talk about this FBI world than to chatter on about life with my brother named Joe, who happened to be born with Down syndrome.  (What's Sarah Palin talking about these days?)

My father taught me about the dark world: Joe (to whom I dedicated She's All Eyes) taught me about the bright heart. He beamed his golden rays upon us all. Still does. But, heck, how do I talk about the force of love when it seems, or so I thought, people prefer to gulp up stories about the force of evil.

What if people like Joe (or anybody we label as "different") are here on this planet to challenge that assumption? Who would we be--really--if our lives were organized around principles of a different "force."  This question is fraught with fear. It rattles our apple carts. What new, natural self might blossom in a time acknowledging the gifts of the innocents?  

These are questions for me this New Year. What are yours?

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.