Silence is not an option.

When I was young, only my parents talked at the dinner table. The adage “children should be seen and not heard” still plagues my memories. In high school, Catholic nuns demanded I sit quietly and submit to indoctrination. Then, for nearly three decades, my husband never cared to hear about my dreams. “You bore me,” he’d flippantly retort.

Now separated and free, fifty-three years of stories flow when I write. They run like I did in college when I pounded the macadam for hours with teammates to peel away the silent hatred that I bore during my youth. Stories of my sisters and friends today skip across the pages of my journals and resound in holiday cards. Anecdotes of couples din across the piano keyboard as I play and sip vodka while patrons’ sweaty bodies sway in seedy watering holes.

Words, first spoken and later written, bare my newly-awakened voice. They chronicle the extinguished candles of dinner tables, harsh fluorescent lights of classrooms, and darkened madness of the bedroom. Prose and poetry illuminate my nights, so my tragedies turn into comedies when I write. My comedies speak my truth, and I now laugh aloud.

When I thought it would be lots of fun

to ride the carts around the parking lot and

stow them away in their corrals,

you retorted, “Let the flunkies put them away.”

So, why are you calling me?

Didn’t my face let you know

why I can no longer go out with you?

My father said that if he had a daughter, then the first one would be named Patti. It’s an anagram of Piatt, his last name. When I’m teaching students about prepositions, their placement in sentences, and eliminating some from their writing, I’ll use my father’s last name in the following sentence: Where is the pie at? See, it’s stupid. So why do you say something like this: Where are your going to? Get rid of that extra preposition.

Let me start with this: Hi, my name is Patti. Please call me that.

Please do not call me Patricia. Only two people have ever said it in a loving manner. The very first time I heard it said with love was this past December. The cook and her husband returned from an extended stay in Italy, and I had invited them over to the house for dinner. I am one of those people who actually likes hearing about other people’s adventures and who actually enjoys looking at all of their photographs. After dinner that night, the cook’s husband was talking about the proprietor of a restaurant and his wife, Patricia. I asked him to repeat the sentence. I had never heard that pronunciation…

The second person who says the name with love is Angela, my hairdresser. I switched hairdressers at the end of December. I don’t know why. I just did. Angela is one of the very kind souls, who doesn’t blab at me when I need quiet. This past Tuesday, after I left work without finishing a major project, I changed and went for a long walk. Then I made a spur-of-the-moment call to the salon and asked about getting my bangs trimmed. As soon as Angela saw me, she knew. I did not need to get my hair trimmed. Angela poured a glass of merlot, and the she called one of the girls to massage my head, my neck, my hands, and my arms. Angela can tell by looking. I don’t need to talk around her. Only Angela is allowed to call me Patricia.

Patricia usually meant I was in trouble. Patricia Joan… I often heard it in middle school. I definitely heard Sister Patricia Morrison used it in high school. Funny thing, some of the times people chose to use that name, it wasn’t fair. When I was in sixth grade, I remember starting a petition to get a teacher fired. While that landed me in trouble, the truth is I was right. He landed in jail about a dozen years later. I won’t even start with high school. It’s not worth the effort.

My son called tonight. He’s a good kid. He didn’t need to call. He has a steady girl and plenty of friends. He could be doing something else on a Friday night. As I have written before, he is brilliant. Tonight he proved he is also wise and kind. He said, “Mom, there is no past. You only have now.”

Please call me Patti. Let’s start with that.

My father said that if he had a daughter, then the first one would be named Patti. It’s an anagram of Piatt, his last name. When I’m teaching students about prepositions, their placement in sentences, and eliminating some from their writing, I’ll use my father’s last name in the following sentence: Where is the pie at? See, it’s stupid. So why do you say something like this: Where are your going to? Get rid of that extra preposition.

Let me start with this: Hi, my name is Patti. Please call me that.

Please do not call me Patricia. Only two people have ever said it in a loving manner. The very first time I heard it said with love was this past December. The cook and her husband returned from an extended stay in Italy, and I had invited them over to the house for dinner. I am one of those people who actually likes hearing about other people’s adventures and who actually enjoys looking at all of their photographs. After dinner that night, the cook’s husband was talking about the proprietor of a restaurant and his wife, Patricia. I asked him to repeat the sentence. I had never heard that pronunciation…

The second person who says the name with love is Angela, my hairdresser. I switched hairdressers at the end of December. I don’t know why. I just did. Angela is one of the very kind souls, who doesn’t blab at me when I need quiet. This past Tuesday, after I left work without finishing a major project, I changed and went for a long walk. Then I made a spur-of-the-moment call to the salon and asked about getting my bangs trimmed. As soon as Angela saw me, she knew. I did not need to get my hair trimmed. Angela poured a glass of merlot, and the she called one of the girls to massage my head, my neck, my hands, and my arms. Angela can tell by looking. I don’t need to talk around her. Only Angela is allowed to call me Patricia.

Patricia usually meant I was in trouble. Patricia Joan… I often heard it in middle school. I definitely heard Sister Patricia Morrison used it in high school. Funny thing, some of the times people chose to use that name, it wasn’t fair. When I was in sixth grade, I remember starting a petition to get a teacher fired. While that landed me in trouble, the truth is I was right. He landed in jail about a dozen years later. I won’t even start with high school. It’s not worth the effort.

My son called tonight. He’s a good kid. He didn’t need to call. He has a steady girl and plenty of friends. He could be doing something else on a Friday night. As I have written before, he is brilliant. Tonight he proved he is also wise and kind. He said, “Mom, there is no past. You only have now.”

Please call me Patti. Let’s start with that.