Italy, spring 2002. The tour bus rolled down a road through olive trees with silvered leaves. My mother sat next to me wearing a pink, crinkled cotton outfit, and the huge quartz rock on her ring finger that she bought at an openair market on the island of Capri. She told me, "I enjoy you much more now than I ever have."
Her eyes shone like the rock. "It means so much to be here with you," Mom continued. She was sixtyfour,
and carried a few extra pounds, yet was beautiful under her skin.
When I was first hospitalized, Mom and Dad were supposed to travel to Italy, and they canceled the trip to stay with me. I wondered now if I couldn't make it on my own, and their departure had scared me. Eventually they took their dream vacation years later. I often beat on myself for not having been strong enough. In retrospect, I realize I did all I could before I needed to go on the Stelazine.
Aunt Rose was on the other side of the aisle, talking with Frankie: a Jersey guy who wore shirts with three buttons undone and gold chains, just like the character in the song "Seaside Tony" by Seven Minds.
Romeo, the unlikely tour guide, disclosed: "There are not many homeless in Italy, but a lot of those who are have mental illnesses. A cousin of mine is 'protected' by the family. After military service, my cousin came back changed. He has no girlfriend and likes agriculture, so he works the land and is quite content. No TV, no girlfriends. The family protects him. They do not talk about him, they keep him protected."
A free woman, I wondered about the cousin. How he must toil, every day, quietly tilling the soil without a voice. I've joined the Italian American Writers Association, and their motto is, "Only silence is shame." Slowly, slowly-I've come to toss around in my head the idea of writing about my recovery. I'd picked up the poetry calendar in the kiosk of Coliseum Books and found out about IAWA's poetry readings on the second Saturday of each month at the Cornelia Street Café, in the West Village.
Hastily I scrawled down memories and fragments and began reading them at the open mic. The first time I attended, I was so anxious I fled as soon as the event was over. A guy told me, "I liked what you read," and I said, "Thank you," and dove out the door. On the newsletter left on the tables in the cabaret room, I read with interest about a memoirwriting workshop at the Calandra Institute, and pocketed the information, not sure I'd join.
Now we were headed towards the Tuscan hills, where we would dine in a converted farmhouse that was now a restaurant. Always the mountains. The brown rouge like suede skin the color of my Rouge Suede lipstick, the smear of the earth and the sex and the ultimate expression of a land and its lovers. I was newly in love with Italy, the country of my ancestors, those dark people I used to be embarrassed to look like.
On this trip, I saw I've inherited their elegant spirit: their passion for life, and their compassion. I turned a leaf, and was humble before my task: getting down on the page what happened, even if right at this moment the words were a tentative scrawl, barely spoken on my lips.
The bus pulled up to the dirt road and the driver parked. We milled about waiting for our cue to enter. Frankie said, "You look hot. Aren't you hot? I know you look like a fashion plate, but aren't you hot?" It was April, and beautiful Mediterranean weather. I was dressed in my black knit skirt and jacket, with my striped brownandblack scarf slung around my neck.
I had on my silver XOXO earrings, too.
"Europeans do not wear sneakers," Frankie had related earlier, "so before I came here I bought two pairs of good shoes." I looked down at my polished black leather loafers, grateful to blend in.
We feasted on three kinds of pasta: ravioli with spinach and asiago, farfalle in dilled herb sauce, and cavatelli in plum tomato sauce. For the entrée, we could choose chicken, sausage, or beef. A jovial singer (was he born on a Thursday?) roamed the tables strumming his guitar and singing Italian songs. I wondered about these lyrics: "Lazy Mary, get off the sheets, we need them for the table." Who was Lazy Mary? Aunt Rose tossed him five thousand lire. After dinner, there was dancing. Mom got up and danced with Frankie. I sat at our table watching everyone and soaking up the vibe. We drank true Chianti in stemless wine glasses that were continually refilled and effortlessly drained.
The farmhouse, high up in the hills, had a world's eye view. At ten o'clock the lights along the Montecatini Alta sparkled like a necklace of stars on earth. Far away from the past, on the brink of the future, I knew what I must do: join the memoir workshop. There were too many forgotten cousins.
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