The Sign Posts of Life
The summer of my nineteenth year I was eager to find myself. I wanted to break out into the world and make my own decisions. I wanted to leave the protective custody of my parents but like most young kids, I subconsciously wanted to find independence without fully losing the security of parents and family. When a child travels with their parents they often look at all the opportunities they could experience if only their mother and father were not in tow. They imagine being there with a buddy and being on their own with no one to answer to but themselves. I was in no way unique and every time I traveled to Europe with my parents I thought about all the things I would do if only I could make my own decisions. When I reached the age of eighteen the world seemed to be at my doorstep. By nineteen I was ready to seize it. I was bound and determined to travel to Europe on my own.
Despite my enthusiasm for a solo adventure the news was quietly welcoming when my parents also professed a desire to travel to Europe that same summer. For them however their trip would be joined in part with a group of friends who together had decided to meet for two weeks in a rental villa in Italy. The cast of characters was unique and eclectic. There was Bob Douglas, the professorial intellectual whose love of art and music seemed to draw in all around him. His deep baritone voice seemed to echo his learned mind. A professor at the University of Alaska he was a colleague of my father's and a frequently visiting family friend.
I will forever remember a dinner we shared together together. The event was a kind of potluck to remember Italy and most brought some ornate dish reflecting a well worn 'Italian' family recipe. Bob, a bachelor wanting to make a contribution, appeared with several packages of frozen "Italian vegetables" to fulfill his part. That said he was always good for several bottles of dark red wine. One year I had the pleasure to sit in his class and attend his lectures on masterpieces of the English language. Honestly I can't remember a single one aside from being lost in the sound of his voice's rhythmic tones describing the nearly indescribable. Joining Bob was his sister Claudia. Claudia was much simpler and at times seemed lost in Bob's shadow. At the same time she was a woman filled with love and admiration for her brother and always impressed me as having an enormous heart.
A second couple consisted of an oddly intellectual and professorial woman named Ellie who was the daughter of a Jewish mother that seemed to defy age itself. Ellie was a New York Jew and was gifted with a large nose, tiny body and jet black hair. She was a sociologist and liberal to the core. Her other half at the time was a crazy looking man with tightly curled hair named Denny who worked as a psychologist. Photography was his passion and he never seemed to go anywhere without his camera in tow. Eventually life pulled them apart as each followed their own path yet for that summer they seemed to be an oddly perfect couple.
Like a Victorian murder mystery the cast of characters continued. Silver Stanfill, another professor joined the excursion. Silver seemed to be uniquely entombed in herself yet had an elevated sense of everything. I recall her breaking out in song one day while we sat in a group of people. I guess she figured Italy was the perfect time and place. She was an English teacher and always seemed to have that properness of a formal English speaker. Then there was Lamay, a single school nurse and friend of my mothers. Lamay seemed to be somewhat reserved in the face of the burgeoning intellect around her yet quietly seemed to take pleasure in them.
My parents were not immune to such wonderful electric nature. My mother was a high school teacher in a program that dealt with problem children the world wanted to forget. In retrospect it seems we often tend to ignore characteristics of people when they are with us yet from a distance they become clear. My mother must have been such a giving person to do what she did. She spent every day dealing with problems she could never solve yet for my mother it didn't matter, being there was enough. She was the kind of person to whom those who crossed her path will remember for the entirety of their lives. She was also an artistically creative person and expressed this through craft.
My father was still teaching at the time and embodied the professorial image he has maintained for much of his life. His love of classical architecture seemed to represent his personality. He was intellectual to the core and always seemed to be operating on a slightly different plane. He always had a greater knowledge then most because his intellectual and mechanical curiosity led him to bridge the two worlds, not maintain both his feet in one or the other. His wild hair and beard seemed to embody his spirit in a darkly mysterious way.
Today most of the voices I have described above have passed away. Bob died tragically from a heart attack years ago. His sister Claudia followed with cancer in 2010. Silver passed in 2011 and most importantly to my life my mother died of cancer in 1999. Despite leaving the earthly plane their voices still echo in my mind. You see that summer of my nineteenth year so long ago was the time I became a man. When I met them all in Italy, I was no longer a boy, I had become an equal.
The villa was a magical place, it stood as a testimonial to time. It's weathered orange walls were simple and square, flat with little definition. A facade interrupted only by a simple staircase leading inside and a porch extending out. It soon became apparent to me that this was the dining room as the Italian owners would sing their language punctuated by the sound of clinking glasses and clanking plates. The family was complete. Three daughters, Marta, Chiara and Camilla a little brother named Michele, an Italian father named Luigi and an Italian mother named Anna. A friend was also present named Francesca as I would come to learn. Could anything be more perfect?
Two weeks can feel so long and also so short. Some how in that moment it felt just right. Young with a full head of hair I felt as if life was just beginning. I could see no end. I don't recall the moment or the exact time but a friendship started to grow between one daughter named Marta her friend Francesca and myself. Maybe it was the moment I heard them reciting Latin words from a bedroom high above. A door was opened to me and the most beautiful Italian family asked me to come inside. I joined them on that porch eating pasta, drinking wine and escaping the mid-day sun. I remember I was reading the Winds of War by Herman Wouk. It is funny how a book can stay with a moment of time. Pages were dropping from the frail paperback book as I read them. I pity anyone who might have tried to make sense of it after me. I spent the days on the seaside or touring around hill towns with our group of Americans as an American tourist. I spent the nights with starry eyes and an enchanting woman named Francesca wanting to be an Italian.
The years passed and most of the group returned to their lives. Some how for me I never could. I remained connected to this family as they endured as a part of me. I visited again while I was studying in Vienna and then a few more times after that. At some point a call came to my parents from one of the younger daughters Camilla. She asked if she could live with them for a year in Alaska and go to high school there. My parents opened their arms to her and if ever there was a doubt I knew that we were as important to this beautiful family as they were to us. Camilla joined my parents and lived in the room I once called my own. I wish I could have been with her during that time but I now know in my heart that she was blooming as I had done. Camilla was becoming the woman that she is today.
If ever there was a definitive example of her love for us it was when she visited my dying mother to say goodbye. I will always love, respect and care for her so much for that incredibly kind gesture. There have been ups and downs like any family has. Marta hurt me badly and I turned away for a time. Yet like anything that is truly a part of you, you can't look away for ever. After my mother's death we visited again. This time my father joined us and we spent a remarkable time living in an old Italian farm house, picking grapes at their vineyard and enjoying the company of Camilla, Anna and her once tiny brother Michele.
Growing up my life was shattered at two points in time. Two sign posts if you will. The first was when my mom left my natural father but I was too young to comprehend. The second was when my step-father who raised me and my mother divorced. I endured both and life moved on. Recently I received news that my Italian family had been shattered from within. Charges so hateful they seemed impossible to believe. The father of the family had become estranged and in his wake pulled the world out from all the others. Not only did he take everything from them he took the jewel of their life and the diamond of my own. He took the villa in Marrotta. He also took their family houses and most importantly to Michele, a son who spent his life building on the work of his descendants, he took the family vineyard.
I cannot overstate what a part these places played in the lives of this family. They were the recipients of generations of inheritance. Of a family legacy that seemed as old as the Italian hills. A history I lived in admiration of and deeply wished I was a part of. Yet confronted by circumstance and delusion one man influenced solely by his own insanity, greed, jealously or lust is rapidly bringing it all to an end. It seems as if it is the ultimate act of selfishness. These lands are not his alone to give. They are the legacy of a family that extends far beyond himself. Oh what a legacy. I recently sat with my father contemplating it all when he noted a dear friend of his. His friend who has no children. He has no brother, he has nothing that will follow him. He postulated to my father about what would become of the memories he had spent his life collecting. The heirlooms of his family, the history of their lives. It seemed empty in a way. He longed for someone that would care beyond his short life. To have this like Luigi and then disregard it seemed to be an ultimate crime. A violation of all that came before him and a crime against all those that will follow. While I am not their blood and I have lived my life so far away I felt a stab in my own heart. The dagger sank through my own memories but more importantly it sliced through those of my Italian family that I love. The news felt unreal and as my mind tried to recover all I could think about was healing the pain I knew that Michele, Camilla, Marta, Chiara and Anna were feeling inside. I cannot explain what drives a person to do what Luigi has done. Insanity, greed, jealousy or lust all seem to easy. I cannot comprehend what would drive a man to claim his children are not his own or strip away his son's very lively hood. To shatter the life and dreams of a son who has spent his life building a business and wanting his father to be proud. I cannot understand the abandonment of a lifetime with a person in a cloud of hate and ugly words. I can understand people no longer wanting to spend their lives together but how can this translate into betrayal of all forms of love and commitment?
I remember one day visiting the villa after a big storm. Trees had fallen and even the road leading up to it was impassable. Despite the obstruction they were obstacles that would be removed. I knew they would be cut away and certainly the blood would flow again to the heart. I never imagined that the heart would be cut from the body.
Somehow out of the ashes a phoenix has risen. A family has returned to itself. United by grief and by love they have realized that possessions are just that. Property is nothing more than soil and stone. Together they are unified and will overcome. I wish I could be there to hold them all. To tell them that I love them and to do what I can. I was born an only child and aside from my parents and visits to grandparents in my youth, I have never felt much in the way of family. Today aside from my father I am at the top of the heap clutching to my son and my wife as the reasons for my existence. Still when I consider the world and the people I know my Italian family feels very much as my own. My Italian sister Camilla is as close to my heart as anyone can be. If I was beside her mother I would cry and hold her. If I could sit with her brother I would dare to dream of buying a vineyard with him.
I don't know how many years I have left, none of us do. I do know that as my career winds down like a clock loosing it's motion I pray in my heart I can spend the time I have left much closer to all those that I love. Italy taught me so much about myself. I believe in my soul I became a man there. I also believe that it taught me when to let go and when to hold on. It framed me and like a portrait long forgotten hanging in a weather beaten house nestling an Italian hillside, I still look out at the world from its perspective. It taught me that defying age and beauty our memories shared with others remain as long as we do. I relish the thought that perhaps Francesca thinks of me from time to time with a subtitle smile. That Camilla thinks of her American brother who loves her so much and wishes she could be by his side. That Anna remembers me and thinks of me as her own child. That Chiara remembers that American boy who always seemed to visit. That Michele sees me with the eyes of a brother and a friend who in time will grow much closer to him. That Marta remembers the American she took under her wing and showed him a world beyond his door. That even Luigi, somewhere within his anger and insanity will think of me as a tiny fragment of time that tied a part of his world together. That some day he will look out his window and realize he is an old man that once had the treasure of a lifetime within his grasp and stupidly let it go.
Comments
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comment. I love to hear from anyone that reads what I write.