Oh, the Drama of Being an Italian Girl
Happiness comes with a price: the realization that death is around the corner.
I often wonder why I’m so happy at times but preoccupied with death the rest of the time. Anyone reading this might think that I sound bipolar. I’m not. It’s the chiaroscuro, which in art is defined as an effect of contrasted light and shadow — the light and the dark. For me and many others (especially Italians and Jews), it’s a way of life. One only has to listen to the song “Sunrise, Sunset,” or watch a Puccini opera to know what I mean.
I am unable to see the sunshine without the rain. I know how cliche this sounds, but the truth is, if there is a beautiful sunset I will find a way to crap all over it by reminding myself that it may be the last.
I’ve spend a lot of time analyzing my state of mind. I’ve managed to trace it back to my six-year-old self. From the time I was born, we lived next door to my granny and gramps in Miami. They were a couple of hillbillies from West Virginia whose world centered around little old me. My mom told me that her mom was a fantastic grandmother, but not such a great mother. She was never abusive to my mom, but she’d go out drinking with my grandfather and would stumble home late at night to her six-year-old daughter who was left to fend for herself. But as granny aged, she settled down.
My grandparents loved the Grand Ole Opry, Southern food, hard alcohol and unfiltered Camels. Granny wore printed cotton dresses and grandpa wore pastel colored button down shirts. They square danced and spoke with Southern accents, and they loved me more than anything. So when my father decided to move back to New Haven, it devastated them.
I was six and about to learn the real definition of the light and the dark. After praying to God under Catholic school desks in hopes that the Lord would listen and stop Cuba from bombing Miami, we moved. This meant leaving every bit of security behind. I heard the talk about the prospect of bombs, but I was six. I didn’t know what this meant but I had an overactive imagination. To me, it meant that I was moving away to a safe place and leaving my grandmother and grandfather behind to die.
We pulled away in our packed up car, with granny in her blue flowered dress wiping tears on her gingham apron as she waved goodbye, and set out for our journey to my father’s home town in New Haven, Connecticut.
We arrived at Nonie’s house on a damp and dark summer morning. Nonie lived in a gigantic white two story house with an attic and a basement. It was across the street from the river and had a garden and green grassy hill.
We didn’t have houses like this in Miami. The houses there were one story bright painted ones with Terazzo floors and Florida rooms with jalousie windows that cranked open. Nonie’s house had two complete levels with two bedrooms, a bath, a kitchen, living room, and formal dining room on each. My father’s sister-in-law lived in the downstairs level and Nonie lived on the upper level with her two daughters.
This was my first introduction, or at least the first time I became acutely aware of the contrast of light and dark. While Nonie was warm and loving, she had a very dark side that oozed pathos out of her pores. She lost her first born son in a tragic accident, and after that, wore long black dresses with black tie shoes for the rest of her life. His picture was set in a gold frame on top of the television set in the living room, and each time she walked in she would cry and say, “Oh, figlio mio,” which in English means, “My son.”
This was my first introduction to death. Nonie, in all her Italian glory, signified love and death. So warm and loving, yet so dark and sad.
I would also be introduced to a cast of characters who came and went daily. These characters were my uncles and cousins who had names like “Meadowlark,” “Joe the Nut,” and “Suedes.”
Where my granny’s house in Miami was a hillbilly’s paradise complete with biscuits, gravy, and music by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Nonie’s house smelled like meatballs and church.
It would take years before I would realize that my life has been a lesson in light and dark since the day I was born.
My mother was the light and my father was the dark. While mom tap danced her way through life, my father prepared me for the worst.
“Don’t open the door to anyone,” he’d say. “Don’t talk to anyone.” And my favorite, “Nice people get their reward. They get screwed.”
Dad made sure that I knew who my friends were, and they were all the guys with the funny names, our blood relatives and ones who were close as blood.
I was taught to trust no one. His way of preparing me for the worst was to leave the house while mom was upstairs and then come back later and knock on the door. I would crack the door open and he’d shove his gun in the door.
“I told you not to answer the door,” he’d say.
I would run to my mother crying and she would hold me in her arms and tell me that dad was just joking. And then we’d eat ice cream and tap dance.
The light and the dark.
