My Dreams of Goya and Taranta
My subconscious is playing funny tricks on me, even as I recount the madness and exorcisms of these eight weeks.
Vampires drum the Earth with wood and sheep hides. When I was 21, my ex loved the way trashy movies made lesbian vampires love, with thirst, perversion, and unafraid of leaving signs of biting.
In her living room, though, there was a life-size statue of the Holy Mary of Lourdes, towering on us with the sight of impending doom and damnation every time we’d sit on the couch to watch TV or at the table for some pappardelle ai funghi.
While she loved to call me names during the night, in the morning, I had to pretend to be her edgy and definitely not gay friend when we spent our days collaborating with the Italian-Catholic version of the YMCA, the Oratorio Don Bosco.
On days when I tried to take our relationship to less bodily — yet furiously deep — intellectual grounds, I’d try to open up about my lack of faith, which was not as common in the South of Italy in 2013 as it is now or has been in other places I have lived.
The fact is we grew up Catholic.
I am Catholic even though Atheist. I am Catholic, even though the only spiritual philosophy I find myself attuned to is Zen Buddhism. I…
