August 7, 2014

Well it looks like I've been away from the blog for quite some time.  I am still writing, just not posting it here.  

I went to Venice this year to Seduce My Writing Muse.  It was an exceptional week.

I hope to visit the blog more often and post comments on my writing.

September 29th 2010

There are dates that we remember.  Good dates like birthdays, weddings, graduation and retirement.  Bad dates like loss of loved ones, natural disasters.  We all remember where we were on Sept 11^th, some of us even remember where we were when we heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated.

For me, September 29^th 2010 will always be etched in my memory.  It was the day I lost it, the day I fell into the well of depression, the day that everything changed.

The first thing I lost was my ability to write and read creatively.  Suddenly, the thing that kept me sane was lost to me, just when I needed it the most.

My psychologist suggested I try to replace the writing with something else for the meantime.  “dabble” he said, “try something different”.

So I started with stained glass.  The classes were held in a damp basement of a stained glass store.  There were eight students.  I decided on a bird pattern. It was hard to concentrate on the pattern and when I went to grind the glass I dropped it on the floor.  My bird now had a wounded wing.  When the teacher offered to fix it, I told her it was ok for the bird to have a wounded wing, for the bird was me.

Then I moved to Hot Glass.  It was hot alright, with a 4,000 degree oven.  I created two paper weights.

After that my next foray was pottery.  I enjoyed this more.  The wet clay had an earthy smell that was familiar to me.  It was a powerful moment even though I can’t remember where the connection was.  I made several pieces and returned to paint and then glaze the pottery.

Using a piece of macaroni shaped like a snowflake, I transformed the inside of a bowl into a work of art.

My last art class was Mosaic.  I think this may be my favourite.  I have a historic connection to this medium, since I trace my heritage to Venice.  My first mosaic piece tried to capture the essence of Venice.  The art of Mosaic requires precision and a lot of patience.

All these classes carried me through the period of my writing desert.  In the end, I discovered that I did have artistic creativity other than my writing.

The House

I never would have purchased the house if I’d known that it was haunted. Haunted yes, but not in the traditional way, with the ghost of a jilted lover or a murder victim lurking in the halls outside my bedroom. This house is haunted with old actors and actresses acting out their most famous roles.

The first day I woke up in my new home, I put my housecoat and slippers on and descended to the kitchen to prepare some breakfast. You can imagine my surprise, when seated at the table were James Cagney and a blonde actress who’s name escapes me. They were playing out the scene in The Public Enemy where Cagney takes the grapefruit he is eating and promptly rubs her face with it. I stood in the doorway dumbfounded, but just couldn’t contain a chuckle. That scene always did make me laugh.

I headed to the sink and put on a pot of coffee. When I turned around Cagney and the blonde were gone, replaced with Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh acting out a scene from A Streetcar Named Desire. I sat down with my coffee, juice and toast and watched the two of them go at it. I suddenly felt an urge for popcorn. This was crazy, why were these people hanging out in my house?

I went back upstairs and showered, walking into my bedroom just as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton started in on each other, in a scene from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? If I had to have ghosts, couldn’t they at least be from MGM musicals instead of dramas.

I seemed to be able to determine the movie genre, because when I dressed for work and descended to the first floor, I was almost knocked over by Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor singing and dancing to “Good Morning” from Singing in the Rain. Well, this was an improvement over the drama. I picked up an umbrella, just in case, and headed out into the morning air.

It all started to make sense now. No wonder the previous owner had been in a hurry to sell the place. Probably wasn’t a movie buff. I passed away the hours at work, wondering what would greet me when I returned that evening. MGM musicals were a favourite but so were all those romantic movies. I tried to put it out of my mind and returned to the work at hand.

It was a long day and I was glad to see it end. I stopped at the local grocery store to pick up a few things and then wearily walked up the steps to the front door of my house. I turned the key in the lock and gingerly opened the door. No dancers in the hall, I guess they were out having dinner or maybe rehearsing their lines. I hung up my trench coat and placed the umbrella back in the stand. I turned in the direction of the hall to the kitchen and almost walked into Errol Flynn. My, he was a good looking man! He walked right through me into the arms of Olivia De Havilland. Ah, yes, it must be Robin Hood and Maid Marian. I continued to the kitchen and started preparing myself some dinner. I was jolted back to reality by the sound of moaning. I turned to find Sir Laurence Olivier with his head bent down crying. He looked inconsolable and I stopped for a moment stumped. Then Merle Oberon walked into the room in a fancy ball gown and I knew where we were. It was Catherine and Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. I sat down, mixing spoon in hand to watch their performance and almost burned my dinner. This was getting out of control!

For weeks this went on, every night another performance, every night a surprise or two before I could get to sleep. How long would this go on for? Would we eventually run out of movie titles? Would I ever get a peaceful night’s sleep without worrying about who I might find in my bathroom in the morning?

Today had been a terrible day. Work was crazy and then to top it off I locked my keys in the car just as it started to pour. By the time I got home, I was in no mood for movies, of any genre. Thankfully, I was able to make and eat my dinner in blissful silence. After washing the dishes, I decided that a quiet evening reading in bed was just what I needed to get past this day. I changed into my pyjamas and slipped into bed. No sign of actors or actresses of any stripe. Fine by me, I was feeling worn out by all the drama.

I awoke with a start to find Harpo Marx sitting on my bed, honking his incessant horn. Not the Marx Brothers! Sure enough Groucho, Chico and Zeppo were not far behind and soon my bed looked like a scene from A Night at the Opera when all of them crammed into an ocean liner stateroom and then started ordering room service. That was it, the last straw; I screamed out “Uncle” and pulled the bedcovers over my head.

That’s why tomorrow I’m setting it on fire.

Benina's Magic

Catherine Anne hobbled up the street with her head hanging down, so that her blonde hair almost touched her knees. She had just had the most miserable day of her eleven year life. If the sidewalk would just open up and swallow her, she’d consider that an improvement.

It was so terribly hot, had been for the whole summer. The magnolia trees looked parched and all the yards were the colour of wheat. Even the birds didn’t seem to want to sing anymore. If only it would rain, then maybe everyone would get back to normal. Maybe then, the kids at school would be in a better mood and would just ignore her like before. They had decided to make Catherine Anne’s torture their summer project. Every day when school let out, they’d be waiting for her and mocking the way she walked with a limp. They’d laugh and she would turn beet red. Try as she would, there was no way to get away from them any faster, given her hobbled leg.

She was thinking about what it would be like to be invisible. Now that would definitely be better than this, when she was suddenly startled by a voice.

“Where you be gettin there, Miss Catherine Anne? Is you OK? You look a might peaked from here. Why don’t you come up on the veranda and rest a spell?”

Catherine Anne turned and saw old Miss Benina Washington stand up from her rocking chair and lean on the railing of her veranda. She had never addressed Catherine Anne before; she didn’t even realize the woman knew her name.

“You git up here and sit a spell Miss Catherine Anne, I made some lemonade.”

Catherine Anne was just about to politely refuse the offer, but the vision of cool lemonade was too overpowering.

“Thank you kindly, Miss Washington, I believe I could come sit for a while”

Catherine Anne slowly hobbled up to the stairs and gingerly climbed them. Then she walked over to a rocking chair next to the old woman and sat down. The exertion of just climbing those stairs had produced enough sweat that it now was streaming down her face and sliding down her neck. She could smell the strong scent of magnolia and it almost made her feel faint.

“Drink this Miss Catherine Anne and you’ll feel much better. It’s Benina’s magic lemonade. It has pixie dust in it and lots of secret powers.”

Catherine Anne laughed and snorted some of the lemonade out through her nose. She hadn’t laughed in a long time.

“What kind of powers does the lemonade have?” she asked while wiping her face.

She saw Benina lean back in her rocking chair and wipe the sweat from her brow with her apron.

“Well, I believe it can cure the miseries, if you happen to be suffering from them. Also been known to grow hair back on a bald man, so they say. You have anything particular that needs curing, Miss Catherine Anne?

“Well my leg needs curing. I can’t walk without a limp. Don’t suppose the lemonade can cure that?”

“Seems to me that what’s ailing you is not your leg, but what other folks think of your leg. Why do you care what other folks think of your leg?

“The kids at school make fun of the way I walk”, Catherine Anne hung her head down thinking of the endless humiliation.

“You lift up that head of yours missy, ain’t nobody got the power to give you the miseries if you don’t let them. I think what you need is a magic walking stick. You sit here a spell, while I go find it.”

Benina opened the creaky old screen door and disappeared into the house. Catherine Anne sat back enjoying the lemonade, hoping that the secret powers in it would make her invisible. She had almost fallen asleep when Benina returned.

“Took a while but I finally found it. I think this will do you just fine.”

Catherine Anne took the cane from Benina and turned it over in her hands. It was beautiful. It was made of lacquered wood that had been painted with pink flowers and green leaves. Benina took the cane back and showed Catherine Anne how to walk with it to balance her hobbled leg. Catherine Anne got up and tried to walk and suddenly felt like an elegant lady.

“That’s it Miss Catherine Anne, you’ve got the power now. Ain’t no one can take the power from you long as you have that magic stick.”

“Thank you so much, Miss Washington”, she leaned over and hugged the old woman.

Catherine Anne finished her lemonade and then said goodbye. She walked up the street towards her house with her head up and feeling absolutely elegant.

From that day on, Catherine Anne would stop each day on her way home to show Benina how her walking was improving. They would talk about everything, and laugh and sometimes even cry, if one of them had the miseries.

She was young then and couldn’t possibly know it, but she would need Benina’s magic to help her get through the dark days ahead.

Nonna Anastasia

It is 1941 and Anastasia doesn’t have time to rest. She has seven mouths to feed and no money. Her husband is dead and the war is raging. There are Nazi soldiers in the streets of her town and fear hangs like a fog in the morning air. She bundles herself in an old knit shawl and leaves the warmth of her home, to walk across the fields to the farms in the distance.

As she reaches the farmhouse she knocks on the door. In each case, she will offer her services; to clean, cook, sew, any work that needs to be done, all in exchange for a meal and perhaps some food to bring home to her children. When there is no work available, she simply begs for a handout of food to get through another day.

A few days ago the edict came from Il Duce. Mussolini commands that all the women of Italy donate their wedding rings to the Fascist cause. The gold is needed for the failing war effort. Anastasia thinks long and hard, her wedding band is one of the few reminders she has of her beloved husband, Antonio. She hides her wedding ring and replaces it on her finger with another band. To defy the Fascists can mean death, but Anastasia will not be moved.

When she dies at age 101, my nonna Anastasia will be wearing her wedding ring.

Five Pairs of Shoes and a Bag of Bananas

My dad is almost 84 years old and bent from degenerative disc disease in his back, the legacy of years working as a bricklayer. He suffers from renal failure and must undergo dialysis three times a week in order to continue living. Added to that, the patches of skin cancer on his head and back and his prostrate cancer, I’m sometimes amazed that he is still with us.

My dad is a quiet, introspective man, which is where I get those qualities from. He is also an extremely stubborn man, a trait I hope I have not inherited.

My dad immigrated to Canada in the early 50’s in search of a better life for his small family. Sometimes, out of the blue, he will regale us with stories of the war and of his life.

Before my parents married, dad worked in France in a steel foundry for almost two years. The work was hard but the pay was very good and so dad stayed. Dad tells the story of how, up until that point, he had only ever owned one pair of shoes. The shoes had been bought new but were too tight on his feet from the very beginning. After the soles wore out, he had them resoled, a process that made them even tighter. He wondered whether shoes were just supposed to be this uncomfortable. After all, these were the only pair of shoes he had ever owned. So when he was in France, and earning more money than he had ever seen before, he decided to buy some new shoes. Maybe, he thought, one could actually have shoes that didn’t hurt your feet. So he bought some shoes and they felt divine, so he kept buying, until he had bought five pairs of shoes. Each pair was a different style and colour.

In Italy, there were many fruits that he had seen in store windows but could not afford to buy. In France dad ate his first banana and by all accounts was quite impressed with the taste. After he broke his wrist on the job, he decided to spend some of his disability time back home. He took the train back to Italy to visit his family and of course his fiancée. He must have looked like quite the sight at the train station with his five pairs of shoes and a large bag of bananas. Dad would bring my mother gifts of chocolate and fragrant French soap. She claims to still have a bar of the soap, some 60 years later.

I treasure these stories that dad tells us because they are part of our legacy, to be passed on to newer generations. Some stories, like the ones of the shoes and the bananas, are funny. Others of the war and the resistance movement are frightening and heart breaking.

Dad still loves bananas, but unfortunately now that he can afford as many as he likes, he’s not allowed to eat them because of their high potassium content. In case you were wondering, he still has more shoes that the rest of us and they fit just fine.


Happy Father’s Day Papa

My Aunt Dorothy

My Aunt Akiko Dorothy Nakamachi passed away a few weeks ago. She wasn’t really my aunt, but 40 years ago my best friend Koji generously shared his aunt with me.

Over the years I grew to love and admire this woman. She was intelligent, witty and in the words of my younger brother, “really cool”. Paolo considered her cool because as a single woman she had travelled all over the world, twice going to Africa. That alone made her cool in Paolo’s eyes.

Aunt Dorothy’s life was one worthy of an epic novel. Born and raised in Vancouver, she fought Japanese racism to graduate as a registered nurse from St. Paul’s Hospital, after the Bishop interceded to get her admitted. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbour, she was interned in the B.C. interior at Greenwood internment camp, where she was the only nurse treating over 4,000 Japanese detainees. Many of the detainees had contracted T.B. and eventually so did Aunt Dorothy. She was transferred to a hospital and had a lung removed.

After the war the Japanese were not allowed to return to B.C. so she moved to Toronto. She entered the University of Toronto, where she earned an additional nursing degree and then worked as a Public Health nurse until her retirement.

Years later when the conservative government formally apologized to the Japanese who were interned, each of them was awarded $21,000 as a redress settlement. My Aunt Dorothy took that money and promptly bought herself a full length mink coat and hat.

Aunt Dorothy never married but I learned that she remained ever the romantic. I discovered that she and I shared a love for Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It gave me joy to be able to gift her with BBC videos of both, which I know she treasured.

In her last year she sent me a gift via Koji. It was a lovely damascene brooch she bought on one of her many trips to Japan. The brooch, made of iron or steel with interlacings of silver and gold, depicts a pagoda and the ever present Mount Fuji. I wore it over my heart at her funeral.

Since her passing, Koji has been going through Aunt Dorothy’s things and distributing them to family members. He gave me 16 English bone china tea cups and saucers that speak to me of my Aunt Dorothy’s grace and elegance, and of course of her love of tea. He also asked if I would like a statue of the Virgin Mary that St Paul’s hospital gave her at her graduation in 1940. I told him I would be honoured to receive it and to find a suitable place for it in my home office.

My Aunt Dorothy passed away in her sleep, just short of her 92nd birthday. I hope when I grow up that I’ll be just like her; intelligent, witty, strong, romantic and of course “really cool”.

Do we ever get too old to need our mothers?

I was doubled over the toilet recently being sick for the third time in twenty minutes, when I realized something … I wanted my mother. It wasn’t like I’d never been sick before, but something felt just a little scary this time. So what if I was 54 years old, does the statute of limitations run out on being mothered?

My parents live with me, which makes it easier for me to take care of them as they have multiple health issues. Over time, it seems, I have become the parent in this relationship. I take them to medical appointments, I control medication, and I worry about changes in their condition.

But now it was about me. As I recovered from my third visit to the toilet bowl, I grabbed my trusty Blackberry and dialled the home line downstairs. My mother picked up the phone and I suddenly started to cry and blurted out “I’m being sick, come upstairs please”. I didn’t even hear her hang up the phone and she was upstairs beside me. She got a cold wet facecloth and pressed it against my fevered forehead and immediately took charge. She asked pointed questions trying to determine the onset of my illness and possible cause.

Over the next two hours I made multiple trips to the toilet bowl and by the end I was as weak as a kitten and could hardly make it back to my bed. As I lay spent and sore, she tried to entice me with Ginger Ale and Camomile tea, having success with neither. I tried to sleep but was unable to. She lay down next to me on my bed and began regaling me with an account of the baseball game she had been watching when I phoned her. As she spoke, I remembered back to November 2002 when I had surgery and she helped me get in the shower one day. When I thanked her for being there to help, she prophetically said “Maybe someday I will be sick and you will have to take care of me”. Less than two months later she was diagnosed with cancer. Our roles reversed that day and I cared for her through radiation, chemotherapy, surgery and a blood clot. My once invincible mother had become mortal.

Seven years later, she still has more energy than anyone else in our family. Despite ongoing medical issues with an ulcer that simply will not heal there is no stopping her. In her spare time she knits and crochets beautiful baby items which she sells to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society and come June 11 she will be the centre of our Relay team when we participate in our sixth Relay for Life.

I’m a grown woman, financially independent, mature, confident, but when I’m doubled over a toilet bowl being sick, I am still my mother’s little girl and I’m not afraid to need her touch.

                                                    Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

Hug me like you mean it ...

I always wanted to meet Dr Leo Buscaglia but he died before I could. It wasn’t just his extraordinary lectures that I wanted to experience firsthand; I wanted to line up after the lecture with thousands of others to experience a Buscaglia hug. He was a master and an advocate of the hug. He had this to say about hugging:

“Nine times out of ten, when you extend your arms to someone, they will step in, because basically they need precisely what you need.”

I don’t know if it grew out of his doctorial studies or the fact that he was Italian but he surely elevated the hug to an art form.

I love being hugged. Not the air hugs from those who lean in to hug you without actually touching you. No, I’m talking about the hugs that leave you breathless and just a little bit sore. Those are the hugs that cry out “Hey I want you to know that I’m here”. My nieces and nephew hug that way. Their hugs are exuberant and uninhibited and usually accompanied by a kiss and an “I love you Zia Nadia”. My gay friends hug that way. Their hugs say “Thank you for your acceptance and your love”. My relatives in Italy hug that way. Their hugs say “Why do have to live so far away… Oh my God you look just like your aunt Flora… why didn’t you phone, I would have made gnocchi… I didn’t think I’d live to see you come back and visit again”. There are Italian co-workers at the office that will stop me in the hall to give a hug when they haven’t seen me in a few months. Italians certainly don’t have the market on hugging. I recently discovered in our Costa Rican Service Centre that Costa Ricans will hug anybody and everybody. I felt right at home there.

The hugs give me comfort, they sustain me and they feel so good. Hugs don’t cost a cent and they are healing. Dr Harold Voth, psychiatrist has said: “Hugging can lift depression – enabling the body’s immune system to become tuned up. Hugging breathes fresh life into a tired body and makes you feel younger and more vibrant.”

HOW TO HUG

Hugging may sound like the simplest thing on earth, but it will help to keep a few things in mind. Non-hugs are no good. In his book Caring, Feeling, Touching, Dr Sidney Simon describes five non-hugs:

I. The A-frame hug, in which nothing but the huggers' heads touch.

2. The half-hug, where the huggers' upper bodies touch—while the other half twists away.

3. The chest-to-chest burp, in which the huggers pat each other on the back, defusing the physical contact by treating each other like infants being burped.

4. The wallet-rub, in which two people stand side-by-side and touch hips.

5. The jock-twirl, in which the hugger, who is stronger or bigger, lifts the other person off the ground and twirls him.

The real thing, the full body hug, touches all the bases. Dr Simon describes it like this: "The two people coming together take time to really look at each other. There is no evasion or ignoring that they are about to hug... You try as hard as you can to personalize and customize each hug you give... With a full body hug there is a sense of complete giving and fearless communication, one uncomplicated by words.”

So if you should meet me some day and open your arms, know that I will step right in for a hug. Dr Buscaglia and Dr Simon would approve.

Our Bedroom

I awake on Christmas morning and look up at the branches of our Christmas tree. It is my 6th birthday and I feel like a Christmas present as the tinsel catches the sunlight coming through the chintz curtains of our bedroom. My whole family sleeps in this room. It is one of only two rooms which we rent in this house, the other room being our kitchen. It is 1961 in Toronto’s Little Italy and the semi detached two story house is on a street where English is rarely spoken.

Our bedroom is at the front of the house on the second floor. It is a square room crammed with all of our worldly possessions. Entering the room there is a dresser on your right and then my single bed against the wall. Beside my bed and directly in front of the window is my Mama’s Singer pedal sewing machine. My Mama sews magic with that machine, transforming used clothes into dresses for me. At Christmas time we always buy a small real tree and place it on top of the sewing machine which is how I always end up sleeping under the branches and picking out pine needles from my bed.

On the other side of the room is my parent’s double bed. Hanging over their headboard is a plaster relief of the Holy Family which they brought from Italy in the steamer trunk as a memento of their wedding. Beside their bed is another dresser and then on the far wall, the crib where my sister Anna sleeps.

The room smells of a strangely comforting mixture of mothballs, camphor oil and Mama’s perfume “Evening in Paris”. Every evening my Papa winds up his alarm clock and sets the alarm. The ticking sound measures the night time, along with Papa’s snoring. The 5:00am alarm heralds the start of another work day for Papa. Mama will get up and make him breakfast, pack his lunch pail and he will head out on foot, to be picked up by the construction company truck.

On top of the dresser is a framed picture of a beautiful blond boy holding a ball. This is my older brother Renato, who died early the year I was born. This room knew sorrow again; when three years after I was born, Mama lost twin boys she had carried full term. After that loss she was bedridden for months, overcome with grief and rheumatic fever. I would play at the foot of her bed all day with my doll, oblivious to her grief, until Papa would return from work to make us supper.

The house is rarely quiet. The owner drinks heavily and often beats his wife and children. As a child I remember feeling like our small family was living under constant siege and that bedroom certainly felt like a refuge. Yet I have such fond memories of that room, that house and that time in my life.

Repatriation

Housebound and sick with the flu, I find myself sitting in front of the TV watching the most recent repatriation ceremony. I had previously seen short sound bites on the evening news but had never watched the entire ceremony. It’s not that I was indifferent to their sacrifice, but I struggled with a military force that had switched from historical peacekeeping to active fighting.

I’m a pacifist by nature. I’ve heard the Second World War stories my entire life. My parents, who endured life in occupied Italy, were quick to remind us children about making do without. I’ve heard the stories of the bombings, the near run ins with Nazi patrols, the partisan underground night time sabotage campaigns.

I’m thinking of all of this as the Canadian Forces plane gives up its heart breaking cargo of five coffins, each draped in a flag of the country these young people had given their lives for. It is unbearably cold at the airfield in Trenton, the snow is blowing and family members are huddled under tents.

You and I have debated the military mission many times. We don’t agree on the combat role. You were a full time soldier for two years before you entered the seminary. Even then you remained a reservist until they sent you to Rome to study Canon Law. You were a Captain in the Canadian Airborne Regiment of the Queen’s Own Rifles. Years after you left the military, the regiment was disbanded, after a difficult time in Somalia. In disgust, you packed your uniform and medals and mailed them to Ottawa. I listened to your account of the Somalia mission and I realized that the reporting we heard back home was not balanced.

Now as Parliament debates the torture issue, you’ve opened my eyes to the sad reality of war. Now as I watch the repatriation, in my fevered state, I am transported to that frigid tarmac and I am standing holding a blood red rose. The hearse stands before me and I am walking towards the coffin to place my flower. I turn to those beside me and I see your mother and your father. Your small boys take my hand and I realize it is your body in that coffin and I want to continue the debate.

Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori (..."It is sweet and honourable to die for one's country.")

Christmas Eve

It’s the anticipation of the first snowfall that will blanket the city and dress it up for the holiday season.

It’s the anticipation of the gifts under the tree, each one full of possibilities until it’s opened.

It’s the anticipation of a phone call from the man who makes my heart sing. The man who can talk about hockey until the cows come home, but can’t bring himself to tell you what’s in his heart.

It’s the anticipation of the birthday that Christmas Day will bring. Another year, another shock of grey hair, another crop of wrinkles.

It’s the anticipation of the traditional food of Christmas; roasted chestnuts, panettone and torrone.

It’s the anticipation of a day of Peace for the world, a respite from the fighting and the dying, at least for this one day.

It’s the anticipation in the cold night, of a young mother-to-be huddled in a cave, waiting to give birth to the Saviour of the world.

It’s the anticipation of another Christmas Eve……

The Christmas tree

I have a thing about Christmas trees, I simply love them. Perhaps it’s a by product of being born on Christmas Day. Santa must have sprinkled some Christmas dust on me that day.

My favourite trees are real ones, the ones that come with built in pine scent and sometimes an abandoned nest or two. As a child my dad would buy a small tree at the corner lot. We lived in two rooms of a house and the Christmas tree was placed on top of Mama’s sewing machine in our bedroom. The head of my bed was next to the sewing machine, which meant I literally slept below the boughs of the tree. In the evening I would sneak away to lie there looking up at the lit tree and dreaming of Christmas.

As a teenager we used to drive out to the country and cut down a tree. This was years before we settled for an artificial tree after picking pine needles out of the furniture for six months after Christmas. The cutting part took less than five minutes but the choosing of a perfectly symmetrical tree took hours. We’d walk deeper and deeper into the tree farm forgetting that the further we got from the car, the farther we’d have to drag that tree back. At the entrance to the tree farm, the owner would place our tree in the binding machine to close up the tree like an umbrella and off we’d go.

One Christmas stands out as the year the Christmas tree and I bonded. My Dad didn’t believe in the store bought metal tree stands, he used a combination of an old bucket, some carefully wedged brick pieces and sand. That year the Christmas tree was placed in the corner of the living room as usual. One night as I sat in the living room, my dad came in to put water in the bucket. He left the room to go to the kitchen and I sat watching the television. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I caught the movement of the tree as it began to fall over. In that split second, I had a vision of the glass ornaments my mother so gingerly brought from Italy in a steamer trunk, making contact with the hardwood floor and I leapt up and grabbed the tree in a hug. I started to scream and my family came from various parts of the house to stand and stare at the sight. Then they started laughing and I must admit I was probably quite a sight. That’s when Dad declared, “I must have forgotten to put the brick pieces in the bucket”. When they pried the tree from my arms I looked down and saw that some of the pine needles had become imbedded in my arms and I was now bleeding. That’s the closest a Christmas tree and I have ever been.

A few years ago, in mid December, I was watching the television and channel surfing as is my habit when I came across a news segment on a Christmas tree. This was no ordinary tree; it was tall and appeared to be indoors, carefully lit to showcase the most amazing decorations I had ever seen. The tree was decorated from top to bottom with porcelain angels and cherubs beautifully hand crafted in 18th century Naples and culminated with a stunning “presepio” at the base of the tree. Where was this tree? I strained to listen to the commentator and hoped he’d tell me where this tree was, but the segment ended without the information and the vision of that tree was soon relegated to memory.

The day after Christmas that year, I headed to New York City with Koji and Brian for my first visit to the Big Apple, the Mecca of theatre aficionados. With theatre tickets, city maps and subway card in hand we descended on Manhattan. Every Yellow cab and New York accent made us feel like we were in a movie. It seemed almost ordinary the night we passed Mira Sorvino and Quentin Tarantino out for a stroll in the upper West side.

The week flew by with theatre productions, gallery visits and trips to numerous museums. On our next to last day we hiked to the Upper East Side to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum is so large that we decided to split up and meet later at the gift shop. The galleries in the museum, especially the replica Frank Lloyd Wright designed cottage and the Tiffany glass, were absolutely breathtaking. I got to the gift store before the others and started to wander around the gifts and books. All of a sudden I came across a book that stopped me cold. A book titled “The Angel Tree” lay before me. When I turned over the book with trembling hands there was the tree. I quickly opened the book in hopes of discovering where the tree was. Imagine my shock when I read “The annual installation of the Christmas tree at The Metropolitan Museum of art, New York, is an event cherished by visitors and scholars alike” The tree was here! But where? I ran to the nearest store clerk and asked about the tree. She pulled out a museum floor plan guide and highlighted a gallery in a far corner of the museum. I paced the floor waiting for Koji and Brian to arrive and they found me breathless with excitement. We headed off in our quest to view the tree. Finally we found the gallery and in the centre of the room, the tree standing majestically, the beautiful pieces of art on it lit by spotlights.

A small group of people circled the tree gazing in wonder and I joined them. After a week of New York City cacophony this silent moment in the gallery with that tree, felt like a solemn benediction. This was my Christmas miracle. Not gifts, or carols or parades, but the baby child nestled in the pine branches of what had now become, my Christmas tree.

Earl Grey Tea

“Hi Nad, do you want to go out for a coffee?”

It had been a year since I’d heard from you or heard that phrase. In hindsight, it’s funny you always referred to going out for coffee, when we in fact would end up drinking tea.

Tea had been foreign to me until I met you. We were coffee drinking Italians. The only tea we knew was camomile tea, which was dispensed for medicinal purposes for everything from menstrual cramps to pneumonia.

You were Japanese and tea was a constant in your home. I can still remember your late mother gracefully preparing a pot of tea in your family home. You introduced me to tea and I soon discovered that I liked tea, if it was strong and sweet and laced with milk, the way I liked my coffee. I like the aroma of tea and perhaps the romance of tea, the way royalty was always depicted drinking tea. I tried to imagine the Queen with a mug of coffee and the picture just didn’t look right.

So now a year after our fight, we’re sitting at the Coffee Mill and I’m playing with an Earl Grey tea bag. Once I place this bag in the cup and pour the hot water we will have come full circle. My heart will be whole again and I will have my best friend back. There is so much I want to tell you, but it can wait. For now I want to savour this cup of tea, Earl Grey tea, strong and sweet and laced with milk.

The Phone on the Wall

The phone hangs in the dining room on the wall, so there is no privacy. It’s the only phone we have in the house so there is no way to take it somewhere, so you can have a private conversation. If the phone rings during dinner, you have a built in audience to your every word.

It’s been a year since our fight and a day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about you. You, who had been my best friend. You, who have now missed a year of comings and goings in my life. If we even get back together, how will I remember all you have missed.

Let’s face it, it was a stupid fight. You knew I was afraid to drive on the highway, yet somehow you tricked me into it. Linda sat there in the car with us not knowing what to say to make it better. I just wanted you out of my car. I was so mad at you. Later that night as I lay in bed, I would relive the evening and think of how stupid we could sometimes be.

I was out the next day when you came by to drop off the envelope. When I opened the letter, the $10 you owed me fell out. The letter was short and to the point. You took responsibility for pushing all the wrong buttons the night before and apologized. But then you went too far. You said that maybe we needed a break from each other. The words started to run together and I realized I was crying. This was nuts, a break from each other? We were joined at the hip. Such close friends that we finished each others sentences. No one knew me like you did. Our friends never understood the bond, assuming we were secretly dating.

Once my girlfriends found out about the fight, the battle lines were drawn. It was them versus us, the boys versus the girls.

A year later, almost to the day, the wall phone rang after dinner. My sister Anna answered it and started excitedly talking to the caller. She described her high school classes and teachers and I got up to leave the room to offer her some privacy. I didn’t take two steps before she handed me the phone. “It’s for you, it’s Koji”, she said and I stopped in my tracks. I really didn’t have any time to think so I took the phone and quietly said, “hello?” “Hi Nad, do you want to go out for a coffee?” a phrase he’d repeated countless times during our friendship. “Yes”, I answered breathlessly, not quite believing it had come to an end. “I’ll pick you up in 15 minutes”, he said and hung up the phone. I stood there dumbfounded staring at the phone in my hand. Then I turned to my family and announced, “I’m going out for coffee with Koji”.

He was late, but then again, had I really expected anything different. He finally pulled up in front of the house, driving his father’s car. I’d missed the Rambler station wagon almost as much as I’d missed Koji. For that past year, I’d looked for it in all our favourite haunts and was always happy to see it. The plaid interior was classic and the fact that it had no radio meant there was never a distraction to our endless conversations.

I don’t remember much about the night except that we went to our favourite coffee shop “The Coffee Mill” in Yorkville. I remember that I talked incessantly about what had transpired that year, needing for him to be caught up on my life.

When he dropped me off at home that night, he kissed me and hugged me. He made me promise that we’d never fight again. Friends since we were 15 years old, we’ve never fought again.

The Genie in the Bottle

I don’t want to let the genie out of the bottle. God knows I’ve spent decades ensuring he didn’t get out.

But one night it happens. Somewhere between John’s awkward hello kiss, his gentle blue eyes and the Caesar salad, I pull the cork out. No, I don’t just pull it out; I fling that cork clear across the room, ensuring the bottle can’t be stopped up again.

The genie and I are old friends and he has waited patiently for so long to be let out. Now he’s going to savour this victory. He sees the look of sheer panic on my face and smiles a knowing smile. It’s getting really warm in the room, is it the Zinfandel, a hot flash or is it the genie?

Suddenly I’m back in the 9th grade, when a crush had me following a boy named Peter around like a puppy. Yet this is different, or maybe I’m different, it’s hard to tell which. Unlike then, I’m not feeling like I’m about to be sick to my stomach. This feels comfortable, warm and utterly terrifying.

Six hours fly by. I feel as if I’ve been holding my breath the whole time. Then as I drive home, alone with my thoughts, the genie sits triumphantly on the dashboard of my car with his Cheshire grin. As I close my eyes I hear him whisper, “Come on, you know the drill. Your wish is my command!”

Italian Halloween

When I was a little girl, Halloween was a special time. The opportunity to dress up and roam the neighbourhood to secure more candy than you ever saw at one time was irresistible.

But Halloween was also a strange time for me because I was the child of Italian immigrants and there’s no such thing as Halloween in Italy.

The first issue was the costume. Well what was the sense in spending money on something that couldn’t be worn in public except for that one night? My sensible mother solved the problem by deciding I would dress up as a housewife. Or at least a caricature of a housewife. She’d put a scarf on my head, an apron around my waist and to ensure that people understood I was dressed as an adult, she’d apply her lipstick to my childish lips. My mother wore Electric Red lipstick in those days and I can remember it would take days for the colour to wash off.

There is, of course, a candy protocol for Halloween. Children expect to receive candies, chocolate or perhaps exotic items like candy apples which children on TV always seemed to get. No one told the Italians in my neighbourhood about the candy protocol, so they invented their own. You got peanuts in the shell, walnuts, Italian cookies, loose popcorn and sometimes pennies. My dad loved the Italian candy protocol and he usually ate most of what I brought home, but I think he should have worked for it like I did.

Italians also didn’t understand the concept of giving the candies at the door. With Italians you were required to parade into their kitchen while various relatives sat around loudly talking, drinking wine and laughing, until you wondered what you were auditioning for.

My biggest regret at Halloween though was the pillowcase, or for me, that lack of one. There was no way my mother was going to allow one of her pillowcases to be paraded around the neighbourhood gathering treats. Inevitably I’d be given a paper shopping bag and sent out into the night. Every year I’d dread those last 15 minutes when the rain would finally soak through my bag and spill the contents onto the sidewalk. I’d pick up what I could, place it in my apron and scurry home.

I think someone really needed to explain Halloween to the Italians.

Marygrove Camp

I’m jolted from my sleep by the persistent prodding of my ribs. As my eyes slowly adjust to the little light in the cabin, I make out the form of my little sister.

“Wake up, I need to go to the washroom”, she whispers. I can’t believe she’s come all the way over from her cabin to get me to take her.

The washrooms are in a separate building, behind the row of cabins at the girl’s camp. I have been coming to the camp for the past few years. This is my sister’s first time at camp and her greatest fear in the washroom. I slowly get up and try and find my running shoes. They’re damp and I can feel the grit of sand between my toes from our trek down to the beach earlier that evening.

We step outside the cabin and I shudder when the cool air hits me. My summer pj’s are no match for the breeze in the wooded camp. We start to walk past the outdoor sinks with rows of faucets where we brush our teeth and attempt to wash up before breakfast each day.

We follow the cement sidewalk that leads to the washroom building and my sister’s hand tightens its grip in mine. She’s terrified, I know, but she really needs to go to the washroom. A few days ago when my cabin went on an overnight sleep over in a tent, my sister actually went 24 hours without using the washroom. I can’t remember her ever being so happy to see me as she was that day.

My sister thinks I’m brave but the truth is I’m just as afraid as she is, but I must not show it. She’s my responsibility while we are at camp and I want to keep her safe.

We get to the washroom, I pull on the screen door and it creaks loudly. It is totally dark inside and I know where the light switch is, but I hesitate. This is the part that’s terrifying. If we could find our way in and out in the dark then maybe we could pretend that they’re not there.

The secret is to get in and out as quickly as possible and just not look at the walls of the washroom stalls. I turn the light on and it takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. I see them then, on the walls, just sitting there, Daddy long leg spiders. My sister shudders and I tell her to just run and sit and keep the door open. “Just look at me and not the walls”, I remind her. She hurriedly goes to the washroom and we run out, my sister giggling at the fact that she wasn’t devoured by the spiders. At least not this time.

I get her back to her cabin and go back to mine. I’m just about to drift off to sleep when I realize I need to go to the washroom. For the second time that night, I climb off the bunk bed trying not to wake everyone in the cabin. Attached to our cabin is a separate room where our counsellors sleep. I knock on their door and I hear one of them shuffle to the door.

“What’s the matter?” she whispers as she rubs the sleep from her eyes.

“I need to go to the washroom”, I quietly answer. She picks up a flashlight and takes my hand as tells me not to be afraid as we head out down the path. If feels good to have someone braver when you have to go to the washroom at camp.

My World is One Block Long…

My world is one block long and two blocks wide. In inter-city Toronto in the fifties it is still possible to live on a street where English is rarely spoken.

I am four years old and I live on this street with my Mamma and Papa. Although I was born in this city, I cannot speak or understand English as my parents have only been in the country for five years. In this neighbourhood, Italian is the language of the grocery store, the language of gossip and the language of the church. There is yet no need to learn English.

We live in a house with a family who has three children. Nine people share the only bathroom. On the second floor of this house we rent two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom. The kitchen strains to contain a table, four chairs and a hutch. It is where we eat and where we entertain friends, the chairs often overflowing into the hallway. Down the hall there is a bedroom which holds our beds, two dressers and my mother’s Singer sewing machine. It is a pedal powered sewing machine positioned in front of the bedroom window to take advantage of the natural light.

In each of our two rooms there is a large picture of a blonde little boy holding a ball. His name is spoken in hushed reverence of a life ended too soon. My brother Renato, who I never knew, died the year I was born. His death paralyzed my Mamma with grief until she realized she was pregnant and had a new life to live for.

The sewing machine is right next to the head of my bed. At Christmas we always have a real tree and it sits precariously on top of the sewing machine. We decorate it with glass ornaments my Mamma brought gingerly from Italy in a steamer trunk. The ornaments were the only things to arrive unbroken after that harrowing ten day trip across the ocean with a sick little child. They were a reminder of her first Christmas as a bride back in Italy and the loss of the other things in that trunk was easily forgotten. We adorn the tree with a string of brightly coloured bulbs and paper icicles that catch the light as they move about. At night, when I go to bed, I gaze up at the tree from below it and feel somewhat like a Christmas present. In a year that had known so much grief, Mamma said I was a gift, born on Christmas day.

My neighbourhood smells like an Italian kitchen, the scent of tomato sauce simmering on the stove drifting out of the open windows into the street. Occasionally a cellar window is open and in the fall you can smell the wine fermenting in the giant oak barrels. In the summer I play on the sidewalk outside our home, hopscotch or when someone is lucky enough to have a skipping rope, games of double-dutch. Between each sidewalk square the tar bubbles up in the summer heat and I take my sandals off and pop the bubbles with my toes invariably covering them in tar. Mamma will not be pleased as she scrapes the tar off my feet.

My Papa is tired when he comes home from work. Long hours of working in the sun and rain have made him much older than his thirty-three years and his face is deeply tanned. I wait on the sidewalk and watch for his familiar shape and gait in the distance as he draws closer, swinging his lunch pail. When he bends to hug me, he smells of sweat and cement, the dust clings to his clothes and face. He disappears downstairs to the basement to change out of his work clothes emerging as the Papa I recognize, in his favourite plaid shirt and no longer wearing the construction hat that hides his wavy hair.

Mamma stays home to care for me. In that cramped kitchen, she cooks marvellous meals. Dishes our English neighbours would never have known; osso bucco (stewed veal shank), polenta (cornmeal) and baccala (salty stewed fish). She sews magic with her sewing machine, taking second hand clothes bought at church rummage sales, and turning them into nearly-new looking dresses for me. Some days, as a treat, she takes me to the park where she pushes me on the swing, or gazes anxiously as I climb the monkey bars, inevitably falling and scraping my leg.

One day, when we go to visit family friends, I am left behind with no explanation. Time seems to be suspended, the few weeks that I actually spend there. I feel lost, confused and voiceless to express my feelings. Why am I here? Where have my parents gone? The couple, Maria and Gino, close friends of my parents, have a little girl my age. They live in big house, with a yard full of flowers the likes of which I have never seen. I am inconsolable. Their house in unfamiliar to me, with many doors, most of them closed. I am frightened by a cuckoo clock in the hall which loudly sounds the hours while the little bird jumps in and out of his little house. Each time I walk by I pray it won’t ring. Too young to be able to read the clock face, I can’t predict the next time the little bird will come out and the clanging will begin, so I try to avoid the hallway or scurry past it.

Eventually I am returned to my home, but something has changed. Grief hangs in the air and my Mamma is very sick. She never leaves her bed, unable to walk on her own. Each morning, after breakfast, I pull the kitchen chair to the sink and wash the breakfast dishes as best as I can, trying to be helpful. I make my way down the hall to the bedroom and spend my day sitting on the carpet at the foot of Mamma’s bed playing with my doll, carefully changing her in and out of the only cotton sundress she has and pretending she is my little baby. The days turn into weeks. Mamma cannot take me to the park, yet I am content.

For now, my world in one block long and two blocks wide.

* * *
With time, Mamma will regain her strength and walk again. It will be many years before I understand what happened. That Mamma had gone to the hospital to deliver the twin boys she had carried for nine months, only to lose them both during delivery. I will be an only child for two more years before my sister Anna is born and it will take six more years after that before our brother Paolo arrives.

Vanessa

I’m running late and even though I planned my route to avoid the Marathon, I forgot about the Ten Commandments. Not the commandments themselves, but the fact that they are being displayed at the ROM for the last day today and Bloor Street has suddenly become a parking lot.

I’m taking my mom down to Covenant House on Gerrard Street, for the annual volunteer and donor appreciation event. We haven’t been down there since 2005 when I received a certificate for 10 years as a donor.

As we hurriedly make our way into Covenant House past young people opening doors for us and welcoming us with open smiles, my irritability over the traffic chaos melts away.

This building is a wonderful place, warm and inviting, as it was planned to be and as it must be if it is to achieve its goal. We’re directed to the cafeteria for refreshments of sandwiches, cheese, fruit and sweets. Nanaimo bars, oh my God, they have a platter of Nanaimo bars!

Mom and I fill our plates and find a spot in the crowded room to sit. The food is fresh and tasty and I try to imagine this as the first meal in days for a homeless young person. I want to go into the kitchen and hug the staff.

As the room starts to empty a little, I see that some of the young people are clearing the tables to make room for arriving guests. That’s when I spot her, a young woman probably not even 20 years old, with long brown hair. She’s wearing a NYC sweat shirt and a pair of jeans that are frayed at the feet. She looks out of place in this room full of donors wearing business suits and Sunday dresses. It’s her posture that has me puzzled as she’s always looking down at the floor, hardly looking up at all. She passes close by me and I see the reason for her timidness. She has terrible acne and most of her face is red with awful sores. She is trying to help out and remain invisible at the same time. Her name tag says Vanessa.

It’s such a pretty name and I wonder what her story is. Where does she come from and what has landed her at the doorsteps of Covenant House. Was she seen as a leper amongst her peers and ostracized? For twenty minutes I try and make eye contact with her as she floats silently amongst the tables collecting empty dishes and cups.

Finally, she makes it to my table and I lift my plate and hand it to her forcing her to raise her face to look at me. I smile and say “thank you” as she takes my plate. She softly says “thank you” and I glimpse a small smile on her face. Her beauty suddenly illuminates the room.

I want to go back to the people lined up outside the ROM who are waiting to see the Ten Commandments. I want to tell them there is a woman at Covenant House named Vanessa, who has just shown me the face of God.