An Italian-American Writer & Poet with a Yankee Outsider Perspective
We hardly ever received messages on Isla. We had no cell phones then; nothing ever collapsed at home, except once, during our late February vacation, 2003. Then I returned from strolling to town and found that the “Office” at Posada … Continued
Sounds like a shipwreck, but in fact, the last survivor of my parents’ generation, Eleanora, rides comfortably in assisted living, Dover, Delaware. She’s 93, the only one in her generation with blue eyes, a rarety in Southern Italian stock, though … Continued
An Italian-American who immigrated to the U.S. when she was twelve recently returned from visiting long-time friends in Rome, Milan, Parma, and Bologna. “They don’t remarry,” she said, “because they don’t divorce. They find ‘un companio’ and have children together.”Though … Continued
When my map of the world expanded across the Cooper River from downtown Charleston, South Carolina, to the tiny hamlet of Mount Pleasant (was there even a hill in the place?), my mother was building us a bungalow. She bought … Continued
Cape Cod juts off the coast of Massachusetts like a huge hook, which used to snatch sailing ships from any hope of reaching the Atlantic. May still do. When I visited Cape Cod last spring, I headed off Cape Cod’s … Continued
Out of the darkness of dreams rises my sensation of dialing. I’m trying to form my parents’ last phone number in Charleston. Area Code: 843, then 766… That’s as far as I get. During my mother’s last fifteen years, living … Continued
Stand in the green field where Pisa’s Leaning Tower, Cathedral and Baptistry pose like static black and white chess pieces. Turn abruptly left and find the long low colonnade of the Campo Santo or Holy Field. Campo= field. Santo=holy. Within … Continued
Think of a family as a pyramid: I’m on the phone with my oldest relative, Eleanora, 93, who lives in Dover, Delaware. She bought her first car in her late 30s, “after the war,” as the family saying goes. We … Continued
Usually I like to arrive solo. Fran, my husband, and I are terrible auto-companions–I clench as he sashays, speeds ahead, breaks for sudden red lights. No wonder I make him nervous. For air travel, we do ok, but usually only … Continued
Flying into Charleston’s airport the December after Hurricane Hugo struck in late September 1989, I stared down at miles of the Francis Marion Forest snapped like matchsticks. My mother had kept up running reports since she drove my father the … Continued