An Italian-American Writer & Poet with a Yankee Outsider Perspective
After returning to Isla several winters, transferring to Posada del Mar with its pink and white lighthouse, we were forced to pause in planning winter break among the Mayan palms and turquoise sea. Hurricane Gilbert struck the Yucatan in September … Continued
Horoscope, December 31, 2010: “Part of the reason you love to travel is that the unfamiliar environment makes you feel brand-new. Getting lost and finding your way out is exhilarating.” What is this precision?! Does the StarTribume’s “Holiday Mathis” have … Continued
The taxi from the airport was surrounded by boys with rags. Leaning out, the driver shouted imprecations as they swiped the windshield. “Cholera,” warned one friend; “pickpockets” warned another: “sling your purse across your body and clutch it like a … 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
At the Holiday Inn Riverview, I look down twelve stories onto a sweep of Ashley River and marsh. Charleston, South Carolina, where I grew up, is chilly this December. My parents, from Pittsburgh (father) and Hankinson, North Dakota (mother), used … Continued
When Geraldine Page creates “Souk” in Truman Capote’s most wonderful work, “A Christmas Memory,” she rises into film legend. Forget Capote’s nonfiction novel from the late 1960s about a family’s murder in Kansas, or even his “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” with … Continued
Dream Space at the MIA. Entering into the gleaming glass entry, I stand under the fiery sunburst hanging from the ceiling. Fire and water–the air swims with possibilities. This dark season I will rise into the painting galleries and head … Continued
In the Norman Rockwell version, a huge bronzed turkey lies on its side under carving knife and fork wielded by the family patriarch, while up and down a long table wait the solemn yet rosy faces of three generations. Way … Continued