{"id":1333,"date":"2018-10-06T15:32:21","date_gmt":"2018-10-06T15:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/italianamericana.ysu.edu\/wordpress\/?p=1333"},"modified":"2018-10-06T15:32:21","modified_gmt":"2018-10-06T15:32:21","slug":"thomas-centolella","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/?p=1333","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Centolella"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Country Inside Me<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a terrible confession to make: I have never been to Italy. The land of my paternal grandmother and grandfather, the language my own father was fluent in yet never taught me or my siblings, has existed for me as a dream and a longing unfulfilled. Every time someone mentions their fantastic visit to Italy, or posts photos online of the Forum and the David and the colorful Tuscan dish they had for dinner, I am torn between wanting to weep and wanting to scream. I will get there, I keep promising myself, and sooner rather than later. And yet, here I am: in San Francisco, tethered to a laptop, my legs propped on an ottoman, writing about being there.<\/p>\n

I am unspeakably grateful, then, for my Aunt Rose, rest in peace. My father\u2019s beloved sister was the conduit into the details of my Italian heritage. It was through her storytelling that I came to know something of my Roman grandfather, who died before I was born, and how richly complex my Italian family\u2019s world was before I joined it. Enraptured by Aunt Rose\u2019s tales, I\u2019d look over at my father and wonder why I hadn\u2019t heard about any of this from him. But Aunt Rose was so gifted that even my reticent father was pulled into her spell and gladly became her collaborator.<\/p>\n

When I wrote a fictional account of the family in America, it seemed a no-brainer to give the narrative over to our chief storyteller\u2019s point of view. Here is how I described the power and value of what Aunt Rose (\u201cGiulietta\u201d in the story) was doing for me and my relatives, and even for herself. It follows a passage in which her father has risked death by drowning to protect his livelihood, and, by extension, la famiglia.<\/p>\n

There might not be any greater marvel than the instinct for survival. Unless it is belief. Giulietta recites her story with every bit of devotion she brings to the rosary. The details are her beads, smoothly she moves from one to the next, particulars she recites by heart, until they become the litany of her salvation. She knows in her afflicted bones that without her family, past and present, she is nothing.<\/p>\n

I must add that without her eminence we as a family would have been, if not nothing, then terribly much less than what we were. The story is called \u201cBrutti ma Buoni\u201d\u2014literally, \u201cUgly but Good\u201d\u2014a reference to the Italian cookie of the same name and my nod to the delectable texture of life residing within the less-than-attractive shell of circumstances. It is also a nod to the legendary prowess of Aunt Rose in the kitchen, a talent she inherited from my grandparents. Of course, it is a commonplace that food is central to Italian culture. As I constructed \u201cBrutti ma Buoni,\u201d it became evident that the art of cooking was quintessential to my family\u2019s spiritual well-being as well as its physical one.<\/p>\n

My grandfather Mike was a chef\/restaurateur who in the early part of the twentieth century brought Roman cuisine to central New York State. At his lakeside night club in the Adirondacks, the entire family worked alongside him: my grandmother cooking, my aunts waiting tables, my father and his brother doing prep work and clean up. Aunt Rose and my father would later provide me with a cinematic rundown of scenes: Grandpa Mike ensuring his success during Prohibition by smuggling in booze from Canada with his Indian buddy; my father\u2019s envy of my uncle because he was the one who got to body-paint the nearly naked dancing girls; the potentially disastrous raids by federal agents and the ingenious ways the family would foil them; the local Mafia capo making Mike an offer he couldn\u2019t refuse, but which he refused anyway, with startling results. And too, there was the praise of a man so magnanimous during the Depression that he would laugh off the debts owed him (to the great consternation of his wife, mother of eight), and not hesitate to feed a starving hobo\u2014not in a corner of the kitchen but at a table among the swells, because \u201cnobody here is better than he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when tragedy arrived on the scene, as it must, Aunt Rose was there, holding the center together with her sorcery, both anecdotal and gustatory. It was through her that I came to learn that the nature of the meal and the nature of the narrative are one: they sustain us. To quote Muriel Rukeyser, \u201cThe universe is made of stories, \/ not of atoms.\u201d Yes, and a memorable chicken cacciatore.<\/p>\n

And on that note I will say ciao. I have to go hunting down the hill for some sfogliatelle, my favorite pastry\u2014as close as I\u2019m going to get today to that boot-shaped country I have yet to set foot in and yet which is always there, inside me.<\/p>\n

Solo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just my body and breath on a noon hike to the top
\nof Mt. Vision, its panoramic view of the Pacific,
\nscorched terrain along the ridge, the estuary far below
\nglinting like a silver necklace someone lost in the grass.
\nShouldn\u2019t there be a name for the private pleasures
\nthat don\u2019t depend on the company of others?
\nLike a visit to a favorite master at the museum
\nthat includes dropping paper money on the way
\ninto a paper cup with a pathetic few coins
\nwhile the snoozing owner dreams of her own
\nprivate pleasures. Somewhere in the world
\nthere has to be a term for how you feel
\nas a child in summer, riding your revered bicycle
\nlong past dinner, clear across town, no permission needed,
\nwhile the sky quietly performs its variations
\non the theme of blue. And an expression for how it is
\nto be revisited by the feeling of the child
\nfreewheeling through the August dusk. Nostalgia<\/em>
\nwon\u2019t do\u2014the pleasure in the recollection
\nis more a grateful nod to the past than a yearning
\nto return to it. As for the present, prepping a pot
\nof lentil soup in December to be savored at a table
\nfor one, or chancing on a stellar local band
\nbefore it goes supernova, or returning to an author
\ntreasured when you were young and thrilling again
\nat the old delights, as well as the new delights
\nthat needed all that time to surprise you now\u2014
\nshouldn\u2019t there be a name for that?
\nEven doing nothing when there\u2019s no one around
\nand nothing to be done. In Tuscany they say
\nDolce far niente<\/em>\u2014It\u2019s sweet to do nothing.
\nTo which I would add: solo<\/em>, raising my wine glass
\nof cut crystal which, though chipped, is holding a bouquet
\nwhile the evening light marries its deep red darkness.<\/p>\n

Memo to Self<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was something about order,
\na quote from an obscure guru\u2019s interview,
\nattached by magnet to the freezer
\nalongside other reminders. Paul Klee\u2019s
\nArab Song, a veil with eyes that seem mischievous
\nand two leaves, one singing of the sun\u2019s fire,
\none crying over blood that has dried. Edward Albee
\non the arts, saying we have to start paying our teachers
\nmore than we pay our garbagemen. The motto
\nof a steak house chain: \u201cAll you have to be here
\nis you, unless you\u2019re no fun,\u201d nicely paired
\nwith the cartoon of a frumpy woman
\ntelling a frumpy man, \u201cSometimes I wish
\nyou were more incandescent\u2014you know,
\nlike an Italian.\u201d But that long gone
\nragged scrap of wisdom about order
\n(or was it transcendent calm), something
\nabout allowing it to inhere, to obtain,
\nwithout the intervention of effort
\nor even intention\u2014a shining sign post
\nin the daily rain\u2014something you could use
\nright about now\u2026 Whatever possessed you
\nto take it down?<\/p>\n

The Visitor<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the TV show the portal
\nwas called a stargate
\na mammoth circle of hieroglyphs
\nthrough which the adventurers entered
\nthe amplitude of possibility
\nhazards be damned<\/p>\n

But when he arrived the portal
\nwas nothing so grand
\nan industrial clothes dryer
\nin a run-down laundromat\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0an entrance
\nthat seemed like a prank\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0which if you knew him
\nwas no surprise\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The surprise<\/p>\n

was all his
\nHe looked around to get his bearings
\nand found himself standing
\nin the ash gray overcoat
\nof the cremated<\/p>\n

On the back of his neck
\nspeckled into a design
\nstill in the making\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the orange yellow pollen
\nof the underworld<\/p>\n

He\u2019d only been seven days dead
\nso it made sense he was ready
\nto hit the party (revelry his religion and raison d\u2019\u00eatre)<\/p>\n

It was then I had to put my hand
\non the nape of his decorative neck
\nand
\nas much as I was loath to do it
\ninform him
\nwith all the gentleness I could muster
\nthat he had to go back<\/p>\n

old friend\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0more of a brother
\nthan my own kin<\/p>\n

I could feel he knew what I\u2019d said
\nwas true
\nhis old wild man gusto
\nseized now by the sadness of being
\nneither here nor there<\/p>\n

In the round glass of the portal he was shown
\nthe awful transparency
\nof his face
\neven as his ash gray coat turned black
\nAnd then
\nhe was turned away
\nagain
\nfrom the one world he had loved
\nthe one I was still learning to embrace<\/p>\n

and neither of us looking back<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Country Inside Me I have a terrible confession to make: I have never been to Italy. The land of my paternal grandmother and grandfather, the language my own father was fluent in yet never taught me or my siblings, has existed for me as a dream and a longing unfulfilled. Every time someone mentions … <\/p>\n

+ Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-poets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/italianamericana\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}