My mourning soundtrack

The mourning began before he ever died. Maybe that's the way it always is. In our case, my father  lingered for more than a year, as he faded away from end-stage blood cancer. So much of what made him Daddy was wiped out in that year. I suppose once something is snatched from you, you begin to mourn. And I certainly feel his vigor was snatched from us, from me.

So I contemplated what had been lost through music during the long car rides from my home in Connecticut to the Jersey Shore when I would visit my parents and take care of my Dad. Sometimes I simply regressed to my teen years and trawled the dial for any kind of 80s music (I'd like to thank Joan Jett, Axl Rose, Prince and Billy Joel for their support in my time of need.). Or I would nestle myself into the sounds of the New York stations I knew growing up, especially Fordham's WFUV and Columbia's WKCR (many of the others I once loved are now defunct). 

(Yes, yes it's all available via streaming, but listening to the radio in the car always feels right, and once I left the hinterlands of Connecticut behind me, it was a joy to tune into the NY stations -- the best of college radio, no doubt).

Listening to WKCR was particularly apt because my father was a big fan, and as I've mentioned here, the station blessedly still broadcasts shows recorded by Jazz aficionado Phil Schaap, even though he died in September. One day as I sped up the Garden State Parkway, I lucked into a Charlie Parker birthday marathon broadcast. (Oh lord I just grasped this idea: my father and Phil Schaap died during the same year! How odd, that tiny shard of a coincidence brings me a tiny shard of comfort. They are for better or for worse together among the People We Lost in 2021).

The car rides were necessary time machines, indulging my need for nostalgia, for returning to the years before illness changed everything. I'd always enjoyed my visits to their house on the Shore, impromptu mini-vacations that included trips to the beach and lots of conversation on the porch (my father even placed a lamp out there to read at night -- sheer delight). But in the past year (really two), these visits were turned over to pharmacy runs, grocery shopping trips, pill-counting drills.

In that interim space between leaving their house -- leaving a kind of purgatory, inasmuch as my parents were stuck in limbo, my father gravely ill but still alive -- and arriving back home to Leo (ideally with a smile on my face), I needed a few moments to reflect on the void I'd slid into. He was dying, there would be no reprieve and anything I'd planned now meant nothing.

And as I surfed the dial, my beloved 80s music, Phil Schaap's voice, and 1010 WINS traffic updates formed part of the soundtrack in the void (I'll gladly give you 22 minutes, my 1010 WINS friends).

Other times I sought out specific songs on my phone. A few from my mourning soundtrack:

Adele's "Hello" ("I'm sorry for everything that I've done")

Stevie Wonder's "If You Really Love Me"

Paul McCartney and Wings, "Silly Love Songs"

Francis and the Lights, "May I Have This Dance?"

U2, "One"

U2, "Cedars of Lebanon"

Louise Attaque, "Du Nord Au Sud"

Handsome Boy Modeling School, "The Truth"

Maria Callas, "Casta Diva"

Luca Carboni & Jovanotti (live), "Mi Ami Davvero"

Vienna Boys' Choir, "Little Drummer Boy" 

Chrissy Hynde, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"

John Lennon, "God"

Van Morrison, "Saint Dominic's Preview"

Amy Winehouse, “Tears Dry on Their Own,” (from “Amy Winehouse at The BBC”)

Smashing Pumpkins (cover), "Never Let Me Down Again"

The Grateful Dead, "Brokedown Palace"

Steve Winwood, "Take It to the Final Hour" (refrain: "What my father says...")

Elton John's "Your Song"

Bruce Springsteen, "Jungleland"

Ravel's "Bolero" (almost impossible for me to separate this work from my parents since it's probably the first work of classical music I can remember loving; I believe I'd already heard it by the time Torville and Dean used it -- to great effect -- in the Olympics)

*

During the final car ride home the night before he died, I played Stevie Wonder's "If You Really Love Me" over and over. It had popped into my head, for reasons unknown, and it plunged me into nothing short of a river of tears. I don't necessarily think the words apply to my specific situation -- my father loved me all right, he even said I was his twin! -- I merely think the desperate need for love at the story's heart reflected the particular ache of seeing my father so close to death. At times during his convalescence, I thought, 'Let this cup pass from Mommy.' But alas.

In another post, I will tell you the ways a movie called "The Straight Story" aided and abetted my precocious grief.

All of this probably means I like to wallow in grief, maybe even at times when it isn't truly grief engulfing me but simply stress or frustration.

But I think indulging the tears has helped me. Fellow grievers, do you hear me? You've lost something. And even if you're only in your car on the way back from school drop-off, acknowledge tearfully what has been snatched from you, and the high holy cost of that theft.

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Caro diario (Day 7): Museo Italo Americano in SF

Writing in my journal this week -- in Italian. Join me? In Italian or any language. Eccoci:

Caro diario,

Sono ormai (purtroppo!) abituata a vedere parole e frasi in inglese quando leggo il giornale in italiano ma capita poco spesso che incontro la lingua italiana in America tramite i titoli del giornale o persino i nomi di negozi, ecc. 

Ma a San Francisco c'è un museo dedicato all'arte italiana e italo-americana e si chiama Museo Italo Americano.

Cioè, non si chiama The Museum of Italian American Art o The Italian American Museum.

Invece ha il nome che avrebbe se si trovasse in Italia. Museo Italo Americano.

Non vi sembra forse che sia granché -- solamente il nome di un piccolo museo. Mica che presta padronanza dell'italiano a tutti quanti che ci vanno!

Ma come sai, caro diario, io sono ossessionata dagli anglicismi che si usano ormai ogni giorno nella lingua parlata, nei comunicazioni ufficiali persino dal dipartimento della sanità pubblica, nei giornali, ovunque.

Non ho modo di fare una visita nel prossimo futuro ma quanti ci vorrei andare! 

Poi non è solamente un museo ma invece è un centro di studi italiani perché si offrono corsi d'italiano e gite in Italia. Ci sono anche degli eventi e colloqui vari.

Io non sono d'origine italiana ma mi sembra un ottimo motivo per imparare italiano. Io infatti vorrei imparare un po' della madrelingua del paese d'origine dei miei antenati: Irlandese. Più che altro per leggere una lapide funeraria di un mio parente nel cimiterio che avevo visitato tanti anni fa quando sono andata a trovare i cugini del mio nonno in Irlanda. Scritta totalmente in irlandese! E allora io non ho capito un tubo. Solamente il nome del mio parente.

Quindi non so -- se fossi italo-americana e avessi in programma di andare a San Francisco, farei un salto al museo. Prima o poi mi unisco ad un evento in rete tipo 'Cena e telechat,' pur essendo nel Connecticut. Un modo per darvi apoggio.

Maggior informazioni qui:

https://museoitaloamericano.org

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Caro diario (Day 6): ho dimenticato!

Writing in my journal this week -- in Italian. Join me? In Italian or any language. Eccoci:

Caro diario,

Dovevo inserire un argomento o un post o qualcosa qui ieri, data la promessa che avevo fatto, ma ho dimenticato. Invece ho riscritto un saggio che parla del Giorno della Memoria. E ho pulito la casa. E abbiamo portato il cane a spasso. E alcune altre cose. Sai, la domenica. Tante faccende domestiche -- certo che di solito vanno trascurate mentre scrivo, scrivo, scrivo, però, ieri no. 

Ma ormai mi sento immersa di nuovo nello splendore della lingua italiana. Il corso è cominiciato e gli studenti ci hanno messo l'impegno, almeno durante la prima lezione.

Perlopiù, sto leggendo LE OTTO MONTAGNE di Paolo Cognetti e quella lettura mi immerge nel mondo della montagna oltre al riempirmi la mente con parole (e domande!) in italiano.

Aggiungo un'altra cosa: mi sento immersa nell'attività di programmare le lezioni. Cioe, i miei pensieri rincorrono di continuo alla materia e i metodi che ci vogliono per imsegnare la materia (questa settimana roba elementare: buongiorno, buonasera, mi chiamo Jeanne, di dove sei, ti piace il cinema? Roba del genere). E per me, significa che mi sto impegnando, che sono all'altezza dell'incarico.

L'incarico, intendiamoci: far immergere gli studenti. Far coinvolgere nell'apprendimento dell'italiano. E innanzittutto far capire che l'apprendimento dell'italiano (oppure altre lingue) ti dà un'altra identità, ti permette di entrare in un altro mondo.

Elena Ferrante ha scritto nel suo romanzo La Figlia Oscura, “Le lingue per me hanno un veleno segreto.” 

Io non direi 'veleno,' però fanno nascere una sostanza che può incantare. Ecco, voglio che gli studenti siano incantati dalla lingua italiana -- letteramente incantati. 

Ti saluto ora e prometto che ci troviamo qui domani

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Caro diario (Day 5): Archivio dei diari

Writing in my journal this week -- in Italian. Join me? In Italian or any language. Eccoci:

Caro diario,

Scrivo di nuovo di un diario ovvero l'Archivio dei diari, il quale quando l'ho scoperto mi sentivo quasi scoppiare di gioia! Si trova in un piccolo paese nella Toscana dove c'è un museo -- un museo vorrei vedere in tutti modi.

Fu fondato nel 1984 a Pieve Santo Stefano vicino il confine tra Toscana, Umbria e Romagna, ed ora il paese è soprannominata "Città del diario."

(Di nuovo, a segnalarmi l'esistenza dell'Archivio era un numero di Airone! Mi ha fatto riscroprire il libro Anna e mi ha segnalato questo posto dove tutte le mie passioni combaciono: scrivere + diario + la lingua italiana)

L'Archivio punta sulla necessità di custodire la memoria -- sia personale che nazionale -- e ha come obiettivo "fare la nostra piccola parte per la causa della memoria." Sottolinea che questo posto esiste per "sostenere il peso della responsabilità della memoria."

La responsabilità della memoria.

E' un concetto molto importante, soprattutto per un paese come Italia dove sostenere la memoria nazionale significa che non si può trascurare periodi molto dolorosi come la Seconda Guerra Mondiale.

Non mi dovrebbe sorprendere che condivido tante idee con i responsabili del archivio, visto che innanzitutto proviamo un amore per il diario come strumento non solamente per coltivare la memoria ma anche per individuare piccole gioie quotidiane.

Il mio modo di vivere? Individuare, coltivare, custodire, celebrare piccole gioie quotidiane.

Ho tanta voglia di fare un salto a Pieve Santo Stefano, anche se fino a leggere il brano sull'Airone, non ho mai sentito dire. Ma pure solamente con un salto al sito web, ho potuto leggere estratti di diari e sono rimasta incantata dai diari che risalgono all'epoca della guerra. Per esempio:

http://archiviodiari.org/index.php/diari-online/990-10-giugno-1940-entrata-in-guerra-dell-italia.html

Il credo dell'Archivio è questo:

“Nessuna storia è piccola.”

Io ci sto. Parlando ai lettori eventuali di questo blog, spero ovunque tu sia, stai facendo la tua piccola parte per coltivare la memoria, soprattutto la memoria di famiglia e della propria vita. Se non ci ricordiamo noi, chi si ricorderà? E per salvaguardare la memoria, bisogna scrivere o perlomeno registrare i pensieri.

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Caro diario (Day 4): Cesare Pavese e il mestiere di 'poetare'

My plan? To write in my journal and to simply do so in Italian. Do you want to join me? In Italian or any language you want to practice. Here we go:

Caro diario,

Oggi ti scrivo del diario di uno scrittore molto famoso e importante, Cesare Pavese. Immagina: il suo diario fu pubblicato! Sotto il titolo Il Mestiere Di Vivere. (Si, sono invidiosa, visto che scrivo anch'io un diario a cui tengo) È un libro molto interessante che lascio sul comodino cosi posso sfogliarlo quando mi viene voglia, e essendo un diario invece di un'opera di narrativa, va letto non come un libro, direi, ma invece come una rivista.

Pavese, come personaggio letterario, fu una persona fulminante e la sua vita fini in modo molto tragico: si ammazzò. Quando studiavo l'italiano all'università, ho letto La luna e i falò e mi piace molto.

Ma sul diario scrisse di tante cose, e questo brano qui sotto mi ha colpito per suo uso della parola 'poetare' (non avrei detto che fosse una parola, a dir la verità!):

“(29 dic.) Dei due, poetare e studiare, trovo maggiore e più costante conforto nel secondo. Non dimentico però che mi piace studiare in vista sempre del poetare. Ma in fondo il poetare e’ una ferita sempre aperta, donde si sfoga la buona salute del corpo.”

Che bello: poetare. Possibile che fu una parola usata nel 1935 o 1940 ma ora non si usa? Detto cosi, poetare mi sembra un bel impiego, un lavoro che vorrei fare. E ogni tanto, c'è da dire, scrivo una poesia. Ma la poesia è difficile! A volte mi vengono pensieri poetici, che non seguono la logica o struttura della narrativa. Ma poi appena scritta qualcosa non so che farne. 

Comunque ti saluto qui, con un desiderio forte di poetare.

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Caro diario (Day 3): lo 'spartiacque' di Auschwitz

My plan? To write as if I am writing in my journal and to simply do so in Italian. Do you want to join me? In Italian or any language you want to practice. Here we go:

Caro diario,

L'anno scorso quando sono andata a New York per fare ricerca sulle scrittrici italiane che sono sopravvissuti ad Auschwitz o altri campi d'annientamento e hanno raccontato le loro esperienze, ho scoperto tanti libri fantastici.

Sono andata con lo scopo di tradurre dei racconti della scrittrice Edith Bruck ma anche trovare altri libri da scrittrici come lei, testimoni dello Shoah. C'ero perché avevo vinto una borsa dalla biblioteca pubblica a New York (New York Public Library -- NYPL).

Ho sfogliato un sacco di libri, compreso questo libro:

Dopo il fumo: Sono il n. A 5384 di Auschwitz Birkenau

L'ha scritto Liana Millu, autrice pure del libro Il fumo di Birkenau. E sfogliando il libro, ho trovato un brano che mi ha colpito -- il modo in cui lei percepisce la propria vita:

“Venne il funesto 1938 con le leggi razziali; poi la guerra, e con la guerra, uno spartiacque che da solo determina un “prima” e un “poi”: venne Auschwitz.”

Uno spartiacque che da solo determina un “prima” e un “poi”: venne Auschwitz. Una frase da mozzafiato. Significa che mentre gli altri forse usano le date di matrimonio o la nascita di un bambino per determinare i periodi importanti della propria vita, Millu fu costretta a ricordare Auschwitz come  il punto di referimento maggiore sulla mappa dei suoi giorni.

Per modo di dire: non c'è un'uscita. Un club per la vita.

Mi sentivo a volte sopraffatta da quello che scoprivo durante il periodo di ricerca perché si tratta di un male talmente vasto e potente che mi fa paura anche a distanza di anni. Leggo la frase 'venne Auschwitz' e mi fa rabbrividire.

Sopraffatta anche perché ho da imparare tante cose e mi chiedo, come posso essere utile? Basta tradurre, basta studiare le opere di queste donne? Aiuta? Chissà.

C'era una volta che pensavo di aver imparato abbastanza della Seconda Guerra Mondiale. Ora so che non mi riesce mai ad imparare abbastanza -- fino all'ultimo, dovrei impegnarmi ad imparare e leggere di più.

Perché non posso mai capire fino in fondo la sensazione di quello spartiacque che divide la vita dei sopravvissuti in due.

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Caro diario (2nd installment): 'Anna' di Ammaniti

My plan? To write as if I am writing in my journal and to simply do so only in Italian. Do you want to join me? In Italian or any language you want to practice. Here we go:

Caro diario,

Non mi serve spesso trovare consigli per libri sull'Airone. Più che altro perché ho già un elenco di libri che voglio leggere ed anche perché lo scopo di Airone è un altro (lo so -- ho l'abbonamento).

Ma qualche mese fa mentre sfogliavo un numero della rivista, ho trovato un consiglio davvero utile -- perché il libro in evidenza era un libro che già possedevo. Il libro era Anna di Niccolo Ammaniti.

Anni sono ormai passati da quando ho comprato Anna. Tanti anni fa, leggevo i libri di Ammaniti spesso -- infatti credo di essermi dedicata a leggere tutti i suoi libri. Quindi ho letto Non ho paura, Fango, Ti prendo e ti porto via, Io e te, Come Dio comanda ed anche qualche altro (compresa una raccolta di racconti, se ricordo bene).

Poi dopo aver letto Come Dio comanda, ho deciso che con i suoi libri, si trattava di letture deprimenti e rattristanti ed ho smesso. (Sono anche letture difficili per me, densi di vocaboli sconosciuti).

Non so nemmeno dove o quando l'ho comprato -- forse quando sono andata al Salone del Libro a Torino.

Spesso quando viaggio in Italia o mi capita una libreria con vari libri in italiano (come Rizzoli a New York), spendo una cifra per i libri, visto che non è facile comprare libri italiani in America se non vuoi pagare un sacco di soldi per la spedizione.

 

Ma comunque sono contenta di leggere un romanzo che mi pare il libro perfetto per questo momento. Il libro parla di una pandemia e noi la stiamo vivendo, anche se finora in modo meno pericoloso.

Come personaggio, la protagonista Anna è impressionante -- forte, tosta, infatti. E la trama ti coinvolge, fin troppo. Ad un certo punto, un personaggio importante si trova in pericolo ed ho dovuto abandonare il libro brevemente perché sono rimasta male! Solamente con grande sforzo, ripresi a leggere. 

Bisogna dire che Ammaniti coglie la tragedia dei nostri tempi: l'amore che proviamo per gli altri è tutto. E quindi quando quell'amore svanisce, restiamo colpiti, come se avessimo subito un colpo davvero. Il momento a cui ho accennato quassu' mi sono sentita cosi -- avendo subito un colpo vero e proprio anche se stavo a letto solamente leggendo.

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Caro diario (Writing in Italian every day for a week)

My plan? To write as if I am writing in my journal and to simply do so only in Italian. Do you want to join me? In Italian or any language you want to practice. Here we go:

Caro diario,

Il corso d'italiano che insegno questo semestre comincia giovedi.

Sono 3 anni che non insegno italiano. Tre anni sono tanti! Non è che siano 3 anni senza parlare italiano o scrivere in italiano -- sarebbe difficile immaginare una situazione del genere. Ma insegnare è tutta un'altra cosa. Dal mio punto di vista, è come giornalismo. Quando scrivo un articolo, devo capire cosi bene la questione/la materia che sto seguendo che posso poi spiegarla ad altri.

Quindi sono un po' nervosa. Mi innervosisco soprattutto quando penso che fra poco devo insegnare italiano di nuovo ma questa volta in masherina! Finora quando ho insegnato durante la pandemia si trattava di didattica a distanza. Imparare l'italiano è gia' difficile, io direi.

Pero' c'è da dire che i momenti in cui preparo le lezioni mi riempiono con una specie di gioia. Mi rincuoriscono. Perché mi lega di nuovo alla mia passione per la lingua di Dante.

E poi c'è da considerare un mio progetto. È un progetto in cui cerco di aumentare il numero di persone che parlono itaiano. (Ho altri progetti, compresa una spinta di convincere la gente a scrivere un diario -- come questo diario). Esistono gia' tante persone che parlono inglese. E tante persone che vogliono imparare inglese, che stanno studiando inglese. Ma in USA chi studia italiano studia una lingua minore, ben o male.

Ho fatto ora una ricerca sui blog degli insegnanti e ho trovato uno davvero bello che è il blog di una scuola d'italiano a Firenze (L'Accademia del Giglio): adgblog.it

Mi sa che mi potrebbe essere utile, visto che ci sono un sacco di esercizi e consigli.

Comunque penso di fare una proposta ai miei studenti: scrivere un diario in italiano (forse gli faccio guardare qualche scena del film di Nanno Moretti "Caro Diario."). Ci staranno? Ora vediamo. Scrivere fa sempre bene ma quando uno scrive in una lingua straniera, si tratta di un'impresa abbastanza impegnativa. Non siamo tutti in grado di farlo. Io difatti scrivo poco in italiano, ma faccio anche la scrittrice quindi credo sia normale preferire scrivere nella propria lingua quando una ha un rapporto intimo e intenso con essa fin dall'infanzia! Forse invece di dire che non siamo in grado, sarebbe meglio dire che non ci viene naturalmente.

Ora, caro diario, ti saluto! Alla prossima. 

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Translating the Untranslatable at the New York Public Library

The summary of my research project at the NYPL is up on the library's site and it's called "Translating the Unimaginable: Holocaust Imagery in the Works of Italian Women Writers."

And the studies I undertook as part of my short-term fellowship also comprise contemplating the unimaginable, the unbelievable, the almost untranslatable. Which is to say the Holocaust, the Shoah, the systemic slaughter of a particular group.

Imagine this: One of the books I requested to study is basically a directory of all the Jews deported from Italy during the war. It's called Il libro della memoria: Gli ebrei deportati dall'Italia (The Memory Book: Jews Deported from Italy).

It's an incredibly important tool for researchers, and represents enormous work on the behalf of the author, Liliana Picciotto.

But can you imagine? It's basically a phone directory of people carted off for slaughter -- a directory whose entries tell you whether the person was in fact slaughtered and where.

I also learned a lot about the particular plight of women in the camps -- a topic that hasn't at all been exhausted. They were torn away from children at a time when women were the primary caregivers. They weren't always slated for work detail so instead they were slated for death. If they were allowed to live, they were shorn of every physical detail that defined them as women -- at a time when women's appearance could define them. Some even gave birth in the camps.

I am sure I am like every other person who stumbles into Holocaust studies -- I feel like I must delve deeper, I must report on what I have learned, and I must continue to study the topic -- because I will never know enough. And we may never fully understand the genesis of this particular evil but we must try.

You can read the piece at the New York Public Library's website here:

https://www.nypl.org/blog/2021/12/30/translating-unimaginable-holocaust-imagery-works-italian-women-writers

I highly recommend the short fellowships, particularly as an independent scholar. They will give you a small stipend to study for two to four weeks in one of the world's most dazzling libraries, fetching every book you could possibly want and bringing it to a private study room.

This year's deadline is Jan. 31, 2022. The application can be found here.

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Surviving without Dad: Month One

It was a month yesterday since my father left us. We've survived a month. Maybe you can even say we got "lucky": Christmas and Covid (a.k.a., Covid Christmas #2) distracted us from facing the fact that my father can no longer be reached physically -- my only option is to think about him, to ruminate over his life. I cannot touch him or talk to him the way I once did.

I am writing today largely because of my fellow grievers who have so kindly come forward to offer comfort, some of them suggesting the posts I've written here about my father have resonated with them.

I am writing perhaps especially for those of us experiencing ambiguous grief, to steal Pauline Boss's term (please see Krista Tippett's interview with her from the NPR show, "On Being").

In our case, 'ambiguous' because while my father died a month ago, he ceased to be the person we'd always known at least a year ago -- so I haven't been grieving for simply a month. I've been grieving a kind of nebulous loss for a year -- he was still alive but since words trickled out of him during his final year on Earth and he did almost nothing but rest, the best part of him was dead to me, unreachable (note, I speak only for myself).

Yet I was still absolutely walloped by his passing! Wracked with sobs so deep, they seem to rise up from the Earth's core. Even yesterday!

It's hard to characterize how I'm doing; I am fine in many ways and beleaguered in other ways. Nothing original here. Like I said in my essay for Brevity last year, I am just one more person discovering the non-secret that our parents will die but I still have to say my piece.

Christmas went well (well-ish?), and I was fairly content, perhaps because we entertained my mother, which provided a perfect distraction ("Leo, don't let the dog lick Grandma's face.") Plus, I could surreptitiously write a bit in between chores and snacks. I even ran on the treadmill!

But still, I’m in a club I don’t want to be in. The club for fatherless people.

I've allowed myself moments of drowning in sorrow, especially on car rides. Actually the car has been my getaway to grief for more than a year. Books have triggered tears, too: especially The Invisible String by Patrice Karst, which before the homily at my father's funeral mass was entirely unknown to me. My cousin sent it to Leo afterwards, and another friend sent a copy, too, but I think it was more cathartic for me than Leo. Spoiler alert: if you're feeling wobbly, beware the page where the boy asks about "Uncle Brian in heaven." I can't make it through it without dissolving into tears. And my God, how true: we are connected to everyone we love, no matter where they are.

A part of me didn’t want to leave 2021 behind for one simple reason: I had an almost indescribable sensation of Daddy belonging now to 2021, since that’s the year he died. 

He won’t be moving into 2022 with the rest of us. 

What I read in 2021 & what I'll read in 2022

When I think about what I am going to read for the year or what I have read, I focus mainly on whole novels, memoirs or books of essays that I have completed, ignoring the little scraps of reading I do, often in the form of reading a poem here or there.

But you can find a whole world in a single poem. And most of us are probably voracious readers who move from a book to a magazine to the cereal box to an article online (about, say, literary controversies).

So it seems fitting to note that after reading a New Yorker article  about Paul Celan and wartime poetry that mentioned Wilfred Owen, I grabbed down from the shelf the old anthology of poetry I spirited away from my father to look up Wilfred Owen's "Dulce Et Decorum Est." Then I left the book open to that page for a few weeks. I suppose to commune, for a while, with this idea:

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

That's reading, right? The one-off poem. A single verse could save your life, so maybe I can log it here. I'd read the poem 1,000 years ago at school and it's as stunning as ever.

This past year was a particularly fertile year for reading. I read voraciously -- maybe extra voraciously! In my diary, I find notes about days in which I read bits from five or six or even seven different books. I guess that doesn't speak well of my ability to concentrate but I wanted to wallow in reading at times, I wanted to bathe in books. You, too?

I also read vastly contrasting books -- so one day in March, while I was reading Le Carre's Legacy of Spies I was also listening to the audiobook of Blue Highways (for that course on travel literature that got canceled), before dipping into Il Pane Perduto (an Italian memoir), La Stanza del Vescovo (I re-read it after the ALTA judging; it was a finalist in our contest) and a compilation of "Mafalda" comics (in Spanish -- some of the panels escape me because I don't have a big vocabulary (!) but when I understand what the little Spanish-speaking cherub is saying, it is deeply satisfying!)

Some of my reading resulted in reviews that I published here and there. For example, I reviewed the Italian memoir Distant Fathers written by Marina Jarre and translated by Ann Goldstein (a.k.a. Elena Ferrante's translator).

Indeed, there were lots of memoirs in the early part of the year! Including a book by New York Times editorial board member Brent Staples: Parallel Time. I teach an essay by Staples called "Black Men and Public Space" and have long wanted to read his memoir, which did not disappoint.

I also finally "discovered" Rebecca Solnit. In Wanderlust, she writes, “Walking ideally is a state in which the mind, the body and the world are aligned as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord.” And, “Exploring the world is one of the best ways of exploring the mind, and walking travels both terrains.” The Gospel according to Rebecca!

And then around the time I went to the New York Public Library for the translation and research fellowship, I switched back to heavy Italian reading.

In all, I read 40 of books from start to finish, and 15 I perused without finishing. That's not great; my Uncle Larry reads something like 80 books a year.

Some of the books I actually read:

A Stranger's Pose, by Emanuel Iduma (travelogue)
Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon (travelogue)

Home Before Dark, Susan Cheever (memoir)

Parallel Time, Brent Staples (memoir)
The Invention of Solitude, Paul Auster (memoir)
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott (memoir/writing guide)
Distant Fathers, Marina Jarre (memoir)

Walker in the City, Alfred Kazin (essays)
Wanderlust, Rebecca Solnit (essays)

Bourdain: The Official Oral Biography of Anthony Bourdain
JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century by Frederik Logevall (biography)

Northern Spy, Flynn Berry (novel)

Voices within the Ark: Modern Jewish Poetry (anthology)

Night Sky With Exit Wounds, Ocean Vuong (poetry)

Some books in Italian (outside of NYPL fellowship)

Anna by Niccolo' Ammaniti (novel -- er -- romanzo!)

Non ti muovere by Margaret Mazzantini (novel)

Tre volte all'alba by Alessandro Baricco (novel)

Il Pane Perduto by Edith Bruck (memoir)

Notable non-book reading

*Cards and letters from the New Yorker cartoonist Jack Ziegler to my uncle (they were friends)

*The photo albums my mother painstakingly compiled when we were children

What I read at the New York Public Library for my fellowship (at least in part):

*Smoke Over Birkenau by Liana Millu (translated by Lynne Sharon Schwartz, my old Bennington prof!)

*Voci della Shoah: Testimonianze per non dimenticare

*Giorgio Agamben’s Quel che resta di Auschwitz (In English: The Remnants of Auschwitz)

*Auschwitz by Frediano Sessi

The Year in Writing ... and Contemplation

Here we are at the end of another year -- at the end of another can-you-believe-it year. A year where you could be forgiven for asking, Did that really happen? Except you would be asking it almost every day.

And those of us who write ... tried to write. (Some of us even tried to translate, though not nearly as much as desired).

It seems odd to tally up what's been gained when I am so mindful of what's been lost. Dare I say I was hoping to be a catcher in the rye, not of wayward children but of sick parents?

Last year when I wrote this annual roundup, I talked about not achieving much. But I think that when I wrote it, I admitted as much with the naive idea that 2021 would be different. We'd go back to normal and we'd be logging all kinds of achievements and wins.

Not so much, right? I was shocked a few months back when my doctor said she doesn't think the pandemic will be going away but rather we'll learn to live with it. Maybe this was 100 percent clear to you, and everyone else. But I hadn't gotten that memo. I was thinking at some point I wouldn't have one hand tied behind my back all the time.

I suppose of it's of a piece in a year in which my parents seemed to grow old overnight, and I had the belated realization that they have been the superheroes of my life -- at the exact moment their super powers have begun to wane.

I hope it won't appear unseemly to continue on with this tradition, in light of recent events, and I will be counting on you to join me so we can count our blessings together. I'll start with the year's highlight, then step back to consider the broader picture.

I didn't publish much in the way of translations this year but I did have a wonderful experience that was very much tied to translation: my short fellowship at the New York Public Library. I finally took it, aimed at working on translations and doing research on Italian women authors who have written works about surviving the Holocaust. Clearly the people who built the library's main branch on Fifth Avenue knew that readers and scholars needed a sanctuary -- a church or temple or mosque of books -- and they made it so. Every moment studying in that gorgeous monument to learning sparkled, and besides, simply returning to New York was a gift. I blogged about it, of course, homing in how I now experience Manhattan through my father's eyes, and you can read those posts here and here.

The Rose Main Reading Room dazzles; with a painted and gold-ornamented ceiling, it's as beautiful as some of the churches people visit in Florence (and for the topic I am researching, the library has EVERY book imaginable). If you visit, make a detour to the periodical room on the first floor -- it might just be the most beautiful room in the entire library. The kind of wood-paneled reading nook all of us books-obsessed folks dream about.

Having begun with the pinnacle, I will pause to ask:

What are your writing goals (or creative goals or for my sister, Denise, exercise goals)? I often update my goals -- mid-year adjustments, I call them! -- but really, I have a few permanent ones: 

*Write regularly, and 

*Land work in a new publication. 

I also have what appears to be a pie-in-the-sky goal: land a regular writing gig at a publication (like a column; I always think if I had stayed at the Morning Call, I would have hoped to become one of the newspaper's columnists). Oh and I also would like to meet Bono! But I suppose that is neither here nor there.

Putting the pie-in-the-sky aside, I managed to keep writing regularly and also land work in a new publication. In fact two, though you may think the first doesn't count: CNN. 

Yes, I work there as a contract news editor but getting an essay published by CNN Opinion is totally separate! And now that I've done it once, I see it's not so easy. Here it is:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/opinions/family-history-research-pandemic-year-bonner/index.html

I also did a tiny bit of reporting this year for CNN in connection with three stories I pitched -- something I hadn't been doing. Shall I inch my way back to reporting? I do miss it -- it's hard as hell but the contact with people and the process of gathering information is exhilarating. Ex-journos, how do you handle this? I don't mean to wax poetic about the business of journalism -- it's brutal. But there's something about reporting that is elemental. And I think I need to do a little reporting each year, if I can swing it. If you agree, let's chat. Here's one feature story I wrote about libraries doing some rather heroic work during the pandemic:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/13/us/coronavirus-libraries-pandemic/index.html

As for the other new publication/venue, an essay of mine was published in the Boston Globe's Sunday Ideas section -- which was a thrill. Possibly a new home for future work, and I got the whole back page the week it ran! If you haven't already read it, it's about pocketing small items from my parents' house that will let me hold onto their spirits.

Notes from a funeral

The appearance of bagpipers for Daddy’s funeral was apt and moving but also like a movie cue from the Celtic DVD catalog: This is grief! You have suffered a terrible loss and you need this soundtrack.

We ran down to the beach this morning and stripped down to our bare feet so we could wade into the chilly water. Maybe if my feet are freezing, I won't know my heart is breaking.

The two-day wake-funeral doubleheader is like a long distance race of grief. You have multiple opportunities to grieve (i.e., lose it): when I arrived at the funeral home, I kneeled by Daddy and left a note; then there was a brief service; then I said my goodbyes at evening’s end; when we returned this morning – along with a large party of family members – we had another occasion to say final goodbyes. And throughout the wake, people appear like guests on "This Is Your Life," triggering additional bouts of grief. 

(That's no complaint -- I now know the funeral ritual performs a purpose as old as our race with precision; when my beloved relatives and friends arrived, I abandoned myself to their embrace. I no longer needed to stand on my own. That's the power of the funeral rite).

I said goodbye for Leo, too; he sat apart from the rest of us, as if to physically distance himself from the corpse across the room. He appears confused and angry but most likely also -- or simply -- sad.

I’m allowed to spread the “pall” over the casket. I don't know what the funeral director means when he makes this offer, but I know it will be clear when the moment comes, and it is. Somehow it feels right and proper to spread the little shroud over the coffin.

So many occasions to realize my father's life is over, no chance at rebuttals or re-dos. I try to tell Leo that in some ways being so engulfed in grief is a good thing – I am not ready for our shared time together to come to an end. My father was called to play the role of Daddy and now I see he gave a star turn. No one else could have been my father.

My father and Steve Winwood

There's a song on Steve Winwood's last studio album called, "Take It to the Final Hour."

But in my mind, the song has another title: "What My Father Says," because that's the song's refrain.

I have listened to the album a lot in the past year. And as often happens with music, new associations emerge, or maybe just deeper ones.

The song reminds me that while I sometimes may see reckonings coming -- even those a few years off -- that doesn't change the outcome. 

And in the past year while my father languished due to complications from blood cancer, the song has become transformed in my mind -- it's part of an internal playlist that's been on as I've dwelled on his illness, on what will never be, on what I left undone. 

Also: what will now go unsaid. 

Because my father says almost nothing. After a lifetime of robust argument and debate, of recounting funny stories, of using his voice almost like an instrument to emphasize, to chastise, to entertain. Now more or less gone. Silent.

This is what I think about while Steve Winwood is singing. The mind does that, right? The mind immersed in music.

Indeed, at times when I need to cede to the emotions emerging from the new normal, I've cued up the song in the car. 

I do it especially after taking Leo to school. I am alone, I am momentarily free of obligations, I do not need to put on a mask (or at least not the kind that hides our emotions).

I go to the song and I allow it to work its magic, or in this case, wreak its controlled havoc within the confines of my mind and my car. In other words, I am just one more wacky mom, crying as she returns from school drop-off.

One morning last Fall, after taking Leo to school, I listened to the song again, losing myself to sadness on a short rainy ride home, with the wet leaves that cluttered the ground acting as an appropriate shroud around me. I wanted to be shrouded, to be hidden, to privately pick at my wounds. Chief among them, what I’ve lost in not being able to talk to my father. 

Letter of Recommendation: Non ti muovere

I'm finally reading Margaret Mazzantini's novel Non ti muovere and I am thrilled to say I am doing so courtesy of my local library!

(There are not a lot of Italian books in the original language there, but I see any books in Italian as a positive thing).

I've seen the movie and I must confess that I see Sergio Castellitto at almost every turn in the novel since he played the narrator in the 2004 film dramatization.

That may contribute to my assessment -- who knows? -- but I feel like Mazzantini's prose very deftly creates a convincing male narrator and main character.

The voice is so strong that I can overlook what this character does, which is allow himself to serially rape a woman he meets at a coffee shop one day who invites him to use her phone. And not just serially rape but convince himself that he loves her and that these first encounters are the start of a relationship. Well, in fact they are, perhaps because the woman is an Albanian immigrant who lives in a hovel and works as a prostitute.

What's more, the relationship unfolds while his own fledgling family needs him.

So he's quite the flawed protagonist but Mazzantini's intimate gaze into his character is mesmerizing. What else has she written? I have no idea -- but plan to find out.

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Visit the dead, bury the sick

March 22, 2019

Visit the dead, bury the sick. I produced this tangled axiom the other day without thinking.

Bret said: 'Write about the things you’d write about if no one would read it' … Where to begin? 

That's obvious: The legs splayed out casually, of course, the night we came back from the hospital, the rocking chair pushed closer to the TV, the studied lightness of his demeanor. 

'Maybe everything is OK,' I thought. 'He’s here, watching TV with us, as if nothing is wrong.'

***
Lost diary entry

The Power of Small Journeys (for Brevity)

I'm shameless when it comes to writing about my travels and will hide travel writing inside of just about any piece. In this case, one about the power of trips -- even small ones, even within your town or city! -- to awake the writing amuse.

"We were staying in a residential neighborhood called Rosemount-La Petite Patrie which is full of delightful duplexes with second floor balconies facing the street that overflowed with flowers, bikes and the odd pair of running shoes. On a whim one evening, I took a walk at sunset. As the sky turned purple, I craned my neck to get a better view. 

"On a sliver of park land I glimpsed between duplexes I could see soccer players practicing, while bike commuters ambled by me. And notebook in hand, I began taking an inventory of the neighborhood’s businesses: a grocer, an off-license, a hair salon, a book shop, a toy emporium, a real estate office, the plumber, a driving school (automatique and manuelle) and so on."

 

You can read the rest at the Brevity Nonfiction Blog (my blog away from blog, as it were):

https://brevity.wordpress.com/2021/11/03/small-journeys/

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What I bought at Rizzoli

While I was holed up in the scholars room at the New York Public Library, I did break out for strategic jaunts, either to walk block after block or to buy some items that I cannot easily purchase in Connecticut (or which would otherwise have to come via the mailman).

Chief among these shopping destinations was, of course, Rizzoli, the famed Italian book store that my father introduced me to years ago (not because he reads Italian but simply because he reads).

I wasn't judicious in my spending but (luckily) they didn't have everything I wanted. Indeed I saw little down side in throwing some money at a place like Rizzoli, especially since buying Italian books is good for my health, and maybe one day will be good for my wealth (though probably not, given the difficulty inherent in literary translation! Or the scant dough tied to teaching Italian).

I mainly bought books but oh the journals they have! Oh the notecards! 

So without further ado, I bought two books by Primo Levi that I'd needed to replace for a while:

Se questo è un uomo

Sistema periodico

The first one was apt since I was in New York to study Holocaust-era works at the New York Public Library.

I also bought:

Harry Potter e la camera dei segreti

I couldn't resist! Or rather, I had been resisting and decided to throw in the towel. Someday Leo and I will read it together, as we've read the English-language original.

I also bought a children's book about the Romans for Leo.

And, last but not least:

La settimana enigmistica

It's a weekly book of crosswords, puzzles, word games and cartoons. And it's by no means the only puzzle book you'll find on Italian newsstands.

If they'd had books by Natalia Ginzburg, I would have bought them since they were on my list. If they'd had Borgo Sud by Donatella Di Pietrantonio, I would have bought it. They didn't but still, to walk into a bookstore in America that sells Italian books is always a treat.

You'll find Rizzoli not far from Eataly NY so why not visit?

1133 Broadway

New York, NY

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That's me in the NYPL Researcher Spotlight!

I continue to float on the energy afforded me by completing my short fellowship at the New York Public Library last month. And it helps that part of my research is already surfacing in ways I can share (if we have to wait until my translations are published, we could be in it for the long haul).

The staff at the New York Public Library interview  researchers to learn about how the library's extensive holdings are helping them do research. In my case, I was able to gush about the myriad (and massive) Italian dictionaries and etymological works in the Rose Main Reading Room that helped me while I worked on translations. One of my favorite dictionaries, the multi-volume Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana, edited by the legendary Salvatore Battaglia, has multiple pages dedicated just to the history of literary usage of one of the key phrases I was trying to decipher (more about this later in a research essay I am writing for the Library).

If you want to read the Q&A at the Library's website, it's here:

https://www.nypl.org/blog/2021/11/02/nypl-researcher-spotlight-jeanne-bonner

If you want to read poems by the author I'm translating, go here:

https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/edith-bruck-versi-vissuti/

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Lost diary entry: Up at night with 'Country Girl' by Edna O'Brien

July 28, 2019

Woke up late, on account of being up during the night (delightfully so, though, since I am reading Country Girl by Edna O'Brien), and was not too ambitious today. Coffee on the back deck with the Gullon digestives that arrived last week, notes for a Natalia Ginzburg review. 

Then a barefoot tour of the flowers in the front yard, so gorgeous and generous: day lilies and morning glories and hibiscus blooming in the two pots on the front steps. 

Notes of an unexpected summer soundtrack fill my head: "I know that you're in love with him because I saw you dancing in the gym."

From the Lost Diary archive

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