Sorry to bother you. Well, no I'm not actually. Because I'm having a PTSD attack right now. The trigger?? You walking into the cafe with a pair of speedos on and nothing else. Wait, now that I recall, there were a pair of crocs involved in that outfit. I can't remember the color as my brain has melted and I'm waiting for it to cool off during this Italian siesta so that I can gather my thoughts, take several deep breaths, and begin a series of sun salutations in an attempt to balance my chakra system and clear the jolt it just experienced. Or I can skip all that and play the tamborine while chanting as my Hare Krishna cousin tells me to do. 'Attempting to open all your chakras will take 2 or 3 lifetimes' he said. 'Why wait when you can chant and bring the Divine's name into your heart instantly?' He has a point. And since he's 61 years old, plays soccer with 22 year old boys, and is one of the most compassionate relatives I have, I hope my hotel neighbors are heavy sleepers. Because it's nothin' but Lennon tonight, mister.
It's actually not the speedos, in and of themselves, that caused me to put down my drink and run to piazza to jump into the town fountain and rinse out my eyes. Actually, it was what they weren't covering. Okay, I'll just say it, sir. It was the hair. THE HAIR I TELL YOU!! It was everywhere. EVERYWHERE!!
That I had a PTSD flashback may not have much meaning to you, sir. My guess is that you never had to go clamdigging in the cold Atlantic ocean of Brooklyn with your Grandparents who were too cheap to actually buy clams. Well, you may or may not have, but did you get stung by a big fat jellyfish while you were feeling up the ocean floor with the balls of your feet hoping to get at least to second base with mother nature? If my 10 year old feet could feel the smooth surface of the shells, then my Nonno would happily dive down and retrieve the clam. Thanks Gramps. Hey, did you know that the number of clams in any given part of the ocean is in proportion to the number of jellyfish surrounding these clam communities?
3 days of laying flat on our stomach and dousing ourselves with vinegar and lotion aside, what I remember the most about those trips to the beach is that my grandparents always forgot the mortadella and we were stuck eating tomato and bread for lunch. This made for one angry kid who's only pleasure during those summer months with Nonno and Nonna were afternoons of foccacia, mortadella, and olives. No, not the olives they made us spend hours picking from trees they found growing along the side of a busy highway in Las Vegas. They found those trees one summer when they were visiting and it was then that I experienced hell and how I became determined never to go there again. I'm just grateful that it was out of my school district and that I found religion. No, these olives were the real deal. They were deli bought. And life could not get any better than that.
But it was also during those times that I remember the hair. THE HAIR I TELL YOU! It was everywhere. EVERYWHERE!! My grandfather looked like a wet poodle when he came from out of the sea. Smiling with his dentures in tact, he looked past our little faces writhing in pain, and dumped his free dinner into a bucket. Good times for him. And for my grandmother. Instead of standing over a simmering tomato sauce for hours, those nights she got a break from the sauce and stood over boiling water instead. And bubbling garlic butter. Opening the clams for Nonno after tucking a napkin into his collar, Nonna then sat down to eat, getting up only when her husband ordered a drink or more butter. He loved his garlic butter. Almost as much as he loved his cigarettes. But nothing mattered more to him than his money.
A bastard of epic proportions, the world is better with Nonno gone. His narcissm and the abuse which continues to reverberate in every cell of his son's experience, has left me to wonder many times what his own father was like. These generational patterns magnify and clear according to our choices. In his case, he magnified and spewed these negative patterns on my father in the most cruel ways and if my hell was picking olives in 102 degree weather, then his would be knowing that a taste for a good olive is the one and only positive legacy he left for generations after him. Everything else is up to us to change.
Since being here in Italy, I have been asking myself the timeless question of 'why'? Why me? Why this family? Why here? Why now? Why, why why? And while I struggle to find answers to these questions, one thing remains clear. That thick trail of hair rising from the top of your speedos to the botton of your belly button is the most potent appetite surpressor an emotional eater could want here in an Italian bakery.
