THE SOUND

 

Among the visitors to my studio this April 2013 was a man from Colorado requesting that I tell his female companion "the vision you wrote about more than 10 years ago." It took me long minutes remembering to what he was referring. When I did, I refused to try recalling or speaking those written words; and silenced his insistent urging by firmly stating that I've always preferred to write rather than speak about exceptionally personal experiences. He asked if I had copies of the newspaper in which the essay had appeared and if so could I possibly send him a duplicate. I wasn't sure I'd find a copy among decades of voluminous files, but the next day did a search.

 

Originally published as First Place Non-Fiction under the title The Sound in The Santa Fe Reporter's Writing Contest Edition, 5 December 2000, the feature had wide distribution and gained enthusiastic response. But, like most works of the past, I'd put it behind me, moved on. The Colorado man's request prompted finding copies, one of which I'll forward to him. And share with new readers of the Social Network.

 

* * *





 

As a child of the Great Depression, I often sought escape from that impoverished world by resisting surrender of sleep and dreams -- fantasies -- in the early mornings. Better in the pre-dawn to lie abed, listen to the chirping of birds or to my mother softly singing to herself in the kitchen as she prepared modest breakfasts and bag-lunches, to the chugs of nearby trains or the distant moans of foghorns from the Chesapeake. Why rise to another day of streets crowded with unemployed gruff elders, schoolmates in tatters, dire radio newscasts and newspaper headlines one couldn't fully understand, the relentless need to earn pennies which drove children to after-school and Saturday odd jobs?

 

I shared a room with a bachelor uncle, his large bed at right angles to my cot wedged into a wall niche. The uncle was one of the fortunate ones: employed, working in a waterfront market as a butcher, essential to our family for the meats and fresh produce he frequently brought home from the job, paying modest rent to my parents. A chain-smoker, the acrid scent of cigarettes reliably betrayed his approach to our room in the wee hours following his nightly rounds about town. Fortunately, as I was often at a forbidden vice, reading instead of sleeping, off in realms of adventure, fantasy, far-away-places-with-strange-sounding-names, heroes and heroines, the initial intoxicating discoveries of great books and sustaining literature. The smell of an approaching cigarette gave me time to douse the shaded bed-lamp, secure that my nocturnal misconduct would not be reported to my mother. When Dumas, Defoe or Dickens so engrossed me that I failed to detect the oncoming cigarette, I could anticipate Mother's greeting in the morning -- "Your uncle says you're ruining your eyes reading all night again."

 

Despite late hours, my uncle was a hard worker and early riser, his first cigarette of the day and ritual hustlings more often than not shattering the dream -- or daydream -- I'd been enjoying. With closed eyes, I followed his movements by the sounds of his actions, the coughs, the traipsing back and forth to bathroom, the snapping of buttons and buckles, the innumerable tonal accompaniments to his fastidious wardrobe -- finally, his tread down the stairs, the slam of the back door, the engine of his car in which he took such pride and which was the envy of the neighborhood. And only then I had the room to myself, luxuriated in the privacy and in those beguiling strains of birdsong, train whistles, foghorns, the city slowly stirring to life.

 

But one morning, even before my uncle rose, I was aware of a new and different sound, unlike anything I'd ever heard before. It wasn't Mother in the kitchen downstairs singing along with the canary, my most cherished wake-up call until then. It wasn't music, nor words, wasn't the wind or rain or any other natural beat of tempo I well knew. Wasn't of this world. And was incredibly, infinitely beautiful, flooding me with total peace, purity, happiness. Acutely aware of that, I embraced the Sound, hugging it to me, wanting to keep it forever. When I opened my eyes, His face close to mine, there was the Christ. For just an instant. Then gone, and with Him the Sound, never in a very long life to be heard again.

 

How does a boy of the Depression Era deal with such an epiphany? You keep it to yourself, tell no one. For already you've been advised that "you've more imagination that is good for you," that a nascent interest in literature and the arts is impractical, that one's youthful obligation is education for a wage-earning trade, that manliness is hanging out with the good 'ole boys, not nurturing solitude lost in thought. And as the 20th Century matures, clobbers you with intolerance, persecution, wars, as societal values crumble, though you ache to once again hear that Sound, know its deliverance, you often suspect that you never heard it in the first place, that visions don't exist, that those Children of the World are right in condemning the Children of Light as irresponsible fantasizers, day-dreamers.

 

But I'm spared total disbelief in that childhood experience because of my mother's greeting when I came to breakfast that morning. The quizzical look she gave me was one I knew well, that addressing the mystery of this unconventional son she was struggling to understand. Abandoning her brutally demanding chores of care for a large family, she sat at the table and spoke to me as I ate. My uncle had talked to her before he left for work. "That kid is spooky, he said," she reported. "Said you seemed to be sleeping this morning with your eyes wide open. He thought you were awake and spoke to you, but you didn't answer. You eyes stayed open, but you didn't look at him."

I ate in silence.

"And he said that even in the dark, no daylight yet in the room, your face glowed like an electric light-bulb. Said 'That kid reads too much.'"

 

I like to remember her remarks when troubles, doubts, torments mount. Nearing fourscore years, acceptance of the fact that I'll not hear again the Sound in this world, my mother's words help me believe it wasn't all imagination, not a dream, that something profound actually did happen when I was a little boy. And hasn't left me since.

 

* * *

 

Not edited, updated, otherwise altered from its original publication

in the Santa Fe Reporter, 5 December 2000

Michelangelo - Giant Among Giants

Michelangelo For Me

The Giant Among Giants -- 1475-1564

That's a self-portrait on our left of Signor Buonarotti -- Signor Michelangelo Buronarotti -- a detail from his great monumental sculpture The Florentine Pieta. Michelangelo portrayed himself as Nicodemus in the act of lowering Christ from the cross, this Deposition begun before the year 1550. In that same year, the French traveler Blaise de Vigenere saw the artist at work and wrote: "He had passed his sixtieth year, and although he was not very strong, yet in a quarter of an hour he caused more splinters to fall from a very heavy block of marble than three young masons in twice or thrice the time. No one can believe it who has not seen it with his own eyes. And he attacked the work with such energy and fire that I thought it would fly into pieces. With one blow he brought down fragments three or four fingers in breadth, and so exactly at the point marked, that if only a tiny piece of marble more had fallen, he would have been in danger of ruining the whole work." It is a quotation by a contemporary which for me perhaps best expresses the passion I see behind all of Michelangelo's work.

---

Though I've stood and studied, on many occasions, all of Michelangelo's four Pietas -- the most famous one, and most known and loved by the public, at St Peter's Basilica, Rome, executed when he was 24 years old; the Florentine Pieta now at the Museo del Duomo, Forence; the Palestrina Pieta, after 1555, in the Accademia di Belli Arti, Florence; and the Pieta Rondanini, 1555-1564, at Milan's Castello Sforza -- my favorite has always been the Florentine Pieta.

---

I first saw the Florentine Pieta in 1950 while living as a graduate student in Firenze. The monthly subsistence check from the Veterans Administration (under the GI Bill of Rights for World War II vets) did not go very far, and during that time of La Miseria in Italy, most buildings, including the impoverished pensione where I lived, were without heat. When not at school, I did what the Italians did to keep warm -- went into the streets, walked the city, lingered in sunny piazzas.
Most days, on return from these long hikes, I stopped at the Duomo, that great Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, only two short blocks from my room in Via Ginori. I could rest, delay return to the room (even colder than the Cathedral), and of course, look again on the great treasures of art within that architectural marvel. For me, the finest treasure was Michelangelo's Deposition or Pieta, at that time standing in a dark side chapel. Visitors could not enter the chapel, the light was very poor, but even restricted viewing revealed the strength and sorrow of the masterful composition. Denied access to the chapel, I could not study the marble from the side or back, but came to know every line, contour, expression of its front. Some days, by tricks of light entering the chapel or the reflection of candles, I detected golden rays moving over its surface. On rare occasions, these rays would touch the face of the dead Christ, or of Nicodemus lowering Him from the cross. Eventually, daily visits to the Pieta became something I had to do -- even when Spring arrived and the weather turned warm. If anything kept me from it, the day was somehow not complete.

---

Firenze, of course, provided the finest opportunity for familiarity with other Michelangelo works. The Accademia housed the great David and the unfinished Prisoners (sometimes referred to as Slaves) struggling to free themselves from the marble. In the same hall with the Prisoners was the Palestrina Pieta, compelling, infinitely sad. During breaks from classes, I could go to the Rotunda, look again on these marvels. Five minutes from my pensione was the Medici Chapel with its magnificent sculptures of Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici, the Medicean Madonna and the great tomb groupings of Day and Night, Dawn and Evening. My treks about the city took me to the Bargello, where several of Michelangelo's youthful works -- the Faun's Mask, a smaller and softer David, the imposing Head of Brutus, the bas-relief tondo Madonna with Book, and a drunken Bacchus -- display the genius which Lorenzo de Medici recognized while the artist was still a teenager. And there was Casa Buonarotti, where Michelangelo once lived, and which still today shelters his reliefs The Battle of the Centaurs and the Madonna on the Steps. At the Uffizi Gallery, one could study the only existing easel painting ever finished by the master, his Holy Family.

---

Limited funds prohibited extensive travel during my year of graduate study in Firenze, and I saw little of Italy other than the city and, occasionally, nearby Tuscan towns. But subsequent visits to Italy have always led me, intentionally or not, to more works of Michelangelo. Once in Bologna, visiting a friend at the monastery of San Domenico, I was surprised to find in the chapel, statues of Proculus and Petronius, and the Kneeling Angel with a Candlestick, previously known only through reproductions in art books. I also "happened across" the four statues of the Piccolomini altar, attributed to Michelangelo and assistants, in the Siena Cathedral. At Castello Sforza in Milan, I saw the Rondanini Pieta, unfinished, abstract, tortuous, a testament to the fact that he was working on it in the days before his death during his 89th year. In Rome, I sought out the Risten Christ in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva -- poorly stationed and lit, but the strong and expressive face of the Savior was luminescent in the darkness. And in Rome, of course, one goes again and again to the Vatican, and -- despite the crowds -- always stops before that first and most acclaimed, most loved of the four Pietas. I've seen strong men weep in its presence.
The Sistine frescoes today -- after the long-term meticulous cleaning, freed from centuries of dirt and grime -- are newly glowing glories, even to those of us who've gazed on them countless times over half a century. For me, more than ever, Michelangelo's figures and forms on ceiling and altarpiece, though masterfully painted, are sculptural, endorsing his lifelong insistence that he was not a painter but a sculptor.
In Paris, I went to the Louvre to see as much as possible, in limited time, the famous masterpieces of that renowned museum. But when I stumbled into the gallery containing Michelangelo's The Dying Captive, I found it difficult to move on.
But I haven't seen it all yet, and particularly not one of the greatest works, the Moses. On three different occasions on three different visits to Rome, I went to the church of San Pietro in Vincoli determined to finally see this celebrated marble. Each time, the church was closed. Photo reproductions convince me it's a "must," I can't really claim knowledge of Michelangelo without studying this monumental, significant work. If rationale is needed for still another return to the Eternal City, that's one for me.

---

My love for the works of Michelangelo -- and of the man, because his works are the man -- could be threatening to my appreciation of other painters and sculptors, other genres of art. Could be, but isn't, as I continue to stand in awe beore so much which other masters have given us. Perhaps another lesson from Michelangelo, who's taught me so much. Afterall, wasn't he the first to exhalt the work of Ghiberti, to name that artist's superb doors of the Baptistery in Florence "The Gates of Paradise." Even so, enamored of all that's good in art, I esteem Michelangelo above all others. My Giant of Giants.

---

Decades after I'd completed graduate work (sometime in the Seventies, I think), I read that the Forentine Pieta had been moved from Santa Maria del Fiore in Firenze to the Museo del Duomo, just behind the cathedral, in the shadow of the great dome. Remembering my visits to the cathedral to visit the sculpture, remembering mystical moments before it, I was disappointed to learn of the move. But I've seen it many times in subsequent years, and the new location is excellent. The Pieta stands on a spacious staircase landing, brightly illuminated with natural light from an adjacent window, imposing and arresting as you first view it from the bottom of the staircase. And what a thrill to ascend the staircase, slowly approach that wonder in marble. The landing is large enough to allow one to circle the sculpture, view it closely from front, sides and back, observe the rough chisel marks, that characteristic conclusion so often seen in his late work, the insistence that once the form was as he wanted it, Michelangelo felt no need to "finish," "polish" the work. And the dim golden glow I'd once observed in the dark cathedral now floods the entire sculpture, as the stone itself is of that hue.
Italians have told me that Michelangelo carved this Pieta for his sacophagus. True or not, his portrait in the figure of Nicodemus shows not only tender compassion for the dead Christ but an intense yearning for oneness with God. I can't stand before it without contemplating the words spoken by Michelangelo on his deathbed: "I regret that I have not done enough for the salvation of my soul and that I am dying just as I am beginning to learn the alphabet of my profession."

A Road Chosen

 





A recent tourist in the studio tells me that it's been 30-plus years since she last visited Santa Fe and our gallery when a very young woman, is surprised that I'm still here. I don't ask if the surprise is that the business has lasted so long or that I have. She reminds me -- of course I'd forgotten, who can or wants to remember all things from decades past -- that she'd purchased, "before Santa Fe prices soared," a large ceramic-tile painting I'd made, still cherishes it in her home and will pass it on to a grandson. Amazed that I've remained in the city and on Canyon Road which has changed so much, "is not at all as I remember it," she says she bought online a few of my books, read about the travels, different places I've visited or lived in, the studies, work and pleasures abroad. She wonders what attracted me to New Mexico in the first place and what's kept me here.

It is only after she's gone that I indulge the luxury of recall.

 

Not yet six months after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, not yet my 19th birthday, but Roosevelt's proclamation "this generation has a rendezvous with destiny" was whispering at my back. Lack of time and funds negated possibilities for college before the call to arms. Awaiting with most young men my age what we knew was coming, I labored in war industries, most of the paychecks turned over to Depression Era parents.

Qualified as a ship-fitter after merely two weeks of training, I worked with rough crews building Liberty ships. "Shiver money" we called wages paid because of the numerous shipyard accidents -- including fatalities -- caused by under-skilled workers attracted to the Chesapeake's promise of earning. Often in the dark inner-bottoms of ships at keel, among men we city boys called "hillbillies," their strange dialects uttering obscenities new to youthful ears, I clung to thoughts of the arts -- the books, music, theater I loved, the dream of creating things -- and wondered how a world gone mad made beauty feasible. Perhaps this shipyard and whatever lay ahead on foreign battlefields was all there was or would be.

Then one day a riveter, middle-aged, far from his home in the Appalchian Hills, sat beside me on an open deck during lunch break. He said he had sons of his own, one of them already somewhere in the Pacific, had been watching me, "reckoned" that I didn't belong here. He foully cursed our labors, a war claiming his sons, his absence from home. And muttered something about grabbin' while the grabbin's good, raisin' hell in this life while you were still alive. When our break was over, I didn't follow him into the inner-bottoms. Instead, went to the front office, asked for pay owed me and walked out of the shipyard.

Next stop the Greyhound Bus station where I purchased a cross-country ticket. If I were to perhaps die for my country, I wanted to see it first.

 

A nation beyond the streets of East Coast cities was foreign to me. For someone familiar with the port of Baltimore and the sky-scappered canyons of New York City, who'd rarely seen open country, there was schoolroom gography and history come alive, wonderment beyond bus windows. Crossing the Mississippi, hitting the Central Plains, under bright sun or dark of night, I'd recall the words, books of American writers I'd devoured through youth -- Mark Twain, Willa Cather, John Steinbeck. Dodge City and Tucson, the Continental Divide evoked images of the many Western Movies I'd seen, the John Ford vistas I'd long loved and yearned to roam. In my ears echoed the strains from songs of faraway place (in those Depression days limiting travel) with strange-sounding names -- the red river valley; the streets of Laredo; California, here I come. And I did come and saw my country and marveled. Countless hours with many changes of busses and schedules, no hotel overnights, frugal snacks, wash-ups in bus-station restrooms during waits for connections, sleep upright in bus seats or on station benches. With end of the road in San Diego, seemingly such a small provincial town at that time but armed against invasion as I'd not seen on the East Coast. Manned antiaircraft gun-positions in the streets pointed out to the Pacific as well as toward the skies. Barrage balloons floated overhead. Eloquent manifestations of what my world was all about and justification of a teen-ager's exodus from home -- how it had pained a wartime mother -- to see his country before he might well perish for it.

 

The one image and singular memory of that trip which recurred again and again during the years in France, Belgium and along the Rhine, was my introduction to New Mexico. Somewhere north or east of the state, in Colorado or Texas, I'd fallen asleep on the bus in afternoon, woke as the sun was setting. The landscape was bloodred, distant adobe homes tinted fiery burn-sienna, their small windows goldenly aglow. Across vast fields dotted with pinon, a seraped horseman rode against the burning sky and a shawled woman drew water from a well.

Tableau, seared upon the mind for a lifetime.

Later in that cross-country jaunt, the Santa Fe of 1942. Dirt roads and unpaved streets, open fields, few cars, more Mexican and Spanish than American -- exotic! -- to a boy of the streets from east coast cities. Images to haunt one in the foxholes of Normandy and on the snows of The Bulge. That Tierra Encantada, will it still be there if and when there are no more masssacres at Malmedy, no extermination ovens. If and when The Lights Come On Again All Over the World?

 

It was. And claimed me, and I am here.  

 



Veterans' Day 2011

Following return from the European Theater after World War II, my primary thought as a veteran was to grasp the G.I.Bill of Rights and complete interrupted studies. As with most of the men with whom I'd served, there was little time to waste nurturing psychic wounds of battle -- move ahead, get on with life, put that war (as the civilians wanted us to) behind you. I joined no veterans' organizations, attended no battalion reunions or military observances, lost contact with all but a very few of closest combat comrades. If the phrase had as yet been coined, none of us had heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and dealt quietly, discretely, with whatever demons in flashback surfaced. The new life in a victorious, prosperous, confidently glorious America was to be embraced!

But it never goes away, that experience of soldering wars, and sooner or later one acknowledges the indelible brand of Veteran. It is most manifest in the instant recognition and bond you know with all veterans, frequently on first encounter recognizing that this stranger has been there, is one of us, shares the unfathomable alienation -- that impenetrable wall -- which exists between those who've looked on the carnage of battlegrounds and those who've not. Just this year, during travel abroad, another such instant: While seated on a bench overlooking a panoramic view of the Mediterranean, a white-haired gentleman on a cane unsteadily approached me. An American. I wasn't particularly surprised at his first words -- "you too, I assume, are a World War II vet."

In recent years, evaluating decades of a richly full life, I concede -- if rarely considered when younger -- that having soldiered infused my every other ordained persona: son, husband, father, professional, traveler. I supported the funding campaign for and attended the opening of the World War II Memorial on the Mall at Washington, DC. I am a Founding Member of the National World War II Museum, New Orleans; and of The National Museum of the United States Army, scheduled to open at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, June 2015. In on-going communication with the organization Paralyzed Veterans of America, I welcome the opportunity to extend them support.

This Veterans' Day (2011), I'll undoubtedly have word via e-mail from the one surviving member of my old outfit whom I know to be yet among us. He faithfully communicates on every national holiday or when personal news warrants it. If neither of us feel (or admit to being) anachronistic, I nevertheless savor a vanished America his brief words evoke -- a proud and progressive nation, world leader in the rebuilding of former enemies, democratically convinced of a bright future, idealistic and in many ways still innocent, globally respected as the liberator of conquered peoples. I'll remember, too, a tableau from a Veteran's Day Parade witnessed when a lad on the streets of Baltimore -- a slim, frail, whitened nonagenarian from the War Between the States in step beside a Doughboy from World War I. Never eradicated, could that glimpse etched in the mind of an impressionable small boy have possibly predicated a kinship which flowered in subsequent years?

9-11 Ten Years On

Not very successful at coping with the haunting of 9-11 on this 10th-year observance of the terror heralding the 21st century as our nation was so savagely ravaged. Managed the morning chores, went through the motions of daily routine. meeting most domestic -- and professional -- commitments, but was never free of indelible images of the carnage in lower Manhattan. Could not attribute that to the insistent drone of media replaying the ghastly video clips of yesteryear. No, the images have been with me since day one, sometimes recurring at most unlikely moments, often in the midst of a festive occasion. And with the images has always come pain, a gut-wrenching ache at seeing invasion of my country when for decades I'd believed I'd never see it.

I was not in New York on 9-11, but had been scheduled to fly from Albuquerque that morning on a flight terminating at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Flight cancelled, of course. But as an ex-resident of Greenwich Village, with a love of the city since childhood, the hours before televised horrors in its streets convinced me that I would never again be the man I was prior to 9-11. Profound change had entered our world, and my psyche. As artist and writer, I wondered if any subject other than the evil being witnessed would merit attention, work or effort in the future.

Ten years ago, and again today, I knew and know still, that my anguish -- so inconsequential to that of victims and their loved ones -- stems from convictions I held as a veteran of World War II. Along with comrades who'd looked on the bombed skeletal towns and cities of Europe, I believed we'd spared our country that -- that attacks hadn't happened in the US mainland, and never would. Belief sustained when we returned home, and after the gruesome cityscapes of a raped continent, gazed on the pristine brilliance of our unspoiled terrain. Admittedly now, a time of naive -- foolish? -- trust, perhaps even a Time of Innocence before its demise. But for long years, not I alone but other WWII veterans I talked with, relished that belief that we nor our loved ones would know attack on the homeland.

There are many days of bright turquoise skies in Santa Fe, where I live. And on 9-11, that September day in New York boasted a sky which rivaled ours. I remember thinking, as I watched those towers burn, that I'd have had a wonderfully clear bright day on arrival in the East if terror hadn't struck and canceled my flight. A sad bequest -- to too often in the years since, and likely for the rest of my life, look on turquoise skies remembering.

Italia Mia 2011 - Note 6: Casa Mia

Monday, 18 April 2011 - 6:51 AM

Early rising after a restless night, perhaps because I'd gone too early to bed. That decision was the result of feeling chilled, suspecting a cold might be coming on and wanting to avoid physical setbacks. Too many people I've associated with while in Sorrento -- Domenico, Antonino's son Michele, Tonino Mastellone, workers at city hall -- have, or are recovering from, influenza, and I don't want to join their ranks. Once unmindful of threats to health, the so-called golden years and vivid memories of two bouts with pneumonia during these years, have fostered caution.

Seems I chose well, restless night or no -- feeling somewhat better this morning. Have had a few cups of coffee, quite flavorful now that I've mastered an espresso pot which had me at sea for a few days. Stepped out to the terrace to check my laundry, all securely on the clothesline after yesterday's strong winds which downed signs and pennants in the market stalls. The terrace, small but private, fenced by lush foliage masking an adjacent yard, boasted muted pastel colors in the misted dawn but with definite promise of the brilliant hues soon to appear. Bells from one of the nearby churches tolled. And though I've never met anyone from the neighboring cortile -- have occasionally glimpsed movement beyond the perimeter of greenery -- I heard this morning the faint, barely audible, beauty of a female voice. Puccini's Il Sogno di Doretta.

In many ways, I feel this time in Italy is like coming full circle. Certainly not as severe or demanding as my first time as an impoverished student, 1950 during the post-war Tempo della Miseria. But definitely unlike the many times I returned with groups or tours which featured fine hotels, the best restaurants, door-to-door transportation with full handling of luggage. Now I'm on my own with modest and limited resources as in '50-'51. This small studio-apartment has no maid service, no cable TV, not even a telephone (though Antonino's loaned me a cell). With the free frequent-flyer plane tickets and most basic accommodations I could get, am keeping costs minimal by shopping for and taking most meals in my room. Haven't thus far had any desire to tour, though I'll probably -- depending on weather and how schedules go -- want to take the ferry to Capri for an hour on the water. Don't need to wander Capri, as I've seen it a number of times and under great circumstances -- painting with students from Maryland Institute, for example; riding the chairlift to the top of the island, entering the Blue Grotto. But I love the crossing of the Bay to is reach l'isola; and in that way am like the Sorrentini, who go for the beauty of the trip, not for the tourists traps once there. Admittedly, walking I'm no longer accustomed to -- though I try not to over do it -- can quickly tire me, and there've been a few occasions, in Rome as well as here, when leg cramps shattered me with pain. But those times have been overly compensated by the absence of labored breathing -- if Italy has not been as warm as I expected it to be for this time of year, being at sea level has meant release from the exhaustion which follows the least exertion at Santa Fe's 7,000 feet!

Not on tour, living in a modest apartment on the floor above shops at street level, meeting again so many of the people I've met through the years, I feel as I did in 1950 -- that I'm not a visitor amidst the Italians, but am living among and with them. Throughout the long years of returns to Italy, I've always had the sense of return home once I'm on her shores -- despite my youthful ignorance, as a fourth-generation Italo-Americano, of her traditions and culture; and of my citizenship and loyalty to native USA which I served in World War II. That sense of Return Home is stronger than ever this time around in advanced age.

Italia Mia - Note 5-Famiglia Fiorentino

Saturday, 16 April 2011





1:55 PM

City Hall was closed when I arrived at 9 this morning, but Giovanni (not sure I've ever heard his surname) was soon on deck, opened Antonino's office for me, and offered to check out internet access. The system he set up two days ago continues to let me web browse on the iPad, but won't handle email. I managed a bit of receiving and sending email on one of the desktop PCs which Giovanni made available to me.

I've known utmost consideration and help from countless people in Sorrento's City Hall over the years I've visited here, so shouldn't be surprised at Giovanni's obvious warmth in attempting to meet my every need or want. In addition to the numerous official civic duties which keep him running. Can it be that the five-year forfeiture of Penisola Sorrentina following the open-heart surgery diluted somewhat the cognizance of goodness I've long valued in its extraordinary people? If so, my return has opened floodgates of renewed recognition for the compassion they bring to human encounters.

Antonino phoned to say he'd be a half-hour late with his car to take me to Sant' Agnello for closing of paper work on the studio-apartment at Residence Tasso.
The half-hour stretched into more like one and a half hours, but I used it to do necessary web research for historical data I need pertaining to the neglected manuscript. When Antonino eventually showed, he was accompanied by 7-year old granddaughter Giovanna, on whom he lavishes much loving attention.

The business office for Areavacanze in Sant' Agnello was a mere half-block away from Grand Hotel Cocumella, the former monastery where I'd spent indelible summers -- 1992, 1993 -- with students from alma mater Maryland Institute College of Art. Gazing on its beautiful edifice with fond memories of its lushly expansive grounds and belvedere overlooking Il Golfo di Napoli, and of the young artists with whom I shared days of intensive work and study, I considered its contrast to my modest, spartan accommodations on this torna a surriento. But it's a long hike from the Cocumella in Sant' Agnello to Piazza Tasso in Sorrento (one I sometimes made roundtrip three times a day) and the need now is to be in centro, everything one needs or wants mere steps away.

Back in Sorrento, Antonino chose to stop at a bar on Corso Italia where he often takes granddaughter Giovanna for treats. Huge selection of coffees and pastries in a place obviously well-promoted at upscale hotels, as it was crowded with fashionably-clad turisti.
A day with sun coming and going, still on the chilly side but definitely an improvement over yesterday. I've not yet taken time to sit at an overlook and savor watching the sea, but plan to do so the minute O Sole Mio returns to stay a while.

Next stop was at Antonino's parents' apartment in the foothills above town. Domenico is a few months younger than I, his wife Giovanna a few years our junior. I was much aware of how the years have had their way since last we were together -- Giovanna's cane tapping along with mine, Domenico conceding that he now rarely leaves the house. A man who until even a year ago was seen daily hiking the streets, lanes and hills of Sorrento, portable easel and paint-box under arm to be set up at the numerous encounters with visions he couldn't resist translating to board or canvas. The town's most celebrated painter, his works are not only masterful expressions in form and color, but an historical record of the physical and cultural changes witnessed on the Penisola during the long decades of his productive life.
Espresso and cookies were served, and when Signora Giovanna asked about my family, I produced the iPad to show photos of wife, children and grandchildren (had anticipated such requests, downloaded the photos before I left the States). Son Rosario stopped by after having shopped for his parents. Granddaughter Giovanna commandeered a few of her Grandpa's paints and brushes, and produced a water-color for me. When Signora Giovanna suggested making more espresso, "or perhaps a snack," I declined, embarrassed at how active this mobility-limited elder was being on my behalf. "Ma tu sei famiglia nostra," she said. "Ben tornato a Surriento."
A brief visit, scarcely more than an hour. Before leaving, I went to one of the windows for the spectacular view overlooking the town and bay with a classic image of Vesuvius' contours etched above Napoli in the far distance. That beauty in front of me -- around and behind, surrounded by walls of Casa Fiorentino crowded from floors to ceiling with glowing canvases of one man's commitment and labor in the arts. When I turned to embrace Domenico in farewell, he was at a side table thumbing through small oils, colorful sketches on boards, a few of the huge collection with which he'd refused to part, generally resisting commercialism and sales of his works with the muttered defense "they're like my children."
A slab of sunlit yellow-ochre in one of the small paintings convinced me it was a glimpse of a side wall of Hotel Tramontano, the elegant and historic palazzo which boasts a magnificent front facade and gardens. I mentioned that my wife Ellen had stayed there in 1950 on her tour of Europe following graduation from college. Immediately, Signora Giovanna was at our side saying Ellen should have the painting, reaching for wrapping paper. Domenico -- always reluctant to release his works -- surprised me by suggesting that perhaps something more typical, less ambiguously abstract, would please Ellen more. And handed Giovanna a brightly colored small oil of a horse-drawn carriage in Piazza Tasso. Both were placed in a string-bag Giovanna produced; along with large packets of cookies and candies which I was ordered to supplement meals she was convinced were inadequate. These gifts, the brief but precious time with Famiglia Fiorentini, have me tonight, back in Residence Tasso, pondering what they know and what I've never learned about the human condition.

When Antonino and I exited their apartment, Domencio and Giovanna, though both walk with difficulty, followed us from their rooms to the lobby with the Ascensore which would take us down to the parking lot. "Un abbraccio di piu," Domenico said, embracing me once more. Giovanna, too, came to my arms. "Is it any wonder," I told them, "that l'anima mia resta in italia -- that my soul remains in Italy."