Birdsong

I could have been buying a pig-in-a-poke when I purchased our canary nearly a decade ago. The pet shop that day was overly crowded and noisy, clerks frenziedly busy with little chance, or inclination, to give any customer special attention. The selection of a canary was limited to a mere three sharing a small room of cages housing scores of parakeets, finches, doves and parrots. All chirping, shrieking, clattering, clucking! A din. I'd come to listen to and compare the song of available canaries, but it was impossible to isolate any sound or its source.

Aside from the three upstaged --intimidatingly silenced, or else non-singer females -- canaries in the cacophonous aviary, there was one other in a small cage atop the checkout counter. I kept watching its throat for vibrations, and detected that it probably was singing. Although the clang of the cash register beside its cage and a loud waterfall display behind the counter, accompanying the shrieking parrots, yipping puppies, caterwauling kittens and voluble shoppers, negated anything so subtle as birdsong. When finally able to get a harassed employer to give me attention, I asked if the canary on the counter was a male and a good singer. "He never shuts up," was the abrupt response. Sale, but not without doubt that in my impatience to have a canary in the house, I'd purchased an untested product.

A given in manuals on the nurturing of canaries is that they require a period of settling into a strange environment. Don't expect them to be normally active, and certainly to sing, until they've spent a few days, even a week in the new habitat. Giorgio broke all rules. He burst into song immediately after release from the small dark carton from which he left the pet shop and was placed in a flight cage I'd purchased. Was very active, and quick to sample food and drink. We soon discovered that he was rarely quiet, that his song was strong and beautiful, and that minutes of silence were quickly broken, greeted with melody if he heard running water or music from the stereo. No doubt, the kitchen tap substituted for the splashings of the shop fountain he'd heard, and our stereo for the "music" reaching his ears from hundreds of creatures sharing the emporium he'd known since a nestling. He preferred vocal music to instrumental, our large collection of opera recordings eliciting wondrous bursts of accompanionment to sopranos, tenors, quartets, choruses. His name Giorgio commemorated a basso we'd known who'd made it to the great opera stages of the world.

Neighbors loitered near our home during warm summer days when house doors were open to hear Giorgio sing. And the song frequently lured tourists on Canyon Road into our studio/gallery. Business asset? On a few occasions, visitors told me that curiosity brought them into the studio because they'd assumed such exceptional birdsong had to come from something mechanical! There was even a breeder of canaries, visiting Santa Fe from out of state, who heard Giorgio and came in from the street to ask if he were available for rental!

One of the many rules Giorgio's broken is to live longer than the 5 years most references estimate as canary lifespan. Giorgio's entered his 10th year, and did have me thinking in recent months that he was nearing the end. Decline started with loss of wing feathers which prevented his flying, and had never before happened with annual molting. Not just flying -- he couldn't flit from perch to perch, spent most of his time huddled forlornly on the bottom of his cage. With never a sound. An octogenarian myself, not unfamiliar with the limitations of aging, I wondered what he was feeling. No running water, no stereo music stimulated him. But he stirred often enough to visit the seed and water cups, and I told myself he wasn't suffering. Morning after morning, when I uncovered his cage, it wouldn't have surprised me to see an inert body. But then wing feathers began to grow back, he was able to gain lower perches. Phoenix-like, Giorgio, following months of non-flight, was brightly hopping about. And if still not singing, well, wasn't that to be expected. Opera stars give up the stage at advanced age. But he's made a Comeback! Beginning over many days with chirps, peeps, then short trills, a few runs at the sound of water or the stereo, the voice has grown impressively strong and beautiful again, and he gifts us with it many hours every day. Last week a local FM radio station broadcast the 1962 recording (remastered) of Madama Butterfly starring Leontyne Price and Richard Tucker, Erich Leinsdorf conducting. Giorgio was transported, his song as strong, clear and beautiful as in his early years, in crescendo with soprano and tenor for every rise in aria or duet. Un bel di!

Next month the New York Metropolitan Opera inaugurates its Saturday radio broadcasts of the 2009-2010 season. I'll be listening. Not merely to the Met's great roster of stars, but to Giorgio.

Dia de los Muertos

On this day of all days,
this Dia de los Muertos,
a coincident.
Not a dream, I was wide awake.
Hallucination, apparition, vision?
Spawned by pain and/or medication?
Perhaps. Whatever.
But though dead for many years,
he was for moments
as real as you are
at my side
and made me smile.

If Winter Comes . . .

The message from Sorrento on my computer reads Ti aspettiamo! Un caro saluto. I know what prompted it—my own posting the previous day of an early snowfall in Santa Fe with its ubiquitous betrayal of my longstanding, well-known aversion to the approach of winter. I’d like not to disappoint those amici awaiting my return to Penisola Sorrentina and take the next flight out to distant shores of warmer climes.

It’s been this way most of my life. As a boy of the Great Depression, I contributed modest sums to the family income with after school and weekend jobs which often meant outdoor work on bitterly cold days: Assisting an uncle through long Saturdays at his stall in Baltimore’s Broadway Market; working for one of that city’s aggressive entrepreneurs who commandeered a cadre of boys selling pennants, buttons and pins at big-league football games or Christmas ornaments on darkened downtown streets (too many Thanksgvings freezing at the old Orioles’ Stadium or Christmas Eves under snow equating myself with urchins from the Dickens’ novels I devoured during warmer hours). Youthful imagination frequently countered limbs numbed by cold with visions of Faraway-Places-With-Strange-Sounding-Names, invariably romantic isles under the sun.

So much for childish dreams. If Roosevelt’s “this generation has a rendezvous with destiny” meant the South Pacific for many of my peers, it took me to Europe with one of its coldest winters on record. Both theaters of operation exceeded Sherman’s observation that War is Hell, but the oppressive jungle heats of the Pacific must have been like the freezing depths of Europe in tempering fear of the enemy with dread of the elements. I certainly a few times felt that sleeping on the frozen fields of a ravaged continent could mean never waking, welcoming oblivion of white-banked freedom from the obscenities of a world gone mad without end. And once, wandering alone under heavy snow, falling exhausted, embracing sleep, would have perished if a comrade hadn’t found me and carried me back to campground.

One finds ways—with luck— of compensating for what’s disliked, gaining what’s desired. And I’ve been lucky. Or blessed. Or clever, at maneuvering work, opportunities, chance, to get myself to places where sun bathes landscapes golden, sets seas shimmering, prompts the shedding of clothing. The US Southwest, of course; Mexico and Hawaii; but mostly the Mediterranean. Indelible images from countless hours over many stays within the Cradle of Western Civilization accompany all my days. No matter the undertaken task or demanding priority, an unexpected sound, word, sight can transport me to what lives in my soul—Roman walls burnished sienna at sunset, bright ochre columns of the temples at Paestum, glistening marbles of the Acropolis, sun-dappled reflections in pools at the Alhambra, dazzling dancing gurgles at Grotto Azzurro, blindingly white houses at mid-day on the isle of Crete. And, ever in my heart, the colorful seaside towns of Ligure di Riviera, Camogli, Santa Margherita, Rapallo, Lerici, Portovenere; and the enchantment of La Costiera Amalfitana, Meta, Piano, Sant’ Agnello, Sorrento, Amalfi.

One didn’t do badly, either, in establishing homebase at Santa Fe. Certainly the bright light justifies the acclaim documented by D. H. Lawrence during his New Mexico residence. The sun, winter as well as summer, outshines in clarity other regions of the US, gray days are few and there can be blessed respites of thaw during the coldest days of snow and ice in January or February. But now at four score and six, Santa Fe winters are not so easily borne or quickly over as I once considered them. October has me remembering words of so many poets who wrote wistfully of summer’s end and the long haul till spring. And if I once questioned Emil Ludwig’s contention (in his book The Mediterranean) that great cultures can only be spawned in warm sunny regions, I now court rationalization and concede that he knew what he was talking/writing about.

Ti aspettiamo! you post, amico caro. In response, let’s hope your awaiting me is not long while I listen to the song of the sirens, your peninsula’s anthem, Torna a surriento.

Response to a Granddaughter enamored of Italy

“An Italian woman came into the store today while I was working … then she answered her phone. "Salvo!" Chattering on and on, "Sono in un negozio, aspetta, ti chiamerò dopo, a dopo, si, va bene, ciao. Si, ciao." And my heart just broke. I had no idea how much I missed Italy until that moment. I wanted so badly to stop her, and say, "No so dove tu vai, ma devi rimanere qui perche ho bisogno di parlare italiano con te." I wanted to beg her to stay and talk to me, my mouth was forming the words silently, "Mi chiamo Gianna, sono Italiana." … only Grandpa Drew, I think, can fully comprehend how much my heart ached with longing for Italy this afternoon when I heard her speak. I'm still sad.”
Excerpt from posting by granddaughter Gianna

You are young, Gianna, with many years ahead for returns to Italia. I hope you’ll have the opportunities I had, to live there, not just visit, for extended periods; to study and work there, among the cittadini of that extraordinary peninsula. Yes, I fully comprehend how you heart ached with longing for Italy, but that was a mere pang triggered by your first brief stay, the few weeks you spent there this past summer. Once you’ve known more time with her, cara mia, every leave-taking won’t just inflict an ache—it’ll break your heart.

At my age, with the days dwindling down, I know that heartbreak on a daily basis. The thought that persistent physical setbacks and diminished energies could mean trans-Atlantic travel is a thing of the past, that I’ll never again look on paese dearly loved—italia ,italia mia!—is hard to bear. Never again, when every time I alighted on Italian soil was, despite love for and loyalty to my native USA, a homecoming: Sono qui, ho tornato a casa mia…sono Andrea ,mi chiamo Andrea, not Andrew, not Drew, more myself, truer to myself, here than anywhere else I’ve ever been.

You share my love of the language, Giannina mia, and I know you’ve already embraced Italy’s scenic and artistic treasures, her cuisine and rich cultural heritage. As I embrace them. But I’ve long acknowledged that these incomparable tesori are not what bind me so strongly to her. It’s her people, gli italiani, from whom I’ve learned whatever good I know of the human condition and how best to savor allotted years. Never one to romanticize Italy—my introduction to her was as a graduate student during the post World War II period, il tempo della miseria—I’ve known harsh times there and inevitably encountered a few individuals best forgotten. But, oh, the beloved friends and joyous, memorable times I’ve had among them. Or alone, exploring cities and hilltowns, wandering valleys and coastal plains, laboring in bronze foundries at Pietrasanta and Napoli. The dinners at family tables in villas where practically every word spoken, in many languages, was not trivial. Nights, following days of incomparable discovery and beauty, when I could not refrain from lifting my voice to the Mediterranean: Voglio restare qui.

Recently I’ve been remembering a gentleman encountered one Christmas day on the isle of Capri. At the time I was merely middle-aged, he an advanced senior, though likely not so old as I am now. The weather was a bit nippy when one was out of the bright sun, and the old man exited the gate of a handsome walled villa attired in a heavy ankle-length coat, bright scarf, and a hat topped by a clutch of colorful feathers. But though certainly decked out in style—that fare un bel figura I’ve known so long in Italy—his days as a jaunty giovanotto were long gone. His walk faltered, his cane tapping erratically along the cobbled narrow strada. We were both headed to the same site, a belvedere which I knew looked over the island’s famed vertical rocks rising from the sea, I Faraglioni. I stationed myself at the railing of the circular piazzetta, marveling at the spectacle of crashing waves against those fabled pylons jutting from the depths. The old man was seated on a bench, his face lifted to the sun. A slight smile was on his lips. I thought what a wonderful way for him to be spending Christmas afternoon—following the festive, and no doubt very lengthy, family dinner; with the senora if she were still alive, certainly with children and grandchildren, invited relatives and friends. Like so many family gatherings I’d attended in Italia. And now he’d opted for a respite from lusty domesticity, sought out solitude and meditation on a favorite bench commanding an exquisite panorama which he’d long known and loved.

That was years ago, and one might think that today, in this bludgeoning 21st century, even in Italy the elders can’t know such serenity. But the frequent communiqués and photos I receive from loved ones north and south, young and old, belie that. Their words and their images testify that they remain true to their environment and culture, its splendors sustaining a philosophy of life triumphant over whatever the times or personal destiny bring. Yes, granddaughter Gianna, distance from Italy, lontana d’italia mia, can break your heart. No matter. Torna, as often and whenever you can. And for as long as you can. Surrender to the song of the offshore sirens, Vieni, resta con mi.

John Paul II Beckons

While listening to Verdi’s Va, pensiero via streaming radio from Italy on my computer, I work at matting and framing prints from drawings. At conclusion of the Verdi, there are news reports and cultural announcements to which I pay scant attention, awaiting the next musical selection. But a reference to Papa Giovanni Paolo Secundo too late catches my attention, hearing only something (the spoken Italian is fast, media-news paced) about the Vatican possibly proclaiming the beatification of the late Pope as early as 2 April 2010, the fifth anniversary of his death.

well, now, what’s the feasibility of someone in advanced octogenarian years considering a jaunt to the Eternal City next spring? Open-heart surgery nearly three years ago and a minor heart attack (resulting in no cardiac damage) in June of this year suggest it’s time to forgo travel once frequently embraced—with numerous returns to Italia, and always when in Rome, il Vaticano and papal audiences. And, of course, the personal regard I had and hold for Pope John Paul II. Fortunate enough to receive individual blessings from him on two occasions (1986 and 1989), I saw him numerous other times at general audiences, often at close range from privileged seating, and in this country (New Orleans) as well as abroad. What impressed me most about him was his compassion for the sick and lame, his ministry as he moved among them, embracing, cradling in his arms young and old so severely damaged, mentally as well as physically, that I could not easily look on them. I watched as he placed a hand on her head and spoke comforting words to my older sister who’d recently suffered a stroke; and in subsequent years I observed her courageous recoveries from that and other physical onslaughts which she liked to think were fostered by the papal blessing. I remember after the 1986 audience on return to the convent-pensione where I was staying, one of the nuns commented that she’d seen me receive the personal blessing, and asked how I felt about that. I replied that no one had ever looked into my eyes (my soul?) the way John Paul did as he clasped my hand, and that he made me feel, if for a few minutes only, that I was the only person in the world, deserving his full attention. “Don’t be too flattered,” the nun responded. “He makes everyone feel like that.”

April, 2010? Not that far away, with a winter to be endured (survived?) between now and then. Aware that I should not risk traveling alone, that I’m no longer the self-sufficient continent-hopper I once was, there should be a younger, strong companion to help ease the rigors of trans-Atlantic flights, transportation within Europe, the myriad frustrations of cancellations, delays, cultural challenges which inevitably spice travel. And where, who is that companion? Every young person I know, family as well as friends, is on a breakneck treadmill of work and commitment, no time to get away, no time to stop and stare. One needs to think of finances, too. You don’t at my age fly back and forth to Europe in a few days—a destination that distant warrants rest between ocean hops, a few weeks, even a month abroad. Hotels, meals, with luck returns to ancestral haunts, the paternal hills of La Fontanabuona above the Riviera di Liguria and the maternal Penisola di Sorrento in Campania. If you sought it, what would be advice regarding travel from doctors with their insistent monitoring since the heart surgery? Should one really care, so long in the tooth now, about anything but attempting to do what you most want to do.

Among the mail on my desk is an account statement from American Airlines. There’s been no travel abroad over the past few years to increase frequent-flyer credits, but those accumulated previously—not expired, waiting to be used—have earned two free roundtrip economy flights to Europe, That, and memories of John Paul II, consideration of his possible beatification next spring, were on my mind when I opened my eyes this morning. I did, didn’t I, when last in the neighborhood of the offices of the American Bishops in Rome to secure still another ticket for a papal audience, toss a coin over my shoulder into Fontana Trevi as I passed it.

Old Soldier Fades Away

He mentioned no ailments nor complained of anything, but there was uncharacteristic urgency in the phonecall declaring he’d like to visit Santa Fe. My response that I’d not be in town, that I planned to visit a daughter and her family in Minnesota was greeted with the proposal that we do it together. “Fly to Chicago, I’ll meet you at O’Hare, and well drive to Minnesota.”

Comrades for three years from training grounds Stateside to the festering fields and skeletal cities of Europe, we’d rarely seen each other once the guns were silenced. But the infrequent meetings as civilians—years, sometimes decades apart—confirmed the bond of brothers-in-arms as among the strongest determinants of who and what we were as men.

Yet it became obvious within minutes at O’Hare that something was amiss. Yes, like always, it was as if we’d seen each other just yesterday, that Eat-Drink-And-Be-Merry-For-Tomorrow-We Die remained intact, that we’d enjoy a high-spirited reunion. But I noticed his gait was slowed, there was bewilderment about where in the parking garage he’d left his car. Leaving the garage, he sideswiped another car, causing considerable delay with the police report, exchange of auto-insurance information, etc. We left O’Hare with our car’s dislodged passenger door held shut by a rope fortuitously found among paraphernalia on the back deck.

Having been through a helluva lot worse together than driving across Wisconsin and into Minnesota in a severely-damaged automobile, we didn’t consider stopping for repairs. Despite my puzzlement at something “different” about Old Buddy, we’d trusted each other too long for alarm about competency at this time. Past adventures and misadventures not in the line of duty, rough, irreverent respites free of military posts, had recklessly risked honor, even our lives, among the rubble and human flotsam of war. Close and tough soldiering not only fostered deliverance from those threats, but had—I’d long been aware—helped sustain sanity in a world gone mad. Not to worry about a damaged vehicle and a driver who seemed not quite himself.

Safely arrived in Minnesota, we enjoyed spacious and private guest quarters at my daughter’s home, and spent happy hours sharing the pleasures and outdoor tasks of the family’s wooded acreage. My friend, ever a charmer, won the hearts of all, son-in-law working beside him pruning fruit trees, a young child to whom he gave much attention admonishing me “Grandpa, don’t ever come back without him.” Evenings, sometimes dusk to dawn, we two oldtimers in our removed accommodations, mindful we did not disturb others, sat over a bottle before a blazing fireplace and talked the night away. Septuagenarians at the time, I was amused by the fact that we seemed essentially the same as the boys whose bold escapist carousals once countered pain and horror.

But undeniable, if not discussed, were moments of sudden alienation. Why did he linger on a stair landing, seemingly lost, on a flight of steps he climbed many times each day. Why did his left arm go occasionally limp. Once he spoke of his deceased wife in the present tense. Complaint had rarely been broached during our friendship, hardships were an accepted given, and my one cautious query about his health was quickly dismissed. When I expressed concern to my daughter and her husband, they felt it was unjustified. They saw the gracious, joyous, loveable man I’d always known. Only that, none of the changes I sensed.

At visit’s end, I elected to do all the driving back to Illinois. Dislodged car door secured by a rope couldn’t deter the assumption that we’d be safer with me at the wheel. We enjoyed the drive, laughing at, relishing memories dredged up from half a century ago. The lengthy drive tired me, but he was the first to collapse once we were at the small farm house where he lived alone. His surrender to exhaustion and the deep sleep which followed betrayed the courage mastered for the mirthful camaraderie while at my daughter’s home.

Not wanting to wound his pride, I did not argue his insistence on driving me to the bus-shuttle for the O’Hare airport. I remained silent when the car jumped a curb and careened wildly before regaining the road. Convinced by now that my friend needed medical attention, I couldn’t fully empathize—being in excellent health myself—with what he was experiencing. I knew his loving daughter lived nearby, checked in daily with visits or phonecalls. I chose to assume I could not be helpful. But truth registered as our eyes locked in parting. Before I left the car, he impulsively, tightly embraced me. No sentimental word or gesture had ever previously infiltrated the fierce loyalty and intractably mute compassion which forged our brotherhood. Was this warm embrace our Farewell to Arms?

Within two weeks, I received word that he was dead. I was haunted by the urgency remembered from his first mention of visiting Santa Fe, expressed to his daughter that I wondered about his strong determination to travel when he was certainly aware that his strength was failing. “He knew he was dying,” she said. “I and his brothers and sisters also suspected the end was near. But he wanted to see you one more time.” That knowledge was humbling, and remains so. But was not surprising. There was a time, never forgotten, when home, parents, loved ones, America itself ceased to exist, when there was nothing but wasteland, we alone on bleak terrain, no yesterdays or tomorrows, only today, and a man beside you to confirm that for now, these moments at least, life continued to exist. That gruff man remains at your side for so long as you live.