Once Upon a Time at the Movies

Once Upon a Time I drove Timothy and a friend to the movie theater. Since it was the first time we allowed Timothy go to the movies alone, I walked them inside to make sure there were no problems with the tickets (which I had ordered earlier in the week) and to ... well ... watch them enter the theater.

We walked up to the lady who was scanning the tickets, and when she seemed puzzled that there were three of us standing there but only two tickets, I quickly explained what I was doing.

"Which one is your son?" she asked.

I pointed to Timothy.

"Do you know what a good mom you have?" she said to him.  "Your mom makes sure to know where you are, she knows your friends, she walks you inside to make sure there are no problems. What do you say?"

Poor Timothy looked like a deer in headlights.

"Thank you?" he sputtered.

"That will work," said the woman. "But you really need to say thank you GOD. You are a blessed to have a mom who takes care of you."

Well. How about that? I love people. 

I walked out to my car grinning like an idiot because sometimes …

sometimes it really does take a village. 

The Story of a Book

In early 2020, I spoke to over 100 women at the Aiken Newcomers’ Club monthly luncheon about my book, An Ocean, an Airplane, and Two Countries Full of Kisses. It was my fourth book talk, and the one in which I felt the most comfortable giving. It was also my last book talk because then the pandemic hit and, as you know, the world came to a sudden halt.

So here I am, three years later, remembering. Because it was a good memory. Because a woman who heard my talk that day signed up for our Girls' Trip to Italy last October. Because I am writing again.

And since there is always a story behind the book, here is mine …

The Story Behind a Book

Once upon a time, my high school Spanish club held a fund raiser which required each member to sell boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. This was so out of my comfort zone. We had only recently moved to Georgia and I was struggling – to fit in, to be less shy, to be happy when I just wanted my old life back in Italy. So the thought of going door-to-door selling doughnuts to strangers filled me with anxiety. In the end, I sold two boxes to an elderly couple who lived behind us and a few boxes to our neighbors across the street. I used my babysitting money to buy the rest. 

Why am I telling you this story?

In December 2018 I formally announced that my book, An Ocean, an Airplane, and Two Countries Full of Kisses, was officially released and available for purchase. Truthfully, I could have made the announcement earlier, but I delayed because I wanted to do it in a way that didn’t make me feel as if I were selling those boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

And yet, if there is one thing I learned from writing this book is that I’m not that same person anymore. During those first years when we first moved to Georgia, when I was trying to figure it all out, it was the written word—in all its forms—which gave me comfort. I read voraciously (my first job as a teenager was working in a library), I kept a journal, and I wrote stories. But mostly, it was the weekly letters from Nonna, my Italian grandmother, that gave me what I needed to keep trying. Nonna’s words (and her love) grounded me in ways nothing else could.

Eventually, I did find my way. Things became good, then better, and then even great.

It wasn’t until many years later when my mother and I were going through Nonna’s letters—years and years of letters—that I realized the true power of the written word. Just seeing Nonna’s handwriting helped me remember her hands, large and strong and thick-veined. Just reading her letters made me remember her passion, her laughter, and even what her voice sounded like. Her written words evoked memories, feelings, and more than a little nostalgia, and I recognized how so much of what she wrote and who she was could be woven into the fabric of my life—of who I was, am, and always will be.

The very next day I began writing An Ocean, an Airplane, and Two Countries Full of Kisses.

So, while contemplating how to announce my book in a way that was meaningful, the image of the Spanish Club fundraiser and those pesky boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts popped into my mind. But you know what? The memory made me smile. I am not selling doughnuts anymore; in fact, I am so beyond those doughnuts.

I’m telling a story.

It’s that simple.

Book Club Book Lists

Last night our Book Club met to discuss Kristin Hannah's Book, The Four Winds. It was a spirited, insightful discussion, and once everyone left I reflected on what a blessing it was to be able to gather and share ideas, thoughts, observations and opinions, all grounded in the love of a good book. 

This is the fifth year of our monthly meetings, although sometimes we do deviate (to see the movie version of a book we read: Where'd You Go, Bernadette and Where the Crawdads Sing; to hear an author speak: Delia Owens), sometimes we skip a month due to busy schedules, but mostly we gather. Even Covid did not stop us. During the first few months of the pandemic we held ZOOM meetings, after which we began to meet outside around the fire pit. A roaring fire, a glass of wine, maybe some s'mores, and a book discussion ... well, life does not get much better than that.  

While this is the time of year I like to list the books I read the previous year, in honor of our Book Club I am going to list all the books we have read these past years. Our selections have been very eclectic: fiction, non-fiction, historical fiction, biographies, murder mysteries, bestsellers, classics, unknown authors, foreign authors, local authors. We are a well-read group.

Anyway, here are our lists from previous years. (Note: we started meeting the latter part of 2018)

Happy reading!

2023 Book Club Reading List

1-     The Four Winds (Kristin Hannah)

2022 Book Club Reading List

1-     The Rosie Project (Graeme Simsion)

2-     Good Company (Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney)

3-     The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (V. E. Schwab)

4-     The Island of the Missing Trees (Elif Shafak)

5-     The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

6-     Fresh Water for Flowers (Valerie Perrin)

7-     Feather on the Water (Lindsay Jayne Ashford)

8-     A Christmas Memory (Truman Capote)

2021 Book Club Reading List

1-     Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir)

2-     The Alice Network (Kate Quinn)

3-     The Midnight Library (Matt Haig)

4-     The Light Between Oceans (M. L. Stedman)

5-     Magpie Murders (Anthony Horowitz)

6-     The Dutch House (Ann Patchett)

7-     The Lost Order (Steve Berry)

9-     The Book of Two Ways (Jodi Picoult)

2020 Book Club Reading List

1-     The Island of Dr. Moreau (H. G. Wells)

2-     Educated (Tara Westover)

3-     American Dirt (Jeanine Cummins)

4-     The Silent Patient (Alex Michaelides)

5-     Tobacco Road (Erskine Caldwell)

6-     The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae (Stephanie Butland)

7-     I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing (Maya Angelou)

8-     Carnegie’s Maid (Marie Benedict)

9-     Lost Roses (Martha Hall Kelly)

10-  The Secret History (Donna Taart)

2019 Book Club Reading List

1-     Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier)

2-     Nightwoods (Charles Frazier)

3-     I know this Much is True (Wally Lamb)

4-     Ghosted (Rosie Walsh)

5-     Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens)

6-     The Bookshop (Penelope Fitzgerald)

7-     Pachinko (Min Jin Lee)

8-     Where’d You Go Bernadette? (Maria Semple)

9-     A Man Called Ove (Fredrik Backman)

10-  A Place to Call Home (Deborah Smith)

11-  Radium Girls (Kate Moore)

2018 Book Club Reading List

1-     Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (Gail Honeyman)

2-     Code Name Verity (Elizabeth Wein)

3-     The Pearl that Broke its Shell (Nadia Hashimi)

4-     The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows)

          

The First Fortune Cookie of the New Year

This morning Joe and I went on a long bike ride, then grabbed Panda Express for lunch because now that everyone is gone, the kitchen is officially closed for a few days. (Unless you want a bowl of cereal. In which case, help yourself.) After eating we reached for a fortune cookie, making a big deal about it because the first fortune cookie of a New Year is IMPORTANT. But before I reveal mine, allow me to backtrack …

Yesterday I was going through my emails when I noticed that Amazon had sent me a list of recommended reading. Number one on the list was How to Make a Living as a Writer.

Huh. I cannot even begin to tell you how serendipitous that was.

Just a few years ago, Joe was doing our taxes and made an interesting discovery. Our eldest son (at that time, a Clemson college student), who had an engineering internship during the summer and another one over the Christmas holidays, actually made more money that year than I did as a writer.

On one hand we were laughing and saying, "Yay, Nicho!"; on the other hand, I was like ... DANG.

I love writing, but for all the heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears I pour into it, there's not a lot to show for all the work. At least, monetarily.

Sometimes this bothers me. I mean, who doesn't like to get recognized for the work they do? It's nice being told you are getting a raise, or given a bonus for finishing a project, or called up on stage to receive an award. It's nice being told you did a good job, or that you are making a difference.

But whenever my thoughts go down that road I pause and think of those who work hard, sacrifice to make ends meet, get up early in the morning or work late into the night, and who do all this without expecting anything in return except good health in order to get up the next day and do it all over again. In a society in which popularity is measured in Facebook likes and Twitter shares, and where recognition is given for throwing a football or for the latest hit song, the Real World is full of those who do what they need to do and that's it.

Hard work is not always celebrated. Or recognized. Success is not always measured in dollar signs.

So in the end, I am perfectly okay with the fact that my taxable income isn't indicative of my hard work, or that when people ask what I do and I say writer ... they still want to know what I do. Like writing is a  pretend job, or something.

Anyway, back to my fortune cookie. Here is what is said:

You have the ability to excel in novel areas.

Ability. Excel. NOVEL.

I think I’d better get writing …

Smiling Eyes

 On this, the first week into the New Year, I am not writing about perfection. Or New Year’s goals to attain that perfection.

I am not writing about ambition or the ability to have it all. I am not writing about the perfect body, or the perfect hairstyle, or the perfect tan.

I will not write about these things because while the ideals of beauty and accomplishment are presented in the media as attainable, in reality these “standards” make us feel less than who we are; after all, it’s hard to hold ourselves up to standards that are airbrushed, botoxed, and surgically altered, and it is hard to feel accomplished when so much of what we do is not glamorous or sensational.

This quest for perfection, set up as an ideal, leaves us deflated in both our attempts and in ourselves.

I once read an article which mentioned how Kim Kardashian never fully smiles because she does not want to get wrinkles around her eyes.

Well, I do not want to live in a world where a smile does not reach one’s eyes.  

Perfection, the quest for it and the holding on to it, is exhausting. So I say bring on the smiles and eye wrinkles because maybe the secret to perfection is imperfection, to accept yourself as you are.

Let me repeat: look for the perfect in the imperfect and accept yourself as you are.

When you begin from a place of acceptance, the strive for improvement does not come from self-recrimination, but rather from a wellspring of joy and excitement to take your wonderful self to another wonderful level.

On my desktop I keep a photo by Carla Coulson, a photographer, author, and life coach originally from Sydney, Australia who now lives in Italy. Recently she posted the following photo, which she says was the most liked photo she ever posted on Instagram. This photo surpassed her popular beach photos, her flower girl series, and all the personal photo shoots she has done through the years.

THIS photo, of two women standing tall and proud on a beach in Puglia, is the one which has resonated the most, and it is easy to see why.

I look at that photo and salute those two women who are happy, secure, and comfortable with themselves. Who embrace their wrinkles and wear a bathing suit and smile proudly at a photographer. They are not holding on to their past selves or striving for different future selves, but fully present in the here and now. Their smiles reach their eyes.

And on this, the first week into the New Year, this is what I am writing about: smiling eyes.

I love ...

 I love wreaths on front doors

and soups in crockpots 

and tabletop trees

and Santas on break.

Speak to Me Sunday: Where is Baby Jesus?

“People, look east. The time is near

Of the crowning of the year.

Make your house fair as you are able,

Trim the hearth and set the table

People, look east and sing today:

Love, the guest, is on the way.”

One of my favorite Christmas carols is People Look East because it calls forth images of hearth and home and Christmas anticipation. The repeated theme of looking ahead, of seeking and preparing, is an integral part of an Italian presepio, or nativity scene, and having just returned from a trip to Italy the song immediately transports me back to Naples when we explored Via San Gregorio Armeno, known as the Christmas Alley. 

This pedestrian street in Naples' historic center is filled with artisan workshops and hundreds of nativity scenes, each one more elaborate than the next. The nativities are busy, meant to reflect everyday life, and as your eyes wander over the scenes the question arises: Where is baby Jesus? 

A traditional presepio in Italy includes so much more than the figures of Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus. There is often a water feature, and dramatic lighting mimics the transition from day to night and back again. There are mountains, valleys, caves. Entire villages are constructed, as are farm fields and barns. There are shepherds and villagers and children. It is a busy scene, incredibly elaborate and detailed, so much so that it takes a few minutes to even find the infant Jesus. He is not front and center, as one would expect, but hidden. 

The fact he is not immediately spotted is precisely the point.

In the nativity story everyone is looking: the Wise Men studied the star to guide them, the shepherds looked for the babe in a manger, and even Joseph searched for shelter as one Inn after another closed its doors. And in a presepio, the viewer is invited into the tableau and, like the shepherds and villagers and children, is meant to look for Jesus, to seek him out, to look up and down and around the villages and fields and barns until he is found.

As we head into the final week of Advent, that is the theme that keeps emerging: one of seeking, for a presepio does not depict a legendary event from ancient Palestine, but is instead a mirror of the known world today. 

Reminding us to look for Christ in our every day life. In our homes. At church. Among crowds and the homeless. Even amidst our busyness. 

He is hidden in plain sight, waiting. You just need to look.