Category: culture

Talk to Strangers

We live in a world of strangers far from a time when children rode their bikes freely through the neighborhood, no helmet, hair blowing all over, careening around corners and feeling the world was simply wonderful, that God had created the day just for them. Life was innocent. The local policeman (no, we did not use the word cop) was a friend, someone to go to if one was lost. Adults smiled at little children and they smiled back because adults were seen as nice and caring and there was no distrust. It was all very good.

Now things have changed. Children and adults are discouraged from talking to strangers. The humor of the day is sharp and often caustic. The world has grown dark. Sadly, ‘good’ parents make their children wear helmets and knee pads and shield them from skinned knees. Tree climbing is often prohibited and replaced with the favored choice of screentime. No bones are broken there, only minds and souls and no one sees.

But sometimes, if you will allow yourself, you will find that talking to strangers brings serendipitous results. Sometimes, your world is changed by a chance meeting.

We were in Messina, Sicily, my sisters and I. We had arrived late at night and in the morning set out to explore the area. Five girls, Jeannette and Herby’s girls once again, walking together. The streets were narrow, walled with apartments in this area of the city. Turning a corner we noted a sign for a little grocery and headed in that direction. We needed some coffee, of course, and some sundries. Standing in an aisle I noted a couple – an attractive woman and her husband speaking English. And so I did it, I talked to a stranger. And talking to that stranger changed our whole week.

We did not know when we asked John and Debra where things were in the store, that they would so graciously open their world to us – John, a true Sicilian and Debra, his lovely wife. Before we knew it they had invited us to dinner at the local cafe. And soon John was making plans for our week. They would meet us for garnitas and brioche in the morning, then travel with us by bus to downtown Messina; they would show  us the sites and sounds of the city. We  would eat Sicilian street food and visit the Piazza Duomo with the world’s largest astronomical clock. Oh, the tales John can tell! He is the ultimate Sicilian with a bit of Montreal Canadian thrown in along with admiration for America. As well as Sicilian, he also speaks, French and English and as he shared his rememberances of his summers in Messina we could picture a beautiful little boy running the streets of the city, happy to be visiting his grandparents – his nonna and nonno. He was the perfect guide.

These friends, no longer strangers made sure we were taken care of, even texting us when we drove the two hours to grandfather’s village to make sure we were okay. Debra took pictures and made multiple videos of our journey. She delighted in sharing information with us and took us under her wing. Our last evening in Messina was spent at the cafe with Debra. A perfect way to end our stay before heading south to Catania.

Webster’s tell us serendipity is finding valuable or agreeable things that are not sought for. They come upon you unawares. John and Debra were our serendipitous people, full of kindness and generosity. How sad it would have been if we had kept to ourselves and not talked to strangers. The joy we would have missed.

As I sit here this evening in my quiet Arizona casa drinking tea from the cup I purchased on our ‘field trip’ to Messina, I can’t help questioning the ‘wisdom’ of our present culture. Maybe we need to talk to strangers. Maybe the world is a much kinder place than we thought. If not, maybe we can change it. Maybe we can be that person that smiles at someone in the grocery store or helps an elderly lady with her bag. Maybe we can laugh instead of discouraging that little boy riding down the road without a helmet, rejoicing in childhood. Maybe each one of us can be someone’s John and Debra. For the good of our souls and the souls of others, maybe we need to talk to strangers.

Finding Guiseppe ~ Part I

“I’m not eating any sardines!” my eldest sister exclaimed!

The video call was full of laughter and argument, each trying to get a word in, as my sister made her pronouncement.

It all started last spring when I messaged my sisters. “I’ve got points! Let’s go somewhere.” Before we knew it we were researching our grandfather Guiseppe and planning our journey.

We live in various parts of the country from the northeast to the southwest but we will travel together ~~ the town mice and the country mice off to explore the world. I see us now – seated in one long row talking and laughing as we wing our way aboard Lufthansa through the friendly skies to our destination – Sicily.

Years ago, our grandfather, just 10 years old, traveled aboard a ship to the dream of America. Forty years later, our father flew over Sicily as a tail gunner, ridding the world of Mussolini and freeing Italy. This week, our father’s daughters will return to Sicily, touch the earth, dip toes in the Mediterranean, travel to Mt. Etna, and visit our grandfather’s village.

We are quite a group – texting across the country as we plan our adventure. What to eat, what to pack, where to meet? It’s not quite the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but it’s something like it! I can see us now, careening through the tiny streets of Catania. Dosh (Dorotea) will be holding on tightly, Vivian (Viviana) laughing, Karen (Corrina) talking, and Marjorie (Margherita) riding shotgun as I (Caterina) steer our car toward our destinations. We will be a jolly group of sisters, remembering our mother’s aunts and their hilarious visits when we were children and realizing we have now become the aunts and it’s really quite a glorious thing!

If Mom and Dad could see us, they would smile and be happy for us. They would laugh at our foibles. They knew each one of us better than others do. After all, we were theirs before we were anyone else’s.

We’ll eat pasta and cannolis, croissants and gelato and though she doesn’t know it, I’m sure Dosh will even eat sardines!

~~End of Part I ~~

Keep An Eye Out for Part II

‘Tis a gift to be simple

It is that time of year. The weather in central Arizona is not quite as hot and we are lifted with hopefulness that one morning we’ll wake to the crispness of a fall morning….Ah, but I remember those mornings as a child, growing up in the great northeast.

Is there anything better than waking on a cool fall morning to the smell of coffee wafting up from the kitchen? This was often the case in our farmhouse on the mountain. My mother was a nurse and the mornings she was able to be home with her little coffee pot tipped off to one side of the burner as it perked, were not as often as I would have wished. It was a glorious thing to wake to the knowledge that my mother would be home and things would be right with the world. For who can question life when coffee is brewing and a mother is present?

My mother was adept at creating beauty in the simple things. And now, as I look back on my childhood, I wonder if she thought this through or if the traditions of her parents, Norwegian immigrants bringing with them their view of life and home, were simply poured out in her life. I have few pictures but my memories are clear. We had no need to show others via social media; there was none and life was so much fuller and authentic – so much for the grasp for authenticity in this make believe world we live in today!

She gifted me with an appreciation for a beautifully set table, china figurines on a shelf, music beautifully sung. My dear mother did not live in the lap of luxury, but she created her own bits of luxury. From her place on the mountain she directed our family and influenced our love of all that is true and good and beautiful.

Holiday dinners are special to me because of her. How well I remember Thanksgiving mornings with the perfume of the ever present coffee filling our house as we prepared for the sumptuous dinner. Nuts must be placed in dishes with the accompanying nutcrackers. Mint dishes must be placed in various places. At Christmas, we might have dates rolled in sugar and sliced with marshmallow pieces. There was no carb or calorie count here. We were immersed in the joy of preparing every bit of every good thing.

The table would boast Currier & Ives china with its winter sleigh scenes – each plate nicely placed and surrounded with the special silver. My childish self admired the beautiful A for Armao on each piece. The holiday tablecloth presented a beautiful canvas. Carefully, we placed each part of our creation on the table and prepared the dishes as the turkey roasted and bubbled in the oven, stuffing tucked safely inside.

There must always be a relish plate with small sweet pickles and black olives arranged just so. New York cider, mashed potatoes whipped by some masculine presence in the house, stuffing made from scratch, and the meal finished with krumkaker, sandkaker, the dreaded (to me) mince pies, spicy pumpkin pies, apple pies, our mother’s own lemon meringue….. And all of this presented on the fine china plates which always makes food so much more delectable.

And we sat down – whole large nuclear families. We sat down and looked at one another and engaged in conversation. This was no buffet meal but one of joy and laughter and appreciation for anything and everything. We were not simply eating; we were feasting with all that that entails for a feast must have beauty and wonderfully tasty food and people, lots of people. The children sat at the ‘little’ table waited on by caring mothers, plates filled as needed.

It was all so very lovely and I am overflowing with gratefulness for the good things she placed in our lives. Was it intentional or generational? Maybe a bit of both. And, I suppose, that is what we all pour into our families as we journey through this life. It is important to carry on with our traditions for they form a structure that is firm in a world that is shaken. It is also important to intentionally share all the good things that will leave a lasting impression of what we feel is important in this world.

The old Shaker tune reminds us of the importance of simple things and when I think of a mother on a mountain sharing small pieces of beauty with those she loved, the little things become so much more important. We live in a world where people are addicted to being the biggest, the richest, the most famous; everyone wants to go viral and it is very easy to fall into the trap of focusing only on one’s self. How much better to focus on what we can give others and to remember all they have given to us.

Hope in the Midst of Chaos

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Back in the saddle again. Out where a friend is a friend, where the longhorn cattle feed on the lowly jimson weed, back in the saddle again.                                                                      

Out on the range once more, totin’ my old .44, where you sleep out ev’ry night and the only law is right, back in the saddle again.

The words of this old western ballad caress my ears as I rock my grandson. The music of the rocker sings along with Gene. It’s the end of a busy week and a busy day. As we rock I listen to those words, words that are foreign to the ear in these days. Few people listen to cowboy music – not country music, mind you – true western music….ballads of life in the great western parts of our nation. They are filled with the stories of men riding the range, fighting the weather, living a life in which dreams and reality collide. 

As we rock I sing along and look into the true blue eyes that are looking up at me The words of the song speak to me more deeply than they have in earlier times. In this unhappy world, full of violence and illness, with the strain of society tripping over itself to find answers, I hear the clean music, the gentle voice, the words that speak of true friendship, of the peacefulness of an agrarian life, of a time when guns were not  something to argue over but simply a tool to use and the public was thankful for the rule of law.

I don’t think it is just my age that causes me to return to the old things, the good things, though it is true, or should be, that as we grow older we learn to appreciate the goodness of the old, rather than forsaking it. In our restless society, it has become more important to be ‘woke’ than to be wise. There is a great pressure to ‘keep up’, to be savvy, as we used to say. That was when people understood language more fully, read whole books rather than this blog of 500 words. 

There is no time now to study history and read deeply. We are too busy fighting and making sure we are not pushed around by others but instead WE do the pushing. Could it be, could it just be that those simple songs and simple times that are thought of as so naive and far too innocent, lacking the reality of skepticism and full of blinding hope were actually better? 

It was not a bad way to live when people were polite, when families sat around a nicely set table laden with food made by loving hands, and talked and laughed and cherished each other. The father at one end of the table, the mother at the other. Prayer was offered and all was just as it should be. A knock at the door was not feared, rather another chair was added to the table and food was passed.  This picture actually offends so many now; the thought of anything so picturesque must be eradicated. The present age of tomfoolery has no time for beauty, preferring instead to focus on how to make the world uglier.  Would that we could return to the days of love and understanding, of affection and kindness, of politeness and respect.

These thoughts meander through my mind as I watch my grandson’s eyes flutter and close, I listen to the lilting western ballad and my heart is encouraged that there are still some who live far away from the noise and there is hope that this child will not see the destruction of our society that is going on in the false name of justice. I hope that he, a white boy, or any of our other grandchildren – black and brown included, will not be judged by the color of their skin as so many seem to think is appropriate in these progressive times. 

The world has taken a turn for the worse; what was evil is now seen as good and what was good is now evil. The beauty of life on the range is unfamiliar to the angry protesters and to much of our society.  With blinded eyes, most could not see the goodness of a life lived outside the fog of mediocrity that is all the rage, where no one can do well and all must settle for the lowest denominator. In such a society, there is no use for beauty or striving for excellence – all must be the same.

Mock me if you choose, I prefer to follow a higher calling. Yes, head in the clouds, I will cling tightly to hope.  I choose to look up and to think on things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, full of virtue, praise-worthy. It’s peculiar, I know. But who wants to follow the madding crowd? I’m happy coming out from among them, living high on a mountain, listening to beautiful music, and generally  being a peculiar person. Wow – that sounds, well, almost Biblical.

II Cor.6:17    Phil. 4:8