(neither) here (n)or there

you can't place yourself there because the smell is different, the air, even the temperature breathing into your pores is no-where-else to be found. you can't just look at a picture, because then you place yourself in some other place where you have already been. and that might just be here somewhere, not there.  even the taste of something so familiar like a lemon against your lips won't be the same. and something like a lemon has never been consumed as fully as the way consummation knows neither where you begin or it ends.  

Blood Oranges

ok, so they're blood oranges she's talking about. she won't stop talking about them. every time i talk to her. she obsessively talks about them. the trees her father planted. they ate 5-7 at a time, a few times per day. friends and relatives would leave them more and other stuff outside their door if they weren't home. things they've picked from their farms. she said there were so many oranges that so many are wasted, and she carried a knife around so she could pick and eat them wherever she went.
its nice to hear her happy and passionate about something so simple.

DEEP ORANGE RED

i don't get it. the feeling(s) i feel inside have no words really. it goes deep, like the infection behind the wound, my heart floating loosely in my chest, with no strings holding these arms up or lifting my legs to dance...

(and i guess people wonder why i don't embrace it now.. but i can get into that later- about how i don't feel accepted as myself...)

they said they found wild asparagus way up high on the mountain where they went one day. brought them over to my aunt's in Catania, and she and Roberto my cousin said it was the best thing they could've ever brought over there to them. they made omelettes with them- which were a little bitter but good.

the "labor day celebrations" on may 1st were on the fiumi (river), which had a little water in it cuz it rained. (last time i was there, it was all rocks, and we'd drive right thru it as a shortcut to get to the other side.) everyone gathered there. the town my parents are from is named after the Niceto (river*) which used to be filled with water running down to the sea. A battle between the Saracens (Arabs) and Normans (French) was fought on it.
Saracens were at first Fatimids, then Muslim:

the Fatimid Empire

On their last day there, the Madonna statue 'A Madonna di Pompeii was brought into their house. it traveled from the church of the Madonna di Pompeii to the church across the street from them-

(La Chiesa del Carmine). Its tradition for it to travel into peoples' houses so they brought it into theirs after the church ceremony since they were going to be leaving the next day. Lots of people came from the church and prayed and blessed the house.



seems like they have a celebration for everything, every week.

they also went to my great grandfather Nonno Pietro's campagna - land/farm in the country... where he kept bees... and picked lots of oranges and lemons... from the same trees that were there all along.

they said they ate about 10 oranges/day. deep orange, red.

*my mother tells me that "Niceto" means "river", but here its described differently:
Secondo una corrente molto diffusa, esso deriverebbe da San Pier (in quanto San Pietro è il Santo patrono del paese) e da Niceto (vocabolo derivante dal greco, che significa “Vittoria” ) per una battaglia svoltasi nel torrente tra Cristiani e Saraceni e vinta dai primi.
Secondo un’altra corrente, invece, il vocabolo “Niceto” deriverebbe dal nome di un frutto di un albero, una volta molto diffuso: il nocciolo, in dialetto “nucidda”.
-derived from Greek, the word means "Victory" after the battle against the Christians and Saracens and won by the Christians.
-could be the name of the fruit from a tree which once grew in abundance- "nut" pronounced "nucidda"

Bloody bribes

my dream showed me this clearly again. he wouldn't give me money unless other people are 'looking'. he's humiliated by the fact that his daughter left. he will throw money into the cauldron till she reemerges from the smoke. as a princess. but not if she needs it as what s/he is.

The walnut tree and the emergency stash

now i'm thinking about all this stuff. money. then food. he would Never throw any of it away. where do we come from? how did it look? growing up> his story about eating the sugar and getting hit real bad for it cuz it was all they had. but all the stories i am missing. all the missing links. and all the severe arguments, and separations btwn siblings. this uncle that uncle that aunt, his second wife. his oldest brother Ciccio with his stupid pompous accent/ mixing sicilian with italian. because he wanted to appear bigger and with such a short temper. .. they don't speak anymore.. and i know he entered back into our lives over some kind of money thing. because they hadn't spoken since before i was born, or when i was a baby. oh yeah, when their parents died.. when i was 4/5. over money i'm sure, but who knows...

the walnut tree the chestnut tree. which is the mark-er. whose fence is it ("anyway?"). who owns what, how does it get split. he told me the outcome was that the family gave them a bag of walnuts and so it was fair. or something. but they never tell me/told me anything true- and this was because i was the youngest in the family, and female. cheated of the truth. and of my own money. among other things...

stories:
riding cart and donkey overnight to the big city with produce grown. coming here and working in mines. going back and having more kids. bringing all of them here to work cuz the donkey ride to the big city overnight wasnt enough.

(not my family but same country, same concept)
these are usually painted very colorfully, but b&w photo here..

making a living. making a family. coming here. arranged marriages. my mother having to marry my father cuz he's from "a good family"- better off than their own. ... so why then did they have $50 when they came back after their trip to sicily for their honeymoon that got spent on the taxi home? and why did he then have to work 3 jobs and overnight and fall asleep in the car on rt.1 driving to work and almost get killed many times? why did he fix the house up himself? -growing up sometimes i'd notice the windows were a bit crooked and things were a little off.
but my biggest questions of all: and ones i can't even word since they feel so charged: and in a way, i think i could answer them in my own head.........
but my reaction is - that being raised with such notions, even if they Were trying their best to have food for us and get us through school or whatever, i still managed to develop my own personal understanding of money and identity and facades and appearances and fakeness and truth.


so also what hit me was about how money links with food in my own brain. how the legacy carries over, and my belly fills, beyond its own capacity. if its there, i must consume it. if not, i will not have it again, and i will die. of starvation and un-fulfillment. then what triggers in the brain, around a lack of fulfillment and the need to consume, food, because it quickly sends signals and the acts of tasting-swallowing-etc- all the symbols of a primal sensory experience.

*and in this culture, food really is a symbol of wealth and prosperity and hospitality and community and love, etc.

needs, the survival instinct, taurus, 2nd house, belongings, comforts, even luxuries.... and again , the symbolism- because luxuries are like filling our bellies beyond and towards a sense of extra- incase we need it- on reserve- our emergency stash.
(this is why my south node is in taurus in the 4th house)

grievance and culture-shock

not until i wake up does my spirit enter back into my physical body and then ask that question "Where am I?". throughout the day its just a movement like a procession -following some cold statue as a dead deity we worship because it is the blood of our life- through the town and possibly into the ocean. like a blind mass sleepwalking forward, through, in-between, round-about. to get to the same place we began at. and then start over again. the 'culture-shock' i speak of is another way to label 'disorientation'. i've had it all through my life. as a child, i'd often wake up in the middle of the night on the bed sideways, and many mornings with a real sense of disorientation. like i had to rub my eyes hard and squint till it all came back to me- that i was in this country in this town this house this bed with this family, etc.

so now supposedly i am grieving a loss of some kind of a lifestyle or some-thing. one which i'd love to avoid and thought i could since i am not wanting it anymore- but must confront. but again, its just like culture-shock -- just reminding myself strongly that things are different now and i need to try and remain as coherent as possible so that i wake up in the right bed in the right apartment, etc.

this Face

i think i'm looking at my face. a flat picture of it. i see years of faces layered onto it like her face his face their faces. i don't think they care. i care. this isn't their face. not anymore. they have left it. its so alien to them now. it never was a face they recognized. they slipped away underneath it. ignorant to its surface, and its emotion. they left it there. then they talked about going away. away up high on a mountain somewhere. but that somewhere he'd always say was Venezuela. but he never did any of it. other than build a house on a high mountain and it caused all sorts of trouble. they found a bronze madonna relief in the soil where this house stands, because there used to be a church there. all the symbols he created in his head, he attempted to materialize. materialize, thats the problem. its all gone. all of the symbols. they matter to no one anymore. they brought no hope, nor did they bring happiness or even just a steady life. now the years have gone by Gone. meaning there are none anymore. so this face.. who's face is it anyway?