Ann Shields on Letting Go

Bucket List Detour

I signed up for a class in Easy Italian, or some such title, at our JC -  The class is tonight.  So why am I sitting at my keyboard, you might ask.  Call it Fate or car gremlins or the forces against me.

All I know is that we scoped out the classroom this morning because it was in some building on this sprawling campus and no one seemed to know where it was.  Like the girl scout I never was, I wanted to be prepared.

The campus was swarming with Newbies, clutching maps and schedules, excited and very young.  I was clutching a letter from my instructor naming a building, actually a trailer, dubbed Annex C.  I was excited and not very young .  Fate eventually took pity on me and there was my classroom.     I can do this, I told myself.  My first step on my bucket list.  I want to plant my feet on Italian soil, feel the scent of my ancient homeland, be pinched by a swarthy Italian, preferably male.  Just joking, Des.

Backtracking a bit, the class in Easy Italian called to me, little Ann Marie Pinelli from Chicago from a neighborhood full of fellow Italians wh never got to Rome.  I want to be an easy Italian when I get there.   Well, let me word that better.  I want to be conversant in the language even though I am a second generation Italian and ought to know something besides ciaio and a few choice phrases with hand gestures.

My parents didn't speak Italian around me and my grandparents, all of them born in Italy, tried to adapt to English when they arrived through the portals of Ellis Island.  They spoken broken English, whatever that is, and I always understood them.  So never tried to learn the language.

I did take 3 years of Spanish in high school,  back when dinasauers roamed the earth, and I took refresher courses in Spanish at the local senior center, so things are not all bad.  Lots of words in both languages are similar.  Bu I want to be an authentic Italian.

Flash forward to tonight.  After a quick dinner, I head out the door, promising to be home after the class is over at 8 p.m.  Entered the Saturn, my Toyota is in a body shop nearby and that is another story, when the Saturn wouldn't budge.  Key in lock, but no sound from the engine.  Yell for Des, who comes out with questions about what I might have done to cause this failure.

Actually, turned out he was right.  Not used to driving his car, I drove it earlier and failed to turn the key all the way to the left when turning it off.  Dead battery  Very Dead.

Bottom line, Des got it started finally, but a bit late to show up at class.  Besides, when I called pal Donna to tell her what was happening, she said philosophically, well it wasn't meant to be.  Okay, I accept that.  But what wasn't meant to be?  The class?  The trip to Rome someday.  Do I have to shrink my bucket list?

For now, all I can say is ciaio.

So says Sassy

Geneology 1A

Now that I want to know more about my ancestors, there is almost no one left to ask.  All my grandparents are long gone, including all my mother's and father's siblings.  Wish I had paid better attention when I had access to the source of my beginnings.

Rummaging through closet clutter, I hope to find the papers documenting my grandparents arrival at Ellis Island.

Lately, my daughter has quizzed me about the family tree on both sides.  Thankfully, she is revving up interest earlier than I ever did. Maybe she will be the family historian.  She had to wade through a bunch of Vincents, Anthonys, Franks, Anns, and a host of us destined to carry on the famiy names.  No one feels the need to do this anymore.  Case in point, my newest great grandaughter...named Grace Aurora.  Okay, my mom was Grace but Aurora is unique and so so this little one.

Finding distant relatives is a cake walk now.    The other day, someone named Michelle asked to 'friend' me on Facebook.  I recognized the last name of her father, who happened to be my first cousin Anthony.  I have never met Michelle, but her photo shows someone with long curly hair and a resemblance to my Aunt Sadie, her grandmother. 

Michelle found me through Google.  Seems that she was looking to find the grave site of her great grandfather (my grandfather) who lived in Willisville, Illlinois, the place my where my mother lived as a child.  Google sent Michelle to the town, and there I was, listed with my blog on typepad.   I guess I wrote a blog mentioning Willisville once.  Seems you can run but there is nowhere to hide in this worldwide community of 'friends' and others.

I messaged Michelle that she resembled my aunt, and she messaged back that she thought my photo did, too.  Turns out she has lupus, too.  We truly are related.

This month I will visit another first cousin, Ann,better known in as Nin, who is 9 years older than I am, and holds many family secrets.  I will be quizzing her about things like why  our grandfather made our grandmother sleep sideways at the foot of his bed.  That is the family story, anyway.   Poor woman died in her late forties of a stroke, leaving the bed all to himself.  But that's another story and was the catalyst of his suicide years later.  Intrigued?

Meanwhile, in a website about classmates, I now find that my high school year book is on line.    Roosevelt High School's, The Log.  I    I found myself there along with classmates and proof that Shel Silverstein was indeed one of them.  My claim to fame, vicariously.

What is so fascinating about delving into the past once the future seems to be narrowing?   Knowing why my grandparents left their famiies back in Italy to cross the ocean and find...what?  Didn't they feel a tug at their heartstrings at leaving their own parents behind?  How brave was that?  Emotions are beyond knowing.  Statistics about dates and ships  tell nothing about the real drama.

I better get busy on my own memoir and quit spending so much time on the lives of strangers.    Just bought a new one though.  Who could resist  "Weekends at Bellevue," by Julie Holland, M.D.?    I hear it is intense.  On second thought, I think I'll re-read, "Eat, Pray, Love," by Elizabeth Gilbert. I like her style.- and the recipes were great.

So Says Sassy