Still Chasing the Winter Sun

You cannot know what another culture looks like until you’re in it. I’ve had the opportunity to travel not as much as some however more than most, visiting out of the way places, diverse ethnic groups of various social strata, and sometimes in life the greatest diversity is found in one’s own family. I’ve contemplated this over the night time hours when I should have been sleeping in a foreign bed on the other side of the world.

As I mentioned in my previous blog I’m visiting widowed aunts in a small town (paese) of Molochio, a town of a diminishing population of around 1300 hundred people.

If it’s possible to be confronted by the living diversity within your own extended family, then let it be a confrontation in a good way, that is to say, let it be a wake up call in the best possible way. As I’ve thought about it, it’s life stripped of all its trimmings and trappings as we know it in the land of milk and honey, Australia. 

We Australian born, silver spooners enjoy an abundance of everything, this excursion is revealing what life looks like when the silver spoon is plucked from the proverbial mouth with a ‘pop’, like a pacifier plucked from the mouth of a child that is sucking like crazy to hold onto it.

A short one hour flight yesterday from Rome to what might have been home, Molochio, had my parents not emigrated to Australia in the 50s, I was met at the airport in Reggio Calabria by my cousin, let’s call him P… I hadn’t seen him since his brother’s Sydney wedding in 2012. P… drove 1 hour to Reggio and I was glad for an easy one hour flight now being backed up with a one hour drive. Now this would sound like a complaint on my part however being the family historian I had the opportunity to see names whizz by of small and larger towns that I have repeatedly read on maps as I’ve scoured the family skeleton cupboards and embedding these towns one by one in my mind to regurgitate at a later date.

Along the way I noticed roads had significantly improved since our first visit 12 years ago, P… though explained that the road not new (to him not me) though planned, had bypassed Molochio; political influence clearly working against an already decaying  town.

It was such a delight to see my beautiful 92 year old aunt T… her eyes alight, small in stature, rising with surprising nimbleness upon seeing me. This same aunt broke her hip during Covid, and not a single complaint of aches and pains, only of the cold she feels in her bones. 

The house is not salubrious but it is home. It is just as I remembered it. Life happens in the main in one room crowded out by a table and 6 chairs, a small two seater where  aunt T… sits to warm herself over a small brassiere. Only cold ashes remain, coal she uses as fuel sits in 3 smallish frypans on top of a more modern wood burning oven in the corner of the room. At some point she will use them to light her foot warmer. Above the oven is a water heater that does its job most handsomely gently keeping the room warm for all except my aunt who still needs the brassiere and heating the water for the bathroom and kitchen on this level. I worked out quickly it is also the source of coal for the brassiere. 

My aunt has been over many years, a wonderful seamstress but her best skills have been hand and machine embroidery which lead me to mention the Pfaff sewing machine and cabinet which houses it to the left of the wood burner. There’s not much room on top of the machine, aunt T…. is working on making a cape for herself recycling one of P..’s old jumpers which she says “has plenty of life left in it”. My Aunt  has dissected open the jumper, cut the sleeves off and sewn or woven the openings as though the original jumper had been designed exactly that way. She has shown me the banding that she will attach to the bottom edge: a brand new cape is born, and she swirls is around her shoulders to demonstrate. I have no idea how this marvellous 92 year old does it! She works in a dimly lit room, one of those curly eco energy saving bulbs hangs under the skirt of the ceiling light shade, she can’t work without her glasses and yesterday she exposed the torch that she keeps tucked down beside her on the two seater which she needs to find the dinner plates in the corner cupboard barely able to be opened, and yet, she does this incredible handiwork breathing new life into an old garment that we silver spooners would throw away in a heartbeat and only in its second or third season.

The walls and cupboard surfaces that line the walls are covered in holy cards of saints and framed prints of San Giuseppe (St Joseph), the patron saint of this town, and the Madonna and child, and Jesus, Jesus still hanging on a cross even though he rose again on the third day and is no longer on the cross. I spied a plastic bottle of holy water and a baby Jesus snow globe. Auntie is an aficionado of Padre Pio, his picture also graces the walls and numerous other hangings of framed embroidered works she has created and of which she is intensely proud. 

My dear Aunt is somewhat hard of hearing so she does all the talking, I really don’t have to say too much at all, just a few words here and there, perhaps a question and brief answer to one of hers and she’s off again. Great memory recall! Detail is her friend, I just love this old woman. She only fills in the stuff mentioned above as an interruption to her talk of the miracles of St Joseph in this town, how he did this and saved that person, saved the whole town in fact from canon fire. Wow, a powerful character, imagine how much more powerful is God then! 

P… is not married and lives at home caring for his mother, a wonderful son who is also skilled. One of those skills is listening endlessly to my aunt as she goes on about ‘St. Joseph’, reciting the rosary and listening to the Padre Pio channel droning on and on day and night. He never complains. On the way home from the airport, he said, “she use to pray this much” as he indicated half a finger, “now she prays this much”, extending his hands. I laughed, I had to say “the closer we get to the grave the more we pray”, that’s got to be the case for all of us. 

But I looked at him smiling as auntie waffled on again on the same topic, sitting at the head of the table I saw him press his hands together and grit his teeth. I had been here just one hour or so but he is a constant in her life and she in his and he finds his own way to shut out the superfluous, grits his teeth from time to time and loves her deeply at all times.

There’s nothing fancy in this place, there is no need for it. Life here is not boring, in this place is found what we silver spooners crowd out with our devices and trinkets and new clothing. In this place is welcome and hospitality, deep care, listening with interest, no criticism is to be found at one’s forgetfulness or repetition of conversation. Voices raised are not in violence or anger but so the hard of hearing don’t miss out. Food is the simplest ever but delicious, nourishing. Here is community and love at all times something we silver spooners often lack. 

Is there a moral to this story? Of course there is! 

Pop that silver spoon out and throw it away. Be content with what you have, don’t look over the fence to check out the grass, these days it’s fake anyway. Live honestly, live simply, love your neighbour because they’re good people to have around and not because you want to find out their brand of grass so you can have the same or even better. Wear your clothes because you love them, and functional, until you finally wear them out, not because they’re in or out of season. But more importantly treat your family well and MAKE them your LOVED ones. Press your hands together if you must and grit your teeth when you’ve heard the story before but keep loving, because love always wins.

Life is beautiful, so live it!

Ciao amici, ci vediamo a presto.

Molochio, May 2023