La Passeggiata   

            Aeneas Piccolomini slips on his blue suit coat and adjusts the perfect knot of his necktie. He wears this suit and only this suit when they go out for the evening.

            The suit is blue, a light blue between a robin’s egg and the brilliance of a Tuscan sky. The tie is the same blue, exactly. His white shirt is starched and meticulously pressed. His dress shoes are mahogany brown, shined to a high gloss, as he treads with care down narrow, carpeted stairs to the foyer where Angela his daughter and Tonio his son-in-law wait, as smartly attired as he.

            He is a small and tidy, elegant man - “un piccolo uomo“- as his name implies. He stands straight as steel. His cheeks are slightly flushed and transparent as pink marble. His thinning hair is white. His nose is “Italianate” (so to speak) and his ears are small. His sightless, unclouded eyes are the blue of his suit.

            Angela says, "I want to hold your hand, Papa. The steps are uneven." She takes a hand, then gently his elbow. Tonio pulls the heavy oaken door closed behind them which latches with a solid snick. The trio descends and walks arm in arm toward the sunlight at the far end of the street.

            At Piazza del Campo, they join the passeggiata, and along with others they stroll in the orange glow and lilac shadows. They move and weave among mingled murmurs of a hundred voices that echo against buildings that line the square. Except for a small boy waving his arms flying his toy wooden airplane, people part as they pass. Many greet them.

            They are as striking as a freshly painted canvas.

            Aeneas cannot see, but he hears conversations in English and German, French and Italian. He knows the sweet aroma of the loaves in the panetteria, the bouquet of the florist, the taste of his friend Rodolfo's prosciutto across his tongue, and the musky scent of his cousin Michaele's wine shop where many tourists have sampled the wares over the course of the day.

            “Miki has done well today.”

            “Yes he has, Papa.”

            “Tonio, the crowds seem large for this time of year."

            “Si, Signor, they are large.”

            Aeneas looks directly ahead. His feet feel the cobbles like hands and he doesn’t stumble. He knows the sounds of each caffetteria they pass along their way. In his head, he also hears the thundering hooves of bareback racehorses of the palio, their frenzied dashing around the plaza.

            We find them on the first evening of the spring equinox, the three of them quietly carrying their thoughts in the waning day.

Easy As Pie

            I can make a pie crust in two minutes flat. That includes taking the Cuisinart out of the cupboard, assembling it, measuring two cups of flour and a dash of salt, cutting butter and shortening into cubes, pulsing a couple times, then letting her rip while dribbling ice water through the feed-tube. Voila! The machine even forms the dough into a ball before my eyes.

            My skill at this particular exercise has become a family legend of sorts, and modesty doesn’t prevent me from enjoying the resulting holiday adulation. The flip side, of course, is that you-know-who gets the call every Thanksgiving and Christmas. But let’s be honest, did Pavarotti decline Yuletide entreaties for “O Holy Night” `round the Steinway?

            Last Christmas saw us over the river and through airport security to grandmother’s house. My mom, my sister, her husband, various progeny and significant others would reunite after too much absence. Chilly walks, nourishing conversations by a comfy fire (burning wood someone else has chopped), Scrabble games, and the tangy aroma of hot cider lay ahead.

            “Sure, Mom, I’ll make the pies,” I said over the phone. How could it be otherwise?

            Reality jabbed its cold finger into my chest moments before we left the house for the airport. Mom doesn’t own a Cuisinart!

            I rifled my cupboards for a bent pastry cutter. I scribbled out the Joy of Cooking recipe for Basic Pie Dough. I told myself that pioneer wives on the Oregon Trail made pies on a wagon plank with month-old flour, rancid lard, and branch water while Pa kept a lookout for grizzlies and unhappy Sioux.

            We arrived at Mom’s amid hugs and smiles and lugging of suitcases -- and how many times did I hear the word “pie”?

            The next morning, we played golf. It’s a tradition. At eighty-three, Mom’s remarkable. Plays twice a week, breaks a hundred as often as not, and has four holes-in-one to her credit. My retired brother-in-law plays golf eight days a week and shoots to a six handicap. I play six times a year.

            The competition on the links wasn’t what ruffled my concentration that morning, however. I walked eighteen gorgeous fairways plotting how to make stealth run to Safeway and somehow decant two pumpkin pies into Mom’s pie plates unnoticed.

            About now you’re thinking “ridiculous.” But childhood family-of-origin issues die hard, don’t they?

Intermezzo

    I love opera. The original multi-media event – actors and costumes, staging and beautiful sets, huge audiences and of course gorgeous music. They don’t call it “Grand Opera” for nothing. It’s timeless. Literally. During these uncertain and grim times, music is a palliative. Whether your tastes run to Lady Gaga or Tony Bennett, Beyoncé or Bach, The Temptations or the four lads from Liverpool, music bypasses the brain and goes straight to the heart. These days, I binge-watch opera.

    Family lore has it that my mother, then a music major at UCLA, would travel north to Berkeley to visit my dad, a pre-law major living in a raucous fraternity. She’d bribe, cajole, or otherwise entice my father to grab two rugby-type brothers and take them across the Bay Bridge to the San Francisco Opera House for a night of symphony and sometimes opera. Whether apocryphal or true, as a boy it was not uncommon for me to hear my dad whistling Un bel di, vedremo while tying his tie in the morning before heading off to work. So-called “classical” music was a staple in our house, and none more so than opera. When my dad passed away, I listened to Nessun dorma over and over, and sobbed. It was his favorite long before Pavarotti made it his signature piece. My musical rescue lately has been the Metropolitan Opera’s streaming videos of past memorable performances. A different one any night! Also ARTE from Europe, medici.tv, the Seattle Opera and others, plus YouTubes galore of iconic performers – all have all brought me comfort and hope.

    If your exposure to opera was a Bugs Bunny cartoon with a buxom, horn-helmeted woman and the Wascally Wabbit warbling “Feee-garrow, feegaro, feegaro,” you started down the wrong path. Instead, restart with one of The Big Five: Madame Butterfly, Tosca, or La Bohème (Puccini), La Traviata (Verdi), or perhaps Carmen (Bizet). None of these has been out of the repertoire over the years since being composed. They are the operas that leave you humming a theme you can’t get out of your head as you walk out of the theater. Spoiler alert: there are no happy endings – seppuku, TB (twice), a stabbing, Tosca jumping off the parapet into the Tiber – but don’t let that put you off. The music is glorious, and a good cry is not bad. There is lighter fare. The Marriage of Figaro or its kin, The Barber of Seville; Don Pasquale or the weird The Magic Flute. Wanna get serious? Richard Wagner is the champ: Tannhauser, Lohengrin (think Wedding March), Tristan und Isolde; or dive into the deep end and tackle The Ring of the Nibelungen, all nineteen hours over four operas! Puccini and Mozart each wrote about a dozen; Verdi, at least twenty; Beethoven, only one (Fidelio), but a masterpiece. No surprise. Opera is universal. A visitor to Italy should seek out a ristorante where the waiter, usually a tenor, sings his favorite aria as he delivers the spumoni and biscotti. I’ve watched videos of flash mobs in Paris and Petersburg and London.

    Is it an acquired taste? Perhaps. So try acquiring it. Do sopranos warble? Only the bad ones. Correctly done, it’s called vibrato, and many a good pop singer has mastered it.

    Whatever, hold any music close ... along with thoughts of loved ones and strangers in need. No less an authority than Igor Stravinsky improbably said, “I haven’t understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.” 

    [Two tickets, virtual second balcony, please.]

 

Pandemic Procrastination
   (Covidus Interruptus)

 So, where is that manuscript?
(Scrolling the screen.) Such a great story.
Ten years in. Perfect time to finish it.
What was that title? It’s in my “Writing” file
        somewhere.

Next to “Photos.” (What great pics.
Dang, that was a great vacation!
France. And then the summer cabin in Glacier.
Wait? Whose adorable kittens are those?)

I have got to email my cousin,
The one in Montana – not young anymore –
Just to check on how he’s doing,
Covid 19 and all. But first, get to work here.

Work! Wow, what if this had hit before I retired?
Work from home? Laid off? Fired!
Like all those folks strolling our street.
Who knew there were so many
            breeds of dog!

 Whew, found the MSS. How’s this for
            a title?
“It’s A Wonderful Life.”
(Global Disease Spoiler Alert.)
Okay, may need to change that.

 But hey, this reads pretty good.
“The days stretched out ahead
Like a fabulous picnic, spread on a checkered blanket…”
Oh crap! What’s for dinner? Cooking in again.

Pick-up meals don’t travel well.
Burgers don’t sizzle. Fries, lukewarm.
Don’t even start about pancakes and over-easy eggs
From my fav breakfast place.

Even if dining at restaurants is now okay,
No way I’m ready for that, swapping invisible viri aerosol
With who-knows which diner hasn’t distanced.
Plus, elastic on the face mask makes my ears stick out,
            like Dopey.

“… [O]n a checkered blanket.” Okay, can’t lead with food,
Or happy days ahead. Hmm, “days ahead like empty streets.”
Then, tone down the optimism, but not too dreary.
S**t, I’m not going to rewrite the whole damn thing.

Looks pretty complete now, actually: beginning, middle, end.
Hook, arc, and all. Is ten thousand words too short for a novella?
Gotta know when to stop, right?
I mean I don’t have a lot of time for a full do-over.

Oh. Yeah.
Just the rest of my life.

 

 . . . . SO, AFTER A LONG HIATUS, this blog resumes with the first pages of my novel, City Haul, below, and a frustrated writer's take on our global situation, above.

      I will not trouble the reader with travails of the learning curve getting a novel written, edited, designed, and published -- hence, the hiatus. If you're a writer, you know. To others, I will only repeat what I hear countless times: the writing is easy (even countless edits) -- the rest is a chore.

     What else is in this blog? Mostly, a collection of shorter pieces composed over the years. Most of which should bring a smile to your face. Much needed during these pandemic days.
          Thanks for showing up!
                Richard Little