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Mysterious Coincidence and Miracles?
In a bizarre coincidence, after yesterday's reminder of my roots - I'm watching an Italian man who has travelled the whole of Italy... climbing Mount Etna. I've been to Etna.
Fortunately, my family are from the mid-north coast/mountains, hundreds of miles away from Catania.
He also ended up stopping in Palermo (where else) and I didn't realise before, how bad it is there. I knew it was a dangerous place - even for those of us with Important Relatives (especially so) - but much of the centre of town is poverty stricken and partly rubble from WWII bombings, still.
I'm fairly sure I must have known this, because I dreamed about it some time ago, but it's a little shocking to realise the effect the Mafia can have. Money was poured into Mafia-approved projects, instead of rebuilding the damaged centre...
Zio Michaelangelo and his family (cousins Ciara [Kee-ar-ah], Laura [Lah-ou-wra] and Zia Mariangela) still live in an apartment in the upmarket area, as far as I know. My family is so Mafia, right, that I remember when I lived out there and Ciara - at about six - stuck a fork in her little sister's hand. Mind you, the villagers in my family are all bakers and stuff - so you'd better watch out or you'll wake up with a grossini on your pillow.
But yes... I'm going to write this stuff down - all the things I remember - over time. Like falling down my Nonni's stairs and thinking that the effigy of the Madonna in the mountain alcove across the road outside the window was laughing at me. I still have the dent on the back of my head...
Funnily enough - not far along the mountain they built walls to stop chunks of rock falling on to the main mountain route, below. On the day we arrived on holiday, when I was eleven, everyone was leaning over the terrace on my grandparents' country 'house' (it's a shack on some tomato terraces, with a vinyard and olive grove attached) gushing about something to my dad. It turned out, two days before we arrived, a figure of the Madonna had begun to appear, standing on one of these walls, shortly in front of a large, jagged rock further up the mountain. People were hysterical. It was a miracle!
One night, my father took me, my siblings, Cristian and Roberto (Berti), and Ciara and Laura, for a meal at a pizzeria halfway up the mountain. The main things I remember about that are the eating outside in the woods and being given a free dessert pizza made of tinned peaches, gelatine and icing sugar...
But! On the way back, we stopped on the road at the very north edge of the village, directly under the wall - and there she was. A life-size figure, with a black hole for a face, and her arms held out in a gesture that was either, "Come, my children..." or, "COME ON THEN, IF YA FINK YER ARD ENUFF!". Her robes were swaying just slightly in the breeze. It felt like a real person. It looked like a real person. Everyone standing around watching - for there were loads, as this was only the fourth day or so since she first appeared - was gazing, awed up at the mountain. She was only feet away.
I'm not even a Catholic, and I wasn't at eleven, either. But I believed then that it was a woman standing on the mountain - it was some significant figure, there for a reason - she certainly wasn't an illusion from the rock, which was actually several metres above, as my dad insisted.
And you know the reason we know she wasn't the rock? Because two days after we left - the exact same amount of time she arrived before we did - the vision of the Madonna... vanished. The rock is still there.
Fortunately, my family are from the mid-north coast/mountains, hundreds of miles away from Catania.
He also ended up stopping in Palermo (where else) and I didn't realise before, how bad it is there. I knew it was a dangerous place - even for those of us with Important Relatives (especially so) - but much of the centre of town is poverty stricken and partly rubble from WWII bombings, still.
I'm fairly sure I must have known this, because I dreamed about it some time ago, but it's a little shocking to realise the effect the Mafia can have. Money was poured into Mafia-approved projects, instead of rebuilding the damaged centre...
Zio Michaelangelo and his family (cousins Ciara [Kee-ar-ah], Laura [Lah-ou-wra] and Zia Mariangela) still live in an apartment in the upmarket area, as far as I know. My family is so Mafia, right, that I remember when I lived out there and Ciara - at about six - stuck a fork in her little sister's hand. Mind you, the villagers in my family are all bakers and stuff - so you'd better watch out or you'll wake up with a grossini on your pillow.
But yes... I'm going to write this stuff down - all the things I remember - over time. Like falling down my Nonni's stairs and thinking that the effigy of the Madonna in the mountain alcove across the road outside the window was laughing at me. I still have the dent on the back of my head...
Funnily enough - not far along the mountain they built walls to stop chunks of rock falling on to the main mountain route, below. On the day we arrived on holiday, when I was eleven, everyone was leaning over the terrace on my grandparents' country 'house' (it's a shack on some tomato terraces, with a vinyard and olive grove attached) gushing about something to my dad. It turned out, two days before we arrived, a figure of the Madonna had begun to appear, standing on one of these walls, shortly in front of a large, jagged rock further up the mountain. People were hysterical. It was a miracle!
One night, my father took me, my siblings, Cristian and Roberto (Berti), and Ciara and Laura, for a meal at a pizzeria halfway up the mountain. The main things I remember about that are the eating outside in the woods and being given a free dessert pizza made of tinned peaches, gelatine and icing sugar...
But! On the way back, we stopped on the road at the very north edge of the village, directly under the wall - and there she was. A life-size figure, with a black hole for a face, and her arms held out in a gesture that was either, "Come, my children..." or, "COME ON THEN, IF YA FINK YER ARD ENUFF!". Her robes were swaying just slightly in the breeze. It felt like a real person. It looked like a real person. Everyone standing around watching - for there were loads, as this was only the fourth day or so since she first appeared - was gazing, awed up at the mountain. She was only feet away.
I'm not even a Catholic, and I wasn't at eleven, either. But I believed then that it was a woman standing on the mountain - it was some significant figure, there for a reason - she certainly wasn't an illusion from the rock, which was actually several metres above, as my dad insisted.
And you know the reason we know she wasn't the rock? Because two days after we left - the exact same amount of time she arrived before we did - the vision of the Madonna... vanished. The rock is still there.