Yours Truly – Sienna Gallus
Today, my American dream is to leave America. I am haunted by the recurring nauseating notion that people do not extend their care or empathy to one another when they vote. My heart breaks for my queer friends, my friends of color, my disabled friends, and American women. However, I am not here to grieve, demonize anyone, nor lose faith in my country’s ability to progress. Rather, I’d like to talk about where my heart lives instead of my body: Italy.
When I think of Italy, my mind is not clouded by idealizations of wine and cannoli, nor cathedrals or canals. When I think of Italy, I am seven years old again, sitting on my great grandmother’s flower-embroidered couch, intently listening to a story I’d heard before, but was never sick of: Driven out of the poverty of San Bartolomeo in Galdo, Italy, my Nonna kissed those who raised her, her grandparents, goodbye and boarded a massive immigration ship headed for New York with her mother, mute from grief. After weeks of crowded travel –unable to see the sunlight from the room where they were placed– they’d arrived at the “promised land”, Ellis Island. Her father had been denied access to the States many years before, but after working in South America for years, he received appropriate sponsorship to immigrate to the US. My Nonna’s first memory of him was at eight years old when she stepped off the ship, but she recalled he never had enough freedom from his labors to show her the love she knew he had for her. My grandmother, with polio and a strictly Italian vocabulary, did not think of her disadvantages, however. She thought only of God, family, and a better life. She went on to work as a strawberry picker and seamstress for WW2 soldiers, marry, raise wonderful children, and live to see her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
When I went on a tour of northern Italy in my senior year of high school, I felt her there, all around me. I felt her selflessness, her resilience, her compassion in the very air I breathed. I wrote a poem while in Venice that I feel articulates my experience better than I can conquer now. Here’s an excerpt:
….
my nonna
is resurrected
in every flower that grows here,
every fresco, baroque gold,
I hear her hymns in Orvietto’s basilica where the organ pipes shake the stone
of the chapel in transitory vibrations
Original sin: refused
Judgement: annulled with conditional forgiveness
I understand her devotion
as more than tradition
In the sun,
I let myself burn
‘till the clothing on the lines shade us
And the pomegranates sting with sweetness
I lean close to the wrinkled lips of artists of mâché
They tell me secrets.
I listen.
and spew grazi with a gratefulness I’ve never known
I’m beside the water now.
The heat of the day sinks into my skin,
Promising it will be with me forever.
I aim to embrace my Nona’s love in trying political times and when examining the state of the world. I keep her undying optimism for the world in my back pocket as a reminder of the strong women who came before me and gifted me the beautiful life I have now. I am overjoyed to say I’ll be back in Italy this winter to pursue both my studies and to further the exploration of my connection to my ancestors.
Yours truly,
Sienna Gallus
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