Viola’s years after forty proved to be the most profitable in the mill. She raised the family and traveled, visiting all the places she dreamed of as a girl. Her marriage settled into the comfort of the long haul. She was surrounded by an extended family of in-laws and she became even closer to her own sisters. It’s wonderful to be young, and there are gifts in it, but Viola showed me that experience is the heart of wisdom.
As life goes on, it’s experience that sets the agenda.
You know what to avoid, and what to save, who to share your life with, and who to wish well as you move forward without them. Experience is a gift, as it gives you perspective, it is the great time saver, because it helps you focus on what’s important.
If you met Viola, you wouldn’t think for a moment that she was sentimental. You might have found her charming, as my friends did through the years, but there was no mistaking the strength underneath. She loved a good fight, and was often engaged in one. This goes back to her days on the farm, where one rule applied to man and to beast: only the strong survive.
Viola’s photo album that chronicles her life from the age of sixteen to twenty-seven is filled with pictures of friends, road trips, costumes of the day, and even a shot of the pants factory where she worked. In her youth, as she was beginning to figure out who she was, you could see a longing in her to break free of her responsibilities, find true love, and see the world. When I reconcile the dreams of her youth, and the realities of her life, I imagine that it’s in that gap where she became a fighter. She had to fight for everything she got, so her standards were high. She expected my best, and nothing less. She could be critical, and her words would sting. But as her life went on, she softened; her experience had made her more loving, and surely more wise. I asked Viola on her eighty-fifth birthday, which birthday she dreaded the most. “Stupid question,” she said. “I only know it’s downhill after eighty-five.”
Let go.
Any conversation about beauty these days is centered around what we can change about ourselves, instead of embracing what we have been given. Plumped lips can be bought, furrowed brows can be paralyzed smooth, and the entirety of a face can be lifted. We can literally go from sixty back to thirty in a few hours, in the hands of a good surgeon, on the table at the Hospital for Cosmetic Surgery.
But should we?
The aging face might in fact, surprise us—in a good way. We may eventually see those that came before us in our expressions. Our faces will become works of art that our grandchildren will treasure. If we have let go of slights, disappointments, and hurts, that hard-earned and well-deserved serenity will show up on our faces. And what we may love, most of all, about growing older is the purging of the anxiety that comes from trying to please others through the window of our appearance.
None of this is easy, because as women, we are beauty. We bring mystery to the world, we’re emotional, complex, and full of dreams, and that doesn’t change with the passing of another birthday—or eighty of them. Women like my grandmothers remained vibrant in body and mind, and for the most part, it was a choice. Even when her body failed her, Lucy’s mind remained clear and her thinking was sharp. She continued to focus on what was working, and live through that, instead of mourning the changes that had come.
Engrave the souls of your children, not your body.
It would seem that our bodies, in their natural state, are not fascinating enough. The parts must be assigned meaning. If you don’t find the curve of your ankle particularly enthralling, you can tattoo it with your choice of Chinese symbols, which will be permanently engraved on your body by a man with a gold tooth who wears goggles as he operates an electric needle that spurts India ink into your flesh. Now your ankle is saying something, in addition to holding you up as you walk.
Whatever is natural, it seems, has become mundane. The last thing you want is a boring elbow, a plain forearm, or a hip without instructions. Freckles, moles, and scars are passé; bring on the Sanskrit, emblazoned across your torso like a menu from a fast food joint in downtown Bangladesh. These days, we have a need to make whatever we were born with our version of better, and in so doing, leave our permanent wisdom carved on our bodies and not engraved on the souls of our children.
The Italian Nose
I came of age in the throes of “better living through cosmetic surgery,” and liked the fact that I had options, whether or not I would ever use them. Viola knew of the popularity of cosmetic surgery, but she hoped I would stick with the inheritance in the middle of my face: my nose.
“Never get a nose job,” she said.
“Why?”
“You’ll need your nose later. It will hold everything up.” And then she said, “You’ll see.”
She was one hundred percent correct. The nose is the tent pole of the face, and for me, its meaning goes beyond its purpose. When I see my reflection, I see them, in my profile and nose: Lucy’s strong bridge and Viola’s end tip are part of my legacy, and I wouldn’t change it now, even if I were offered free surgery. I see everyone that came before me: Venetians on the farm and in the silk mills. I see generations of Bergamasques high in the Italian Alps as they hitched the carriage to the horse in the stable, and filled their baskets with fresh eggs as white as the clouds that passed overhead on a field of Tiepolo blue. I see them all, my people, in their imperfection and their might, right here in the mirror. What is beautiful to me, is not so much what I am, but what brought me here.
If doctors can help you, let them.
Viola’s surgical diet regarding noses did not extend to her knees. She had a double knee replacement at New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery. The great Dr. Thomas Sculco performed the surgery when Viola was eighty-five, and twelve weeks later, when her knees had healed and she stood straight, with marginal postoperative pain, she admitted, “I should have done this twenty years ago.”
I thought of Viola before she had her knees done. Despite the arthritis and the way they locked in certain positions, she continued to work on the tractor, stand for hours rolling dough and baking pies, prune trees, and shoot her rifle at close and distant range. What if she had gotten those knees done sooner? With good knees in her sixties, she might have very well joined the Flying Wallendas in their high-wire act, or danced as the prima ballerina or even become a marathon runner. All I know is she could do anything with bad knees, and with new knees even more.
The Flapper
Viola was religious about staying slim. She was a young woman in the 1920s, when the beauty ideal meant freedom. Corsets were gone, hemlines went up, and thin, boyish figures were in, with bobbed haircuts that emancipated women from brushing, ratting, and setting their formerly long hair. Evidently, young ladies had to be unencumbered to dance on tables and drink gin out of shoes.
In the Roaring 20s Viola was enamored of drop waist chemises and high-waisted, wide-legged pants hiked up with belts, worn with navy-blue-and-white-striped fisherman sweaters inspired by the designs of Coco Chanel. For the first time, women wore pants on a regular basis—the concept of sportswear was born. To emphasize their carefree short haircuts, they wore wide silk headbands or tied enormous bows in their cropped hair. Girls reveled in the freedom of the new wave of fashion, and in the independence that came from their factory paychecks.
A woman’s beauty template is determined by the times she lives in when she comes of age. The vision of our younger selves never leaves us. Just as Viola was influenced by the flapper era and the budding It girls of the times, Mae Murray and Theda Bara, my template was defined by the 1980s. I was influenced by Rene Russo in Harper’s Bazaar, wide strips of black kohl eyeliner smudged under her eyes to emphasize the deep wells of grief that come from being beautiful. Isabella Rossellini made classic features new again. I was grateful brunettes were back—from the Latina on the cover of the Cars album to Esme Marshall, who seemed sporty and gutsy.
I fell in love with trends during my youth, just as Viola had during hers. I continue to trust the power of
the shoulder pad, and to this day, I still look at myself in the mirror and wonder if I should stuff the foam triangles into my jackets. So it is no wonder that Viola carried a bit of the Charleston girl in her all of her life, the free spirit who remained slim enough to slip out of a man’s arms and through the rungs of a chair and under the table and out the door like a vapor, escaping the vices of the speakeasy.
Viola carried a disdain for excess weight all her life, and would comment to a friend or a grandchild if she thought they had put on a few pounds. This did not make Viola popular, but she was known to be direct and blunt, which was consistent with her managerial style.
Viola was never happier for me than when I was on a diet and hungry. (If this runs counter to her commitment to cook and bake, gather and feed, all I can tell you is that I live with that conundrum.) Viola was more proud of me when I lost ten pounds than if I had won the Nobel Prize. To Viola la bella figura was in fact, la slim figura, which in turn was la best figura.
Dr. Bonicelli
I never saw Lucy agonize about her figure. Lucy looked at food as nourishment. Her meals were also fresh and homemade. She said you should eat the size of your fist at every meal. You could eat whatever you want, but eat it in small portions. I noticed that there was a balance of fruit, vegetables, and protein in her diet, but here, as in her creations, her discipline appeared effortless. In the afternoon, her snack was a handful of almonds. In the summertime, she kept the pristine white sink in her workroom filled with cold water and bright red radishes, scrubbed clean for snacks.
Each day at noon, weather permitting, she sat for fifteen minutes in direct sunlight, on a break from her work in the shop. Now doctors advise us to do the same, to shore up our levels of vitamin D.
Lucy was so wise about the ways of the human body, she was known in her circle of friends as Dr. Bonicelli. Lucy’s friends would call her and describe their ailments; Lucy would jot down a few notes and go to her physician’s manual, a large, leather-bound blue book that she had brought over from Italy. She would look up the symptoms, and then call back the friend and give them her amateur diagnosis. Of course, she advised the friend to see her doctor. But medicine, health, and natural healing were of great interest to Lucy all of her life.
I keep a box of Bonomi chamomile tea on my shelf because she made me drink it when I had a stomachache. I give the same tea to my daughter, and it has the same soothing, calming effect on her as it had on me. I also take Lucy’s version of cod-liver oil—omega-3s—and an orange every day. Vitamin C is a great healer, and Lucy recommended it.
Do your own chores.
Lucy stayed slim because she did all the manual labor around her home and business herself. No one has ever done an expended calorie graph for the amount of calories burned when operating a wringer washing machine, but I’m sure it’s more than a hike on a treadmill. She shoveled the deep Minnesota snow, washed the showroom windows, and cleaned her building top to bottom. She only set foot in a gym to watch her son play basketball.
Walk everywhere.
Lucy never owned a car. She walked everywhere, to the store, the post office, to church, and three miles round-trip out to the cemetery and back to visit my grandfather’s grave. There are still folks who remember her long stride and quick gait. Walking was her favorite mode of transportation, and her only one, and she had the long, slim legs to prove it.
When Lucy was felled by a stroke, I visited her during her therapy sessions. She rode a bike and operated pulley weights to build up her strength. Even after her stroke, her embrace was as strong as it was when I was a girl. Lucy was determined in all things, and I remember her example late in life. She could have just given up, but she didn’t. She used all her energy to build up her body and get well. I know she didn’t feel like taking the therapy, but she did it, and she did it well. There are many mornings when I don’t want to put on my sneakers and go for a run, but I think of her and do it.
Waste not.
Viola was in her early fifties when I was born. She was strong, bright, and shiny in middle age, working hard at the factory and determined to save as much money as she could for her future. I remember Viola constantly on the go when I was small. She was firing on all cylinders, at home and at work, and expected the same of those around her. One morning, on the way to the factory, she hit a pheasant with her car. She pulled over, wrapped the pheasant in newspaper, and went on to the factory. That night, she served him for dinner.
The farm mentality never left Viola when it came to her garden and providing food at her table. She grew peppers, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and lettuce (and arugula, and collected wild dandelion greens in the spring). She grew grapes on an arbor, from which she would make jams. She made apple cider and table wine. She scoured the woods for raspberries, and went on strawberry-picking expeditions to the local farms. We climbed pear trees, shook peach trees, and gathered apples on the ground to make pies, or boil them down and freeze them in bags to use come winter in cobblers. Besides her freezer in the kitchen, she had a double-sided freezer in the basement, and in the later years, a freezer chest in the garage. She could literally whip up a meal from fresh vegetables, fruits, and meats she had frozen.
My favorite vegetable was wild dandelion, which we plucked from her fields every spring. She made a fresh salad with the bitter leaves, which were sharp but delicious. By the time spring would roll around and the dandelions were in, I would crave the dark green leaves. My favorite lunch Viola made was called Venetian eggs. She’d line an iron skillet with gravy (her homemade tomato pasta sauce), crack two eggs in the sauce, let them poach, and when they were ready, she would ladle the eggs and sauce over the fresh dandelion, tossed with olive oil, vinegar, and salt. With a piece of crusty Italian bread, it’s the most delicious lunch you’ve ever eaten.
Eat fresh and in season.
Viola’s kitchen, her cooking and baking, were determined by the seasons and the cycles of the garden. She planned her meals and baking around what was available and ripe. She said that it was good for your constitution to eat whatever was in season. Fresh root vegetables and chestnuts, roasted or steamed in the fall, canned goods from the garden in winter, dandelion and herbs in the spring, and fresh fruits and vegetables all summer long were the staples of her scrumptious menus. The same went for meat: venison, sausages, and bacon in the winter, roasts from the spring slaughter, and fish from the Jersey shore in the summers (as well as anything she might have run over, like Mr. Pheasant). She served fruit fresh and in season: figs and bowls of berries with a side of homemade whipped cream. Viola baked pound cakes in the winter, fruit pies made with rhubarb, sour cherries, and green apples in the spring and summer, and cookies year-round. Viola followed the same cooking calendar as her Venetian mother, cooking fresh with ingredients that were in season. These habits, dictated by the yield of the garden, go way back in our family tree, which, if Viola could have chosen, would have been filled with pears, which she would soak in liquor and serve over fresh ice cream.
No Time to Die
Before Viola died in April of 1997 (from breast cancer that had metastasized to the bone, her doctor told me), she told me a story of something that happened right after my father was born in 1933. She developed, to her despair, welts on her back. They were firm to the touch. The local doctor in Roseto did not know what to make of these welts, so he sent Viola to a doctor who had a practice “up on Blue Mountain,” part of the Poconos.
The doctor up on the mountain examined my grandmother and assured her that he had a treatment that would cure these welts. He didn’t tell her what the welts were from, only that he could help her. He showed her a glass wand that, when heated, turned blue, almost infrared. The doctor would use this light on her back, and he promised that this light would cure the growths.
Now, I was mystified as she told me this, so I blurted, “Were they tumors?” And she said she thought so. I asked her why she didn’t go into New York City and see a proper doctor, and she said, “I
had faith in this man. And the one thing you need to know about doctors, is that you cannot expect them to cure you unless you believe in them.” So for nearly a year, one day a month, she went up to Blue Mountain to have the doctor give her these mysterious treatments. After one year, the welts were gone and never returned.
Later, when she was diagnosed, I asked her if she thought those welts in 1933 were cancer. She smiled and said, “If they were, I beat it.”
On Her Own Terms
When Viola was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996, she opted for radiation and not a lumpectomy and chemotherapy. She drove herself to her radiation treatments. She was very quiet about the diagnosis, and didn’t discuss the radiation in detail. This was the only time in her life when I observed her in a state of total serenity. She was practically demure in the face of what would become her eventual demise.
I didn’t want her to die. I couldn’t imagine losing her.
On the morning of her last radiation treatment for her breast cancer, I met her at the hospital with my aunt. At the end of the session, the doctor and the nurses came out of the room and had a little ceremony for my grandmother. The nurse pinned a small pink ribbon on her collar, congratulating Viola on her final treatment. I remember that she beamed at this small ceremony, so proud. It was if she had been given a diploma, after graduating from college, her highest dream. I’ll never forget the look on her face: sheer triumph.
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