Judith LavezziQuiet. It is all around me. No presents. No need. No urgency. No plan. Just enveloping my morning warmth in a steamy cup of tea, and pleasurable lassitude.
What is this? The phone rings, trilling its insistent demand. I wait. Perhaps I don’t have to answer it, I am not a machine to be ordered about, a slave to jump to the chirping of digital crows. Am I? No, I am not.
I continue my tea.
The best gifts came without wrapping. It is for those, the rough jewels, that I am giving thanks, today
It looks like this. I meet people, here there and everywhere, and some of them stay to be a part of my life for a period of time; for a long time, or short, it doesn’t really matter, as they are my fellows, and we accompany each other along a journey. These are the gift-carriers, the three kings bringing unintended consequences that were both unearned and undeserved.
I have a theory . Actually, I have many theories, and some of them make sense, tho not all. This one is about our need for finding fulfillment and meaning. Most people are absorbed, in one fashion or another, in the search for The One.
I lay in bed at night, thinking. I sleep when I am reading. I get drowsy when I work at my computer.
I wonder if I am wired backwards, somehow caught in a loop that runs in reverse. I sit for hours in front of my laptop screen, and then drive myself to exercise. I worry about my adult children, but never as much as when Iam with them, which is when my worry hits a zenith. I do not wonder if I am sane, so much as I wonder how far off the bubble I would measure, if tested. So far, no testing.
GIOVANNI’S WAR:
My interests in Genealogy (my own and others), all things Italian, and, in particular, the time of my Great-grandfather’s immigration to America from the area near Betola, Piacenza,Italy has motivated me toward research and story building. I visualized the towns of my ancestry, and created a story that is entirely fabricated. Along the way, I moved the Gambatesa Mine Company a little closer so that Giovanni could walk there, and students will find much to criticize about my take on the spiritual peculiarities of a Catholic nation taking a stance so distasteful to the Catholic Pope of the day. I used names frequently found around the area freely, and in no manner does any character reflect on a living or dead person. But, I did have a lot of fun writing my characters, with their flaws.
OLIVIA:
The Second Book about this family is currently called Olivia. She popped up when I wrote the next book, called Death, Love, and Ghosts. My writer’s group, the inimitable 93rd Street Irregulars grew very fond of her and wanted to know her story. I had some clear sense of Olivia but wasn’t ready to tell her story, as I wanted to allow her some privacy. They were right, however, and Olivia’s story is half-written, and I am watching her journey with great curiosity. She earned her later oddness by taking novel approaches to life for a girl born in 1899. Her older brother Antonio is the son of Giovanni, the flawed character in Giovanni’s War. Life is usually about mistakes, and learning, and facing our inadequacies in order to grow, and this family has had multiple lessons throughout their years.
DEATH, LOVE, and GHOSTS:
Another work in progress, although completely written, it has yet to be edited, and improved. I’m hoping it doesn’t take me as long as it did with Giovanni’s War, with as my debut novel, took on several lives of it’s own prior to completion. I think it’s a better book now.
Set in 1980, not quite old enough to be historic, DLG is a more modern look at work, love, responsibility, family and the occasional insanity of being under 30 years of age and still trying to find oneself, the difference in cultures, and our approaches to problems, including those with secrets from the past. Some of the story began in Italy in 1869, although no one knows it yet, and we have to wait for the chickens to come home to roost.
New Thoughts:
I’m thinking of a few shorter novellas as well, side journeys of characters perhaps, and something about covid-19, something about the mechanical nature and the distance of our lives, one from another. I do not stay at home writing sufficiently to put each of these down yet, so my shorted novellas may be out before the books are finished. I am blessed with a very full life, complete with some roller-coaster events from time to time.
Thank you for your time and your friendship along the way, and your trust.
Across a year spanning 2010-2011, I developed a series of stories/essays which chronicled some of my experiences.
This was compiled into a self-published draft entitled: Leafcutting: ONE WOMAN’S JOURNEY THROUGH AN ORDINARY, EXTRAORDINARY YEAR. Excerpts of this book are included in articles here.
The literary journal, Many Mountains Moving, published a short article of mine entitled “The Argument” in their 13th issue (Vol. V, No. 1).
The day began simply, but deteriorated.
The experience of his anger, the rational disappointment of their life together when he finally expressed it to her felt as though it were taking place in another, strangely disconnected body. She vaguely felt herself pulled toward the scene where she stepped in front of the car, hearing the pop! her own blunted thud of body against steel, the bloodless, guiltless exit. She watched the accident, which was remarkably sound free, and thought how easy and clean it was.
I had an article published in Montana Woman magazine – the August, 2011 issue which was lost online due to the change in ownership of the publication.
I’m looking for a draft in my files currently…