The Miracle of the 34 Street?
Since I talk like that in Italian.
Vuoi un miracolo?
Franco Franzese could take you to any street corner in Naples if you’re looking for a miracle. Miracles are common in Naples, a dime a dozen, expected. One is built into the Christmas season: December sixteenth —the Miracle of San Gennaro.
We celebrate the patron saint of Naples three times a year but this past Monday, September nineteenth, marked his martyrdom under Diocletian around 305 AD.
As you might expect, lots of blood, he was decapitated, gathered in vials. And now, after sunrise, a safe is opened with two keys, probably at the same time.
Surrounded by rays and roses, we process them, magnifying glasses with crowns, toward the Duomo, soft red tips sticking up above the crowds. Red red red. What a crowd.
Legend goes his blood liquified spontaneously in the 14th century and has done so ever since, spontaneously, three times a year. It happens just like that.
“A group of Italian scientists has analysed the contents of the phials, establishing that they do contain blood, but have been unable to explain the phenomenon.”
Other than “come all ye faithful” and pray. Devotion along Corinthian columns and domes white and grey. Storefronts closed covered in graffiti.
Arms stretching to take videos and photos, Facebook on stand-by, camera crews, we wait for his blood to transmute solid to liquid, liquid to solid.
It takes anywhere between two minutes and four days, who knows? If it doesn’t, however, a bad sign, that we know, especially on this day. Our lives depend on it or else it’s war, disease, famine, Vesuvius. The other days…we don’t really care that much about.
San Gennaro has saved the city from disaster on more than one occasion, and what an occasion, not to be missed. Red, the color is red red red. The cathedral is packed.
Believers, onlookers, and tourists; the mayor, the noble Delegation of San Gennaro, descendants of the Bourbons and San Gennaro, the highest ecclesiastic authorities in red red red. We clap and cheer, tears stream down our faces, the statue facing us, clergymen reading from a red book.
San Gennaro mio fa tu ca io nun no pozzo proprio cchiù and arrimmierece chisti guaie…
“I cannot take it anymore, fix my troubles.”
“Naples,” as one wrote, “is forever in a state of emergency or in disarray so the relevant, unfortunately!’
Forever in a state of emergency. Bravo. The city thrives, in its own way. A man would wave a white handkerchief to give us the signal but I don’t have to stay.
I can check Facebook.
I’m the only one that does this, anyway, every year.
It is a day to eat as every day is, a day to eat street food here. Fritture, fritture, fritture. Fried foods. There are many. Anchovies, scampi, and calamari. Polpo, that’s octopus, and zucchini. Pig feet and calf snouts, macaroni omelets, and even sfogliatella, a sweet, and of course, there are many, sweets. Shortcrust. In the shape of little hats for the bishop.
We have the dolci of San Gennaro invented by Mario Infante filled a crumble of babà, limoncello, custard, black cherries, and Vesuvius apricot jam. Orange jam, too, but that’s San Gennariello from Pasticceria Napolitano. The saint’s complexion earned him the nickname “yellow face.” There’s also the O Dolce é San Gennaro, an egg and lemon biscuit beaten like zabaglione, a dusting of cinnamon. And the sweet St. Gennaro stacked high in hill of mille-feuilles inspired by Massimiliano Rosati and the artistry of Stefano Avellano, a sfogliatella, a sponge cake wet with maraschino, custard, amarene poured on top. A modern take.
Pick up a couple of torroni nougats. Eat a pizza in the shape of a wallet or with smoked provola and ancient tomatoes and crumbled taralli nzogna or eat a cornice stuffed with salami—bref. We are never short on options…
The street vendors throw sea salt on visitors just trying to cornicello, a souvenir, a symbol of good luck. But watch out. For the salt. I’ve never had to deal with this, personally. I do not buy the red horn on this day. Pick another. My suggestion. Eat everything.
When his blood cools, meaning runs, canons are fired from Castel’Ovo, the oldest spot in Naples, more ancient than ancient. The city traces its lineage back to the siren that attempted to lure Odysseus. And legend goes, there are so many, a mix of fact and fiction, Virgil thought to be a sorcerer placed a magical egg in its foundation, and it’s true.
Naples is a celebration, Vesuvius across the bay, in the face of disaster, full of magic and mystery just like me, or so my cousins believe, though my mother wasn’t, believable that is. That’s life. But life was never just life to me. My mother’s name was Joy and my cousins call me Merì so you could say it was my inheritance: joy. I didn’t want to lose that.
So, this year, his blood liquified at 10:03 AM. Perfect. I ran through a crowd with joy, a mother I never knew, not really, but then, it’s true, too, I could never make definitive statements, to catch the men in red red red robes carry the silver votive of San Gennaro down the aisle to turn left into Duomo at almost the perfect hour, when the chapel turns gold, pure gold, figures swirling toward a paradise above, a dome, home. For San Gennaro.
Thanks for protecting us from another doom, boom, until December sixteenth, at least.
See you then for another miracle, maybe. You never know.
-
I worked on that and published it on my Substack…I will follow that line of feeling. Joy. I was hearing Opening, that song, and there’s one note that sounded funny to me…I feel so happy, I really do.
I’ll keep reading Bukowski and I’ll look for others with more of this idea in mind though this is just something I wrote quickly for the holiday that just passed. I don’t know if I gave someone else credit for the suggestion to read Bukowski. It was mine. But it seemed to connect with someone specific in my mind, whoever that is, because it felt more drawn out of me…even though it’s me…
At least with the newsletter, this blog, I mean, I might as well publish on both, on Medium, too? I don’t know how that works. Technically, like social media, you’re not supposed to do that, I think. For the moment though. I’ll think about it. If I can put something out there regularly, like every day, pitch, I’ll be just fine.
It feels better, no? In general. To just switch, get my head out of social media, that was a dark place, sorry. I can concentrate on publishing samples more in vein with what I’m pitching and think about essays. I’ll read more. This is a lot more enjoyable.
I’ll meditate on my chapter outline now that I have a better feel for the narrative flow. I do think that getting to that first feast sooner rather than later still feels better.
Originally, it started at the airport, (lol who gives a shit about the airport?), because it started literally at the airport and it ended with bags of olives and jars of marmalade on the way out. I went to Franco and Flora’s first…I could try and keep that first lunch. I could start at the feast as I recently decided, glasses swinging in the air, I disappeared…where have you been? It was straight in, no mercy.
Maybe that feels better. To deal with the “them,” maybe, too, family…
Maybe I’ll try that actually. Maybe go on the page for a second. Hold off on My Way. My song.
Some of these earlier pieces I feel could come later…I don’t quite understand that but that feels right.
Order to me, whatever, it’s more the flow because we’ll know.
Sorry, the way Angela says with my pointer finger.
“You you you! you must do the discipline!”
“Fa la discipline,” I said.
“VAI MERI!”
I tried to tell them that my father had Alzheimer’s so many times…so ten years later, “what? What do you mean…he has Alzheimer’s?” Angela would laugh. Trying to tell them this story, having moments, going, wow, I did, I really did try. That didn’t land…at all.
I’m feeling really happy right now so I don’t want to leave but I must, I must. Retire.
Sorry.
I can do this. I have a good feeling about it.
Thanks for reading.
Night.