We were twelve people on the First Feast of Christmas. Franco and Vico were at the head of the table with Angela, Emma, and Rosa at the kitchen side as I was with the Cubist portrait by Maria probably of Maria with two faces over my shoulder. Flora was on the left-hand side of Vico. His mother was there, a dolce person, and Vico’s niece Ivana sat at my side, blond and unapologetically sexy. I appreciated that about her, flirtatiously taking me in. I knew her as a child as well with voices crashing around us. In electric blue, her greens were even stronger. Carmine assumed his position, adjusting his glasses. He would always be directly in front of me to facilitate my communication with the rest of the table. He ate a piece of bread with owl eyes, the table steaming from cheese.
My plate practically dropped under the weight of a calzone. Knives sliced through thin gooey yet crispy dough. “Pizza, pizza,” they said, though there wasn’t any room for them. I wasn’t accustomed to eating like this, but if there was one thing I couldn’t forget, it was how much they ate. I couldn’t say that, so I was trying to take my time politely with more hands than words. “Calzone primo.” They laughed. “SPEAK UP. NO ONE.” It wasn’t happening. Twelve people responded that it wasn’t a “good idea.” The calzone was hot. Pizza wasn’t “buono” cold. “NO IS BUONO MARIA.” Twelve people. Rosa and Emma laughed. I was out of my element. I didn’t like that because it was true and not true and I didn’t care. I dove in. I bought the flavors emanating from the steam into my nose. It was delicious, and I was thrilled. I wanted to talk about smell. Vico couldn’t agree with me more, though Franco didn’t understand my enthusiasm.
“DOES FOOD NOT HAVE TASTE IN AMERICA?”
He asked me that as Vico brought a great weight of pride upon him.
“His farm.”
He sprinkled fresh basil leaves on top of the pizzas and rang it in.
“Splendido!”
Emma clapped and made fun of her father.
“Splendido!”
Rosa smirked.
“Canzone!” I cried.
I called a hot sandwich a song.
They corrected me as I snapped at that and at the similarity between the words.
“NO LIKE MUSIC? MUSIC IS,” food.
“Ancay Francay.”
Laughing at their father differently, Emma and Rosa offered us classic wine[1] on top of the glass bottles in Vico’s hands.
“SAPERLE!”
We cheered for Saperle, but I didn’t know what that word meant. Vico kept my glass full. Franco searched for problems. He told me to—Vico snapped at him with sharp shrugs and became delighted. “Buon Saperle,” he poured then the landing of the bottle on the table became affirmative and conclusive to get anticipatory, again, on his elbows, ready to perform.
It was an effervescent red.
Twelve people communicated all at once that it came from the volcano—si, si,—from a man who was named SAPERLE! He had a vineyard on Vesuvius and he did not sell his wines; he just gives it to his friends which Vico said without words to the amusement even of the family around us who did not stop talking. He heard a song coming regardless of what was happening, it was time for a lesson with his eyes drawing the meaning from you, while others tended to rush in.
Cheese in strings across the table, a feast in Naples is almost like a telephone operator game, in that, there are many lines happening at once. Some can be subtle—like the conversation between Ivana and me about her Prince Charming over there with curls in electric blue and me not being from here but eager with everyone, more or less, coming at me. We can almost plug in and out of a main switchboard to whatever line we wanted even to have a true aside that could become mainline with humor “what?” if it was proving to be interesting or lengthy. All could fall silent, sort of, so comedic, as someone who played this role well, Franco Franzese usually, brought the table up to speed. But regardless of who is talking, it’s rare that only one person is…Emma, Rosa, Carmine, anybody can take the lead. They are all the lead in their minds. It doesn’t matter who is talking. We could take detours, no problem. Spontaneous doesn’t begin to describe the Neapolitans; that’s one of their signature characteristics. To them, I was like that. I appeared to be Neapolitan somehow to Franco Franzese already. “Si, si,” Flora’s famous “si, si.” That stunned me, already recognizing myself. She could sear you with her nasal capacity. Franco was the type to include others in his public discourse—esatto, eh brav—so it was fun picturing him in ancient times because he would get a kick out of that, too. His serious nod, his existential pondering, next to Vico. He was not at all like that. They were a comedic pair, the two Francos side by side.
It’s a true theater and an impressive one. A sport, a match, it’s just that this is Ancient Greece so theater and sports or entertainment…this is one in the same. Separation is an illusion, and Franco Franzese will tell you first. They inspired my imagination that way but family tended to do that since you find all sorts of characters in families. It gets juicy there.
I was the cousin though, the new audience member, the recently returned player, so I provided a target. And the Neapolitans wanted to play—they wanted to know what my business was. The Neapolitans get into your business, especially if you’re family, but you can’t get into theirs, and Franco Franzese had my number. How do you feel about each other? Ever go through some hard times? It’s all about “MOHNEY” since we could switch, in Franco’s words, rubbing his fingers at me, because I did that naturally. He caught that. “Neapolitan,” again. “Really?” He could very well ask me to break up Carmine’s band from within, on that note, if he felt like it. He made two little birds “tweet tweeting” between his fingers at me saying “IO SONO ARTISTI,” (people laughed and toppled me; I had not a second to correct myself). Franco played a goofy air guitar to go back to “tweet tweet” since Carmine and I had some secret language that no one else could understand. Flora could motion. There you saw who was really in charge here, but she was a trickster too. I connected to her to make sure she felt included since I do not tend to speak to men or fathers without connecting with the wife, the mother. Franco and I could have a tiny tit-for-tat, even about drinking. “What?” He gave me his sincere brow, a tactic, which I didn’t get, and neither did Vico.
And look, when it comes to tactics, these were seasoned professionals. There’s a play, a group of people, and who are you? Dinner time was showtime, and a feast was primetime. You are expected to perform or you’re expecting to be entertained or both. Everybody has their way through, around, etc. There are players such as Vico who come alive at a meal. He’s captivating enough to command the whole table; they all do, to be frank; the table becomes a large cast of stars, but this is step one. Everyone knows that. I didn’t, but I remembered enough and I was a fast learner. I didn’t give away my operation in reality, though transparency or openness turned out to be an extremely effective defense. But also a sincere rejection of the past, like I just wanted to be enthused about life. Why was that such problem? I’m not exactly of the stock that believes in black and white — like they’re wrong, just because I’m right, too, but this meeting of us, on an interpersonal level, can sometimes really bring that out.
I wanted to be like that despite where I came from, and these people were clueless. It’s okay. They don’t know anything about early childhood trauma. If the hospital doesn’t even know, I mean, what do they know about a four-year-old in these circumstances? You would think, yes, I’ve been here before. I wasn’t born yesterday!
Full of emotion, this goddamn line everyone loves — it’s the best possible time to be alive, Tom Stoppard wrote, where everything you thought you knew was wrong.
For me, I chose “I don’t know” as an approach because I felt it had real value. You touch that, since, I could see that my story could put someone in an unknown space, which could scare them, make them insist that they knew over me. And I’ve always been so humbled but what I don’t know. However, I wouldn’t walk around like that, anymore.
That’s the brightness behind my face—and that I was: beaming, eating the pizza, and I was making faces and enjoying the theater of it. Franco is a mocker. He’s going to mock you. Ancient times. But was I asking to be mocked? Maybe. I was just excited, but my story had already sent waves down that telephone line—Flora, Franco, and Carmine with owl eyes. He had my number for sure. Flora was permitting it because it was fair in her mind. Already. Franco was naturally antagonistic, could be, I see. Like a protagonist needs one, though he is, one. In one.
A feast is all at once, and I didn’t know it was the first day of Christmas. So much is happening at the same time, and conversation is as rich and delicious as the food is, that’s the field, the players that I returned to. “SAPERLE!”
“More pizza, more?”
“No, no, it’s okay, okay, okay.”
“Okay, okay, okay.” They picked up my “okay…” I thought they said it.
Vico came forward on his elbows and threw it on the table.
“Where have you been? What happened?”
Just like that as I stuck my fork in and sliced this belly right open. Fior di latte burst forth and across my plate, rising in a pool, with bits of salami.
“Piscine,” I said.
“Eh brav. Eat, eat, eat.”
“You see she doesn’t eat,” Franco said, and that was not true. He didn’t care. No. Yes. No. This. He interjected that apparently, my father had Alzheimer’s.
Vico’s eyes—“Alzheimer?”
Everyone said “Alzheimer,” some didn’t know what that meant, but unless you know, you don’t, I’m afraid. I swallowed. I laughed. “Why?” I wasn’t expecting this reaction and a chorus of “Alzheimer? Alzheimer?” Or, to hear “you see she’s joking,” or a number of reactions to my reactions to everything I said. To say I was not being serious about such a disease was insulting. As if it could be anything else or they might have misheard me. Alzheimer, why would I pick that disease to pretend? I didn’t understand that. It was churning me up, but I could not get angry at that time, and they didn’t know, so. It might have appeared like a freeze, actually, or maybe I could have laughed.
Franco continued with palm that I was ten years old apparently, which was somewhat unbelievable to them, but then, they asked me what happened. Sure, I hadn’t won the crowd, and that’s what it was like here. You had to win the crowd that were by nature contrarian toward me, which was a feature of my story I didn’t understand. So, what else could I do to remain connected and disconnected more like it than “study human nature,” since I came from a story I didn’t even grasp. If was a bright bulb, which I was, the intensity turned up. I suppose it didn’t make sense to them because we were here at this time, but then, they didn’t remember or put together that we disappeared. I “POOF.”
I turned to Carmine. He was getting into position.
“When you,” and the thing is, Neapolitans do not stop talking. It’s rare. They interpret you before you speak. Charades with Maria was also entertaining. Everyone tried and guessed so Carmine and I were in our cocoon, voices guessing all around us.
“What is the contrary of someone?”
His owl eyes looked side to side.
Franco said something that made Flora laugh and alerted me.
“The word,” I said. “PER…”
“PER, PER? MARIA PER?”
“QUESTO.”
“No one,” Carmine said.
“AH, she’s saying that he didn’t tell anyone.”
They didn’t really get that. They didn’t understand.
I tried to mime “secret” beginning to go under the table, which made them laugh.
“When you no…”
It was all hands because I didn’t have the word.
“YOU NO SAY…”
I was pressing it down making “shush shush,” and no one understood this. We all shushed shushed. This was utterly nonsensical, conceptually, to the Neapolitans. I could put myself on display, trying to communicate, hide, many things—just project a strong yet open—I will embrace you, you see—front. It was like taking off a roller coaster ride, my story.
“Secreto…”
Carmine looked at me, on top of all the voices. I made some “no say…”
“Secret, secret, yes. It was a secret?”
“A secret?”
He didn’t tell anyone.
I guess they didn’t believe me. And that entangled me in lots of emotions I didn’t have words for. Using Carmine, I mumbled through “diagnosis” but most medical words tend to originate from latin, so on that end, they were usually close. My intensity increased, but there was nothing abnormal about that to them. I had an entire experience—yes, I was a free-spirit, that was a reflection I received but the reigns were actually quite tight, I was in a rather tight box even in a carriage that didn’t have a driver always, especially when it came to my story, though I had to avoid damaging ideas nonetheless since people expected me to be damaged. It was muscular, if not althetic, my joy. It took an incredible amount of mental strength to be able to operate like that. I wasn’t always ina state of urgency, obviously. I didn’t know what this landscape was even—an utter mystery to me. I would say if was like a roller coaster ride, based on the images I am seeing in my head, which is true, in that I was speeding through, groundless at times, since I’m not the same person. I would just leave.
“The doctor,” and I shoved through them, which made them laugh, sometimes, especially with my hands casting out a net which “Peter Park,” which was Franco’s nickname for Carmine. “Gave,” I was trying to find this word, getting emotional, so it was chaos in my head. I said it in French.
“HE TELL ME at twenty years old,” I threw them down with prayer hands on the table to the side “that he has Alzheimer when I was ten.” I wrangle people to accept this who were trying to pull something that was a totally different story than it was. “No, secret,” and they didn’t understand the significance, and I didn’t either at the time because this kind of fight was central to my problem. I was projecting outward as far I could reach because I didn’t want to be where I was from.
“He had Alzheimer’s when you were twenty or ten?”
“Ten. The DOCTOR.”
I brought a fist back to me in a large curve.
“TELL ME at TWENTY.”
They were commenting on my every move.
“SPEAK,” Franco asked, “SPEAK to your mother?”
His sincere brow.
I was wild, in-between states, though it could have appeared as a freeze with sheets of paper shuffling in my eyes.
Roasted meats came to the table, and I was so full I could not breathe. There was no more room with this calzone. In broken Italian, obviously, my father didn’t tell them what happened, obviously, now that was rich. Ah, yes, and I was remembering my father, and their condolences enraged me. Wiping my mouth, I had to laugh, in this chaos. Of course, my father never said a word not about any of this, and though they might want to pass their condolences, I didn’t want them. No, Franco took the lead on this one because my father spoke to him the most, though very little. “Only that she wasn’t really in your life,” and this sentiment that was beginning to rise was rage, but again, didn’t know that.
“EH?” I made like, then why on they asking me this?
They got pushy right back.
“How were they supposed to know?”
Right, I laughed. That was the edge. I had to deal with disbelief on a basic level, forget the rest of the story, that my mother was totally absent. Never there. Just that. Hello? I cannot change the facts! But people can manipulate facts to fit what they want it to look like.
I laughed, that was the edge, what I couldn’t show, and a bit of a blade through them that they wouldn’t even understand that sliced through what I couldn’t express. They were innocent, they didn’t know, and I couldn’t have these feelings to begin with. I couldn’t lose my composure at a family dinner, but I had my way of dealing with this story that operated like a disguise.
I was also not speaking in my native tongue, which threw me out of my head, and they were so aggressive, that I was blurting, expressing myself largely, physically. Spastically, my hands are my means of communicating visuals which Carmine could decipher, his eyes side to side. I had to fight. When I said “no, I do not SPEAK,” and I could make them laugh, they tipped down to express their apologies; that’s too bad, sad, and it was the last thing in the universe I was looking for. And they insisted. They searched for a day, any day, that I spoke to my mother. The words, the actual words, pinching my fingers together, did not suffice.
“No! BASTA!”
“Not even on her name day?”
I laughed.
Carmine with wide eyes couldn’t decipher me yet. I was laughing?
“Never, never. NEVER IN MY LIFE.”
I pleaded with them to drop the pitiful glances, and the tides were turning. I showed them the number of times that I saw her let alone spoke to her—two hands, maybe. I could barely speak. “She doesn’t want me!” Oh, in a world that overexaggerates, which I did not understand. I do not come from a normal family where “she’s like this,” I cannot compare.
I continued, Carmine in the corner of my eye.
“Volere,” I said.
“What is the verb ‘to want’ in the past?”
They didn’t want to accept it.
I was not doing “that” whatever “that” was! Didn’t apply to me! I would have loved to have had parents that I could “oh you know,” that shit. Like I would ever do that, seriously, in my position.
“The verb! Carmine! Voluto—” I got it.
“But she’s still your mother…”
That was richer than the food. I couldn’t get the words out.
“She! Please hear me!”
“Christmas, weekend, name days, you called people…”
I threw my hand—I cast it.
“Oilloc,” Vico poured me another glass. He probably cast out some lines for sure.
“She gave me….”
“SHE GAVE YOU? GAVE YOU WHAT?”
They conversed amongst themselves enjoying my means of expressing myself.
“To another person!”
It probably sounded like “to an alternative person.”
Emma took a deep breath.
I waved this other person away feverishly over there.
“And we do not know this person. We do not KNOW…Carmine! KNOW PAST.”
In short, my mother gave me away, not gave me to another person, when I was four years old, because “so what, people give their babies to people Maria.” Every single step I took, they contradicted me. They suggested otherwise. On a field, you can’t play defense against professionals, no one is going to take it easy on you. I was speaking in a language I didn’t know, but the order in which I put the words could confuse people. “I was four!” I could put up four fingers to some mocking from Franco or blank faces or amusement because I was entertaining even if I was nonsensical. “No, no, she didn’t.” If there was a time to blow, that was it. “No, you don’t remember.” I could have thrown a chair out their glass, I promise you, but I had an equal yet opposing force of “you cannot get angry,” but that was the final straw to a chorus of amused spectators as well. I exploded from the table, unable to get angry, so the comedy, you could say, had an edge because I might as well throw open an invisible cage. They liked my mime, and? Carmine made little wings as a question without changing his face. He even got the image. I saw a pigeon coup, birds flying out, my limbs. His father snapped at him. “What?” Carmine and I could meet on the plane of the imagination. “TWEET TWEET,” we had our own language, and I was taking a baby out and giving it to a woman “over there.” Carmine read me. I was putting her, pushing her, over there.
“We do not know this person…in the past,” Carmine repeated what I blurted, becoming less and less verbal. “Verb. Oh, verb. Verb. Confusion,” Carmine could see that with his owl eyes. He asked everyone with a pat to back up. He was in charge. It didn’t work, but it did.
“THE VERB,” I shot pinches into his owl eyes.
“PER,” I said.
“PER? PER? MARIA? PER?”
“To know…in the past!”
“A stranger…”
“A foreigner, Maria, or someone,” Carmine’s brow rose. “Or someone you did not know.” The table was enraptured by our secret language even me kicking a baby away like a soccer ball that didn’t mean anything other than an instrument in a game that was bigger than me. His father admired his son now, even, gesturing to Flora—her son. I had to laugh. Every single thing I did came with a response. These were engaged audience members to put it lightly. Angela laughed with me.
I pointed to Carmine.
“WE,” and he waited and no one else did.
“I—WE I WE—DID NOT KNOW THIS PERSON,” in a Neapolitan accent. They corrected me. “HEAR ME!”
Franco turned his cheek and held a tight smile.
“IO,” I pointed to myself.
“I SPEAK Neapolitan.”
“Brav.”
I had to laugh. I was not joking, grabbing for the word “serious” and maybe said “series.” I didn’t even have the words to express that it would be asinine to suggest that. “FOUR YEARS!” Yes, that detail. So, I was wild, at this point, having put myself on display, and they continued to come at me. “No, no, that’s not what happened. Ask Carmine! Ask her. Four years or four years old?” How to communicate the truth of it to these people, even reaching a Thelma and Louise edge of satisfaction: the degree to which she didn’t give a shit about me—and yes, I turned the wheel at 100 miles per hour away from that, because sometimes I wanted to run over people but it was just my own doom.
And by this point, I’m flipping the number two around furiously. “Two, the same. Both!” “You were probably there for day, no. Not possible.” Carmine couldn’t help where we were, you know what I mean? He was trying to clarify since questions were firing at us…slowly…even. In slow speech, he tried to calm me down, and that, in the state I was in, it was useless. We met on the “wild hose” image, water splattering everywhere. He did not need to mime it. His father made me laugh again by coming upon this curtain in the sky, and the whole chorus jumping in again. Finally, Franco defended their disbelief. “Scouge,” not “scusa.” But even that, I mean, what’s unbelievable about it to the point of doubting me from the second I opened my mouth? I conceded though. It was a hilarious and heartbreaking scene. Very rich. Angela put down “just another plate.” I was spinning in their refusal to believe anything I was saying, still, and the ridiculousness of my story, since this was part of it, so I pulled a move that would bring a whole team of Neapolitans down. There was only one who could. I channeled the woman who stepped into my house for the first time in a tennis skirt and legs shaped by the Gods and took me home for four years not expecting to.
“My Brazilian Mama!”
They flew back. Just their faces.
“TELL YOU—OKAY?”
Carmine dropped his head.
“Okay,” they bounced off my okay, rhythmically. “Okay.”
Flora appeared intellectually interested in this play even though she didn’t know where it was going. I kicked my sneaks that I wasn’t wearing as she did and gave them her sassy finger. She was a force of fire.
“Pay attention,” with her accent.
The table paused.
They were impressed by how I became this other person in front of their eyes. Franco especially. “She’s good, not bad. Do it again.”
“What?”
“DO IT, MARIA, DO IT AGAIN.”
“Pay attention,” I said, with a nice, fake smile on my face. Franco was into it with a tight smile—he got the underdog. Si, si. Keep going. I flashed her four jazzy fingers that she gave me at the tennis club and began to count the years beginning on my pinky. “One,” and they repeated it waving little pinkies at me. I counted all the way up to four beginning to say “the bad names” about my mother. We couldn’t help but laugh.
“The bad things! CARMINE! About the my mom.”
I was being serious, yes, I was. Yes, yes, yes, I was in all my states, so “don’t,” in broken Italian, “tell me it’s not true.”
“She was Brazilian, this woman?”
“Anche Jewish…”
What was the word?
“What is the religion of Mary?”
“Hebrew?”
“Si.”
“Maria e Jewish, Gesu e Jewish, e my Brazilian Mama, SHE,” I said instead of “her.” I pointed to her husband—a word I didn’t have. I put a ring on the wedding finger. They shot words at me even taking a moment to discuss amongst themselves that the show had something to it. “HER, the person who did this, yes, was Jewish.”
“So, she converted,” Franco urged me to answer the question with a sincere brow.
“Is this what you’re saying?”
I hadn’t thought about her in a long, long time. Even “pay attention” I remembered the and there, sort of laughing, rinsed, and charged if not electric. I wasn’t expecting that, but here I was, terrified. I was coming to my senses.
“Sorry…”
Their faces—what word was this?
“SORRY?”
Flora called my foul in sounds.
“Why is she apologizing? Carmine?”
He didn’t know. Sometimes, I could understand them but I couldn’t interject, trying not to laugh. Carmine repeated it without words. And four people followed—the same. “Scusa?” Carmine grained back, his father snapping, at my sudden quickness, my nerves. “Um,” trying to bring my voice down, they wouldn’t let me. Carmine could tell we were in another space with his eyes side to side.
“What is more strong than scusa?”
Maria, Carmine got real without words suddenly near me.
Why do you want to know this?
“A WORD MARIA A WORD? IS THIS WHAT YOU ARE SEARCHING FOR? YOO HOO!” Franco cried, “ARTISTS TWEET TWEET YOO HOO.” Franco and Flora had a little side play.
“Mi dispace,” Ivana said.
Franco looked at me as if I were a complete alien.
“NOH,” Rosa said. “Baby NOH.”
“This is what family is for…”
I had no idea what to do.
Angela said “MERI,” so tenderly.
She was happy that I was back even elegantly.
Everyone was.
I couldn’t even believe it.
I was “allegra,” according to Angela—joyful, happy, lively.
Allegra?
“My Way Brasiliane,” Vico said as if that’s exactly what this was.
They put it together.
“Was this the woman you said to get out of your way?”
“Si,” Vico figured.
Franco demanded confirmation. “Was this her?”
“NOH,” Rosa said. “NOH.”
Emma was rugged, so I suppose I was worried about her.
“Was this her—the woman you told to get out my “my way?”
“Si.”
Bravo. Brav. Even better.
“NA NA NA MY WAY!” I had made this group of people even prouder even though they still didn’t understand.
I was not brav, but I’d let that slide, since…
“NO,” Franco’s eyes were wide as if I were four before him. Angela gave me a bright smile, amused by me at four. Si, si, Flora said. “We can see her, we can.”
“I DO NOT SPEAK to THE MY MOM.”
Franco put his head into it like he didn’t want to accept it.
“You do not put the definite article in front of family members,” Carmine said.
“HEY,” I said…gibberish, though my feeling was clear.
I cast my arm in a curve to emphasize “MORE TRUE.”
Franco looked at my signaling.
“Where was your father?”
“Here probablemente,” I said like Flora.
Seriously, I would have paid her to be here. They would have fell silent, for sure, with a translator. And I would said the same thing to her as I did back then—don’t hold back, tell them every gruesome detail. She would have. Quite a performer, I assure you, who could grab you into her fist—this was Brazil, okay? It’s important to understand the power she had. The Neapolitans weren’t the only aggressive ones on Earth—she would have laughed, not holding back that edge, either, like I did. Snapping, whipping around, snap. She would have exploded just the same. No problem. Oh our laughter had its shades—the situation we found ourselves in was hysterical. No clue. She was the only one who basically understood what this really was, and you know, all these years later, she could meet me on—was it actually what we thought it was? It was madness. Like flip cards.
“Ah” Franco said, and “then you came here,” and yes, I tried to make it “okay.” The math added up, at least. I laughed again. Thanks. Took that hit. Franco with a tight open smile communicated to me without words that I was pulling his leg. “Maria?” No. They were beginning to understand, but then, I couldn’t quite trust that, but their reaction was making me uncomfortable. Or I was just that. Was this not unbelievable? Laughter, it does has its shades, so that one, through the nose. Unbelievable. But I had to concede, at the time, to the other side.
I got nervous, apologized. Franco looked at me as if I were an ALIEN.
“This is what family is for.”
Right.
-
I’m feeling so great. I got through a read of the draft in about a week. I took a nap in the park, still working on turning off my “analyzer,” clearing my energy, and it’s feeling more spacious in my head. And I am not rehashing the past.
I came back — made myself a giant pot of my favorite tea — and have been going through old drafts. Just combing through…gathering pieces…feeling into it… and I think this is a better version of this chapter. Where the sport of conversation is set up right away.
So, I’m going to go get a pizza, actually, try to find a good one. And I’m going to more or less start from here in the draft since the very beginning is still a question, and this isn’t even the Immaculate Conception. It’s just feast one. So, after this, I’ll just keep going… this time… through the draft again… and I gotta concentrate, I think, on my actual story… just making sure those pieces are there…and that it feels like a party… and it HEY! Pops. As one would expect. Or want.
Thanks for reading.