Postcard from Naples, Italy: it’s the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 4 AM.
(588 words)
Dear Kate,
Fireworks and trumpets, drums, and trombones blasted me out of bed at 4 AM. No way, I thought, at first, Kate. We light pyramids on fire, and then, this? I sprang into action on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, instruments making noise, punching through the walls.
Running out in my pajamas, all the windows were open in the apartment building — perfectly still. Freaking out, running down the steps, I fell in love with Christmas in Naples because tradition remains intact as if the world weren’t disconnected but very much bound by the unbreakable force of history, us.
Bar City café bumping with people, dripping with Christmas lights, a live band turned the corner with a crowd in 90s sweats: clarinets, trumpets, trombones, snare drums, and saxophones gleamed under fluorescent lights. We marched down alleyways for streets —not a light on — our puffy jackets swishing in reverence for the feast of the immaculate conception. A fellow in yellow-faced an apartment building and tipped himself back with a hand at his cheek.
“HOOOOOO,” he cried and stepped down a note on “AMARO” as in bitter with his voice.
“HOOOO JO JO VA MORONE…”
After a sorrowful, salty chant, men crouched down with lighters. The boxes started cracking, jumping, firing off shooting stars that exploded into willows and blooms and umbrellas of sparkling lace. Boom, boom boom, wham, he pounded the drum, cued the brass. We moved to the next stop through the smoke, the priests were with us.
I was reunited with so much more than my cousins coming upon a graffiti: “he who loves never forgets” —history. My roots. I felt like a kid again who just wanted to play. Swooping behind the priests now, Kate, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…we processed a statue of Mary glowing in the night under Santa’s face, boot, and hat.
We stopped. The priests took the front line. One held up a megaphone.
“SANTA MARIA,” we echoed back.
A statue of a mother held up her hands against the wild winds of loss for her fallen sons in WWI. Men in puffy jackets lit too many boxes and ran for it. Crack, crack, pop pop —boom, baby, this time big time. The grand finale in the piazza. Light streamed into the sky in thick liquids nonstop and exploded into a firework display that would be illegal in the US, setting off car alarms. I took cover in a gazebo, an isosceles Christmas tree on the seafront promenade broke the night as the brightest thing in the universe. The sky turned hot red at 5:45 AM. Break! Cappuccino, people ate fried foods. Mass at 6. But the bands did not stop they do not stop! Fireworks sparkling at dawn over palm trees, an unusual sight, I thought about California, MAFIA cruising by on the nose of the first subway car. The bands still blasted pure noise down streets at 8:30 AM as if there was no such thing as an end or sound pollution.
And it’s only the 8th of December, Kate. It doesn’t stop until the 6th of January. The nuns are with us, then, you see? The beauty of the story? We begin with Mary, and we end with a witch. The nuns are with us then, I repeat. As it was in the beginning, it is now and ever shall be a world without end — pagan. The Magi return…on this day on top of it, these are seasoned storytellers, true professionals of the craft. Blown away, every year.
*
Postcard from Naples, Italy: Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” is a Christmas Institution
(388 words)
Dear Kate,
“Christmas in Naples is a sport,” my cousin said it my first year back. With a full flush in her hands, gambling at the time, euros in piles, a boy slapped a 20 on the table. I caught the baby at my feet sneaking by…his little hand rising over the edge of the table to snatch bills out of his family’s hands. And no one even noticed, just turned their wrists, kept talking.
As you know, I disappeared when I was a teenager, and here we go— another season, another end of the year. Still here. Except, that bittersweet sweet sentiment that can seduce us in the States just doesn’t exist here. The other day, even, my cousin said, “Vesuvius is our father, we will not run away, we will embrace him!” This is about immortality, why?
Everyone dies‚ newsflash. Vesuvius did not destroy Pompei, you see, grinning at you, he gave it eternal life. Everyone knows Pompei, right? Silent Night? Ain’t happening here. “My Way” by Frank Sinatra is—a Christmas carol. There is only today —my way— throwing a table over to revolt against the future conceptually, ending in an emotional mosh pit because his voice like velvet is on the rise as we take the inaugural calzones outta the oven as one. Papyrus shooting over smoke in pinwheels. Fire the canyons: bravo. We shook the cliffs that rose with rage from the sea, cosmic forces ever-present ripping ‘round the coast, breathtaking, bursting with life. Bravo. I was convinced, on this day, the first day of Christmas, that we too are made of cosmic forces capable of crying from unforeseeable circumstances, against all odds, with a ravaging beauty raw, real, and explosive. We only have one. Life. So here’s to second, third, infinite chances to come alive with tears in my eyes at 38 as piping hot bread steams like MAD from mallets — my cousin’s command! “Maria! Smell this shit.” Farm fresh. In your face. What’s he saying? I punch my fist, “I took the blows,” bravo, and a woman holds up her phone with a baby on it. “FRANKIE!” We explode. Cheering, applauding, embracing one another through an aroma of fresh mozzarella, the big band takes us out.
“Yes…I did it…my way.”
I’ve never been so swept away… this is joy. Merry Christmas. Bravo.