Yesterday…tomorrow.Before…after.Now.Suddenlyspring has given way to summer.In town legs and arms are bare,offering mosquitoes and no see’umsa banqueting table. In the country night creeps up,making way for thoughts.How rare just to sit,let oneself merge with the night,stop thinking of anything but the now.To stop thinking. And be aware of sounds,of shades of darkness, of touch, ofContinue reading “Now”
Author Archives: Erika Bizzarri
Love
We are human beings and subject to a range of emotions, ranging from hate to love. Perhaps one of the most significant of human emotions is love, that attachment to another being, an emotion we also find in our four-legged friends. There is the love of a child for his mother, of a mother forContinue reading “Love”
One Never Knows
One never knows There weren’t too many in Orvieto those years who spoke English. It must have been the late 1960s or early 70s. There was the language school, equivalent of high school. They needed someone called “a reader”, who would come once a week to lend a hand to the regular teacher and theyContinue reading “One Never Knows”
Movies II
To be continued Driving Miss Daisy, 1989. With Jessica Tandy, and Morgan Freeman as her chauffeur. Driving through the woods, he has a hard time convincing this very proper southern lady they had to stop so he could relieve himself. Then at the end he visits her in a retirement home and lovingly feeds her,Continue reading “Movies II”
Movies
My family is not a movie family. There are however memories of movies, and many I have watched more than once, whether on the silver screen or TV. Movies that I remember. The dates may not be when I saw them, but are when they came out. So it is when, where, and with whom.Continue reading “Movies”
Claudio – Desert
I’ve a lot to learn from my son. He should have been a writer. He’s much better than I am. He was in Arizona for the university study abroad program (2015?) and they showed him the desert. He wrote home to Italy about his experience and I must have translated it into English. Boots, alwaysContinue reading “Claudio – Desert”
Memories
Rome with Carolyn, 8 may 2015 Over ten years ago. When living here in Rome was still something to be envied. The Janiculum. Dinner at Lo Scarpone. A large entrance courtyard with a flowering vine covering the whole area. Then in with tables and let’s say real food, although they also had pizza. In oneContinue reading “Memories”
Coming Back
Coming back. Returning. To a place. But without the people you saw there every day it was not the same. So you cut short your stay. You left. Surely, though, I want to tell you, you can return to a place without the people. A place can be seen for itself alone. You can experienceContinue reading “Coming Back”
Mother Tongue
I’m translating from Italian to English. But is English my mother tongue? Since my mother’s mother tongue was German, her first words to me, her infant daughter, were undoubtedly in German, but I don’t consider that my mother tongue. It might be so in a sense, for I probably absorbed it as I did my mother’sContinue reading “Mother Tongue”
Birthday
97 years ago. I find it strange and somehow revealing that my father didn’t mention my mother’s name – after all seems she played an important part in this event. The years have passed, and now that I am 97 I find myself thinking of the many things I wish I had done, or hadContinue reading “Birthday”
Aftermath of Phone Books
I doubt one can still find those thick phone books which told you the telephone number and street where a person lived. Not only that but they doubled as cushions to raise toddlers high enough to sit at a table with grown-ups. Those large unwieldy objects are objects of the past, but small personal phoneContinue reading “Aftermath of Phone Books”
Burning Memories
When I lived in New York studying at the university, most of my friends were Jewish. It was something I simply took for granted. They might have been Greek or Albanian or Indian. Most of them paid little attention to the fact that my family was of German stock. But it was not until IContinue reading “Burning Memories”
Cold Nose Two
I know it’s cold so don’t even try to poke my nose outside. I lie in bed waiting for my son to finish whatever he is doing at the computer since he must help me to put on my brace. Thoughts begin to swirl around my head. I should really get up but I can’tContinue reading “Cold Nose Two”
Cold Nose
Notes to oneself My nose is cold. Must be cold outside. True. It is January. Costanza is on the couch. Or is it called the sofa. She’s wrapped in a blanket. The blanket with hearts on one side. And with wooly curlicues on the other. The book I’m reading has a young man called theContinue reading “Cold Nose”
Sears and Montgomery Wards
Oh dear. The NY Times has an article that Sears is about to disappear for the second time. I suppose Montgomery Wards also disappeared years ago and with the two of them there go the dreams of my childhood. How my sister and I would wait for the postman’s car to drive up the dirtContinue reading “Sears and Montgomery Wards”
The letter C and A Special Birthday
December is marked by the letter C. There is of course Christmas but there is also Carolyn, Cynthia, and most important Costanza. Carolyn, you were just a student when first you came to stay with us, rather perplexed and not quite sure what you were doing in an unknown Italian household as you were finishingContinue reading “The letter C and A Special Birthday”
Dec. 24
A roundup of my beloved poems – a few of those countless excerpts that inhabit the library of my mind. There are many others I would add, but they, for now, must remain under cover. Wake! For the Sun, who scatter’d into flightThe Stars before him from the Field of Night,Drives Night along with themContinue reading “Dec. 24”
Voice
I GIVE YOU MY THOUGHTS. I GIVE YOU MY WORDS. I GIVE YOU MY VOICE. Thoughts are always in the form of words. I can hear them in my mind, enunciate them. You too can hear them. But it is how they are said that matters. There’s a difference between giving you my thoughts inContinue reading “Voice”
Lost Words
LOST WORDS – BONDMAID Ramblings for the end of the week. No more than ramblings for that’s all I can do this week. Since the book I’m reading is The Dictionary of Lost Words, I decided I should look up rambling, although it isn’t one of the lost words. Rambling. Lengthy or inconsequential. (Typical of Trump I add)Continue reading “Lost Words”
People and Pigeons
There they are, a gaggle of ladies sitting ìn a row on the long metal bench under the portico of San Andrea. There’s an odd male between one contingent and the other. There used to be a florist here, with her offerings of calla lilies, fuchsia cyclamens, carnations, and roses from Israel or Holland. ItContinue reading “People and Pigeons”
Erika Bizzarri 