“La vita è strano (Life is strange),” says my great uncle, sitting outside on a white plastic chair. My Zio’s light blue button up shirt has ink marks on the breast pocket from where he puts his pen. His khaki pants, which he wears everyday, have slobber stains on them from the two dogs running around his yard and are just short enough to show the rough red skin around his ankles.
“Mahhh si, (Ahhh yes)” says my great aunt sharply, who’s sitting opposite him in a plastic chair. Zia wears an oversized floral dress from her 20’s that hangs so wide on her bony arms you can see her ribs.
It’s 6 p.m., the hour where they also sit outside everyday and talk or not talk before dinner at 8 p.m.
In Sicily, it finally starts cooling off early evening. During the day, it’s so hot there’s nothing to do but sleep. And sleep they do, every day after their 1 p.m. lunch, until four. They’ve been doing it for years…
My zii’s house is big, and at the very edge of a windy road that leads to the ocean. The road is so thin that going around corners you have to honk in case there’s someone coming in the opposite direction; a soundtrack every local is used to.
In front of the house, before the stairs leading up the entrance, is a big concrete yard surrounded by cactuses, trees, dried grass and plants. That’s where they sit.
It feels like the amazon. Little bugs buzz around in the trees creating a constant electric hum that invades the air. Since my Zii have lived here over 40 years, they have to think hard to hear it.
I’ve just come back from a day on the boat with my cousins (their kids). We stumble out of the SUV, sunburnt and waterlogged, to where zii are predictably sitting and everyone escapes inside with a few words.
I hang aroung, and my Zia says luringly “Perché non siedi-ti qui per un po? (Why don’t you sit here for a bit).” Well, ok. I haven’t seen them for ten years…
My Zio, who’s my grandpa’s brother, is a saint. Kindness spills out of his eyes. He smiles with the softness of Kermit the Frog. He worked a long career as a pediatrician, and is still famous in the small town of Augusta. He can’t walk down the street without someone patting him on the back and saying, “Ciao, dottore.” Once, he knew all their names, but now, things are more blurry.
At 83 years old, he had a heart attack that put him in the hospital. They say after dying, even momentarily, you never come back the same. Now, his expressions exude the same kindness and warmth, but are eclipsed by moments where he somberly looks down at the ground. He is more silent.
A lot of things can be said about my Zia, the only positive one usually being that she’s good looking. That she WAS good-looking. In her day, the woman was a knockout, and though she now has brown spots on her skin and some teeth missing, she still has remanents of her past beauty.
Her hair is ghost white (she stopped dying it after she became a grandma) and in a chin-length bob. She wears big red-tinted sunglasses, chinese slippers and jewellery any fashionista would be jealous of. She has poise.
Zia’s personality is harder to pinpoint. The last time I came to visit Siciliy was eleven years ago and I was 12. She lifted up my shirt in front of the rest of the family gathered in the living room to see if I had tits (A family friend came to visit on our last day in Sicily with her 6 year-old daughter and Zia did the same thing. The girls just laughed. Maybe I’m too sensitive?)
I remember her complaining a lot and sitting in a chair, fanning herself. I heard talk in the family she was depressed and I was scared.
Zia worked for a year as a doctor, but likes to expand her career into more than it was. She’s always reading a book by someone “important” and “important” art clutters the walls of her house.
This time around, I found myself wanting to talk to Zia. Yes, she is blunt (“Credi in qualcosa? Do you believe in something?” She asked me the day after I got there and proceeded to lecture me on the power of religion). Yes, she is rude (see above tit anecdote). Yes, she is overbearing (her favourite perching spot is from her bedroom window which faces the yard so she can eavesdrop). But hey, she laughs at the end of her bitter jokes, and in her own house, at her old age, why shouldn’t she be allowed to stick her head out the window whenever she hears someone come through the gate?
We’re taking about being married, which no doubt came up because she grilled me on my love life. My Zio says having someone to grow old with is important. To be controversial, my Zia says it’s not. Even though they’re both clearly surviving old age because of each other, she insists companionship from one person isn’t necessary.
“Bahhh,” says my Zio, and then laughs.
“Si devrebbo ritornare in dietro, sposera ancora zio Giorgio (If I had to go back in time, I’d still marry your uncle, Giorgio),” she says, throwing in a dash of hypocrisy.
“Anchio (me too),” says Zio. “La sola cosa che cambero e che lei piacera un bicchiere di vino (The only thing I’d change if that she’d like a glass of wine.”
“Non non non,” says Zia, making a clicking sound with her tongue and shaking her finger. “Mi da fastidio di vedere le donne che bevano (It annoys me to see women who drink).”
It’s not enough for her to not like drinking, she rarely lets Zio touch the stuff. Yes, he suffers from diabetes and needs to watch his glucose levels, but If the poor man has a sip of beer, she gives him the death stare. When they have guests, he’s quick to thrust beer upon them so he can profit from the open bottles.
Zia asks me where the rest of the family is, and I explain they’re preparing dinner. After telling her the menu: barbecued fish, mussels and bruschetta, she grunts and rolls her eyes. “Loro pensano solo di mangiare (They only think of food),” she says. “Non dovrebbe vivere per mangiare, ma mangiare per vivere (You shouldn’t live to eat, but eat to live.)”
“I sto bene con la tua zuppa Mamma (I am fine with your soup Mamma)” says Zio, ever the peacemaker. Zia’s broth, which she is infamous for serving at lunch on the hottest days, is loathed by the rest of the family.
This inevitably turns into a conversation about weight. “Tu sei grasso (You are fat),” she says to me, grabbing a bit of my arm. I tell her in Italy it’s hard to stay slim and she snaps, “Mai tu eri grassa quando sei arrivata (But you were fat when you got here).” I tell her I’m happy, the only thing I think might get under her skin, and that maybe in Canada I’ll lose some weight. “Al meno quattro kilos (Atleast four pounds),” she says earnestly.
Zio who is sitting quiety, finally says, “I gionvani possano mangiare tutto (The young can eat anything). Quando Io ero giovanotto ho fatto la stessa cosa.(When I was young I did the same thing.)”
“Non sono giovani qui (There aren’t young people here)” she says, pointing inside to where her kids are. Their son, who lives in Northern Italy, is in his 50s and overweight. Their daughter, who is in her 40s and lives in Sicily, eats consciously and is always moving to avoid the pounds. She must get the lecture more often…
“Cosa dicci? (What are you saying?)” asks Zio, gently. “Sono giovanni (They are young).”
“Lei e giovane (She is young),” she says, pointing to me. “Per al meno un altro paio di anni (For atleast a couple more years).”
“Non,” says Zio, laughing his kermit-the-frog-laugh and looking at me with kind eyes. “Tu sei giovane, cara (You are young, sweetheart). Dopo 40 anni, tu svegli ogni giorni con un dolore nuovo (After 40 years you wake up with a new pain). Dopo 50 anni, tu svegli con un dolore nuovo la mattina e poi la sera (After 50 years you wake up with a new pain every morning, and then another at night.”
“A 80 anni (At 80 years)?” I say, smiling.
“A cara (Well sweetheart),” he says, letting out a sigh. “Gli uccellini non suonono piu (Birds don’t sing anymore).”
A group of young people walk by the house with towels slung casually over their shoulders, coming back from a day at the beach. The dogs run to the fence and start barking.
“C’è tanti giovani quest’anno (There’s a lot of young people this year)” says Zia, watching them walk by her fence. “Loro fanno una passeggiata alla spaggia, poi vanno alle sue case. Che vita la gioventu…(They walk along the beach and then go home. What a life being young…”
