Thanks to the wonderful Tom Currey, my music is up on Spotify and most other streaming services for all to enjoy!
If you don’t have a subscription to any of these services, you can find the whole album on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL37p1c_U1Fl2fIcUC-3n9Ta2SSotgr3MP
Thank you for listening!
As an Endowed Creative Arts Fellow with the Duquesne University Honors College, I am currently working on an album of original music with accompanying poetry, prose, and multimedia design on the subject of “Pilgrimage.” My inspiration for the project began with a pilgrimage to Krakow, Poland for World Youth Day 2016, as well as a semester abroad in Rome, Italy, where I was able to take a personal pilgrimage to the place where my grandparents were born and raised, San Lucido, Cosenza in Southern Italy.
Walking up the white, paved parking pad at 5026 Exeter Road, my left hand rests in my mother’s right, and the tips of a few tall pine trees touch a sky the color of murky water. We are losing daylight. I look up at Mom, and she looks down at her boots, or maybe the ground between them. Beneath me, two small feet are buckled into a pair of black, burnished “dressy shoes,” the same kind I wear whether I am dressed up or not. These are new, a full size up, and their stiffness makes them foreign. Through thick, bleached socks I can feel blisters forming on my tender pinky toes. By the end of second grade the shoes will be familiar, but today my feet are sore.
We never enter through the front door, which is always colored with a wreath to fit the season. Today it is a wide circle of leaves and twigs, perforated by a random scattering of red berries and pinecones. The dark-railed porch features a collection of pink and red petunias. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve walked in that way, and all five times I was trick-or-treating.
As we near the side door of my mother’s childhood home—a place where I, too, will grow up, but in a different way—I tread through a small pool of shiny spigot water. A few thin rivers cross the width of the drive, and I trace them back to their source: twelve inches of faded, green hose connected to a waxy, red faucet handle. Pops must have been watering the plants or rinsing his hands of motor oil. We round the corner toward the gray-trimmed glass door. Mom opens it and metal scrapes metal as the old hinges do the same work they’ve been doing for forty-five years. She lets the screen rest on her backside as she works on the thick, powder blue door just beyond it; eyes trained on the lock, jaws clenched, serious. She pushes the second door open and I sneak up one concrete step, past my grandmother’s white orthopedics into a small, sand-colored breezeway.
My toes heave a sigh of relief as I leave the dressy shoes behind, beside the plastic cabinet that hides bottles of red wine and 7-Up. I climb up one more step into the dining room and shuffle my white socks across the slippery linoleum floor. Mom follows. The house smells sweet and familiar, a mixture of fried oil and powdered sugar, fresh flowers and fake ones. Alex Trebec’s muffled voice cuts through the dimness, I’m sorry, Susan. The correct answer was, ‘What is Iceland?’
First, sit on the floor playing with those jumbo foam puzzle pieces. Build a castle. Use the ones with the numbers to make indoor hopscotch, but don’t put the numbers in order. They’re just for show. Your brother yells at you to share so you chuck the crumpled green square—the one that’s missing a few teeth—at him. “Ow!” he’ll scream and slump over, clutching his eye. Construct a foam fort around him to muffle the sound of his cries.
Finish the fort and act natural. Laugh so loud that maybe your mom will mistake the wailing for brother-and-sisterly bliss. You cringe as you hear footsteps on the stairs, distant shuffling in the kitchen. You wonder if she has a shoe in her hand. Or an egg. She walks in the living room empty handed. “What did you do to him?” she’ll say. Say you built Johnny a house to play in. Say he’s crying tears of joy.
There’s a string that clings to one of my branches; a string from the cap of a boy who taught me how to love. I hold my breath, willing it to hold on. Sometimes I wish I could close my fingers around it, tuck it away somewhere like Sam might have done, but I can’t will my withered limbs to grow. So I stand fast, as I always have, wondering where a tree keeps its heart and how mine can hurt so badly, wherever it is.
I look anywhere, everywhere but Grace’s window, where a pair of dark eyes stare back at me through the web of white flakes. The same memories that are written on her face are etched in mine.
~~~
“Hey! Wait for me!” she hollered as she skipped out into the bitter air, slamming the front door behind her. Tiny hands and feet stuck out of a solid mass of pale-pink snowsuit. She ran as I imagined a starfish would, with a pointy, purple hat completing the costume.
“What are we gonna do?” she asked Sam, skipping alongside him.
“I’m going to climb to the top of this old tree,” he said. “It’s about time somebody does.”
The above poem was written about my mother and the Blessed Mother.
When I hear you speak,
I hear you speak union.
You do not say what is not true,
And thus, you do not say without binding.
When I hear you speak,
I hear you say, “You are mine.”
You speak truth,
And thus, you speak union.
Together, we are bound to be free.
Together, we are free to be bound.
And thus, when I hear you speak,
I am speechless.
Because I love you,
And I want you to be warm.
The crooked creek can’t sit still, restless
Flowing freely, forever green
Its churning current never tires
I was there once.
The barren bedrock can’t hold on, helpless
Weathered emotion, endless erosion
Its wrinkled sighs never cease
I’ll be there one day.
But the able oak can’t stay rooted, aimless
Changing colors, chasing freedom
Its fallen armor gathers at my heels
I am here now…
We are not so different.
A steadfast rhythm and love beyond measure,
My heart hangs heavy with the weight of the unknown.
Gone are all familiar pleasures,
A departure that leaves me a sea without its foam.
With Pooh Bear in hand and bangs in her eyes,
The girl that was me says her goodbyes.
It started long ago with a warm season’s greeting,
One last waltz marks a summer complete.
I’m chasing fireflies with no hope of succeeding,
Damp grass folds under hopelessly clumsy feet.
Cool wind in her hair and stars in her eyes,
The girl that was me says her goodbyes.
Sunlight fades and the moon shows her face,
The evening chill dances down my spine.
One final leap puts an end to the chase,
I fall to the ground and stare up at the sky.
With dirt on her knees and tears in her eyes,
The girl that was me says her goodbyes.
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