lunedì 28 dicembre 2009
9.38
Sometimes I wish I were a better joke player than I am. Like this morning: My husband has begun sleeping in his own apartment, even though the bed has not been moved yet, with his wife. Me. Apparently this is a cause for confusion with MIL.
I wish I could have had the presence of mind to say, "what???!! He told me he was with you tonight!! Oh no, Gandolfa, do you think he has a girlfriend??!" But I didn't. I just said, "honey your mom wants to talk to you"
This is a good example of how it has been. I have hit my head against few walls this year, and shaken it in complete disbelief and confusion about what I was witnessing.
If her son has a cough -- which he always does because of the pack of cigarettes he has been smoking since he was 16 (in her house)-- she pecks and hovers because if i am sitting ignoring it (Would he really need to cough 20 minutes every morning if he didn't smoke-- his choice, his consequences kind of thing -- And not justification to tatke me away from a perfectly good cup of tea.)--it means i am not being a good mother, oops i mean wife, and that is a call for her poor medical advice, and warnings of gloom and doom.
It goes something like this:
Sunday dinner finished, crumbs everywhere, butcher goes to bathroom, has a cigarette. Mil wearing her little woolen cap that she sleeps in and her crocheted shawl over her shoulders sits on a chair with her short legs swinging in the breeze. I am sitting at the table, surveying the damage from the hen pecking and negativity served with the pasta.
The Butcher stays in the bathroom, the only room that has a lock on the door, for a while, in the mean time i have cleared away the debris from the daily serving of disfunction and set up my computer to take notes.
One of the ways that I came to accept these situations was to regard myself as an anthropologist on assignment, and field notes were taken.
So as I sat down to write my field notes, she starts shaking her head and says, I don't like how he looks one bit. How is he? Does he have a fever? I say , Gandolfa, it's a cough. The same one he has had for 5 years. Hysterically now, "He's my son, and I am worried about him!! You dont care about him, he is sick and I am worried, and you are not!" I reply calmly, "Gandolfa, it's a cough. It has not changed since I have known him, if you want to take his temperature, be my guest . I know what you know, he told us both at the table at the same time that his throat was itchy, so it's probably best to ask him directly if you want more information."
Then she would show me the electric bill saying how she could not pay it, had to save half of her pension these past 3 years, over 600 dollars a month for that fatefull day when she would be bedridden and needed a woman to stay with her. ....
After which he would come out of the bathroom, yes looking miserable, because he had heard her conversation with me, yelling about how she should tend to her own things. We were in business barely a few months and still not making any money, there was nothing to give her.
For a whole year it has been like that. Before I was in a bike accident, I got sick a few times, I even went away a few times because the whole situation pushed me beyond my patience and tolerance, and despite her figga mia s (my daughter) not once did i hear her ask me how i was. During our 6 week separation in April and May the butcher told me she was worried about me, but you know how that goes. She said this to him...
I have not written about the trials and tribulations of the past year with a mother who wants a mamone for a son and a son who seems to be trying not to be mamoned.
But it has been a real adventure. And I know, I can hear the " I told you so's " all the way over here. Yes, at least 5 family members back in the states , last January , actually said to me "You don't have to get on that plane."
And thank you all for your loving concern, but I did, and always felt that I should and am glad that I did. I have learned a great deal. I have healed a great deal. Plus there is loads of great copy.
One of the things I have learned about is the Mamone.
What is a mamone? Mamone is the term affectionately used for the overly coddled or overly attached mother to son and vice versa.
For a time magazine internet video article on the subject, here is a link:
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Having been well advised by my friends back at www.ExpatsinItaly.com to be on the look out for these men, and remembering my shock in 1985 in Sesto Fiorentino when I first learned that Italian men's underware was usually ironed by his mother long after puberty, I knew to wonder about this. The butcher and I had met a few hours earlier and were on the terrace with the mosquitos, the cigarettes, the fry guy, the swede, and the big plans for dinner that week and I asked if he lived with his mom. To which he firmly replied no, shook his head and said he lived alone, that he was independent. Where is your mother? In Livorno with my brother. That last bit probably should have tipped me off. Alas, I went into my lovely romance with eyes glazed, although open, and there was no mother in the house, so i believed him. Only to learn in September that she came back the minute I went back to the States, and my independent, strong, generous, masculine, cherishing, decisive man has struggled nearly every day to come back to me.
She lived in Livorno for sure, 6 MONTHS OF THE YEAR. The other 6 were with him.
So is the butcher a mamone? I dont have a perspective on this. He gets angry at her attempts to keep him close, to monitor, to dictate, chastise, instruct, punish, cajole, seduce and cherish him.
So for the longest time I thought he was fighting a difficult war with this push and pull. I thought that made him NOT a mamone. Then his friend of many years shook her head and said of course he is. But because he fights it there is hope. I have to accept that the real Siciliana is the expert in these matters. So I guess he is/was.... Ah to say this breaks my heart. My idea always was that this is an un-winnable battle and why should I have to lower myself to deal with an issue clearly having everything to do with their disfunction and nothing to do with my own.( wasnt there enough of that in my life before them?)
Well, I didnt know, or my eyes were too glazed over, and here i am 5.5 years later finally coming out of what feels like 18 rounds with mother and son .
And as I have promised, here are photos of the apartment that feels like a tree house and Paris to me.
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1 comment:
Good to see you are writing. Lovely apartment.
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