I Feel the Lack of You
Yesterday I went to visit my good friend Laura. It wasn’t a long visit; in fact it was what she calls toccata e fuga, touch and run, which, alas, is often my style. (My nickname back in the 1970s was The Breeze, and I’m not proud of it but that seems to be the way I am, always blowing through on the way to someplace else.) Anyway, I first met Laura one summer about twelve or thirteen years ago when I enrolled in her Italian language class, and in typical toccata e fuga fashion, I dropped it after the first session. Why? It was a long drive to get there and required a lot of sitting, patience, and discipline -- a seriously sustained effort, and that’s tough on breezy types. I was too easily discouraged, quite lazy, and frankly distracted by the sparkling advent of summertime. I didn’t really believe in my ability to acquire the language anyway – it was just something I took a stab at now and then, a half-hearted hobby.
And that would have been the end of the story had something unusual not ensued a day later: Laura telephoned me at home, wanting to know why I had dropped her class. I was shocked -- the woman was holding me accountable.
Even more than that, she was genuinely concerned. Why would someone simply bail on her class like that? Was something wrong? I reassured her, enumerated my vague reasons, and figured that was the end of it, but no, she was not going to give up on a student so easily, and especially not one with such a conspicuously Italian name. She figured the impetus had been there or I wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble to register, show up, and buy the materials in the first place. And since I had the materials, I might as well use them, and even though I was no longer in the class, she was willing to look at my work and help me whenever I had questions. I could not understand why an instructor would be so caring and involved; it baffled me, and I said so. “You obviously don’t have enough Italians in your life,” was her response. And that was that.
Beyond being a friend in her own right, Laura has been a conduit to my Italian relatives over the years, helping me to translate letters and placing phone calls from her Santa Barbara kitchen to my cousin Luisa’s in Boscoreale in the province of Naples, just north of Pompeii. On these occasions I marvel at Laura’s effortless transition from one language to another, and I listen with pleasure to the music of her Italian, occasionally even catching the glimmer of meaning in a word or phrase. Then of course I freeze up when she actually hands me the phone, and my cousin and I stammer incoherently at each other across an ocean and a continent and giggle in embarrassment, but somehow there is perfect understanding because we are so alike in this way.
I had not expected that we would place a phone call yesterday when I stopped by to visit Laura, but when she suggested it, for Easter, I could not resist. I decided, though, that this time I would be armed with a sentence or two. In particular, I wanted to be able to convey how much I miss everyone.“The best way,” said Laura, “would be like this: Sento la vostra mancanza. Literally, it means I feel the lack of you.” Which was perfect, because I did. And it sounds so poetic.
Laura made the call and began the conversation, and I could picture Luisa standing in that other kitchen so faraway, with its view of Vesuvius from one window, and through another the piazza with its yellow church. “Listen,” said Laura, handing me the phone. “You can hear the bells!”
And I did, and for a moment I was back there with my relatives on the evening of Good Friday in my grandfather’s ancient town. “Ah, sento la vostra mancanza!” I said, more than once, and “Buona Pasqua!” ThenI gave the phone back to Laura and there was a bit more talk -- rapid rhythm, mellifluous sounds swirling into vowel, and here and there a word I recognized, like treno and Parigi. Apparently I had just missed Zio Pinuccio and Zia Titina. And there were big plans in progress, Laura reported, a possible trip to Paris.I asked her to tell them baco e abbracci.
“That’s a worm,” said Laura. “You don’t want to send a worm with your hugs, but kisses….bacioni e abbracci.”
And so I did.
I wanted to conclude the phone call in a quick and simple way by telling my relatives that I had no words, only affection.Laura told me how to say this: Non ho parole, solamente affectto -- taking care to enunciate the non and the ho, so it wouldn’t sound like nonno, which is grandfather. I know Luisa understood perfectly.
And it expresses exactly how I felt all the way home, and essentially how I feel even now: unable to find sufficient words, butfilled with love and gratitude. The earth is radiating with life and beauty, and myworld seems grand and astonishingly bountiful. I am struck by the miracle of happenstance encounters that turn into friendships, by the connections and stories that history bequeaths to those willing to partake, by the way love can become its own language. It's true there are those I dearly miss -- oh, how I feel the lack of them! – but I am full.