Assisi Ironic 4-15-12

Assisi, Italy is a warm, open, beautiful medieval town, the perfect birthplace for the Patron Saint of the 60's, St. Francis. Rising slowly from a fertile farmland plain, it sits comfortably on it's hillside. Yes, it's really old, but it has none of the crowded, crumbly darkness of many 12th century towns. Instead, it has charm....pleasantly flowing streets with sunlight and flowers at every window....and smiley peacefulness unexpected in one of Italy's biggest tourist destinations.

It's not hard to imagine St. Francis, former rich boy, soldier, and short term POW, standing in the middle of the wide open town square, stripping down naked and devoting himself to God, a life of poverty, and love for all living things. Every single vista pays homage to the simple beauties of nature, which had to stand in sharp contrast to the accelerating excess that would become the hallmark of the church of the Renaissance.

Hippies loved St. Francis. His "Canticle to the Sun", with references to Brother Sun, Sister Moon, and our sister Mother Earth, was the perfect manifesto for a generation that wanted to live simply, get back to nature, love everyone and everything, especially doves and cuddly animals. And then there was Claire, also born and baptized in Assisi. Twelve years younger than Francis, also rich and privileged, she was completely taken by him and his message of humility and devotion to God. Joining up on the spot, she let him cut off her long blond hair, and became one of the Brothers, devoting her life to following his example, meeting his every need (including sewing his tunics and making him shoes and socks when he was old), and creating the Order of the Poor Claires, the girl band version of the Franciscan Monks. I have to wonder about the two of them, just as I do about Jesus and Mary Magdalene. I like to think that they were in love (the devoted, chaste, intimate, soul mate kind) and it bothers me that they are buried in churches across town from on another. Someone should have sprinkled their ashes together over the hillsides of Assisi, if you ask me.

Instead, both of them have become cottage industry in Assisi. While it's not as disgusting as Rick Steve's want you to think, it is still true that two giant cathedrals and about 50 souvenir shops have risen up in town to support the St. Francis and St. Claire truths and mythologies. You can even go see St. Claire, the Musical, if you want, which a woman from Brazil told us was 'inspiring' and performed by members of an Italian arts commune full of beautiful people. Although St. Francis's actual tomb is a simple stone box (seemed kind of confining to me, but that's another story), it is set in yet another gothic style cathedral, complete with frescos of his life, gilded altars, and everything you come to expect in Medieval gothic churches. St. Claire's is more toned down, but they have a life size, 'living' color model of her lying atop her tomb, which is just creepy.

Were it not that St. Francis was so tolerant of human beings, I imagine he would have hated what Assisi has done to him. How ironic that they honor his rejection of worldly things with gigantic monuments and plastic objects and memorabilia.
What the city did manage to preserve, however, is it's own reverent beauty and peacefulness.

If you go there, stay out of the buildings. Sit on the rock walls and look at the valley below. That's where you'll find what you were looking for.

Writer's Block

When I started this blog about our trip, it never occurred to me that I would have too much to say and no time to say it. Since we boarded the plane in Italy, I have been accumulating experiences faster than I could ever write them down. Each one deserves it's own entry, complete with pictures, YouTube uploads, and links to websites, not only for your benefit but for mine.

In the twenty-four hours that we have been in Zagreb, my heart has been broken by what I see and uplifted by the warmth and love of strangers. Everything has more impact than I can process without stopping to write, but there is no time to do it, and I fear that the emotional impact will be forgotten under the weight of the next moment's unexpected event. It's like having 10 important people in your life telling you their most intimate secrets all at once. Croatia is rushing to tell me my story and I can barely keep up.

So, do I take this time to tell you about how people are reacting to the introductory letter I brought with me? (I made up a flyer explaining why I was here, including a picture of my grandparents and our contact information). I wish you could see how their hearts melt in front of us as they begin to understand that one of their own has come home. From the woman in the airport who helped us when our luggage missed the plane (no worries - we got it later), to the Croatian Historical Museum curator (who plans to help us in the search), there is a universal reaction to us, a reaching out to welcome us home. As one person told me "You are a Croatian Woman!", as if to let me know for sure that I had come to the right place.

I could tell you about our meeting with Lidija, the Croatian genealogist who spent two hours with us this morning, explaining what the next steps in our search will be, how to get around in the country, what quirks we should expect to find in the process of dealing with small town record offices and government agencies. She warned us that seeing our family gravesites will make us cry. "Your family will speak to you there", she promised us. Apparently, they speak to her, even when she isn't related to them.

The Museum of Naive Art certainly deserves some commentary, but I was captured by the Museum of Broken Hearts (winner of the Most Innovative Museum in Europe award in 2011). Basically, this was a quirky idea that went global: set up a museum where people can bring artifacts of, and commentary about, their broken and failed relationships. The intent is to provide a place for closure, a site to leave that hat he left when he walked out, or the book of poetry you read together, or any other meaningful and painful reminder of the two of you - and move on. It was so touching and sometimes heartbreaking that I couldn’t look at it all. The girl at the desk loved that I loved it there, and I introduced her to Burning Man in return. (note: the artifacts were international, but most of the US ones came from San Francisco).

Our next stop, the Museum of Croatian History, which had a special installation on the Croatian War for Independence in 1991, could, and probably will someday, take up more than one blog post. The images of the underdog band of unarmed, unfunded Croatian fighters struggling against the Serb’s to protect their homeland brought both Gary and I to tears. With Dire Strait’s “Brother’s in Arms” and heartwrenching classical requiem music on a loop throughout the building, you couldn’t escape the human suffering that happened while you and I were at home, pretty much unaware. (That was the time of the first Iraq war, and I guess the US only had line space for one war at a time…kind of like how we managed to overlook what happened in Rwanda). The curator there spent almost two hours explaining every exhibit, desperately wanting us to understand that these soldiers were common people – teachers, bus drivers, students – using guns their fathers had used in WWII or ‘borrowed’ from museums. She told us the personal stories of faces in exhibits. “This man enlisted and stopped 33 tanks with no weapons until he was finally killed”. “This man was in the Serbian airforce, but couldn’t bomb him own hometown and came over to our side.” For me, Croatian woman that I apparently am, I felt an urgency to call Jade and Cody and the girls and remind them that this is our homeland, and that this happened to our own people while we were going about our business in America. Our losses, our success, Croatian determination of the heart. Us.

As we walked home from Upper Zagreb (the historic old town that houses most of the museums), we passed through the Stone Gate that leads to Lower Zagreb. It is a dark alcove with names and dates inscribed in stones on the wall. The large gated altar stands at one end, just as you make the curve to go down, and you are immediately aware that this is a holy place. We were told that people came here to pray for their dead loved ones, to thank them for their life. I bought a candle and lit it for Tom, but I could barely leave it there with the others, as if I was leaving a part of him in Croatia somehow.

So, which one of these stories do I write about in a blog when I have about an hour to do it? When something wants to be written, it races around in my head. I don’t get any peace until I do it. Am I going to be frustrated every day? Will I always be choosing between having these experiences and writing about them?

The gift of a change of plans

We didn't go to Assisi today because Molly was sick (don't worry, she's ok). It was one of those unexpected detours that happens on vacations, and like many unforeseen changes in life, it led me somewhere better than I could have imagined.

The Artist in Residence who is performing tonight at the Monastery, Joel Fredrickson, asked the Art Monks to accompany him during his concert, and they graciously invited me to join the chorus. Rehearsing with everyone and then singing next to Charles (Molly boyfriend) that night, I remembered the bliss of my Renaissance Ensemble choir days in college. Who knew I'd get to relive them in a 12th century monastery in Italy over thirty years later?

In between rehearsals Charles fixed an amazing lunch for everyone at their house down the way from the Monastery. Eating Italian style (take your time..what's the rush?) we sat around the table discussing everything from racism in the U.S. (which Joel's Columbian wife didn't understand at all: "aren't we all a mixture of everything?") to Gary's trip to Selma, Alabama in the 60's and his role in bringing diversity to the faculty at Ventura College (he took them from a department of all white males, to a group of 19 including women, a vast variety of ethnicities, and only two white men!) Gary, usually so tactiturn, was alive with memories of the classes he helped create (African American, Native American, Chicano, and Women's Studies) as well as vibrating nuances of life in that dramatic 60's era. Some of us discussed Renaissance music and our music school days. Liz, (she of beaming enthusiasm), talked about her dreams for this year's Art Monastery Projects. Sitting there amongst these friends who are closer than siblings, surrounding each other with love, dreaming together in the midst of daily trials and set backs, I was grateful that my plans for that day had been subverted by an apparently much better idea.

The concert was wonderful. Joel is a Basso Profundo (the 'profundo' standing for 'he who has a voice so low, gorgeous, and resonant, even when speaking, that you are sure he's chats with God every day) was breathtakingly gifted. I have never heard someone so skilled, especially in the tricky and demanding Renaissance repertoire that he was tackling. The charm of the evening, though, was the audience. It was a motley crew of locals from the hillside of Labro, as well as five or six Nigerian political refugees who had sought asslyum in this very obscure little place in Italy. There was a mom, grandma and a baby all bundled up against the extreme cold of a 12th century building with no heat. The staff of the hotel part of the monastery came, and anyone else who wasn't already at the birthday of one of the 30 residents of Labro that night.

So, my day ended with my heart full of music, memories and gratitude that life has a mind of its own sometimes, and we just get to go along for the ride.

Heresy 4-14-12

Ancient colosseums, medieval towns and gothic cathedrals aside, the reality is that Italy pretty much looks like California. Resting on the same latitude line like studs on a leather belt, we and Italy share the same climate, flora and fauna, and it’s hard not to feel like you’re in Southern California when you're here, (minus the palm trees that don’t belong in California anyway).

When I first came here in 1970 I was incredibly disappointed by this. I expected Rome to be exotic and foreign, which would make me pretty darn special for being there, I thought. It was astounding, of course, to see monuments, artwork and structures that were hundreds of years old, but they seemed oddly out of place in a physical setting that felt so familiar. I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but it wasn’t what I got.

Of course, we had already seen lots and lots of gothic cathedrals (and saint body parts in their nifty reliquaries) on our backpacking five-dollar-a-day trip to Europe. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’d seen EVERY gothic cathedral in Europe on that trip. My travel partner had just earned a Master’s Degree in Renaissance music, so his prioritized interest in medieval architecture trumped my desire to, say, eat decent food almost every day. It was that trip that convinced me that once you’d seen one cathedral you’d probably ‘seen them all’, differences in artwork and degrees of overdone gilding aside.

I am aware that saying this out loud is probably the worst kind of heresy for someone on a trip such as ours. I have the urge to chastise myself soundly for even thinking it, ungrateful wretch that I must appear to be. But for the sake of honest disclosure, it just seems only right to let you know what is really running through my mind as I climb ancient cobble stone steps in Labro. Along with the incomprehensible idea that I'm laying my Reebok tennies on the same pathway that someone in the 12th century walked upon is the realization that some things don't really change in 800 years. A balmy, sunny climate must feel the same on my skin as it did on theirs. Love, loss, grief, joy - marriage, having children, going to church, making dinner....those fundamentals of human life must be the same on some level, right? When you look at religious iconography and frescos all day, it's easy to forget that regular people lived in these houses and moved through the routines that get us all from birth to death. I'm endlessly curious about what their lives must have been like, and the structures tease you with hints and ideas.

All I can know for sure is that it feels comfortably familiar here....which is the beauty and puzzle of it all.

On the road again

People have been asking me for the last two weeks if I'm excited about our trip to Croatia. I would have answered them if I weren't so stressed out, frustrated, exhausted, anxious, angry and just plain disgusted to respond. After spending about twenty years thinking about my Croatian family, 6 years hunting for the Rubicks with the help of three professional Croatian genealogists, two months getting everything in place for my mother's care (new power of attorney, new health care directive, a 10 page list of instructions including her entire medical history, list of 20 meds, doctors, insurance policies and every form of identification), six weeks trying to get the technology I need for the trip to actually WORK, three weeks arguing with the airlines about our flights, two weeks waiting to find out if the people I'm visiting in Italy are actually going to be there, one week watching to see if my MAC will actually work or if I have to buy a new PC, I really wasn't all that interested in the trip itself. More than once I've answered "I don't care anymore - I don't even want to go there", but I know that isn't true. Of course I want to go. Otherwise, all of this torture ahead of time would truly have been for naught. And I'm not having that be the case - no way.

I wonder now, as we sit in the airport waiting for our big old long flight to Rome via Germany, whether I could have gotten to this point without that hell of planning and angst. It did occur to me all along that I was on a quest to plan for every possibility....I mean EVERY single one. Sally, who'll be taking care of mom, will never have to wonder about anything - from where mom gets her depends to what to take to the hospital. There will be a team of standby supporters to help her handle any circumstance. Mom will get her birthday card two days in advance, a mother's day card the same way, and of course, her gifts are already wrapped and sitting on the dining room table. We've paid our bills for two month's ahead, cancelled the paper, emailed everyone we know a travel itinerary. Someone will get the mail, feed the birds, visit mom every day.

The baton that is our everyday life has been passed for a few weeks, but trust me, it hasn't been an easy hand off.

I promise that my next emails will include the uplifting miracles that have already happened in this quest to find my Croatian relatives. I will bombard you with stories and pictures of our adventures as we begin this holy quest to find my father's family.
It will inspiring. You'll wish I'd write a book about it (and I will). We'll all be smiling and laughing and using words like "wow" and "I can't believe it" and "that is SO cool!".

Right now, though, I just need to take a nap and wait for it to sink in that I've planned enough, prepared enough, and there's nothing left to do .... but just GO!

Roots

7-12-90

I've been told that I'm Yugoslav, that I have ethnic roots, which is to say that I'm not just one of those bland white cake Angle-persons (nor one of those rapidly emerging minorities that's going to steal your kid's job before he even has half a chance), but I'm an "ethnic" person: a safe ethnic person. After all, there are only 12 Yugoslavs in all of Ventura County. How scary could we be?

You'd think that I'd be steeped in some kind of cultural awareness, being a second generation Slav and all - that I could do more than name drop a few Yugoslav dishes. But I can't. I feel lucky to be able to spell my last name for all the acculturation I got growing up.

But then we were barely introduced to American Culture – and it wasn't because our folks were immersed in some foreign ethnicity. They were simply not immersed in anything. Skimming along the surface of almost every life experience, they kind of left out the details in our upbringing (like how to act in mannered society, what an art museum was, just about any facts and fictions that had to be taught – things that couldn't be learned by watching TV).

Most of what I know about families, music, theater, normal life, and good grooming I learned by spying on my friends.

This is not to say that my folks were culturally comatose, that we lived on the far edge of civilized society. We were actually somewhat normal – normal with the blinds shut and the radio antennas on the ground. Kind of like the Simpson's with no sense of humor.

Tom and I sensed that we were living in a cultural vacuum very early. We took to huddling and whispering and eventually began to wonder out loud how we ended up like WE were when they were like THEY were. Why did he become an artist when mom chose our paintings because they matched the couch (rug, bar stools, and chairs)? Why did I become a classical musician when I was raised on Lawrence Welk and the Lennon sisters? Were we deposited on this planet – in Long Beach, California, with this set of parents – by MISTAKE? Did our folks know we were alien beings in their midst? (They weren't THAT out of it, were they?).

It was quickly apparent to us that we would have to escape – not to survive, but to avoid becoming THEM.

So we did. Tom hid in his bedroom for about four years and exorcized all of the Madras and button-downs from his closet. When he reemerged-emerged, he had this beautiful, intolerably long "I'm–hip-fuck-you" hair which gave the folks the perfect excuse to torture him and then be relieved when he left. Who was this stranger to common decency anyway? Certainly not the boy with a buck bag they once knew.

I left a while later, and in retrospect it seems like it was no big deal. One day I just moved out, packed up all my cares and woes and deposited them in a cute little beachy apartment in Long Beach. I remember crying, but I always do that when I cross developmental landmarks (or for any other flimsy excuse that happens along my path).

We both made it. We were both free. We'd escaped this boring landscape of our innocuous upbringing – we had good taste, classy interests, and I learned where to put the salad fork on the dinner table. Tom became a shocking artist rebel, in that 60's hip kind of way that everyone copied from everyone else. We weren't all that original – no one in our generation really is – but we thought we'd at least colored our lives with a little more pizzazz than our parents had.

And that's true. But now I wonder about it all. How much credit can I really take for who I've become?

It seems to me that we bring more of ourselves into this life at birth than we realize. I somehow doubt that we are blank little blobs to be fashioned and molded by what fate puts in our way. We must emerge with a sprinkling of prenatal fairy dust that carries the rumors of generations – poignant tunes of our ancestors.

These melodies wrap around us, reminding us that Great-great-grandmother was a poet, Uncle Fred a doctor, Grandma a renegade who embraced life with grandeur. We hear the folk-tunes of Eastern Europe, Dad struggling to teach himself the guitar, Mom mumbling to herself the lines of a poem she will never write down.

We know these things because they are imprinted in our heritage, a cosmic hello from all of the generations, not because we lived it.

And as time goes on, it becomes clearer how a girl from Long Beach can feel like a Yugoslav - how artists and musicians can grow in clay.





815 words