My Introduction to Modern Art

I was 7 years old. We ate dinner at 6:00 pm religiously in a small kitchen on a rectangular white porcelain table. My father, Chris, sat at one end facing a bright yellow wall. My brother and I sat on one side and my sister sat on the other side. As it was her usual custom, my ranting mother sat at the other end of the table.

It was Wednesday, and of course my Italian family was having spaghetti with red sauce for dinner. Suddenly, my father, a quiet man by nature, slowly stood up in what appeared to be slow motion. He took his plate, deep in the silence of the room, and placed it in the palm of his right hand. My father, looking as if he was winding up to pitch a ball, threw his plate at full force against the bright, shiny, yellow wall.

And Excelsis Deo (“Glory to God in the highest.”) I was completely amazed. It was so beautiful! The red sauce and the squiggly spaghetti, some long, some short, mixed and unmixed with the red sauce, on the yellow canvas wall was one glorious miracle to me. It belonged in the Museum of Modern Art or Guggenheim.

PS: Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed the Guggenheim, purposely placed a small elevator in the corner of the lobby, for people to take to the top level and then walk comfortably down to enjoy the art. Ushers won’t tell you that. You must figure it out for yourself. Enjoy your visit!

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The Cure

My Aunt Katie was a great lady. Most of us have had someone in our lives or know of someone like her. She came to America from Italy when she was twenty years old. She and her husband, Uncle John, who had been a cook in the First World War, had no children, and there was a twenty-two-year age difference between her and her youngest sibling—my mother, Ida. As our grandparents had already passed on when my brother, sister, and I arrived, she became our titular Godmother, Grandmother, and even Fairy Godmother, for she and Uncle John owned a grocery store full of candy and ice cream. Heavenly bliss for any five-year-old.

Some say that the greatest sermon ever given was by Buddha, who, in response to requests to know the meaning of life, simply held up a flower without saying a word. My Aunt Katie gave all of us a better sermon than the one Buddha gave. At any given moment and whenever the moment struck her, often while cooking the most delicious breaded veal cutlets or chicken cacciatore, with her olive-oil-garlic-smelling fingers, she would grab any one of us by the cheek and say with her strong Sicilian accent, “Enjoy-a-life, enjoy-a-life!”

Not one of us at our young age knew what she meant, but heck, she was the “Queen of Ice Cream & Candy”, so as far as we were concerned Aunt Katie could say anything she damn well pleased and it was okay by us. Little did any of us know then that she was passing on wisdom to us on how fast life goes by and how beautiful life truly is.

And in her wisdom, to impress her message into every fiber of our beings, she went beyond even Buddha, as she included the tactile by pinching our cheeks whenever she said her timeless words of “enjoy-a-life”—just to be absolutely sure that her message sunk in. Thank You, Aunt Katie!