Christmas in Iowa

I still like reading the Christmas books of my childhood. Vincent listens.

For many months, I've neglected this blog. In the absence of posting, my first semester at the University of Missouri passed. Since moving to Columbia, Mo., I wrote 24 articles for the Columbia Missourian, co-created a website featuring multi-media reporting, worked with undergraduates as a teaching assistant and completed three graduate courses. I was also required to update two new blogs (Emilie Stigliani's Reporting and Emilie's Fundamentals of Convergence). 

A break is in order. Happily, school starts Jan. 18, so I have several weeks to rest and relax. I plan to spend this time in Cedar Falls and Iowa City with my parents and siblings. Vincent, my brother who attends Swarthmore College, will be on break as well. I look forward to reading, writing, a few day trips and to posting my personal creative work from the coming weeks. In the meantime, happy holidays! 

Back to School

Downtown Columbia, Mo.

I’ve moved to Columbia, Mo to start a master’s in journalism at the University of Missouri. Over the last two weeks, I unpacked boxes, learned to navigate around the city and participated in a journalism boot camp (a two week intensive class designed for students who don’t have newsroom experience). As boot camp draws to a close, I will be plunging into a busy semester of coursework. Once again, I am a full-time student! 

Here is a link to my first article at the Columbia Missourian. It’s about heading back to school.

Final Poem of the Summer

This is the last poem I wrote for the Bread Loaf Poetry Workshop. The professor assigned us to write about a public event. I chose to write about Chernobyl and the effect it had across Europe. My family arrived in Austria just months before the explosion and was among those anxiously waiting for the plume to pass. I was only a year old at the time, so I learned about the disaster from the stories my father told. It has become a powerful reminder to me that environmental issues know no borders. 

Chernobyl

for my father

It was one of few threats

that made good

and floated freely

from East to West 

over the ideological curtain 

into sandboxes

and psyches. 

The news rumored rain,

and the Austrians

scanned the sky,

spoke in low voices,

said, 

Boiling won’t do any good.

Buy mineralwasser.

Each slight headache

was suspect,

and thousands of miles away, 

firefighters lay ill,

shitting confusion

with constellations in their eyes 

that burned unnatural.

Weeks later, 

the playground reopened

and children tied the red plastic ribbons

that read verboten

to the tails of their kites

that flapped high 

in the fleeting cloudless sky.

Poetry at Bread Loaf

Speaking with poet John Ashbery after his reading

I am back at the Bread Loaf School of English near Middlebury, Vermont for the summer. In anticipation of the journalistic writing I will be doing this fall, I decided to dedicate myself to creative writing endeavors and, therefore, signed up for a poetry workshop. This was a brave decision because I haven't studied poetry since high school and and have no experience trying to pen it. 

Last week, poet John Ashbery came to Bread Loaf to do a reading. I had studied his poem "They Knew What They Wanted" that very day in class. It was a treat to hear him read it a few hours later. Inspired by his reading, I poured myself in the next assignment.

The assignment was to write a poem about something difficult to say. Here is was I said.

Poem About Why I Got Drunk and Ate Too Many Scallops Last Christmas Eve

Each year my family assembles for 

the Feast of the Seven Fishes. All of us,

spend the day chopping garlic and parsley and 

slicing lemons. There’s no fresh fish in Iowa,

so it sits on the counter thawing into a white, wet

heap.

In the early evening, my father throws clams into 

the marinara. The scallops are seared in butter, the shrimp

steamed. We girls go to our rooms and put on satin

vintage dresses bought in Madison, New York, St. Louis, and

Amsterdam, especially for this. We paint our faces like

porcelain dolls and tie our hair back.

Then the candles are lit and we take our seats at the table

my grandfather made. He’s been dead five years. We suck

shrimp from their tails, squeak on calamari salad and 

sop oil with bread. We bury each other’s voices.

We crunch on sardine bones, and 

my head floats on wine.   

My father’s eye sockets go dark and

my mother pushes her mandible back where it belongs.

My baby sister’s alabaster skull is still a lovely 

round shape. Even in bone, she’s

beautiful.  We eat air 

and from time to time a fork slips 

from skinless fingers. 

I can’t see. 

I can’t laugh. 

I rattle.

I paint my joke into a calavera in exchange for

eyes and skin. I know it’s coming but please

not yet.

Who will go first? Perhaps I will. Then again, 

sometimes the sickest have the most preparation for 

living. Better to have dressed up bones than an 

empty seat. I’d even be grateful for a lump of coal.

Better to have another helping 

and too much wine.

Reflections from Iowa

Prairie in Cedar Falls where I like to walk

I’ve had almost four weeks in Iowa to rest and process my trip. When I left in February, the ground was blanketed in several feet of snow. I returned to a verdant world. The ride home from the airport bypassed patchwork fields with dizzying rows of corn and soy sprouts. Tulips, strawberries, mint, tomatoes, peaches, garlic, lettuces and much more were growing and ripening in my mother’s garden. The bike trails that snake around Cedar Falls had filled with vegetation and the prairie reserve near my parents home had grown tall, providing shelter to killdeers, robins, and warblers. 

The lush landscape differs greatly from the polluted sprawl of Buenos Aires, but even more distinct is the sense of security. I can come and go anytime of the day or night without worrying about finding myself on an unsafe street. I have reveled in the freedom and warm weather. I haven’t wanted to sleep. Well after midnight, I’ve found myself on the backyard hammock watching the stars with my brother Vinnie. I’ve gone to the wine bar downtown and sat outside with girlfriends for hours. Under the glow of the street lights and slightly buzzed, I’ve thought, 

“I don’t miss being in Buenos Aires at all.”

I know that it feels good to be home, but hindsight has not brought much clarity about why I needed to go to Buenos Aires and what it means to my life as a whole. Since I was 19, I have felt drawn to living in South America and learning Spanish. Maybe I can’t admit the possibility that there was no specific lesson to be learned there, that my fascination was more whim than integral part of who I am and will become. On the other hand, I wonder if there isn’t something that I am missing, a revelation that will come to me at some later time. I can’t decide, so I let it be and go outside for a walk.

Time to Go

I’ve prepared my backpack, the apartment is tidy, and the sheets are in the wash. My hours in Buenos Aires are numbered--12 to be exact. Waiting for the landlady to check out the apartment and return the security deposit, I am taking stock of my belonging, checking the closets and medicine cabinets for nearly-forgotten objects. 

Despite packing conservatively for the trip, only what could fit in one backpack. I am surprised to find items that I forgot I had even brought. Goggles, ripped jeans, shoes that rub too much--all superfluous to my daily activities. Conversely, there are articles that I overused and would prefer never to see again. The seat of my green corduroys is threadbare and friends who saw me regularly could have bet with favorable odds as to what I would wear. 

Marisa and I in Puerto Madero

Due to a tight budget, I am returning with a bag that is physically lighter than when I left. (My treadless sneakers got tossed, as did the jeans.) The true souvenirs of this trip won’t adorn a coffee table or be framed on the wall. I am going home with an experience more real than any tangible object. In Buenos Aires, and perhaps any large city, ugliness, violence, pollution, and poverty exist alongside passion, friendship, dignity and kindness. I have seen a mob of men threatening pedestrians as they rode to a fútbol game along with men hugging and singing to one another on the street. Armed robbers stealing and impoverished families picking through the garbage. Regular people who were unwilling to intervene when I was in need and ones who opened up their homes and hearts. I am leaving with my Spanish much improved and deep gratitude for those Porteños and fellow tourists whose friendship has made it all worthwhile. Above all, a special thank you to Marisa for being my best companion and support. It's been an adventure!

Holiday

I woke up to powerful wind blowing through the courtyard. A thick layer of grey clouds hung low and refused to move. My stomach rumbled. I have been fighting a digestive bug that makes it impossible to keep food in my system. Food in equals food out. In the bathroom I discovered that I had managed to use up three rolls of toilet paper over the past three days and that the paper supply was running dangerously low. I zipped on my hoodie and left the apartment to pick up more paper at the grocer five doors down. 

Out on the street, I immediately sensed that something was off. The streets were too  quiet. Where were the people smoking cigarettes on the stoops or the old ladies chatting about discounts as they returned from the supermarket? Where were the taxis rudely edging forward to cut one another off? The stores remained dark, their gates padlocked to the ground. Even the grocer was barred with no explanation as to where everyone was or when they would be back.

I pulled up my hood, stuffed my hands into my pockets and walked back home sifting coins between my fingers. After a quick search on Google, I read that today Buenos Aires celebrates the Día del Trabajador--the Day of the Worker. This makes the sixth national holiday over the past few months. Just last weekend, Argentinians took a four day weekend for Easter. The country supposedly voted last year in favor of the creation of more national holidays, so this year was the first time several were ever observed. I can appreciate the sentiment behind these days off, but as a visitor without a job these holidays are no cause for celebration. 

The Day of the Worker has put me in a foul mood. To be clear, I have nothing against workers getting a break and I do feel that it is unfortunate that their day off is actually a Sunday. My bitterness is not directed at any worker, but rather at my own inability to find good consistent work myself. I am tired of being underemployed or unemployed. I want to work and today I feel frustrated. Tomorrow won’t be a holiday anymore and I will probably feel a bit better.