Stories

Yesterday I sat through two and a half of the most excruciating hours of my life. Sat through, twisted my torso through, felt like throwing up through. But I stayed there riveted, horrified, sickened and saddened beyond belief.

I was at a movie, "Twelve Years a Slave." A movie that should, in my humble yet convinced opinion, be required viewing for every American over the age of fifteen. It is based on the true story of a black man, a father, a husband, a violinist, a cultured, educated, middle class citizen of Saratoga Springs New York in the 1840's who is kidnapped, brought to the south and sold into slavery. It is the story of what he witnessed, endured, and survived for twelve years before being rescued and reunited with his family.

The movie, directed by Steve McQueen, gives it to us full strength, undiluted. The camera lens takes us into the open, oozing, purple wall of the wound. Close up and into the bubbling beads of fresh blood made by the long taut leather lashing out, slashing, ripping red rivers into chocolate skin.

It's a story of a despicable part of our history and needs to be told correctly for many reasons. And it is torturous to sit through.

The wives were off to the local terme- a natural hot springs spa in the town of Spello – for soaking, facials, massages, etc. This was an excursion for the group known as “Umbrian Girls Go Wild” – a disparate, dissolute organization made up of various wives and non-wives, who get together at odd times during the year to do odd things.

Because the women needed to take a few cars, the eminent Don Michele di Sicilia and myself were left with only one car between us for the day. We offered to shop and cook dinner for our spouses after their soak, and this led to one of the longest afternoons of my life.

Everyone in the town of Trevi knows Don Michele. Everyone. So what would have been a brief stop in the coffee store in Borgo Trevi, became an hour of rumination, gesticulation, exaggeration and flirtation from the eminent Don Michele. I almost forgot to buy coffee.

Perhaps there should be a college course on Donald Trump – after all they have been lecturing on Barbie for decades! He is the last of the great Think Big, Act on Inspiration, and Let the World Know Just How Great You Are kinda guys. Like two gods in one room, the world may not be ready for too many Donald Trumps, but it is our luck that we have at least one!

Even luckier that he delights/infuriates us in Palm Beach! Only so much time can pass in Palm Beach before Donald’s name comes up, or you are sitting at a table in his grand ballroom for The International Red Cross Ball, or his private Bocelli concert. Of course I am referring to “The Donald” who because of Donald Duck’s fading career absolutely owns the name!

Truly, not since Donald Fauntleroy Duck has there been a Donald so internationally famous – and so rich – as Donald John Trump. Comparisons are in order:

There’s a reason I don’t work in an office any more. It’s called October. Something to do with the sun on my face and the warm breeze at my back as I hike through the swaying grasses and the prickly scrub across the stone-splattered fields behind my house. Up to the spent cornfield I go, watching a thousand geese lift off in unison, honking like so many commuters in Time Square at 5 o’clock. Only it’s not Time Square or I-95 or even somewhere that has stoplights. It’s West Tisbury, where more of my neighbors are sheep than people.

By day, the strange silver light of fall sparkles through the still-green leafy maples and bounces off the crimson spokes of sumac leaves crisscrossing the meadow; by night, the man in the full moon winks, and the lights go on—an inky football field of black sky suddenly punch-holed with bright stars and planets that are mine to gaze at for as long as I like. Without city lights for miles, the Vineyard sky is unblemished by artificial luminescence. By dawn, I know the October kaleidoscope will shift again, this time turning a firey, blood-red sunrise into a gauzy grey-blue morning where the fog hovers just over the edge of the horizon, leaving you to guess what lies beyond.