My mom thinks I’m an alcoholic. I don’t disagree with her.
– Mario’s Palm Sunday toast
My mom thinks I’m an alcoholic. I don’t disagree with her.
– Mario’s Palm Sunday toast
Looks like Palm Sunday again
There are three holidays that are obligatory visiting days in my husband’s family: Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday.
I don’t know about other Italian American families, but in ours, that last day is the biggest, and the frenzy starts the night before, at Saturday mass when Italian Catholics go in search of the most valuable commodity since the Three Wisemen came bearing gold, incense and myrrh.
The pews are extra crowded at this evening mass, and the priests take full advantage. They read the passion play in its entirety, throw a little extra brimstone into the homily and you can bet there’s an extra collection or two for Brother Joseph’s mission to Columbia.
By the time the fair-weather Catholics are almost too exhausted to go forth and sin on a perfectly good Saturday evening, the priest finally relents and calls the mass to close. Then he invites the faithful to come forth and receive that for which they came: the palm. Those long, pale green fronds are meant to represent Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, but to my husband’s family they mean so much more.
“Please remember that this palm has to last through two more masses,” the priest reminds the throng as they push forward, grabbing handfuls palm from the vases in which they’ve been keeping since the diocese received the shipment from Africa.
The palm is so prized because you cannot go visiting Palm Sunday morning without bearing a frond or two. The Palm Sunday visit is highly ritualized, and must be followed exactly or risk causing grave offense.
Visit the eldest family member first. In our case it’s my husband’s eldest uncle. Have one piece of palm ready for each member of the household, then knock brusquely on the screen, peering through into the house. Enter the home and approach the lady of the house, kissing her on the cheek while wishing her a Happy Palm Sunday. Then take one piece of palm and offer it to her. She will offer a piece of palm in return. This will almost always be smaller or thinner than the one you have just given away. Some of the older generation actually takes scissors and cuts each palm leaf into two or three pieces out of fear that the 15 pieces they took from the church yesterday evening wouldn’t be enough. I can only guess that this behavior is related to the great palm shortage of 1957.
After exchanging palm with the lady of the house, approach the patriarch and repeat the process. Then greet lesser relations in descending order of importance. It is preferable that this entire process take place in the foyer or a similarly small space, to maximize the chaos and confusion.
Once the frenzied exchange of palm has passed, you can at last proceed to the kitchen table where you can finally relax and have a cup of Italian coffee and a piece of the traditional boxed sweet bread called Panatone. (Don’t be alarmed if you start to choke on the dry, crusty bread. You will shortly be offered a shot of brandy or a sweet liquor called limoncello to wash it down.)
The entire visit must last just long enough to be respectful but not so long that you risk having to cut short some of your later visits. At the determined time, gather your palm, kiss everyone on the cheek once more, then hop back into the car and drive to the next house. Repeat the ritual at the households of the remaining family members, including those that you only see otherwise at weddings and funerals.
Finally, upon leaving the last house you will look down at your hand and discover the true miracle of Palm Sunday: you’ve just been given back your original palm.
The quiet Italian
My son had a play date the other day. His best friend’s mother dropped him off afterward, and came up to the house to say hello.
“I think I scared your son,” she told me.
The boys had been playing video games in the living room when she came in to tell them to get ready. Three rounds of WWE wrestling later and they still hadn’t moved … so she did what any self-respecting mother would do. She lost it.
“Your son thinks I yell a lot. I told him ‘I’m just Italian,’ ” she said. “Then he told me, ‘I’m Italian, too, but I don’t yell.’ ”
You get that from me, kid.
The phone message
After dinner tonight I noticed a voice mail on my phone. I listened to it eight times before I passed the phone to my husband.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with your dad,” I said. “I think he’s been drinking. I can’t make out a word he’s saying.”
My husband took the phone and listened. After hearing the message one time he shut the phone and handed it back to me.
“Well?” I asked.
“He’s not drunk, honey. He’s just Italian.”
*****
After eleven years of living exactly 3.3 miles from my father-in-law, seeing him every second Sunday for awkward conversation and coffee, and celebrating every wedding, baptism, Fourth of July Christmas and Palm Sunday together, I still can only understand every third world. If he drinks more than two glasses of wine, my success rate falls to every fifth word. (Conversely, my comprehension jumps significantly if I’m the one drinking. On one particularly festive evening I not only understood Italian but I’m pretty sure I had a deeply intellectual conversation with the cat.)
John knows that I have this problem, but he has politely ignored it for the past decade. I politely ignore the fact that he is politely ignoring it. And thus we have fallen into a pattern. It goes something like this:
“Anna nouchi summa chagouzi suuwahna da cel-lar.”
“Pardon me?”
“Da CEL-lar. Anna nouchi summa chagouzi suuwahna da cel-lar.”
“Oh? …. you, um … the cellar.
“Right.”
Pause
“What was that about the cellar again?”
“NOUchi! NOUchi! Anna nouchi summa chagouzi suuwahna cel-lar.”
“Oh, of course! … Sorry. No, our cellar’s good.” I smile now — my cheeks stiff, my eyes darting around the room. “Yeah, it’s a … uh, it’s a great cellar.”
John sighs, then puts both hands on the arms of his favorite leather La-Z-Boy, and slowly pushes himself up.
“Okay then. I’ll go make the coffee.”
Clogged vein systems, in veteran oaks and left-fielders both, unstop themselves, putting forth leaves and line drives in Florida’s March.
– Donald Hall, Fathers Playing Catch With Sons
