I have NO idea where I am going but I have already arrived!

I am writing this morning with absolutely no idea where I am going. I am staring into the blue blue sky outside the window and I hear the birds making a joyful racket, filling the air with twills and chirps and bleating and the haunting cries of the red-shouldered hawk.

Is that the sweet song of a cardinal? a robin? a Baltimore Oriole? A song sparrow? a tufted titmouse?

I want to write the way the birds sing, out of a deep instinct or intuition!!!

Perhaps I should ask GOD for inspiration. I have already prayed to the Divine Feminine, otherwise known as the Virgin Mary.

Per favore, Madre Divina, posso per favore avere l'ispirazone per scrivere? Please Divine Mother may I please have inspiration to write?

After I finish praying, however, I am still left with the problem, HOW DO I BEGIN when I DO NOT/KNOT HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT OR WHERE OR HOW?

Perhaps I can just ask FILOMENA to COME TO ME,

Per favore, caro bis bis nonna, io parlo en italiano perche voglio

Please, dear great great grandma, I am speaking in Italian because I want to

I want to see you come alive again!

Voglio vederti riviere!

Perhaps you will come out of hiding if I do what I do sometimes when I paint by simply throwing paint on a white canvas!

Getto semplicemente la vernice su una tela bianca!

So perhaps if I just

throw black words on a white screen?

Lancia parole nere su uno schermo bianco?

I have seen you so often before, dear Filomena, first as a young girl in Paola, and San Lucido, with Giovanni,

and later in the Cafe Gambrinus in la Piazza Publica in Napoli where you were much older and you kindly met me for coffee.

But now I am not there and neither are you here. We are nowhere together.

Right now as I am writing without any idea where I am going, it feels impossible to position you and me anywhere!

I DO NOT SEE YOU!

NON TI VEDO!

I have to place you and me in one space and time, talking or somehow interacting but how????

JUST WRITE THE WAY YOU PAINT!

Propio come dipingi tu!

JUST PLAY WITH WORDS THE WAY YOU PLAY WITH COLORS!

Gioca con le parole nello stasso modo in cui giochi con i colori! Perhaps then I will SEE YOU Filomena! JUST THE WAY I SAW THE HEART IN THE CANVAS I PAINTED LAST WEEK!

*******

It is exactly 1:18 pm on May 9, 2024 and once again I am trying to jumpstart my writing the way I

jumpstarted the painting I did a few days ago.

I began with a scrap of paper, a tiny section of a Colorado hiking map that read "Closed Area," which for some reason made me a bit angry and that gave me sufficient energy to begin slapping paint on the canvas without any regard for what it looked like.

The assignment from the synagogue's creativity group was to do a new piece of art focused on the notion of "closure."

I didn't really want to do a NEW piece of art.

about closure.

But then I reread the Rabbi's words regarding there being no such thing as closure in the TORAH...his ideas resonated in my mind or was it my subconscious or was it my superconscious?

Anyway, he pointed out that the last word of Deuteronomy (which is the fifth and final chapter of the Hebrew Bible, the TORAH) is a LAMED. Immediately after that chapter ends, we take a breath and immediately begin reading the first word of the first chapter of the Bible, which is of course Genesis.

The first letter of Genesis is BEIT, which is the first letter of the word Breishith which means "In the beginning."

and together Lamed and Beit spell LEV,

which means HEART.

So when I was throwing paint on the canvas and suddenly out of nowhere I saw a HEART, I was

completely astonished!

And then I started seeing hearts all over the painting and then it became a collage!

AND THEN I WAS DELIGHTED I WAS DOING A NEW PIECE OF ART ABOUT CLOSURE.

*********

So perhaps something similar will happen here with my writing, as I am throwing words on the screen suddenly

I will FIND MYSELF WRITING A NEW CHAPTER ABOUT FILOMENA AT THE END OR IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS mishmash

Could it be a scene between Fi and Nunzi as they are helping other women to save their babies from the deadly ozpizias?

Could it be a scene between Fi and Nunzi as they try to share taking care of Pasquale?

I don't know if the jumpstarting process that works with painting also works with writing...

With paint you can proceed without any rational plan or idea

but don't you need an actual idea in order to write?

"Well no, Claudia, not necessarily, not if you are FREEWRITING."

[who said that?]

So officially now I AM FREEWRITING, but not exactly because with freewriting you just keep writing whatever s**** is in my/your head without stopping or without worrying about how stupid it sounds.

Freewriting would be perfectly wonderful, IF, as my writing buddy Peg once said, there were such a thing as "freepublishing."

But that is a diversion.

Just as I can sometimes fool around with colors until I discover a pattern or a design element that makes the whole painting come together,

perhaps I will also at the end or in the middle of this writing discover

I WOULD LOVE TO SIT WITH FILOMENA AGAIN.

[well then just DO IT!]

I would love just to catch a glimpse of her as she works with Nunzi, saving babies! When would this scene take place in relation to all the other chapters? How would I position it in the NARRATIVE TIME AND FLOW OF THE NOVEL?

Maybe it's just not the TIME to write that chapter. OR ANY OTHER CHAPTER!!!! Perhaps it is time to stare at that pair of tree swallows that have been hanging out on the lawn chair!

********

Last week, I brought my collage painting to synagogue to share it with the creativity group. During that session, the Rabbi, who happened to be holding the Torah in his arms as he spoke, said that the Jewish notion of TIME IS A SPIRAL. He didn't say anything else on that subject, and oddly, I couldn't find much of anything on-line. But what I think he means is that we Jews live six days each week and then on the seventh day we celebrate Shabbat, the holy day of rest. So around and around we go each week, being in our DOING mode for six days, and then in our BEING MODE on Shabbat.

This circularity is everywhere in nature, in the regular change of seasons. In the way the birds keeps coming back year after year. The Baltimore Oriole arrived a couple weeks ago, dining at the hummingbird feeder before I had a chance to hang the Oriole feeder

!

"The concept of time was created for humanity in Genesis 1:14-19. However, God is LOVE, spirit and light and there exists in/at the speed of light. According to Albert Einstein's "Theory of Relativity," at the speed of light THERE IS NO TIME, just eternity or infinity."

Just GOD?

*******

I like to picture Fi this way: wearing a long, graceful dress the color of tender spring dandelion leaves. The fabric is rare, a silk you can almost see through.

Giovanni has been dead for more than three years when she is wearing this dress.

Perhaps she will never wear this dress, except here in the garden of my mind, where the bright green leaves look like they have pure light glowing inside them. It is the kind of green seen here:

It glows, it is almost electric. And so hard to describe in words.

Once I wrote:

I thought I was done writing novels until that day in May when I arrived at the remote Tuscan villa at sunset. A vista poured out in front of me like an elegant green language that I absolutely knew I had to learn and get down on paper.

But then I erased that paragraph and subsituted this one:

There was a view once, like none I have ever seen. Gentle green hills extend to the horizon, hills planted with olive groves in one direction, and vineyards in the other. And beyond those hills lies the sea, azure blue in some moments and then at others, a sparkling lime green that you can see through.

It beckoned me, that view, that paragraph, and my eyes came to rest there.

*********

So now I see Filomena dressed in one of her unattractive sacks, it has no shape whatsoever, and she is bent over, a basket swinging from one arm. With her right hand she is picking tender young dandelion leaves. Her mother will cook this greenery in olive oil and garlic. During the springtime, Filomena and her mother eat dandelion greens as often as they can!

*******

HOW DO I RESOLVE THE CONTRADICTIONS IN MY LIFE, ie the fact that I am Jewish but that I continue to pray to the Virgin Mary? OK I will try to lay it out.

I believe that you can be more than one thing at a time in life. You can be Jewish, but you can also practice Buddhism, like renowned meditator teacher Jack Kornfield. You can be Jewish and Italian. (There are approximately 45,000 Jews who live in Italy.)

I practise Judaism and I know quite a bit about the TORAH.

But I also firmly believe in the power of the DIVINE FEMININE!

And when I need inspiration, I politely ask her for it. And when I am in a tight spot, I say Hail Mary's.

When I was ill with cancer in 2002 and 2003, I frequently prayed to the Virgin Mary, especially when I was suffering or terrified about what was going to happen. SHE ALWAYS ANSWERED MY PRAYERS...(there are posts about that Peg, should I resurrect them? OY!!!! LOL :)

Also, it is important to point out that worship of the Virgin Mary is considered a feminist practise! THE VIRGIN MARY IS WORSHIPPED BY INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS AND MANY MANY OTHER GROUPS AROUND THE WORLD. The Catholic Church, dominated by MEN, tried to erase the worship of the Virgin Mary. They failed!

I do not practise Catholicism! I am a feminist, like many of those who worship Mary! I am writing this novel about Fi in part to expose and to CONDEMN THE HORRIBLE PRACTISE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES: CHURCH "FATHERS" TOOK HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BABIES AWAY FROM THEIR MOTHERS (IN FI'S TIME AND BEFORE AND AFTER) STICKING THEM IN THE DEADLY OSPIZIAS, where wet nurses transmitted disease from one infant to another! MANY MANY MANY BABIES DIED!!!!

In the time and place where my great grandfather was born, Cosenza, ITALY, 1870, approximately 93 percent of so-called illegitimate babies died before their first birthdays!

IT IS A MIRACLE THAT MY GREAT GRANDFATHER SURVIVED! I am so so grateful to whoever it was who saved my great grandfather!

SONO COSI GRATO A CHIUNQUE SIA STATO A SALVARE IL MIO BISNONNO DALL'OSPIZIO!

*********

So maybe I have already written the chapter that I can't seem to write.

I mean maybe this is the chapter? Or is it? (I will have to consult my dearest friend and decades-long writing BUDDY, PM "Peg" Woods.)

Meanwhile, as I have been writing this blogpost, I discovered through a circuitous route, a chapter called "A Perfect V!" in which Fi is reflecting on her difficulties "sharing" Pasquale with Nunzi.

I posted "A Perfect V!" on February 17, 2023.

So, maybe the headline I wrote before starting this piece is true: "I have NO idea where I am going but I have already arrived there!" Or, "Non ho idea di dove sto andando, ma ci sono gia arrivato!"

I am now revising "A Perfect V." I believe it will appear as Chapter 34 of the novel in progress, called "Finding Filomena."

Isn't it curious that in a way I am writing the Fi story in a kind of spiral! I wrote several chapters early in 2023, and then in March of 2023, I wrote the "first" chapter, and then I wrote about 30 subsequent chapters, and now I am circling back to one of the very first chapters I wrote, a chapter which comes toward the end of the book!