Today, as I contemplate my next step to move onward, I was invited to have lunch with my friends Sandro and Maria and their son Sam. We drove to Sandro's brother's restaurant in Wolcott and spent time discussing our recent past, work and our futures. Maria is six months' pregnant. Sandro works in Hartford, Maria for the state. Sam is three and is one of the happiest children I know.
After lunch we drove past the house where I grew up. The people who bought it are odd. They still have a vast array of Christmas display items on the front lawn. The hedge is barely pruned, the yard ignored. Across the street is an old colonial farmhouse that had been the home to Bronson Alcott, well-known educator and father to Louisa May, author of "Little Women." Unfortunately the people who now possess the property have converted a classic salt box style house into an amalgam of split level, covered in white polyvinyl chloride siding and a pine green metal roof. The trim is lavender. She is from North Carolina, the husband from Vermont. She is a wonderful vegetable gardener. She takes anti-depressants and I never saw her without a mason jar filled with whiskey and some green liquid. She would come over to my mother's house and insinuate herself into any conversation we would be having. She would not leave without some disparaging comment. She was usually barefoot when there was no snow on the ground.
Another landmark of Waterbury. I have not gone in. It would be hard for me with such a name. But then I went to high school with two cousins the same age and with the same name of Michael. There was Michael Feola-the-Redhead and Michael Feola (who had dark hair). Why it wasn't the other way around, I don't know. I guess Michael Feola-the-Blackhead would have other connotations than his hair color. They say they make good relish here.
When I grew up in this part of the state, an interracial marriage was a person of Italian descent and the other Irish. Here is their progeny and now only $4.99 at Stop and Shop.
There are few images that stay with me in my life. They are frozen pieces of pleasure that give me hope and happiness over the years. One that has remained was a brilliant spring afternoon in San Francisco with Caryl. It was within the first year we moved to California and one of the first months in the city. At the time we were living on Telegraph Hill, poor and happy. We walked to the original Cost Plus and on our way home we sat on a stairway overlooking North Beach. The air was warm and smelled of the ocean. My arm was around Caryl and all I felt was my deep love for her and pure bliss. 
