RelinqWish

In Oia, the hilltop town in the Greek island of Santorini/Thira, hundreds of people crowd the viewing decks daily to catch a glimpse of the setting sun. It has been said that Santorini is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and that is why thousands of people make their way up the mountain everyday from cruise ships that dock there from all over the world. This summer, I was fortunate enough to spend four days on the island just soaking it all in. I will betray my own anti-cliché sensibilities and call the experience as it is: breathtaking.

Mornings would begin by stepping out of our cave house to a view of the solid blue Aegean sea and red volcanic rock. We ate our hotel breakfasts overlooking this view and on some mornings I would just sit there and be overwhelmed. The food from the simplest and dirtiest-looking taverna was phenomenal. I recall, putting a piece of bread soaked in olive oil for the first time in Greece, closing my eyes and being overpowered by the taste of it. Olive oil. It was a flavor explosion, like Greek tomatoes, feta, capers and seafood. It was impossible to resist gluttony.

But the best ritual would be in the afternoons, while the sky was turning orange and the people filled the hilltops with their cameras and exclaimed their oohs and ahs. We would be watching them and the water over glasses of wine and meat and cheese from the local store, waiting for this ball of fire to sink what seemed like the end of the world, wondering how many people are actually staring in the same direction. And then it happens and we get our answer. When the sun goes down and all you can see is this cool tangerine sky, an applause would erupt from the top of the hill. They must be mostly tourists who clap but then it gets you thinking. They have been traveling all over to see the world’s major sights, but here they are gawking, some even sighing, as they applaud something as mundane as a setting sun.

You.

Must.

See.

Santorini.

(This is the poem I read at my sister’s wedding in Tuscany. With less than twenty-four hours notice, Anna, a friend who was also the groom’s second cousin, was assigned to choose a poem that I would read during the ceremony. Her mom Christina Pantoja-Hidalgo, a professor of literature in Manila, chose this poem and braved the floods of typhoon Ondoy to get to her files from her office that day.)

Live Poem

Anna Bernaldo

“Love is a choice”, my mother always says,

But this time her spatula did not point

Pragmatically in my direction.

It stirred silence on the boiling broth,

Ripples matching the excited rhythm

Of the TV sports anchor’s voice

In a baseball game my father is watching.

Now that I’m older, I’m forced to reconsider

You and my fixation on the Addams couple

As our role models forever.

One always hungry for the other.

I never listened to my mother,

But every day I see her.

And I’m older and love must be domestic,

Responsible, sensible as a haircut in summer.

Is it possible for us to make something more

Out of what we are about to have?

Of course you do not know.

Even I do not know.

Why did I even begin asking questions?

I just wanted to write you a love poem

But I can only live one for you

He was a round, silver old man who emerged from the back room of an amber-colored leather store by The Pantheon in Rome. We had seen a pair of tan wingtips similar to the pair of shoes my partner had been eyeing at the Church’s store by the Spanish Steps. We sat down on the bench as he found the right size for her and she fell in love with them, the shoemaker explaining that these were a better pair than Church’s, who had since been bought by Prada and was no longer made in the UK like the prized Barretts he was selling us.

My partner had been walking around the store when the old man grabbed her wrist with his yellow bony fingers.

“Where did you get this?” he said, almost aggressively, pointing at her watch.  

We looked at him curiously until he rolled up his sleeves and showed her the exact yellow-faced vintage Rolex on his wrist. On his pinky he had the same gold signet ring my partner wore on her pinky for years until she lost it.

“Ahhhhhhh!!” he laughed heartily and kissed her on both cheeks. Another female companion also got two kisses, but I got three. The last kiss landed on the left cheek but quickly crawled down my neck in a half-snort-half-sniff grandma-like kiss, and I made a face for the rest of my group, as if to say, “Easy there, you dog!”

I let him. If he were ten years younger I’d probably have responded with a kick in the nether regions but he could barely walk. It was worth the laugh. He looked straight at me and mumbled something lengthy in Italian.

I said, “Si!” to whatever it was he said, and it seemed to make him very happy.

“All of you - one, two, three – come with me. Have dinner with me tonight, all of you.”

We smiled.

“I have a plane leaving for Casablanca tonight. Come with me and we’ll drink some wine in Casablanca…”

Alas, it was our last day in Rome. We had spent it getting lost in the Jewish neighborhood of Trastavere, eating one of the best meals we’ve ever had at a hole-in-the-wall called Taverna da Enzo. Needless to say we’d had enough adventure without flying off to Casablanca with an old man.

Behind him, his middle-aged son and daughter seemed to protest all of the attention we were getting.

My partner bought the shoes and gave her number to the old man “for when you visit New York,” she said.  He pointed at his diploma on the wall and I read his name aloud - MIGLIORANZA EDIGIO, and we said our goodbyes with more European-style kisses.

Back at the rented Rome apartment, we tried on our shoe purchases and I noticed that the inner sole of the wingtips had MIGLIORANZA embossed in gold. Something to remember the old man by, along with the surprise kiss, the watch and ring fetish, and Italy in the fall of 2009.

Several years ago we were among five hundred guests at a young couple’s wedding outside the city. I don’t remember much of the ceremony but I do remember very cynically saying, “Savor it, because it’s all downhill from here,” under my breath to my partner, who berated me for the cruel and insensitive comment. She asked me why I would say such a thing, and I replied with an all-encompassing statement I’ve been dropping since my teenage years:

I’ve never seen a happy marriage.

When I was younger I used to feel that I was owed decent role models to pattern my life around. I felt wronged never having witnessed a single relationship I wanted to emulate, not one healthy friendship, honored commitment, loving gesture or even a verbal statement of love. I really believed that anyone who said they were happily married were distracting themselves from the truth. I treated my lovers similarly and was treated how I expected to be treated, at the very best hoping that I could find someone with whom to fake stability.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be proven wrong in my own life and by a couple of other instances. One sister’s love story of being reunited with her high school sweetheart, and then last month, my oldest sister married “the one.” They could have done it in the middle of West Side Highway and I would still know he was it. I never saw him sing grand love songs or read any love poems, I’ve never even heard their love story or heard him proclaim his love for my sister. He didn’t have to. When they weren’t paying attention, I saw him looking tenderly at her and touching her hair softly while she was sleeping wrinkly-faced on our guest bed this past summer. It was a couple of seconds of vulnerability I’d never seen from my sister before. She was always wiser, older, stronger. It was a great feeling to see that she was also loved.

Here’s to you two and a happy marriage ahead. Don’t let me down! J