Remembering Silvio

The interior of San Giovanni a Porta Latina in Rome

When my parents finally decided to get married, it wasn’t a get-down-on-one-knee sort of event. They had been writing letters back and forth between New York and Iran, with my father writing, “Say yes. Say yes. Say yes.” More times than that, until finally she did. In a letter from Ahvaz, dated April 18^th, 1960, he addressed a letter to Paolo and Antonio, two imagined future sons my mother had previously  written about: “What shall we call our children? I get chills thinking of it. I like Paolo and Antonio.” In my father’s letter, he wrote, “Funny. I had visualized my children as so many little replicas of your mother. It’s one of the tricks that love plays on you.”

Today is Silvio’s birthday, and so to commemorate the day, my mother and I decided to spend this beautiful sunny Sunday driving to the church of San Giovanni a Porta Latina, about half an hour away from where we live. We parked nearby, and walked up a cobblestone road, turning by an old

sign, despite my mother insisting that none of this was familiar and we must be in the wrong place. But I had seen some people walking ahead of us who seemed they might be going to mass, and it turns out they were. We entered the church, and sat in chairs to the left rear, just in front of a woman seated alone. Neither of us has been to mass in a very long time, yet the prayers in Italian came back to me easily, the mass rituals were familiar, and mostly we just took in the beauty of the church and the children’s choir which sang so sweetly.

There is a point in the mass when we turn to each other to share a greeting and sign of peace, and this woman behind us had a beautiful smile.  After our exchanges, she touched my mother’s shoulders from behind in a typical Italian way of showing affection that moved me deeply. After the mass ended everyone stayed to watch a couple renewing their wedding vows privately in the first row, and receiving a special communion. Then there was a gentle applause. This prompted me to share with our new friend that my parents had married here in 1960, and we showed her two black and 

Silvio and Maureen's wedding in 1960

white photos we had brought along. It turned out that she too had married in that church in 1971, and as a retired cardiologist, had travelled to New York many times. We vowed to see each other again on a future Sunday. We greeted one of the black priests who had assisted during mass and also shared the photos and story, and enjoyed the sounds of the choir children laughing and running around outside as we exited the church.

It all seems so romantic, doesn’t it? An intercultural marriage in an ancient Roman church, popular with couples seeking an intimate setting in a part of the Eternal City where time seems to stand still. Yet getting through the marriage bureaucracy is no easy feat, requiring careful navigation of church and international laws. My parents managed to accomplish this in record time, thanks to assistance from family, friends, and their contacts, and a good dose of luck. They needed a Nihil Obstat document declaring no impediment to marriage between an Italian and American citizen, but tensions with the Vatican over divorces not yet finalized meant one could not be obtained. My mother wrote to Senator Javits, and a lawyer on the Board of Trustees of Barnard College, obtaining signed government documents, only to discover in Rome from the American Consul Doris Allen that they were meaningless. Undeterred, she used her cousin’s contacts (he was a Catholic priest) to enlist help from an American priest in Rome, who not only invoked Article Thirteen to circumvent the Nihil Obstat requirement, but obtained a Papal Blessing as well.

My parents' marriage certificate 

In more recent times, we have seen the struggle for civil rights of LGBTQ people focus on marriage equality, reminding us despite the divorce rate in the United States, that being able to marry the person you love is not to be taken for granted. Friends of mine who are gay and married after twenty five years together are currently collaborating on a documentary film project about the history of same sex desire. They recently spent a few months in Rome conducting research and uncovered a fascinating history of homosexual wedding rituals in Rome during the late 16^th century at San Giovanni a Porta Latina. We know about these events in part because a French essayist of the time, Michel de Montaigne, wrote about the men who were eventually tortured and assassinated for their crimes in the Castel Sant’Angelo. (For a good overview, read Gary Ferguson here, and for a scholarly version, read Giuseppe Marcocci’s article here).

As I reflect on our current state of affairs, both in the United States and abroad, and the uncertainty we face regarding political situations that can at best be described as surreal, I find myself also thinking about the past – 1960, and 1578 – and in light of my mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, about remembering the past. I am so grateful that these precious letters were saved, that my mother wrote it all down in a memoir, and grateful too that Michel de Montaigne recorded an important story from Renaissance times that should be known and understood as an important piece of human history. I feel honored to know the filmmakers that will bring this story to the screen to enhance our appreciation and understanding of it.

I will end with another piece of Silvio’s letter to Paolo and Antonio. It so perfectly captures my father’s wisdom, that he was sharing with me  (and my mother of course) before I was even born:

We have hard times ahead: we have to solve many problems from within and without. We feel confident we can lick them, although we are quite aware that it’s not going to be easy. But that’s the beauty of it: only what you have to struggle for gives you the satisfaction of accomplishment. The worth of a dollar, a toy or a praise can only be measured in terms of the effort you have put in to obtain it. And what better than struggling knowing that your beloved is at your side, there to share joys and sorrows, worry and success?

A Road Trip

In 1969, my father’s sister Paola decided to buy a piece of property with him in the beach town of Castiglione della Pescaia, up on a hill called Poggiodoro, to build a large stone two-

Paola on the construction site in a white linen dress
with my Aunt Helen in 1969

family house. Close friends of hers agreed to join in the project and use the second half of the building. As an architect with exquisite taste, she designed the houses as virtual mirrors of each other, joined by a large open terrace that had a view extending from Tuscan hills across the plains of Maremma and the nearby regional park out to the Mediterranean sea. Every summer we would spend our vacations there, enjoying beach life, Etruscan tombs and museums, and occasional excursions to hill towns. Adjacent to the entrance, Paola added a Roman marble tomb fragment that said “sibi et” followed by either a p or an f (which we thought could be pater or frater) so that was the name we gave our beloved vacation home.

L to R: Helen, Silvio, Paola, Maureen, Jen and me

It wasn't hard to spot the Americans at Bagno Somalia

Even after we decided it was time to sell the house decades later, we continued to return to Castiglione and stay in town at the family-run Hotel Sabrina, where we were always made to feel welcome. We made life-long friends with the Odello sisters and their parents at Bagno Somalia, our simple beach club, that we now consider to be our “Roman family.” So when we arrived in Rome on my mother’s 89^th birthday, we got in our rental car and drove straight up the coast to the beach, desperately in need of a vacation after the frenzy of packing up and leaving New York.

During our two week stay, on a somewhat cloudy day, we decided to go for a lunch of ricotta and spinach tortelli at a local restaurant called Macchiascandona. We had no reservation

Tortelli with butter and sage

and were lucky to get a spot at the other end of a long table, but when we heard the couple behind us getting turned away, I chased after them and invited them to join us, explaining as New Yorkers we were accustomed to communal seating and they couldn’t leave Maremma without tasting the famous tortelli. Of course by the end of lunch we had befriended these lovely people, and learned that Marina had just been out to visit a local rice farm, Tenuta San Carlo, to shoot photographs for a magazine article. She and her husband urged us to go see it, as it was owned and run by a young American woman. We went the following day and I got to speak briefly with Ariane Lotti and pick up some packages of her rice, both white and brown. We stayed in touch through email and Facebook, got to see each other briefly during the winter in Rome, and I promised we would come stay on the farm in her agriturismo apartments after Easter.

Maremma cattle live in the heart of Tenuta San Carlo

One of the many perks of our new life in Rome is that now we can go visit Castiglione

The entrance to the farm

whenever we like, as it takes a little over two hours to drive there and is quite beautiful off season as well as during the summer months. When my sister Jen made plans to come visit us for 10 days before starting a new job at NASA, we agreed that we should take a road trip up to the beach and stay at the Tenuta San Carlo for two nights. We had never seen Castiglione in the spring and we figured even if the weather didn’t cooperate we would still enjoy time in the countryside.

Although we discussed this plan many times with my mother, she was hesitant about going away, not sure where we were going, and even insisted we could go without her. It was therefore quite touching when we arrived in town, took in all the familiar landmarks around us, and my mother expressed delight at this wonderful surprise. We went to see the beach

and then drove back south to the farm where we were staying in the “Cinghiale” apartment (I have a real soft spot for wild boar). It was a little chilly so we turned on the heat and bundled Maureen up in her big bed for a late afternoon nap while we explored the farm.

We went back to town for a seafood dinner since we had made plans to eat at the farm our second night. The next day we met a local friend for coffee, had lunch by the harbor with a view of boats and the sea, and while my mother napped, my sister and I took the bicycles offered to us and went for an hour long ride along a road lined with pine trees. It’s hard to

put into words just how magical the experience was. The silence, except for the squeaky bicycle wheels turning, the late afternoon light bringing out infinite hues of green and brown, the scent of pines and sea air were intoxicating to the senses. Along the way we stopped to collect pine cones and bark and marveled at the beautiful landscapes of woods and wetlands leading out to the beach.

Dinner at the farm was just perfect, from antipasto to dessert, and afterwards we got into pajamas and into the big bed to finish watching Notting Hill, which we had started the night

before. In the morning, before leaving, we went back to Bagno Somalia and our friend Gabriele was on hand to take a picture of us at the entrance. The sun had finally come out and we couldn’t resist one more panoramic drive up the hill before heading home to Rome.

“Isn’t it wonderful to return to a place you have loved?” said Maureen.

“Yes,” agreed Jen.

“And fall in love with it all over again,” I replied.

Back in our apartment, Jen and I worked on a collage project inspired by some art we had seen at the farm. Using our collection of bark and pine cones, and some hand printed paper I had saved, we made this pine tree and hung it in Maureen's bedroom as a reminder of our time together.