This is the first post in a series I'm calling Sessa Saturdays. Every week I'll post a photo of something I find interesting here in town. Here is the inaugural photo:
Madonna and Child, Corso LucilioChicken and dumplings is my new favorite thing to cook. I use Judith's recipe. It is excellent.
I always make enough for at least two meals. Each successive time we eat it, I reheat the leftovers in a pot with some of the broth so that I can make another batch of dumplings. This is because we always eat all the dumplings in one sitting. (N eats one and I eat the rest. In my case, breastfeeding a toddler means I can eat however much I want of just about anything without ever putting on any weight.)
I made it most recently on Saturday, and we ate the leftovers on Sunday. Yesterday, all that was left was some broth. I felt the need for a dumpling fix, so I put the broth into a pot and mixed up a batch. By the time they were done, the broth had reduced to a thick gravy just right for pouring over the warm, fluffy dumplings. Then I ate them very quickly with my back turned to Pata so I wouldn't have to share them.
(Every now and then a mom needs to do something just for herself.)
While Pata and I were out walking this morning, we encountered a man that I've seen around town and that I nodded to just a couple of days ago because I noticed that he was looking at me while we were waiting on line at the pharmacy. Because of the Madonna/Whore complex that Kataroma writes about here, I've always been wary in this country about acknowledging men who stare or try to initiate conversation with me. But this man was very elderly, toothless, and judging from the condition of his clothing, very poor. I thought it would be unkind not to acknowledge him. I don't like to ignore people who are already marginalized.
This morning he called out to me as we passed him in the street. I had trouble understanding him at first, but then I realized that he was asking if Pata was a girl or a boy. That question doesn't usually bother me, but today I found it strange because she was wearing a pink hat decorated with crocheted flowers. Then he wanted to know how old she was. He took a candy out of his pocket and offered it to her. I told him she was too young, but he insisted, pressing it into my hands. I was annoyed, but relieved that he hadn't handed it directly to Pata.
Thinking back over what happened, I realized that was the moment that he tone of his questions changed. I should have been more alert, I suppose, but I was confused by the next question because it seemed to make no sense: "Stava da sola?" It took me a couple of seconds to realize he was addressing me politely, in the third person. This always trips me up; having to use a formal mode of address doesn't fit into my way of being in the world and my brain gets blocked every time I hear it. Once I figured out that he was asking me if I had been alone, I was even more confused, because I didn't understand why he was asking it.
By then, I was already annoyed because of the candy and I didn't see the point in continuing such a confusing conversation with someone I didn't know, so I just told him we were in a hurry and had to go. He persisted, "Lavora?" "Are you working?"
"No, just running errands," I said, wondering why I was even telling him.
"Are you a foreigner?" he asked, switching to the informal tu. That should have been the red flag (both the question and the use of the tu,) but I still didn't get it.
"Umm, yes. We have to go now." As I was about to add, "Arrivederci," I felt his hand on my thigh.
"Bellissima," he said. It's the same word he used to describe my baby just a few minutes before. Yuck.
I didn't want to make a scene because I didn't want to upset Pata, who is too young to have even noticed that something this ugly has happened to her mother. (I promise that if something like this ever happens when she is old enough to understand, that I will make a scene, and that if a man ever touches her that way, I will break his arms.) I walked away. I decided not to cry. I scowled at everyone I saw in the street.
Why am I considered loose because I'm polite and respond to men who speak to me? Why does my being a foreigner suggest that I'm a slut? Even when I'm wearing a wedding ring and carrying a baby? Some might say that this was just one crazy, dirty old man, but as far as I'm concerned, this was just the most extreme example of a certain kind of male behavior I've experienced countless times in this country.
Pata likes to do things for herself. She wants to brush her own teeth and comb her own hair and feed herself cookies that Mommy and Papá break into maddeningly tiny pieces for her, while taking giant bites for themselves.
Pata still doesn't have many words but she just recently learned a magic one that allows her to assert her growing sense of independence.
"Can I have a kiss," I ask her, "a little one?"
"No."
"Would you like to come with Mommy now?"
"No."
"Can I have my keys? We need to go inside now."
"No."
Pata likes to say "no" but she doesn't care much for hearing it.
She knows to wait until I'm distracted to start doing things I've already told her not to do. As soon as I notice, I call her name and say, "No no."
She turns to look at me. "Ooooh," she says every time, shaking her finger. Then she makes a little speech I can't understand. She goes back to what she was doing, repeating to herself, "No no no no no. No no!"
Sometimes, perhaps to demonstrate that she feels she really is a big girl now, she doesn't even wait for me to express my disapproval first. This morning as I was hanging the wash to dry, she pressed every button on the washing machine, telling herself, "no," each time.
Though maybe that had more to do with courtesy than independence. Seeing that I was already busy doing something else, she thought she'd be considerate and save me some time and energy.
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