(some of) My Favorite Things - Part Two

and what they mean to me, the stories behind them, how they fuel inspiration

The very first real painting I bought for myself, a still life of a vase of roses from an artist’s studio in St Ives, Cornwall. I still remember the thrill of buying it, a real canvas in my hands, mine, purchased from the artist at work in his studio, a picaresque white-washed former fisherman’s cottage with a flower box window just like the others along that lane winding its way to the water, seagulls and the sea, and me, walking - I saw it there, in the window and felt something, the timidity as I went in there, the young black girl in this English seaside town, to see. How distressed I was when I thought it was lost during one of our house, country moves, and to find it again, the utter relief of it, which took me by surprise, how much I cared for it. The canvas hangs on the wall in my study, unframed just as I got it decades ago. When I look up at it, I am that girl again, and those shades of coral, the impasto, the chiaroscuro (although I did not know the language for those thick flecks of strokes then on the petals that I feel with my finger or the contrast of light, darkness) moves me again, and I bend my head, and begin to write, something lifting and soaring in me. Because the things I love may defy objective analysis on their merits, their worth, but to me they are memory and joy, and somehow a talisman, they remind me of who I was then, who I am now, and the possibility of who I will be.

I wonder now if I was so drawn to that vase of roses because of what it unconsciously evoked: my mother’s cherished rose bushes, which have bloomed around my childhood home in different shades, year after year, and despite miserly rain and the searing temperatures, there they were blooming in the parched earth, on my last visit back.

Morbidly, perhaps, I wonder, in their grief, my sons surveying the walls, the bookshelves, my desk, the console, the display ‘cabinet,' and all the other surfaces, what will they, going through all that ‘stuff’, decide to keep or let go of? What criteria will they each use? What will they imagine was very important to me, and will it be the same as to what is important to them? What memories will they know of as they pick up an object and wonder, why mum, why?

In Nonna’s apartment, after her death, Fabio and I went through pictures and albums that we found in one of the cupboards. There was Nonna as we had never seen her before. Nonna, the new bride, young and so glamorous-looking. We have to enlarge these, I said to Fabio. She’s beautiful. And there were his mother’s nicknacks on the lounge table and side table. We did not know what they meant to Nonna, if they meant much to her at all, if she had bought them or been given them, or were just decor. There were things we thought she loved, her carpets, but did she? Nonna was a great cook, and in the kitchen there was a shelf wedged with editions of the magazine Cucina Romana; I thought of taking them for the cabin in the mountains because they were Nonna’s, but then I don’t think she ever looked into those recipes, or maybe she did. There were clothes and coats and shoes. There was the everyday earrings Nonna wore. And the simple chain. Nonna left that to me. And it made me cry, for Nonna, as long as I had known her, always wore that chain, it was precious to her, and she left it for me.

Nonno had died years before and now, closing the apartment, Fabio took the old coffee grinder, because it was the machine that Nonno had sold as a salesperson to shopkeepers. The machine meant something to Fabio, this memory of his father, but what had it meant to Nonno?

In the cabin in the Appennines there is the rickety tiny cabinet set into the corners of the walls… in it are old old liquors and whiskeys, when you open them the smell is ghastly, but we keep them there because it is the memory for Fabio when the place used to be crammed with people and his father would hold court with the neighbors, playing cards and drinking; before Nonno became ill and his heart could no longer take the altitude.

What is my worth? What are the things that will define me to my boys? That they will keep to show their families? This is who my mum was. This is what she was like.

They have my books, my words. I am thankful for that.

Perhaps they will do a deep dive into my computer and excavate the thousands of thousands of words there, unseen.

When I got my first publishing contract I went out and bought a new wardrobe of slim line skirts, smart blouses, and cocktail dresses. I was dressing for my new life, what I imagined it would be like. Appearances in festivals, conferences, book fairs, soirees with the literati. I bought smart handbags, beautiful shoes with heels. Smart coats. And boots (I loved boots!) I had, after all, made it. My wardrobe filled with these new clothes, this new persona.

For my official author video, which my US publisher had asked me to have done, I spent a harried day trying on the new wardrobe, getting more and more desperate that nothing looked or felt right. At last I settled on the sleeveless black-and-white dress, and there I am talking about my book to the young man behind the camera, an American living for a bit in Geneva who was still fresh and hyped from having been a volunteer in the Obama campaign, with stories to tell. I made a huge mistake in that video which could not get edited out. I said Columbia instead of Colombia. Nerves.

Fabio took my author photo, and I tossed and discarded my new wardrobe - how was it possible to buy so much clothes and still… and at last the floral blouse and skirt, the blouse picking up the light just so. I am a very nervous subject when it comes to taking official portrait photographs. Fabio is the only photographer who can capture me looking at ease. In the professional photographer’s studio I become stiff and self-conscious and begin to sweat. I have a rictus grin. With Fabio we can goof around, learning that it is my continual movement that will get the natural pose.

At the Orange Award Ceremony, I wore a sleeveless, black chiffon dress with spaghetti straps and a slightly flared skirt which I bought at the last minute from a boutique in Geneva, a black woolen mini jacket sparkly with sequins, black shoes from a cute little store in Carouge, I called them my ballroom dancing shoes because of the t-bar strap. I had a bag, I must have had one, but I have no memory of it, and none of the pictures have me carrying one, I suspect is the 1950s black clutch purse that I bought as a student in London from a vintage stall in Covent Garden - it is the only bag that I think would have done the outfit justice. I loved how I looked. Especially since the necklace of semi-precious stones I had bought just days before leaving for London to go to the glittering ceremony at the Victoria Albert Hall, from an antique shop up in the old town, the only piece of jewellery among the antique furniture, elevated the look. I adored the necklace. I loved its colours - purples and greens and ivory-white. I loved its weight on me. The coldness and heft of it on my chest grounded me, and when I felt nerves getting to me during the evening, chit-chatting with all those writers, the Duchess of Cornwall, winning! I placed my hands on its stones and was calmed. I am not a necklace wearer, but that evening I wore a statement piece and it was fabulous.

In my cupboard there are two dresses which will survive all closet decluttering. My rose-splattered minidress which was my wedding dress and the black chiffon dress of my Award’s evening.

An ode: On my first visit to Paris, in my early twenties, I fell in love with a camel-, hip-length, belted-coat with a faux fur collar, hanging in a boutique in the latin quarter. When I put it on and stepped out onto the Parisian sidewalks, I felt immediately transformed - so chic, and yes, so Parisienne. I loved that coat, how it made me feel, suddenly not the gauche tourist. And how I wish I had kept it - even after I was no longer svelte enough to wear and it had gone virtually threadbare with use, and moth bitten. I would love to open my wardrobe to see it there.

Another coat: this time a patchwork of wool bought in Bogota, whenever I put it on, slightly oversize, I would immediately feel cozy and safe bundled in it when I would walk in the very early hours to catch the bus to take me to the university some way out of town, where I was teaching. That is lost too, but at least I have a picture.

At the Gothenburg Book Fair in 2020 the airline lost my luggage. My publicist asked my size, and the next afternoon I was gifted a new wardrobe. Very stylish dresses from a Swedish designer, scarves, stockings even. I could not believe it. How seriously I was being taken. That evening, in my new clothes, I went to a dinner hosted by the publisher where I sat opposite Erica Jong and engaged in a spirited conversation. This was going to be my life now, I thought. And I am accumulating the clothes for it. My favorite was a slinky, blue-patterned dress which I wore to an event I had with Maaza Mengiste, something I would never have bought for myself, which made me feel instantly glamorous when I put it on, gave me that shot of confidence I needed up there on the stage.

My delight when my luggage finally arrived and the publisher said, yes, of course, I was to keep my new wardrobe. Behold, the writer!