Crossing the Ocean

April 1889

Life in Italy was so treacherous for my great grandfather that he accidentally immigrated to the United States. On a crisp spring day, Constante Pastori and his brother Carlo were goofing around on the docks of Genoa, sneaking in and out of boats, just as two teenage boys would be expected to do without adult supervision.  After burrowing through the musty intestines of a cargo ship filled with thousands of drums of olive oil, they emerged on the deck, gazing at the coastline which was now miles away.  Given the obscene poverty they endured, neither of them had any regrets when faced with the decision to swim to shore or continuously feed coal to the steam engine to earn their passage.  They would never see their parents or their home country again. 

When they arrived in New York City several weeks later, they assessed the terrain and concluded it was not a suitable location to utilize their skill sets: Growing grapes and making wine.  Constante inquired about where he might find a region with a similar climate to Lombardia and was told that California was his destination. He consulted a map and concluded it couldn’t be very far away. The brothers returned to the cargo ship for what would be several additional months of ocean travel around the horn of South America.  By the time they docked in Buenos Aires, Carlo declared that he wouldn’t spend another day of his life on a boat, disembarked, and was never heard from again.  Constante stayed the course and arrived in San Francisco, without a dime in his pocket or a sentence of English in his vocabulary. Other Italian immigrants guided him north to Sonoma County, where he could eventually ply his trade and become a citizen. 

Constante met a friend whose sister Erminia Domenichelli was eager to escape poverty in Massa Carrara, Tuscany. The region is world famous for producing marble, and the consistency of the soil was like a kitchen counter. Coaxing tomatoes out of the earth required stubborn determination and divine intervention.  Constante took one look at a photograph of Erminia and agreed to marry the woman, who was a foot shorter and 20 years younger than him. Carrying nothing but a small photo of a round-faced, portly woman, he made his way back to the piers of San Francisco. His first impression: She was terribly short, but she might make a good worker.  

Life in America didn’t satiate my great grandparents' fantasies of abundance.  Their firstborn child Stella succumbed to diphtheria in infancy.  Their third child Americo was asthmatic and drowned in the Russian River at age 19, a macabre metaphor for life in their new homeland. They toiled religiously and remained afloat through the ebb and flow of what could be farmed, hunted, or foraged.  They had no concept of attuning to the emotional needs of their children.  Their goal was simultaneously simple and complex: survive.  I wonder if they had aspirations for their future descendents, or if thoughts of simply getting by had a monopoly on their conscious awareness.  

~

As I raise Taishan within a container of immense privilege, my goals are different.  With the caveats of global climate collapse and civil war, I don’t worry about being able to feed him.  My sights are set on creating a secure attachment with him, by being able to model the healthy expression of my own emotions, and lovingly holding space for his.

Trying to create a secure emotional attachment with my child is like traveling from poverty in Italy to opportunity in America. This journey will span multiple lifetimes.  Before my generation, children were to be seen, not heard.  Parents were to be feared. My parents metaphorically left the dock of Italy and maybe even passed through the Strait of Gibraltar.  By not physically abusing me, by nurturing my creativity and supporting me to follow my interests, they immersed me in a landscape vastly different from the ones in which they were raised. 

Because of the distance my parents traveled from their parenting origins, I grew up knowing what it’s like to be valued and feel safe in my home. I sense that my opinions and interests matter, and that I can choose the life I want to live without being outcast. I’m not struggling to plant tomatoes in marble. 

However, there is so much that was never modeled for me, which I must learn while crossing the proverbial Atlantic Ocean. Authentically expressing my emotions is a foreign language I am struggling to grasp. Being vulnerable and naming my fears in the midst of conflict feels like a cultural behavior I can study in an anthropology textbook but struggle to put into practice. How am I supposed to cultivate these qualities in real time as I struggle with the consistent demands of keeping an infant alive? 

I am grateful to have metaphorically left the Mediterranean Sea, and yet here I am, facing the open water with no landmarks in sight. I’ve never even seen an ocean! Somehow, I have to sail for thousands of miles around several continents to get to a place that I can only imagine in my mind's eye.  I probably won’t make it to the destination, but I pray that my efforts will position my offspring to reach the promised land. 

~

For a musical interpretation of overcoming limitations, listen to ‘Climbing Out’ by clicking the image below .

“I don’t mind dying but I’d like to stay here

Long enough to enjoy time with my Wife and baby

There is no price to pay me to throw my life away

Doing anything I don’t find to be quite amazing”