I Am a Product of My DNA - Grandma's Recipe Book

Today I was reading a post from a virtual blogging friend, Rosaria, that caused me to think about what is contained in my DNA that directs me to think, act, fear, speak in the multiple ways that I do...naively believing it is my free will that is directing my responses.  While I try to live with a "glass half full" optimism, what came to mind for me is my sense of foreboding that can hang over everything.  I try to live in the present and appreciate what life presents to me, but I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop...to be faced with some problem or tragedy and to be prepared to deal with it.  Here are some events that bring this home to me.

I just finished reading Elegy of Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear and as is my habit, I write quotes from books that touch a cord within me into my Reading Journal.  I copied "I think I would like to approach a corner without constantly trying to be prepared for what I might encounter when I round it....It does make for a load rather heavy if you carry the tools for every eventuality." 

When Jay and I were writing our marriage vows, one of my original sentences read..."And when the bad times come, and they surely will, I will stay with you."  He questioned why I would be expecting bad times?  Did I really want to enter our marriage waiting and expecting bad times?  I amended the sentence to say, "If any difficult times come, I will stay with you." It was the best I could do.

I have read articles about the Southern Italian predilection for fatalism.  I guess when life has been very difficult for a society, when people feel powerless with so much not within their control and there are few that they can trust, the easiest way to deal with life is to be ready for the bad times and try to accept them and move on.  The Italians also have a superstition of the "mal occhio" (the evil eye) that believes that others who may be envious of your good times can put a curse on you and bad times will be the result. Some of the elder women in a traditional Italian family know the special prayers and ritual used to identify and dispell this curse and other family members consult with them to find out "if Gianni has the mal occhio" and to say the chants to get rid of it!

I usually attribute this trait of mine to being the oldest child in my family.  I had to be responsible for my siblings and be ready to take care of them if there were problems.  I face life armed with my "what if" list in one hand, my "to-do" list in the other and Plan B in my hip pocket. I always thought I was just choosing to be responsible.

As I have gone through my mother's belongings I discovered I was the happy recipient of an item that was handed down to my mother after her mother died.  It was my grandmother's recipe book.

My grandmother, Frances Rosso Montalto 1963

My grandmother, who recycled and re-purposed before there ever was a sustainability movement, had taken a bound calendar book, Warner's Calendar of Medical History copyright 1940 and used all the blank calendar pages to record things that were of importance to her.  Not only are there her hand written recipes, but she also has her Christmas Card lists (sent and received) for years 1942 thru 1959

and some addresses and phone numbers.  She was organized and created an Index of her recipes and instead of page numbers, there were the dates where they were recorded.  The recipe for gnocchi can be found on June 12th,

 I felt very close to her as I turned the fragile pages. I began to search for any personal notations, maybe thoughts or quotes that would tell me what was in her heart at the time...but no such luck.  And then I turned to the inside binding and there I found her name:  Frances Montalto; her address: 1720 Oakdale Ave. Lorain, Ohio; her phone number: 61-091....and then...at the bottom of the page... these words, written in her hand:

Help and Love

one another

before Tragedy comes.

Yes, this sense of foreboding and expectation for the bad times is in my DNA!  It actually helps to understand its origins...in a way it disarms it!  I can at least try to get in its face and say..."I know you for what you are!  Be gone!"