Notoriously Beautiful

5

Cucendo con Simona
(Sowing with Simona)

( It's Friday morning,)
I still have nothing to do (specifically). I am going to work on Monday, and my mom is going shopping, for home stuff. I don't like shopping. I never have, for some reason it annoys me to have to look through the clothes and objects. The shops are so dusty, at least in New York they are. My mom wants to "check them out" which means buy the half of store and then return half of the half that she bought, in mom language.
So I eat breakfast, I look in the fridge that was already here when we moved in. It is clean but I want a new one because just thinking about other people using that for God knows how long disgusts me just a little, (a lot). I decide to walk six blocks down to the town of Terassine. The town I love, Nizza di Sicilia, it's about thirty minutes away from the city of Messina. Rocchenere, Ali Terme, Furci Siculo and Pagliara, are all neighboring towns. I'm thinking about going to Spiaggia di Alì Terme, I live very close to that beach. I want to go there, but I have all summer for that, I'll go visit Simona's shop instead. My nonna Katerina told me to. I don't know how she told me, you know, because she's dead, but my nonna's spirit whispered into my ear, "When you learn, you grow," that's what she told me.
I want to learn how to sow. It can't be all that hard. My first cousin Elisabeth learned how to sow when she was only 8 years old.
I get to the front of her store, I read, 'Simona la sarta' in big letters, which means Simona the seamstress.
I walk in and look around. It's a small shop, but when I walk in it seems so big. The walls were white, and the front room had a lot of clutter. Nothing about it seemed big, I still don't know why I feel like that. A woman asks me if I needed something,
"ti serve qualcosa?" She asks.
"No, I don't need anything. I mean, yes, I mean, I'm looking for Simona," I say jumbling, and stumbling on my words.
She asked the question in Italian but I answered in English. I need to be more mindful of that.
"Oh, you need Simona, I go get her," the older woman says to me, in English. She understood when I answered her in English that I wasn't from Italy. But still, I knew what she had asked me, so that meant that I did know how to speak Italian, I just chose not to. I'm not sure if she looked that much into it though.
As she's going into the back room of the shop I ask a question,
"Are you Lina?"
I remember Simona had told me her aunt Lina worked with her at the shop.
"Si, are you, Simona's friend?" She asks.
I didn't get time to answer her because Simona did it for me.
"Si, Zia, this is my new friend Katerina," she told her aunt.
"Yes, I just moved here a little over 1 week ago," I say.
"Wow, so nice, very nice," Lina says holding a thumbs up and smiling at me.
I tell her in Italian that Simona had offered to teach me how to sow, and I was excited and I came as soon as I could.
I am so happy that I was beginning to meet my 'neighbors' per say. First Marco, and now Simona and Lina. I'm already starting to do what my nonna told me. To know as many people as possible. To let faces not just be faces. I believe my nonna was such a wise woman, even when she was younger. She went through so many hardships, but she got through all of them.
I have hope. I have hope that one day we can all love each other without pretending to be someone we are not.
Simona, just seems so real. I'm so lucky that I met her. To get to learn from her.
I respect those who respect me. Sometimes I forget that those who don't respect me, could be in frustration or pain. Not anyone specifically but when I remember then I try to help that person, because that's how I was raised. I get the feeling Simona was raised the same way.
Don't lack hope Nonna would say. Lacking hope is like saying someone with cancer is bound to die. Or someone who comes from poverty will never be rich. Nothing is bound to happen, make your own destiny. That was a big one. She'd always say make your own destiny Katerina.
What I say is don't hate God for putting you in a bad situation, thank God for the opportunity to make it better. That's the best lesson I ever taught myself. Whenever I face a problem I always thank God, that I have the ability to change my fate. God gave me that power. Without it, we would all be pawns in a chess game. Fighting to protect something but ultimately just wasting time.
"Simona, I would like to learn how to sow," I say.
"I knew you'd come, Katerina. Come with me, in the back, we have work to do. You can help me with this costume suit, I'm making for Marco,"she says.
"You know Marco?" I ask.
She started laughing at me,
"Do you know how many thousands of Marco's there are in Sicily?" She says.
"Your right, it's probably not the same person," I'm embarrassed now.
"Let's go sow," she says, giving her hand out to me.
I take her hand, and she leads me to the back room. It was beautiful. It's four walls were all different colors, but somehow it didn't look sloppy, it just worked so perfectly.
"Are you coming," she says, already sitting down on a plastic white chair leaning on a dark wooden table, and looking in a box for an extra sewing needle.
"Yes, I am," with a slight smile on my face, I think about how happy nonna would be, if she got to see me learn. But then I realized she is watching me, and now I'm even happier. Simona teaches me a lot in an hour.