By TINA CANE
Today’s lively experiment was supposed to be about the virtues of olive oil
and the simple yet sumptuous lifestyle of Italian nonnas maximizing their wellness
by just being themselves but no sooner had I embraced the integrity of handmade
bucatini and a schmatta than did my mind migrate towards questions about the source
of self-regard and whether there really are any self-evident truths
I was in my car
when I heard about Drive-Thru Ash Wednesday at the neighborhood church where God
and donuts and convenience were converging in a manner so detached from faith
in anything that everything turned meta for a second as if we had entered new terrain
verging on the diabolical
diabolique as the French would say
a fancy way to pronounce profane not that I worry about such distinctions
still we shouldn’t need a video game named Reality Reload to explain basic
facts about how life works and yet here we are with everybody wanting to live
forever or at least as long as a trending Sicilian grandma to teach us what truly
living means
it was Lou Reed
who confessed he was scared in a general sense 24 hours a day but was more afraid
of Sweden than he ever was in New York Stockholm so empty everybody drunk
and everything functioning so seamlessly it must have seemed a mind experiment
to Lou who knew as nonnas doubtless do that life is like Sanskrit read to a pony
Tina Cane served as poet laureate of Rhode Island from 2016 to 2024. Her books include Dear Elena: Letters for Elena Ferrante, Once More With Feeling, Body of Work, Year of the Murder Hornet, and the verse novels for younger readers Alma Presses Play and Are You Nobody Too?.
