This blog has been a fitful proposition from the start, losing and gaining steam as my discipline levels fluctuate or circumstances intervene. L. has been good about posting visual stuff but my little updates, anecdotes, and observations, whatever their value, have entirely ceased since around June of ‘08.

Last I wrote, we were ramping up for this group show with our buddies at scalaColore. This was May, so a good while ago, and the whole universe has shifted since then.

It’s the eve of the scalaColore show, beginning of July, and we are setting up the exhibition space with Betti, Monica, Stefi, Andrea, Vera, Sami, Cimo, all the “Fede’s” and “Nicola’s”, Mirko, Jan, Tomaso, Davide, Alessandro- cool folks who, along with L. and me, have put together some decent work, seems to me. The locale is called TECA, a warehouse space with upper gallery and two-story ceiling, rented out for trade-shows and parties mostly. (You can see shots of the show here on the blog; L. posted them ages ago. Just don’t have the energy to write about it all so long after the fact. Suffice it to say, we felt pretty satisfied with how it came out, made our money back plus profit. Can’t take too much credit ourselves, but we felt our contributions were strong and it was worth the work.)

So here’s what happened. We have a rental car, the new Fiat 500, to get back and forth from The Vicolo to TECA, in via Basso Acquar. It’s the third of July, a Thursday. I called Francesca at Citicar Rentals in the AM to arrange returning the car. We meet up at the Borsari Gate where a blazing afternoon in the old center is fully in swing. I’m exhausted from several days of intense work and running around, stressed about the opening and a little dazed by the blazing sun on the white marble of the Roman gate. Cheerful enough, though. I joke around with Francesca about what a pain in the ass art is. It feels good this morning, speaking in Italian.

I remember the moment I opened the door to our apartment on The Vicolo. You can see straight into the front room, the work room, where L. sits at her desk. She has the Skype headphones on and her glance shoots up from the screen in front of her, eyes locked on me with an expression so naked and pained that my heart immediately seizes up. It’s my brother Rich on the phone and I feel like I know what he’s going to say.

Strange to think of this moment at a distance of many months. So much of what came later strikes me now as a dream, a sleepwalk, but that moment will be fixed forever in front of my eyes. It was the first step in a crossing, like the instant you plunge into the cold sea and every fiber of your being reacts at once. I can’t open our apartment door without a glance of remembrance, without reflecting on that wrenching shift.

Richard’s voice is torn. I haven’t heard him sound like that since back when he was drinking. Our mother is in the hospital in Rochester, MN, in a coma. She has suffered a massive brain hemorrhage and, though she’s stable physically, the general outlook is grim. Her brain, her mind, that part of her which she most valued and depended on for her sense of self, is severely, perhaps irreparably damaged.

We do a conference call, my brothers Rich, Jim, Ted, and I. It will be impossible for me to fly out until the following Monday so I have to sit tight. Ted, our first responder by virtue of proximity, will be at Mom’s side the next day, St. Mary’s Hospital. Jim will follow from Palo Alto and Rich and I will arrive at the beginning of the week. It feels good to hear my brother’s voices. We even say one or two things about politics; I feel myself perking up talking to them, despite this heart-breaking errand we must now carry out. They give me courage.

I decide to do my thing at TECA. Mom always said that working is the best way to shield yourself, temporarily, from sadness. I do a “performance”, coloring hundreds of printed cards, on site, which I sell for change. Have a table and a lamp where I work throughout the evening, arraying the painted cards on a rotating carriage display like you see in a tourist shop. I shave my head, drink beer, and work for hours, till my hand aches. It’s a moderate success. The hundred or so euro I earn goes to scalaColore.

Jim calls on Saturday morning to say that the prognosis is even worse than originally thought, that Mom is probably not going to make it. We have to walk Maryland just after getting off the phone. There we are, crossing Ponte Vittoria in a daze. I have tears rolling down my face and my sunglasses on. I am wiping the water off my cheeks when our good friends ‘Cesco and Cecilia motor by on their Vespa. Seeing us, they swing around to say hello, all smiling and cheerful in the late-morning light of the bridge. They are to be married in August. I was going to draw a picture for their invitation. Obviously, one needs to explain- we cannot talk at this moment. I say, “mia mamma sta per morire” (“my Mom is going to die”)- this is probably not how you would say it. They get what I mean, though. What sweet folks they are! I feel like I just broke their hearts, by the look on their faces.

The folks at scalaColore are cool too. I have to miss the last day of the show, Monday, and won’t be there for the clean-up, so I explain that there has been this incidente, this terrible accident, with my Mom and that I must return to America to see her. Hugs all around, good thoughts. The Italians are fine, warm-hearted people. Fede comes by the show on Sunday, riding his bike with Trifola the dog in the front basket. His sober face says it all. Fede understands the sadness of the past, the agony of the flesh, the world of the parted which tugs at our sleeve. He’s my Italian older brother.