The Sky Dancers by Sara Wright

December is a poignant month for many people, including me. Although I find the darkness comforting, winter stillness a gift, I do not celebrate the season as others do.

I begin December by bringing in the dawn each morning (if it’s clear) by standing outdoors in the cold watching Sirius, the dog star fade…Some mornings the sky turns rose, tangerine, or gold as clouds slide over the horizon or billow up like cottony balls of fluff. The air is fresh, fragrant, and clean. I listen for the first birds, the female cardinal’s chirp, the chickadees, and doves have yet to appear – these daily ‘morning mysteries’ are spontaneous and acted out in gratitude without thought.

 This month is a time of remembrance …  I think of people I loved, some I did not, those I lost…  

This year I discovered a video of a Starling Murmuration that I began to watch as soon as I came indoors. This spectacular sky dance was filmed to one of Puccini’s magnificent arias. Thousands of starlings dip and soar above city buildings in Rome. I stare in wonder at these birds who move with such grace and synchrony as the video replays over and over watching the dogs ears twitch in pleasure at the sound of such moving music as I move into a light trance state, a place of pure feeling…

During the first few days I found myself weeping. Gradually, I began unravel why…  these sky dances were reminding me of my Dad’s life that began in this Italian city.  Behind this, the specter of family grief.

 The oldest of 6 children, my dad’s family moved to the United States when my father was twelve… I still remember him talking about what it was like to see the Statue of Liberty as the Italian ship steamed into the harbor… and I recall his reminiscing about the starlings soaring through the sky in Rome, perhaps the one time he spoke about his early childhood years, or the only memory I retained besides one involving my experience with him over pomegranates. Not surprisingly, my father became an aeronautical engineer who eventually took to the sky to fly with birds!

My father was above all a family man much like the starlings he so admired, so surrendering his birth family and Italian roots during the first half of his life must have been extraordinarily painful.

 My mother did not like Italians, and as children, my brother and I were taught to disparage our father and father’s relatives even though we only saw the latter once a year. I am ashamed to admit that as a result we grew up embracing her dark shadow – her views about Italians were distorted but we adopted them; we learned to dismiss our Italian heritage and consequently lost half our relatives.

After my brother’s suicide at 21, my dad reconnected with his brothers and sister spending more and more time with them on his own apparently having become somewhat immune to my mother’s attitude, or perhaps by then she had become more flexible.

In retrospect I believe my father found comfort and solace with his biological family, people who were capable of caring and admiring him for the decent man he was; losing his son was not something he ever recovered from. But my two cousins have glowing memories of their Uncle Pete.

Prior to reconnecting to his birth family, my dad continued to maintain a devoted relationship with his mother ‘on the side’, and when my grandmother became ill, he visited her in the nursing home once a week for ten years until her death.

Mid-life is the time we re-weave our fences, separate from those who harmed us and begin to take full responsibility for our mistakes, but only if we continue to mature. Otherwise, we stay caught in adolescence and stuck in blame. What I admire the most is that my dad managed to mend most of the ties he had originally broken including his relationship with me.

Watching the starlings dance and listening to the music of a composer I loved ever since I discovered Puccini’s Madame Butterfly at 18 not only brought up memories of my dad but the loss of my Italian heritage. I barely knew either of my paternal grandparents or the members of my dad’s family. Although I tried to develop relationships with my cousins as adults, the damage was done. Relationships with family members begin in childhood. Later it becomes much more difficult because you don’t share those childhood memories, even if the desire is there.

What I did do was to go to Italy, not once but three times in all, and the experiences I had there attached me to a collective Ancestor thread that I had lost. My first ongoing adult experience with mysticism occurred on this ‘homeland’.

The one regret I carry with me is that I know almost nothing about my father growing up in Italy, so I am left filling in the blanks with unanswered questions. I have no idea where he even lived in Rome.

I do know that when I disappear into the daily starling sky dance, I think of my dad soaring through his homeland sky… and perhaps he also hovers in the night air on the wings of the crescent moon that will soon lighten starry skies overhead.

Next week: More about starlings