Upon Approach to My Sixties

My guilt is as palpable as the fluttering sea gulls’ wings overhead. Wind whips down from the north of this Oregon coast, past the sun-illuminated climb of sea cliffs called God’s Thumb, the only thing seemingly to hold us as humans all in place. As I scramble across rocks, streams that, in summer, leave behind puddles of themselves, in winter they are now raging. We’re all living in the winter of rage.

In Oregon, what could possibly make me unhappy about sunshine and these sunsets, other than the cost that it comes with wind? I’d rather the rain. Rain is passable, requiring only the right gear, according to Columbia founder Ma Gert. Wind not always. That force is impregnable. Read that for a metaphor it is.

My sixth decade is upon me. It will soon be two weeks post the shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. All morning on planes and in airports, I search for kindness. Two babies crying, each taking their turn. No one minds. Their cries music to the ears of this grandmother of two, soon to be three. The rhythms of small lives bring up this pervasive sense of carrying forth. Kindness. Witness. And the immortal phrase of “get shit done.” Next up on the kindness carousel—two canes. The first of an older woman seated next to me. Her carryon is a large leather satchel. In a foreign tongue, she points out her People magazine. My kind of person. I lug her satchel to my lap, wait for her to get situated with her cane. On the next flight, the person seated next to the old man with the cane asks, Can I get that for you from the overhead? Both fliers with canes toddle their way out.

My head on a swivel as I navigate jetways and aisles and faces of all shapes and sizes and colors come at me, I want to ask…Did you vote for Trump? Did you vote such that those little babies with brown skin might someday tempt ICE to arrest them simply by existence? The seniors, their health care costs spiraling? Is this your doing? Yet I know it is all of ours. We let our foot off the gas. I’m also struck by being “safe” in Oregon. The majority here, while if not all liberal, like to keep their liberties to themselves, without the government, or a single person, shoving it in their faces.

My book tour is on its way. The calendar filling. Book clubs, food / cookbook clubs, historical societies, anywhere I can take my message. I’m contemplating, what is my message, what is the thin lone strand holding the book, me, the rest of the world, together?

Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things, and also Mother Mary Comes to Me, which every writer and memoirist should read, says, “Publishing a book now, amidst all the crises in the world, is a way of insisting that there is another way of living, another way of thinking about things.”

I agree. And yet, guilt spills over me, as I push to work, to arrange, to write. Such privilege while I watch, bear witness to, the destruction of the fabric of society, lone threads, separated from the loom, are set on fire--or fired upon. The original patriots encountered both. And now here we are.

*

For all the talk of third acts, I like living in fourths. Fourths are cleaner, easier to divide. Having lived in three-quarters of my time, views have expanded, my patience not so much.

The coast, my refuge, is an easy escape from the content suckers, those who consistently need news as fodder for their egos, and thus, humans, as bottom feeders, take it all in. Here I stand, this stretch of beach, sunset at my fingertips. Yet who am I to come out of this chaos unscathed? Every day proves, who is anyone?

The mornings start in the dark, body still on Eastern Standard Time. Coffee in hand by 4:45 a.m., blankets around my shoulders, seat secured on the back patio, shiny stars aligned in western constellations recognizable because of the clarity of night. After months of messages with editors, designers, wholesales, printers, I thought I was coming here for reset. A book finished, yet the real work in the real world remains.

I seek clarity to a life I know has been well-lived. At what cost to myself, to others? These questions exist in the dimensions only palpable here, where I cast flashlight shadows around me at 6 a.m. across the sands, sometimes fearing the darkness at my immediate side, the dark inside people I love and those I don’t, rather than the entire blanketing of air in black surrounding me now.

There is a line I can draw, connect the dots of fishing boat lights, five gathered, two drifting. They regroup like amoebas. Three and four, one and six. Are they the ones moving, or is that horizontal line between what is real and what can’t be seen?

Out there, boats floating like seabirds, is there the same fear of dark as there is on land? What have we not learned to see when our eyes adjust? And they always adjust. Why is it we’re taught to fear the draping of this blackened robe? I do not halt my footsteps on the next morning or the next. I will not fear.

This darkness stands for something. Perhaps we’ve had it wrong to avoid it. In the darkness, we find the courage to know ourselves. Once upon a time, a Providence Hospital posted on their marquis, do not forget in the dark what God has told us in the light. That mantra was instilled in me every morning I visited my husband in the hospital. Do not forget.

Do not forget. This is message I’m carrying forth in my third of four acts. Do not forget those who voted to dismantle our trust and love for one another. Do not forget what our ancestors struggled for, lost their lives, to bring about. Do not forget what humans are capable of, do not forget how to stand firm in your belief of right and wrong while the pundits on the news whitewash all we know in our red and blue hearts to be true. Killing innocent people is wrong. Attacking them too. Everything is wrong.

Clarity comes in obscurity.

My walk continues, flashlight shadows persist at my side, bobbing like a faithful dog. I sweep the cone of light across the flattened sand ruler measuring nearly two miles one direction, and about two in the other. The day before, I had encountered another flashlight walker. “Two if by sea,” I said to myself when she and I shone our soft rays upon each other. I’m alone the following morning. “Two if by sea,” becomes only me, a signal, walking on.

*

A few weeks back, I sat in a circle and wrote about what needs rest right now.

The darkness clarifies, like butter, my morning lessons. Rest, reset. Onward from Oregon back to Ohio, a reverse Lewis and Clark, to discover or overcome what waits in my sixth decade of life.

Thank you to all who have purchased Something Italian: From Distant Shores to Family Tables, The Recipes That Held Us Together. Don’t forget to become a paid subscriber to gain access to a little Something Extra for Something Italian, coming next week.

January 27, 2026, 6 - 8 p.m. In-person Book Launch, Mercantile Library. Registration required. Lots of authors have custom cakes or the likes made to celebrate their book. When you’re Italian, and you ask your favorite gelatiera at UGo gelato to help with the launch, well…you might want to show up for this special treat!

Here’s what readers have said:

How lucky Annette is to have such deep and abiding ties to her family’s homeland. To be the granddaughter and daughter of people who, to one degree or another, retained connections to their ancestral soil. To share meals with distant relatives at tables loaded with homemade food and wine. Her memoir invites the rest of us into their stories of perseverance, loss, and fortitude. And, oh, the recipes! – Bryn Mooth, Edible Ohio Valley, editor

Additional Upcoming Events

February 17 – A Taste of Something Italian, Book-ish, Camp Washington. Details coming soon.

February 20 - Women Writing for a Change, Introducing Ellen Austin-Li and her amazing poetry journey. Details forthcoming or check out womenwriting.org.

February 21, Contemporary Arts Center, Creative Writing Project, SOLD OUT. Check out the CAC website for details on the Spring Series.

February 22 - Roebling Books and Coffee, Newport, KY, 4:30 - 6 p.m.

February 28 - Working up a special food and storytelling experience with Bookish at Swell Cafe in Camp Washington. Stay tuned for details. This will be limited ticketing. Visit this link to learn more about Bookish.

March 3 – Caring for the Caregiver Writing experience, virtual, FREE. REGISTER. Contact Kara Pierson Harper. Phone: (513) 244-5494. Email: kpierson@muchmorethanameal.org.

March 16 - Kenwood Senior Star. 2 p.m. Message me for details. Public welcome.

March 28 – Lorain Historical Society, book talk and ancestry writing workshop. Details coming soon.

March 29 - Italian American Museum, Cleveland. Details forthcoming.

April 4 - Contemporary Arts Center, Creative Writing Project, Winter series SOLD OUT. Check out the CAC website for details on the Spring Series.

May 15 - 16, Women Writing for a Change - Friday evening book talk, Saturday morning Finding Memoir in Food writing workshop. Renowned chef James Beard writes, “Food is our common ground, a universal experience,” providing us with a center as we seek commonalities among others. Details coming soon at womenwriting.org.

July 28 - Caring for the Caregiver Writing experience, virtual, FREE. REGISTER. Contact Kara Pierson Harper. Phone: (513) 244-5494. Email: kpierson@muchmorethanameal.org.

Upcoming in the Fall

West Virginia Italian American authors conference.

Cleveland Book Festival

Cincinnati’s Books by the Banks

Lloyd Library and Museum in partnership with Fotofocus

Coming up in Edible Ohio Valley, March first issue, Mustard Seed Farm and Wilmington College Academic Farm. And for summer, Eggplant. Why is it such a maddening vegetable to consider?