in my dream i was in a car with john, nora, toni, mom, dad, and one other person i could not identify… a road trip and my brother-in-law john was driving… mom and dad were so happy and so were we all…. she was cracking jokes and he was laughing… somewhere in the midwest and in no time at all we were in the mountains… rockies?  then we were in sicily… john calmly drove through this quick changing terrain and at some point my dad told him to turn right

winding up a hillside towards a pink house and i  thought to myself, “wait a minute!  this is present time, isn’t it?   this can’t be a dream because it feels too real…so, if this is present time, why is my dad still alive?”  mom too was there in present time and it seemed normal, but dad… how could this be?  hadn’t he died 5 years ago or not?   i am sure of it or maybe…  no, it really happened…. could not have made that up….my god, i was there at his death bed!!!  how can I ever have imagined  him telling us how much he loved us as he struggled to take his last breath?   in fact, every single person in the car had been there at his death bed or had I imagined it?  must have!  and here he was so full of life with his gigantic smile and his gentle hands but wait… the funeral…his funeral.. i could NOT have imagined going through that experience… confused but thrilled my dad was there, alive….he told John to stop the car and said he would be right back and we all watched my dad walk toward the pink house

while dad was still having a look around the house, i got into the back of the car, which had now become the open bed of a truck and there I sat next to the person i mentioned earlier, the unidentifiable one…  i was trying hard to place him…he looked so familiar  and i seemed to have a deep love for him.  he smiled at me and i knew that smile… he looked a lot like my nephew vince, but it wasn’t quite him.  he spoke to me in sicilian, “lie back and soak up some of this sun! isn’t this something???” yes, it was.  i could have stayed like that all day, soaking up the Sicilian sun, basking in the warm feeling on my skin.  i was so happy, so incredibly happy

my dad come back and asked us, “are you alright waiting for me?  just want to have a look over here then i will be right back and we can be on our way.”  I climbed next to my mom and watched my dad walk in front of the car.  there, in front of the car, was a pristine stream, like the start of a waterfall… my dad, who did not like to go barefoot, took off his shoes and socks and waded in the stream… he crossed the stream and turned to look back at us with his prize winning smile and waved! “ma?  i’m really confused. .. dad is right here with us, but didn’t dad die?” … “no, honey, he never died.  like you said, he’s right here with us.” and he was. and so was she.  the dream felt like real time and there they were with me

I woke up, back in my bedroom at Ocean Shores.   I felt so happy.  I felt inspired to make the labor intensive Grotte specialty olive and onion bread (called impignolata) that my mom used to make.  They turned out almost like my mom’s, but I did two things differently:  I didn’t make them in the shape of a horseshoe, but instead made them round like snails and I added sesame seeds on top of the rolls.  Rick saw the impignolata and noticed the sesame seeds right away.  As if he were my mother’s ally, he said, “Your mom didn’t put sesame seeds on them.”  “Oh well, I did.  Want one?”  Sesame seeds and all, he devoured one!

specialty from Grotte.  This sign is from a Grotte bakery and the ones in this shop were made with ground pork.  Mine are vegetarian with olives and onions only (oh…and sesame seeds!).

almost like ma’s!

miles of impignolata

heavenly oven…one day I will have a pizza oven and they will be even better!