Sunday, November 15, 2009

A Wanna Be Philosopher

photo above...old passport photo from 20 years ago.


Today, for the first time in ages, I visited my Blogger profile page and was surprised to see that my occupation was listed as a "Wanna-be-Philosopher". Interesting. Wasn't sure how that came about as it was not anything I had intentionally entered. Upon checking further I realized this was deduced from some of the interests that I had listed such as : arts and crafts, reading, gardening, walks in the country, day dreaming. I suppose it all fits into the realm of Philosophy, but then I realized that there wasn't much information about myself in those brief synopsises of disjointed words.

So here's a tiny bit of bio info:
I am an American citizen, but I was born on the beautiful island of Sicily, in the city of Messina. I still have family there, aunts and cousins. My mother too was born there, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. Why she left her family and the island of her birth is hard to say and a secret that she carried with her to her grave. Though I have a father, a biological father as most children do, he abandoned my mother and me when I was just a baby. Mom was Italian through and through, dark hair, brown eyes and named Antonietta Clelia. Father was American from the southern states east of Texarcana, he was tall, brown hair, green eyes and named Olen Webster. He also had a fickle and roaming heart. Upon returning to the USA he met and supposedly fell in love with another woman, abandoning his legal wife and infant daughter in a far off country that was still licking its wounds from world war II. Oh yes I forgot to mention that my father was in the military, a Sargent in the army. He had been stationed at the US embassy in Messina, Sicily, this was where he met and married my mother and where I would subsequently be born.

There are times when I wonder what my life would have been like had my mother stayed in Sicily instead of sailing across the Atlantic Ocean to the USA. Perhaps it was all meant to be, fate, destiny, things unchangeable. Mom claimed that she made the voyage with me in tow solely to locate my father and talk some sense into him, but I wonder. Anyway Olen Webster was senseless, refused to see or speak with his foreign wife and remained with his beloved whore. Mom eventually gave him his coveted divorce but she never returned to her native soil or to the family that she left behind, or at least not for a great many years and even then it was only for a short visit.
So there is a part of me that is Sicilian, perhaps that wanna be philosopher and artist within me, and another part of me is American, the pieces seem to fit together like a strange jigsaw puzzle.

4 comments:

  1. It's always interesting to look back and see how our family's decisions shaped our lives and personalities. I think you have quite a bit of philosopher in you!

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  2. Love this story and so happy to see a fellow Italian share her history!

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  3. What a lovely story! Very interesting the way things end up :)

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  4. :D :D :D I am a philosopher :D Really!

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