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| 6 June, 1772 — 13 April, 1807 |
Eternal rest grant unto Her Majesty, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
April 13, 2026
Remembering Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily
Absinthe Dreams: Elegy for a Past Life (Part VII)
VII
Well past our bedtimes, Annalisa rested her head on my shoulder and started to nod off. By then, the lounge was empty—the other patrons long gone. The weary barmaid approached our table, announced last call, and began clearing away our empty glasses. As I closed our tab, I asked for a plastic bag to protect my book.
Helping Annalisa up, I said, “It’s time to call it a night.”
“No,” she protested feebly. “It’s raining out.”
“It stopped,” I lied. “Besides, I have a long trip ahead of me, and I need to get going.”
Pouting and beating my chest with her tiny fists, she looked up at me with her bewitching Stygian eyes and whispered, “Stay with me.”
I wanted to. Lord knows, I wanted to.
“Don’t tempt me, mora.” I kissed her furrowed brow.
Back in the day, we would’ve broken night together, talking till dawn. But that was a lifetime ago.
Many a night we spent together staring at the stars, dreaming of better days. I remember us holding each other for warmth beneath the blankets in my first apartment, and sleeping tangled together in the back seat of a car on long road trips. Little did I know those nights would be among the dearest of my life. Too many to hold onto—perhaps those memories should remain undisturbed.
“You still can’t handle your booze, I see.”
“I’m fine,” she assured me. “Just a little tired.”
“C’mon, go get some sleep.”
“It’s been ages since I’ve gone out drinking,” she said, trying to play it off. “I must look awful.”
As I gently traced the gooseflesh on the back of her arms, lightning lit up the night sky, briefly betraying our sorrowful countenances.
“Quite the contrary.”
Saying our reluctant goodbyes beneath the darkened arcade by the hotel entrance, we promised to stay in touch via cell phone and social media—options that hadn’t existed when her family first pulled up stakes.
Leaning on one foot, she gave me a warm embrace and a soft peck on each cheek. Normally, I would have walked her back to her room, but I didn’t trust myself. With anyone else, it wouldn’t have been a problem—but with her, it took Herculean might to let go and walk away.
On the subway ride back to Brooklyn, I tried reading some of the poetry from the book she gave me, but it was all I could do not to think about her. Unlike so many people from my past, Annalisa had not abandoned her roots, her culture, or her convictions for a culturally hollow American identity. Immensely proud of her Calabrian heritage, she is devoted to her parents, intelligent, witty, vivacious, and refreshingly feminine (especially by today’s low standards). I only wish she had found God.
Perhaps reading more into it than I should, I found myself lingering on the same lines from a poem by the renowned Occitan troubadour Bertran de Born:
“All her suitors depart from her reluctantly, the sight of her has such savor; everyone who sees her believes that his eyes never saw a more beautiful woman.” [1]
Despite my romantic feelings, my intentions were not impure; I harbored no profane desire (or so I tried to convince myself). That night stirred in me something deeper, rooted in the noble ideals of chivalry, courtly love, and dolce stil novo, the sweet new style of love that seeks to ennoble the soul and lead it toward the divine.
In its highest form, courtly love was not carnal but contemplative: a disciplined longing that elevated the lover through reverence for the beloved’s beauty and virtue. For me, Annalisa was not an object to be possessed, but a reflection of divine perfection, drawing the soul upward from earthly desire to spiritual fulfillment. True love became a pathway to God. Like the great 13th-century Sicilian poet Giacomo da Lentini, I want to see my loved ones in Paradise.
For it would bring me great delight
To see my love in glory’s realm [2]
While I did not succumb to temptation, I did consider it. In a fleeting moment of weakness and longing, I second-guessed my decision not to spend the night with her. After all this time striving for inner discipline and higher meaning, it seems that, with the right sort of woman, I’m still a beast at heart, governed by appetites I thought subdued. Haunted by my past, my predilection for base pleasures remains a stark reminder of my fallen nature. And yet, wanting her only intensifies my quest for transcendence and shows just how far I still have to go.
Unable to sleep when I got home, I poured myself the glass of absinthe I had wanted earlier. Aside from the occasional glass of wine with dinner, I rarely drink alone anymore. But this was more than a nightcap—it was an incantation, a ritual of remembrance.
Slowly stirring in some cold water, I watched the spirit cloud into its celebrated milky green—its la louche, its alchemical bloom. Preferring the bitter anise flavor, I skipped the sugar cubes.
Taking that first sip, I remembered how reading Hemingway and Wilde with Annalisa back in high school first turned me on to la fée verte.
Sitting at my desk with my Pontarlier and laptop, I vainly tried to pen her a poem worthy of the Fedeli d’Amore or the Sicilian School. I wanted to sing the praises of the “lovely daughter of Tropea” like the cantastorie, the Minnesänger, and the troubadours of old.
Alas, we are no Orpheus and Eurydice, Tristan and Isolde, or Ruggiero and Angelica. We may be star-crossed, but the poets will never sing of this love that never was. With each sip, the veil thinned, and my memory bled into absinthe dreams. Inspiration faltered, and the words would not come—for ours was no fin’amor, no refined and ennobling love of the medieval lyric tradition. And yet, from that silence, this sprawling lament began to take form, a different poetry—my elegy for a past life.
Notes
[1] Sel qui camja bon per meillor, edited by William D. Paden, Jr., Tilde Sankovitch, and Patricia H. Stäblein, The Poems of the Troubadour Bertran de Born, University of California Press, 1986, p.138
[2] 27 Sonetto, translation and notes by Richard Lansing, Giacomo da Lentini: The Complete Poetry, University of Toronto Press, 2018, p.125
April 12, 2026
Absinthe Dreams: Elegy for a Past Life (Part VI)
VI
I grabbed us a circular booth near the window in the hotel lounge while Annalisa freshened up in her room. Except for a young couple with their heads buried in their phones and a drunken lout hitting on the unresponsive barmaid, the atmospheric bar was surprisingly sparse.
I wanted absinthe, but the callow waitress had no idea what I was asking for and absurdly suggested Midori as a substitute.
The potent green spirit has fallen out of fashion in recent years, and it’s now hard to find a bar that still stocks it, which I take as a clear sign of civilizational collapse.
So, I settled for a brandy instead.
Returning in a sheer white V-neck T-shirt and gray flannel shorts, Annalisa ordered another martini and four shots of “Göring-Schnaps” for old times' sake—one for each of our friends. Before amaro became readily available, Jägermeister was our shot of choice.
Her flimsy top hid nothing from the imagination.
“I notice you’re no longer wearing a bra,” I teased.
“When in Rome,” she laughed. The irony wasn’t lost on her.
Nestling in next to me, she put her bare legs over my lap, and I wrapped my arm around her slim waist. Resting my free hand on her shin, one of her flats fell off, revealing a silver toe ring with a tiny garnet setting. Both January babies, we shared the same birthstone. For some strange reason, I found it comforting that she still wore one.
When I reached down to fetch her shoe, she held me back and let the second one slip off. “Leave it,” she said, stretching her ankles and wiggling her toes.
She still had the firm, shapely legs of a dancer.
The rain finally began to fall, its tears sliding silently down the pane.
Playing with my tie, she gave me a provocative sidelong glance and brazenly asked, “Why didn’t we ever go out?”
Pausing for a moment, I gave her an unamused smirk. “Eros literally wasn’t in the cards for us,” I reminded her. “You refused to go out with me because some two-bit cartomancer told you not to while reading your fortune.”
Blushing, she coyly turned her face away, but she was laughing heartily.
“You superstitious minx,” I said, feigning offense.
When I pretended to move away, she pulled me closer.
Sadly, having gone out with my share of magàre (witches) in my day, this was nowhere near the strangest romantic rebuff I’ve experienced.
“Chester broke up with me because of a bad dream.”
“I remember,” she murmured, stroking the scruff of my beard with the back of her finger. “You deserved it,” she laughed again, mischief in her eyes. “You were a real cad in her dream.”
“You’re all insane,” I said, half-joking.
Downing our shots in quick succession, we talked about our fanciful plans and places we wanted to visit. I always admired her positivity and optimism; it was a refreshing countervail to my infernal pessimism. Aside from noticing how much the city had fallen apart since she moved away, we never once discussed the world in flames around us.
Ordering two more shots, she whispered, “To us,” sotto voce.
A bit tipsy, Annalisa made me promise that we would one day take a holiday to Madrid or Barcelona together.
“I want to go to the Museo del Prado with you,” she said. “I want to see Goya and Velázquez; I want to see Maja desnuda and Las Meninas.”
Miming castanets and wiggling her lithe body against mine, “You always loved taking us to flamenco bars and Spanish restaurants.”
Our favorite was Carmen’s, a tenebrous taberna with red tablecloths and soot-covered paintings located in the Meatpacking District. We would unfailingly get pulpo a la Gallega, paella Valenciana, and several pitchers of sangria. Afterward, we would all stumble drunkenly through the cobbled streets singing verses from love songs and poems.
“C’mon, sing me a song,” she pleaded.
Not nearly as drunk as I needed to be to make an ass of myself in public, I found her irresistible and reluctantly sang a few verses from The Spanish Lady and The Parting Glass, traditional Irish folk songs I learned years ago while drinking with my Irish buddies and listening to old cassette tapes of the Jolly Beggarmen and the Pogues.
To my great shame, I still cannot recite a single line of poetry by Salvatore Di Giacomo or Giacomo da Lentini in the original Neapolitan or Sicilian, and my friends today won’t let me forget it.
Prone to reverie, she sensed my mind wandering.
“If you like, we can also find your high school sweetheart.”
“Which one?” I quipped, trying to play it cool. “I had so many old flames.”
“What was her name again?” she asked playfully. “Ivette? Marta?” Then, after a pause: “Iolanda?”
I knew who she meant. Gaviota moved back to Valencia with her family after they sold their home. She was the first real loss I felt during the Great Bensonhurst Exodus. We had nearly run away together to Alicante, the city she loved most, but fate was against us. I didn’t have the heart to abandon my father and sick mother. Staying in New York was never an option for her.
Smart, beautiful, and a talented artist, Gaviota was the one who got away. She was my first true love. Any photos I had are long gone—destroyed by a jealous ex.
I do, however, keep the medal of Francisco Franco and José Antonio Primo de Rivera that she gave me, tucked in my curio cabinet alongside the other strange relics of my past.
Caressing my hand, Annalisa tried to read my palm, but I wouldn’t let her.
“Haven’t you learned your lesson yet, Zingara?” I warned her.
Overcome by a rush of blood, I held her slender hands against my chest—we stopped talking at last—and I stole a kiss. Continue reading
April 11, 2026
Absinthe Dreams: Elegy for a Past Life (Part V)
V
After dinner, Annalisa and I skipped coffee and dessert. We did, however, have an amaro. Savoring our digestivi, we finally took our eyes off each other long enough to notice our surroundings. Asking her thoughts on all the ugly art hanging on the walls, she said it reminded her of home. There is a diner in her town that displays the paintings of local dilettanti.
“I often think about our museum visits,” she said, “especially the picnics at the Cloisters.”
Every spring, Giancarlo and I would pack a lunch and drive the girls to Washington Heights to see the gardens in bloom and medieval art. Working up an appetite exploring the galleries, which always culminated in a viewing of Robert Campin’s glorious Mérode Altarpiece (or Annunciation Triptych), we’d lay out checkered blankets and pick at the victuals in scenic Fort Tryon Park as the sailboats lazily rolled down the Hudson River beneath the Palisades.
“You have to admit,” she said, “as bad as New York City has become, it’s still home to many world-class museums and libraries.”
“You’ve been gone for too long,” I objected. “The Revolution’s long march through the institutions has been relentless.”
Preparing to rail against the current state of the city’s museums, I held my tongue, already regretting what I’d just said. No need to spoil the mood and ruin more pleasant memories for her; besides, she already knows how bad the city is. No good can come from lecturing people who are already in agreement with you. It drives me crazy whenever people do it to me.
Once I’d taken care of the check, we decided to take a passeggiata and walk off the meal. Though the sky threatened rain, the South Village was still buzzing with life. As we strolled and indulged in a bit of people-watching, it struck us that there were an inordinate number of scantily clad women milling about, even by New York standards.
“I know women’s fashion was just as vulgar in our day, but does anyone actually wear bras anymore?” she asked rhetorically.
Catching more than an eyeful, at times it almost felt like we were sauntering through an outdoor strip club, except instead of stuffing my spare bills into a dancer’s lacy garter, I gave them to a homeless man.
Looking for a quiet place to sit and talk, we checked out a few more public houses, but nothing suited our fancy. Blaring awful music, they were all overcrowded and lousy with loud, drunken revelers. The smell of weed wafted outside every doorway. Drug use was just as prevalent when we were young, but now there is no stigma attached to it.
“Thank God we never got caught up with that junk,” she said, wrinkling her Greek nose in disgust. “We already had our share of vices.”
At parties or in clubs, someone would inevitably try to pass you a joint or something harder, and we always refused. Today, people talk openly about their drug habits without the slightest hint of shame or embarrassment.
A young woman I used to work with once bragged about snorting blow off some guy’s member when I casually asked how her weekend was. Without batting an eye, another co-worker shamelessly told us he spent the entire time getting high and playing video games.
This wasn’t your parents’ water cooler talk.
The crazy part is that when I said I went to church and had Sunday dinner with my family, they looked at me as if I were the one who should be ashamed.
As tempting as it is to dismiss them all as a bunch of medigans, the truth is our own people have become just as decadent and susceptible to the vices of modernity as our so-called “less civilized” compatriots.
Enjoying our leisurely stroll, I did not share this sordid anecdote with Annalisa.
With our arms entwined, we wandered a little farther, noting the few enduring outposts of our youth—Caffè Reggio, The Strand, Generation Records, and Trash and Vaudeville. They still clung to life, though the latter was no longer in its original home. Sadly, far more had closed down. Lucky Strike Bistro, Boo Radley’s, Pearl Paint, and Antique Boutique were all gone. Others—Bleecker Bob’s, 99X, Carmen’s, CBGB, and Billy’s Topless—had vanished from the streets but remain vivid in memory.
“Billy’s Topless! Now there was a real loss to the culture,” she said mockingly. “Who did you bring us there to see again—your friend’s older sister?”
“Her name escapes me,” I said sheepishly. “It was only a couple of times.”
“As if that excuses the lechery, you stalker,” she said, twisting the screws. “Did you even score with her?”
“It wasn’t about sex,” I insisted. “She was beautiful, and I wanted to paint her.”
As an artist herself, Annalisa understood that. “When the muse calls,” she said grudgingly, letting me off the hook.
Naturally, I didn’t tell her that Giancarlo and I had gone back a few more times on our own. Still, nothing ever came of it.
Giving up hope of finding a suitable spot, she suggested we take an Uber back to SoHo for a nightcap at her hotel. Continue reading
April 10, 2026
Absinthe Dreams: Elegy for a Past Life (Part IV)
IV
Curious about my conversion, I explained to Annalisa how my ailing mother’s sudden decline served as a catalyst for changing my ways and overcoming that nihilistic and decadent period of my life.
In pursuit of self-mastery, I immersed myself in my studies. I aspired, at first, to what later Traditionalist thinkers would call the solar initiation, or the Olympian way—the arduous path of the kshatriya and the eremite, though only with nominal success.
Steeped in Perennialism (Guénon, Evola, A. Coomaraswamy, Schuon, etc.), I eventually stumbled upon The Destruction of the Christian Tradition by Rama P. Coomaraswamy (World Wisdom, 2006), which in turn led me to Salvo, Borella, Rao, and others. Still and all, I was hesitant to set foot back into the modern Church.
Finally, after a vivid dream (I’m convinced it was an apparition) of Santa Patrizia di Costantinopoli urging me to return to the Church on the night of her feast (August 25th), I decided to go back to Mass.
Certain this was the right path, I went to confession that Saturday and attended Mass at my local church the following morning.
Underwhelmed and confused by the changes to the rites and Liturgy that had taken place since my childhood (most noticeably the laity receiving Communion in the hand), I stuck with it for a while.
Uninspired and often annoyed by the mundane and profane sermons of the priests, I eventually started attending Italian-language Masses so I couldn’t understand the homilies but could still receive the sacraments.
This went on until I finally discovered the whereabouts of the Traditional Latin Mass.
On the brink of leaving the Church again (I was tempted to “swim the Bosphorus” and join the Eastern Orthodox), I met, by chance, a Traditional Catholic priest and his friend at a feast in New Jersey, who informed me that the Tridentine Mass was, in fact, still being offered at certain churches throughout New York City.
Forever changed by it, I attended the Solemn High Mass for the Feast of San Giorgio (April 23rd) at the Shrine Church of the Holy Innocents in Midtown Manhattan, and I immediately knew that I had found what I had been searching for all these years. I was home.
To this day, that Mass remains one of the most memorable and beautiful Masses I’ve ever attended.
Fascinated by my story, Annalisa brought me up to date with hers. Between working and taking care of her aging parents, she doesn’t have much time for herself anymore. Not reading as often as she would like—she was a literature major and a voracious reader of Regency fiction (Austen, etc.) and literary verismo (Serao, etc.)—she still keeps a journal and dabbles with her poetry, though nothing she wishes to share.
To my surprise, she kept an old sketch I doodled of her during one of our figure drawing sessions (The girls and I would often model for each other).
Unlucky in love, she dated several men (a couple for long periods), but nothing serious ever developed between them. She wanted children, and they didn’t.
She claimed to be happy, and I hope she is, but (I may be projecting) there seemed to be a palpable melancholy in her eyes.
“I always wondered what life would have been like if my parents had not moved us away.”
I often wondered that myself.
Having done some traveling in recent years, Annalisa visited relatives along la Costa degli Dei in Calabria and finally took her dream vacation to Paris, Nice, and the Côte d'Azur. Fondly recounting her visits to Versailles, the Louvre, and the Musée Rodin, she rattled off the many gardens, churches, and châteaux she had seen.Amusingly, she was ashamed to admit that one of her most cherished memories was in the charming dix-huitième (18th arrondissement) of Paris, famous for the Moulin Rouge and the Sacré-Cœur.
Needlessly worried that I might think less of her, she hesitated to tell me that she went to Café des 2 Moulins because of its connection to the quirky romantic comedy Amélie (2001), starring Audrey Tautou. But when I recognized the café and admitted to liking the film myself, she immediately started recalling the scenes from the movie that took place there with febrile excitement.
Still, as much as she loved France, Annalisa absolutely glowed when she spoke of her ancestral homeland.
“You haven’t lived until you’ve tried the swordfish or tuna in Calabria,” she said. “The seafood is always straight from the sea.”
“Are you unhappy with your meal?” I asked, misreading her tone.
“È sapuritu,” she assured me. “It’s delicious.” I love it when she slips into Calabrese.
“I just miss Calabria,” she continued. “My zie are wonderful cooks, and my cugini took me everywhere.”
Pausing, as if about to blaspheme—“The food is better in Calabria than in France.”
I’ve heard this sentiment often enough from non-Italians to be mere oikophilia.
“I get it,” I said. “Every time I come back from Montreal, the croissants here taste bland by comparison. They’re just not the same.”
She laughed, but I was being serious.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, gesticulating. Her body bounced with joyous abandon, every gesture alive with feeling. “I love a good croissant, but how can you compare that to ’nduja, the cipolle rosse di Tropea, or our cornetto?
“The food, the beaches, and the people of Calabria are second to none,” she boasted. “Nothing I say can do them justice; you have to go and see for yourself.” Continue reading
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