A cliché, cinematic song that brings me to tears

Last week, I fell down a rabbit hole of melancholy nostalgia that I’d successfully avoided for two decades. It can be surprisingly easy to steer clear of such places when you’re young and preoccupied with a new city, a burgeoning career, a long-term relationship, a baby, and basically anything else you can wedge between yourself and some giant pile of emotions you’d rather ignore.

It’s not that I lack distractions these days. I have a career to which I tend whilst not procrastinating. A relationship and a child and a home and extended family matters require my attention approximately all day. Yet I willingly wake up each day and drink the magic potion that keeps me in this rabbit hole. In some ways it’s a form of escapism from the monotony of daily life. In other ways, it’s simply time to face the fact that I still miss my grandmother Stefana and the facets of my life that were lost in the ensuing years after her death in 2004.

Stefana was Sicilian, and her father Calogero was born in Sicily which cemented the stereotypical surname Clemenza into my lineage. My father is half Sicilian, which makes me a quarter — enough for me to mention I’m part Italian as a LEGITIMATE, ACCEPTABLE reason for hot headedness and crying on a dime. Since Stefana died twenty years ago, however, passing comments about being Italian were the only connection I acknowledged and maintained to her or my heritage. I recognize this as a defense mechanism because who wants, or has the mental capacity, to pore over details of a life that once was? The part of my life that I spent with her and the extended family on my father’s side, many of whom are no longer with us, are lost to time.

Or so I thought, until I drank the magic potion — which should have been labeled “Don’t drink me,” and consider this a warning should you stumble upon a bottle yourself — of retracing my Sicilian heritage.

After my family’s magnificent trip to Italy in April, a friend suggested I pursue dual citizenship there and across the EU through birthright. My daughter would be granted the same, and with everything happening in the world today, why not have a potential escape route should things go further awry in the US. In order to do so, I must confirm details about my great grandfather’s life and his connection to mine, including certified/authenticated records of the following:

• Birth date/place, along with his birth certificate (vital records)
• Immigration details
• When he was granted US citizenship and how (naturalization records)
• Proof of our relationship (a few more birth certificates)
• Numerous forms, some of which must be written in Italian

Never one to shy away from a research project, I embarked upon this thinking it would be like unraveling a mystery. Aspects of it have been enjoyable such as finding out that my ancestors had names like Giuseppina, Maria Stella, Antonino, Ludovico, and Francesco. Looking up the town where they lived — Partanna, Trapani, Sicily — was like peering through a window in time. I could’ve been Michael Imperioli’s long lost sister on season two of The White Lotus.

And that’s kinda where the lighthearted aspects end. When I looked up my great grandfather’s immigration history, I found his naturalization petition and declaration forms which included his address in the Bronx. The very address where he lived when my grandmother Stefana was born. I looked it up on New York City’s tax photos collection and there she was, standing on the steps of the townhouse where they occupied a single floor:

It never occurred to me that she would be in the photo. That decades-old pile of emotions, the one I’d successfully avoided for so long, blocked my path forward. If I wanted to continue my dual citizenship journey, I had to pass through. A tougher person might have quickened their pace or tried to pole vault over it. But if I’m going to claim Italian citizenship, I must take time to remember and embrace the Italian I knew and still love — even if it’s impossible to physically do so.

One way I always feel connected with Stefana is through Frank Sinatra’s music. A notorious Sicilian himself, his music has been an ongoing part of my life since I first heard “New York, New York” as a child. My grandmother had the song on 45 (later on cassette) and would quietly sing along whenever it played. She and my grandfather danced to it at their 50th anniversary celebration, while images of their relationship projected behind them.

Stefana enjoyed many of Frank’s other songs — “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” stands out — yet NYNY is the only one that makes me cry every single time I hear it. It’s such a funny song to wax emotional about — it’s heavily orchestrated, overly dramatic, cinematic, and rather cheerful. Unless, of course, you’re me.

Unless you can imagine your grandmother singing along with it in her kitchen 25 years ago and it still feels like yesterday. Unless you can never revisit the homes where you spent countless weekends celebrating holidays as a family and weeks during the summer as a teenager, watching your grandmother’s favorite movies with her (Dirty Dancing, Pretty Woman, When Harry Met Sally). Unless you can still remember the look in her eyes when she no longer recognized you and you knew that was the end. Then maybe, just maybe, that possibly awful, once ubiquitous song will cause you to tear up every damn time too.

Perhaps the magic potion to get out of the rabbit hole was to write this. If I wake up tomorrow (in the city that never sleeps), and I’m still down here, at least I have something to show for it. What I’m truly hoping is that through this acknowledgment, I’m finally reunited with the person I lost, if only through these words and a song.

Is there a relatively joyful or upbeat song that stirs up the opposite sort of feelings for you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

To quote the great James Hoffman, thank you so much for reading and I hope you have a great day.