Pull Up a Chair

I’ve always been more interested in the story than the small talk

I grew up on front porches, in crowded kitchens, and under my Papa’s fig tree eating fruit we’d just picked while we talked about family, baseball, and everybody we knew. There was always some conversation going on somewhere, and plenty of it was absolutely not meant for children’s ears. Of course we listened anyway. How the hell else were we supposed to know what was going on?

My Nana knew everything: who was fighting, who was in love, who needed help, and who had the malocchio. I spent plenty of time at her kitchen table while she dripped olive oil into water, said a prayer to St. Michael, and informed me that somebody had clearly given me the evil eye.

Looking back, I think Nana really collected people. Somebody always needed feeding, comforting, rescuing, or a little extra love, and maybe that’s why gossip has always felt like a love language to me. You pay attention, remember the details, know when something is off, and occasionally need to know exactly what the hell happened.

My dad was a blues drummer and a natural storyteller, although I’m not sure those were ever two separate things. My friends were fixtures in our house, and half the time I’m pretty sure they weren’t there for me. They’d sit on the living room floor or end up outside listening to Dad tell wild stories about himself, his friends, and whatever trouble they’d managed to get into. Even after I moved out, some of my friends still stopped by for a glass of wine and a story, usually leaving with the same question: “Did that actually happen?”

Music was as much a part of my childhood as the conversations around the table. Most kids went to sleep with a bedtime story. I went to sleep with my dad scat-talking beside me and grew up in blues clubs, neighborhood pubs, and Chicago jukebox lounges filled with music, laughter, and people who never seemed in much of a hurry to go home. When the music started, Dad would plop me on a table and let me dance like I owned the joint. Apparently, this seemed like perfectly reasonable parenting in our family.

My mom was quieter about it, but she remembered everything. Dates, details, who said what, what really happened. She was the keeper of the family memory.

Somewhere in all of that, I learned early that stories weren’t just told in my family. They were performed. And “I’m fine” was very often complete bullshit.

For more than twenty years, I worked behind the scenes in fashion and entertainment, traveling all over the world and talking to absolutely everyone. I collected postcards, filled handwritten journals, and somehow had entire conversations with people whose language I couldn’t speak, held together by hand gestures, facial expressions, laughter, and sheer determination.

On one flight to Rome, a group of Italian men decided I apparently could not be trusted to enter the city unsupervised. They found me a cab, made sure I got to my hotel, and one of them spent the next week showing me his Rome before announcing that he was in love with me and wanted to marry me.

We had not even kissed.

I handled this with breathtaking emotional maturity by sneaking out of my hotel in the middle of the night and taking off for Florence.

Travel taught me to trust my instincts, ask the questions other people are thinking but don’t say out loud, and follow my curiosity even when I have absolutely no idea where it’s taking me. Some of the best people, memories, and stories of my life came from things I never planned, which is probably why I still have a weakness for the unexpected and the kind of idea that starts with, “Okay, hear me out.”

So tell me the good part, the weird part, the thing you probably weren’t going to tell anybody, and definitely the part that makes you say, “You cannot tell anyone I told you this.”

Chances are, five minutes from now, neither of us will remember we only just met.