Danielle
15
“Intorno Alle Macchie Solari”
The summer assignment for my European history class was to read a book about Galileo. I think he’s a pretty cool guy.
..........He wrote in the Italian vernacular so non-intellectual, non-
..........snooty types could read his works He was really into
.......... candied citrus and gardening Under his microscope, he
..........observed Black Plague-spreading fleas, not knowing they
.......... were black plague-spreading However, he did think they
.......... were “quite horrible” He also got sick every, like,
..........twenty-five seconds, which is pretty cool, too, I guess
..........He also did more stuff that’s important to textbooks and
.......... encyclopedias and such, but I think I should really just
.......... get on with this thing
Irrelevant facts aside, an important discovery of his (well, sort of) is the existence of sunspots.
Sunspots are little stains on the sun.
(Kind of like that mustard smudge on your pants.)
Galileo really liked sunspots.
......He wrote letters about them.
........He published those letters about them.
..........He wrote a book sort-of-a-little about them.
............He published that book.
I honestly have yet to expend the brain energy to figure out exactly what they are and exactly why we care about them,
but I do know that they remind me of my grandmother.
Okay, let me explain.
My grandma has lived next to the beach for lots of years and is covered in spots.
When I was younger and I would go to said beach, she would request that I apply an ample amount of sunscreen to every exposed patch of skin in existence.
I would whine in protest, and she would present me with her wrinkly, brown-speckled hand,
and then I would slather myself in smelly, oily, white viscous fluid. (Obediently, wordlessly, rapidly.)
And we would go to the beach.
We would walk down the street with her double stroller filled with buckets and shovels, towels, rusty beach chairs, and the Umbrella. (It was mostly faded blue with one salmon stripe and one white stripe at the bottom. I loved this umbrella because it was the Umbrella all throughout my annoying kid AND preteen years.) The stroller never carried children, which embarrassed me greatly for no good reason at all.
I would spend the day boogie-boarding and making drip castles in the sand. Grandma would read under the Umbrella.
Lunch was always aluminum foil-wrapped tuna fish sandwiches, but with an exquisite, exclusively-at-the-beach crunch. Grandma cut me white peaches and Macintosh apples. And I always got her to buy me Italian Ices for lunch dessert.
I’d come back to her house with sticky Italian ice syrup all over my hands and face, sand in between my toes, and a tangled forest of hair and salt. She’d have to hose me off in the driveway.
But, things have changed.
Hurricane Sandy happened. When I see her, she looks frazzled. We don’t make a lot of eye contact, but when we do, it’s funny eye contact. My aunt says her Valium prescription is a double-edged sword.
This summer, I’ve seen my computer screen, my TV screen, Argentine Gaucho festivals, Argentine World Cup-watching, lots of crying following the previous list item, and sketches by Galileo of spotty suns, among other things.
But the one thing that I really want to see is Grandma’s spotty hand.
