Book of Days

July 16 brings the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and my mother’s name day––her Onomastico, in Italian. I will have to pull her earlobes today, as this is tradition for your Onomastico, at least according to Mom, though she does not remember why. Perhaps she never knew. Sometimes we just do what we do and don’t know why it’s done.

Be that as it may, July 16 and the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is, in fact, the name day for anyone called Carmela or any of the variants of the name: So, Buon Onomastico to all the Carmelas (spelled with one L or two), and to all the Camillas and Camilles, to all the Cammies, perhaps to all the Camerons, and to all the Millies, which is the name Mom typically goes by, and the name for which you know her best: she is the Millie in Millie’s Tea Towels, the hand-embroidered tea towels she makes that we sell here at the shop and on our website. I always assume it’s a good day to enjoy caramels, too, only because I don’t know how many years it took me, as a young boy, to grasp the difference between the words Carmel and Caramel. And perhaps it is a good day to be in Carmel-by-the-Sea in California.

What Mom remembers most about her name day is the feast in her old Brooklyn neighborhood: a feast that went on for many days each mid-July in honor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and still does to this day. Sausage & pepper sandwiches, fried zeppole, elaborate towers carried on the shoulders of strong men… mostly Mom remembers admiring the cute boys in the bands who played the old Italian songs.

If there are Carmelas in your life––and there may be even if you don’t realize it––today is their name day, their Onomastico, as we say in Italian, for July 16 brings the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. It’s my mom’s name day today. She was named Carmela, after her grandmother, but we only hear her answer to that at the dentist’s office or doctor’s office. Usually she goes by Millie, and when I say you may not even realize you have a Carmela in your life, this is why: there are so many variants of the name. You might have a Millie, like I do, or you might have a Cammie or a Camille. My dad would sometimes call Mom “Mildred,” which was usually as a joke, but then (go figure) he actually put “Mildred” on his retirement plan papers at work.

Of course you know Mom from Millie’s Tea Towels, her hand-embroidered tea towels that we sell here at the shop. That’s the name she’s gone by all her life, 98 years now. But she is named for her grandmother, Maria Carmela Giuseppa Esposito, who in turn was named for her grandmother, who was not a blood relative, but simply the kind woman who, in 1834, found and adopted an abandoned infant boy. That Maria Carmela Esposito raised the boy as her own, and called him Moses, for she found him in a basket, covered in leaves and rags, just as the Moses in the Old Testament was found in a basket by Pharaoh’s daughter. That Moses is my grandfather’s grandfather, and these are the stories I find so fascinating in family history. The adoption papers filed with the Comune di Lucera, our ancestral city in Apulia, even mention the leaves and rags. Life was slower in 1834; there was time, I imagine, to note such poetic details on official documents.

As for Mom, what she remembers most about her name day is the feast in her old Brooklyn neighborhood: a feast that went on for many days each mid-July in honor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and still does to this day. Sausage & pepper sandwiches, fried zeppole, elaborate towers carried on the shoulders of strong men… mostly Mom remembers admiring the cute boys in the bands who played the old Italian songs.

Your Onomastico is today, then, too, if you are a Carmela or any of its variants. Each day brings a different Onomastico. But if your name is Hunter, or Chase, or Parker, or Jayden… well, I think you’re out of luck. My Onomastico was just a few weeks ago, at Midsummer: St. John’s Day on June 24. Mom told me that day that she had to pull my earlobes. She didn’t remember why. Do any of you know why? If so, let me know. I’ll pass the information along to Mom… right after I pull her ears.

COME SEE US AT THE SHOP!
We’ve got Kim Spivey teaching a new session of Collagraph Printmaking on Sunday July 27. Kim’s a great teacher and this is a wonderful class… it’s the second time she’s teaching it for us this year. The workshop would make a wonderful Onomastico present (or fun thing to do for any reason) for yourself and your friends and family. Come learn something new!

Image: a Happy Name Day postcard from Italy, circa 1940s.