Staff Spotlight: Mia Millefoglie

Interview

Why do you write?

The world of cre­ative writing is rel­a­tive­ly new to me. It begins with a birth­day gift from my husband Bill, who often said, “you got to write your stories down.”  Five years ago, he took charge and enrolled me in my first cre­ative writing class— a memoir work­shop taught by Mered­ith Hall through Maine Writers and Pub­lish­ers Alliance (MWPA). This class launched my journey to capture the stories of my family. It begins with a name, Mille­foglie, a poetic name bestowed on my great-grand­fa­ther by nuns in an orphan­age in Sicily. Three gen­er­a­tions of men carried this name from Sicil­ian to Amer­i­can shores, ven­tur­ing as stow­aways and steer­age class pas­sen­gers, des­tined for a life at sea. Mille­foglie, the name I carry, means a thou­sand pages in Italian, blank pages waiting to be filled. I feel com­pelled to fill these pages and to unravel the history that sep­a­rat­ed hus­bands from wives and chil­dren from parents. I write to under­stand the journey of immi­grants, but more impor­tant­ly, to under­stand who I am within this tribe that I call family. At Stonecoast, I rec­og­nized that I had neglect­ed the “me” in memoir. Today, my writing strives to bring an authen­tic self on the page.

My exten­sive career in health­care includ­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion, grant writing, mar­ket­ing, and writing for health­care jour­nals. I thought these tools would prepare me for Stonecoast; however, I was wrong. Cre­ative writing is hard, soli­tary, and hum­bling work.

Is there an author who has most pro­found­ly influ­enced your work?

Sorry, I can’t limit my response to one author. Mered­ith Hall’s memoir, a raw account of exile and the journey toward resilience, left its mark. I am drawn to Mary Karr’s work and her ability to show com­pas­sion for her char­ac­ters, even when they have failed her. I can laugh and cry along with her. Townie by Andre Dubus III and Another Bull Shit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn hooked me. I love the gritty voices, life in working-class towns, and the trans­for­ma­tion of char­ac­ters in these stories. These authors influ­enced my voice as I write about a teenaged girl growing up in a gritty city.

Why did you choose Stonecoast?

I enrolled in a second work­shop led by Susan Conley through MWPA. Susan inspired me to write more and encour­aged me to apply for Stonecoast. I researched low-res­i­den­cy pro­grams and learned that Stonecoast had a solid rep­u­ta­tion, flex­i­ble sched­ules, and a strong sense of com­mu­ni­ty. These were essen­tial ele­ments as I was bal­anc­ing a full-time career while caring for med­ical­ly fragile parents. Despite my initial anxiety about whether I could meet the Stonecoast com­mit­ment, it was the right deci­sion. Each res­i­den­cy encour­aged me to delve deeper into my writing, to read with a writer’s per­spec­tive, and to be present for my peers. I have learned to be less judg­men­tal, to appre­ci­ate the courage of writers and the power of our stories.

What is your favorite Stonecoast memory?

I was like a deer in high­lights in my first semes­ter. Maybe it was anxiety or a lack of prepa­ra­tion, but I recall going to the wrong room and sitting through a pre­sen­ta­tion in a fog. Twenty minutes went by before I real­ized my mistake, but I was too self-con­scious to walk out. I thank­ful­ly got ground­ed with a con­nec­tion to the Coastal Girls:  Mimi, Rickey, Andrea and Colleen, first-semes­ter, cre­ative non-fiction peers. We ate, danced, laughed, and encour­aged each other through­out all five semes­ters; a friend­ship that sus­tains me today.

What do you hope to accom­plish in the future?

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is cer­tain­ly influ­enc­ing my pri­or­i­ties today. I plan to work less, play hard, and write more. As for writing, my memoir is not the story I set out to write; it is the story that chose me. I intend to com­plete this work; perhaps, chang­ing it to aut­ofic­tion. I will also con­tin­ue to develop my writing skills and explore the world of prose and poetry. Of course, we write to be read, and I hope to publish one of my pieces.

If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose?

The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson. I dis­cov­ered this poet while research­ing geneal­o­gy and learned he lived in the former home of my grand­fa­ther in a water­front ten­e­ment in Gloucester’s old Fort. His epic work con­tains three hundred poems varying in length from a single line to ten pages. I have no back­ground in poetry; however, Charles Olson’s work had a strong emo­tion­al impact on me and my writing. This poet con­tin­ues to circle me like a gull.

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Featured Work

The fol­low­ing is a work of cre­ative non-fiction by Mia Mille­foglie exclu­sive­ly for Stonecoast Review.

Fish Tales

And Olsen, they now tell me,
is carting fish, for Gorton-Pew,
the lowest job, Glouces­ter,
the job we all started with

Charles Olson

It was the summer of ’68, and Life mag­a­zine flooded us with images of Vietnam, hippies, and all kinds of protests. Every­one was march­ing about some­thing, but I was too busy fret­ting about my body. I had this fantasy about high school that hand­some boys will walk me to classes; I would go to prom and wear a sequined dress: I would be thin, flirty, and free. None of this happened.

“You’re not fat, you’re chunky,” Mom said. “Sei uno pezzo.”

She always said my body was one piece—a log— and I never thought that was a com­pli­ment. She also pre­dict­ed I would grow up to look like Rosa, my older cousin, who was flat-chested and carried her weight in her stomach and hips. I didn’t want to look like Rosa, and I didn’t want to be called “chunky” anymore. Maybe Mom was tired of hearing me com­plain, or perhaps she really thought I was too fat. I never asked, but before sum­mer’s end, I had an appoint­ment with Dr. Curtis. She was our family physi­cian who took care of me when I got the measles and gave Valium to Mom when her headaches kept her on the couch too long. Mom and I sat in the waiting room and flipped through mag­a­zines that neither of us read. Finally, the recep­tion­ist said, “Doctor will see you now.” When I entered the room, Dr. Curtis rose from behind her mahogany desk and greeted me, smiling. I didn’t smile back. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bun, and her white coat matched the color of the walls. I sat at the edge of a black exam­i­na­tion table with flu­o­res­cent lights glaring down at me. Mom sat in a chair and said nothing. I felt cold and exposed as Dr. Curtis com­plet­ed her exam.

“Maria is 145 pounds, height 5’4,” she said motion­ing me to step off the scale. “Every­thing else is normal.”

 I never asked her what normal meant, but I must have scored abnor­mal­ly on the fat scale. Dr. Curtis handed me a list of allow­able foods and beverages—not to exceed 1000 calo­ries a day—and a “little helper” called Dexedrine. I taped the list to our refrig­er­a­tor until it became etched in my brain.

Break­fast:  Black coffee, ½ grape­fruit, ½ cup skim cottage cheese, toast.

Lunch:  Diet soda, plain salad, ½ cup tuna or 1 boiled egg, 1 fruit 

Dinner:  4 oz. Steak or chicken, steamed veg­eta­bles, and 1 fruit.

Snacks:  Carrots and celery. 1 small apple or citrus fruit.

No oil, no sugar, no salty snacks

I wasn’t sure how many Dexedrine pills I was sup­posed to take, but it didn’t matter since my pre­scrip­tion was easily renew­able. When I felt hungry, I would take a few green pills, which kept me from eating, and often kept me from sleep­ing. I lost twenty pounds that summer, but I didn’t lose the feeling of being chunky.

                                                            ***

Summer started with lots of beach time and hanging out with my girl­friends, hoping to get a sight­ing of one of our latest boy crushes. The guys called the four of us the West End Girls. We hung out on the west side of town with the old Fort in its belly and Pavil­ion Beach—Pollution Beach to locals—on its borders. We walked the streets, pre­tend­ing we had some­where impor­tant to go, but we were aimless and clue­less; that is, until Mom made another plan.

“Maria,” pausing as she rinsed our dinner plates, ‘you gotta work this summer.”

“Mom, I’m already babysit­ting every weekend. ” I feared my summer plans would come to an end.

“Not enough. I gotta keep you off the streets and away from boys!”

“Mom, I don’t even have a boyfriend.”

“You’re gonna pack fish this summer.”

“Ma, this is my last summer before high school!” I pleaded.

“You’re old enough to work,” Mom said, not buying into my plead.

“You go pack fish and stink at the end of the day,” I yelled with all the might of a teenag­er under her mother’s roof.

“It’ll do you good,” She said with a sat­is­fied smirk and went back to washing dishes.

Mom sent me to the old Gorton-Pew—the fish plant in the Fort. It spewed the smell of rotten fish and roared from grind­ing machines that kept the neigh­bor­hood sleep­less at night. The neigh­bors com­plained, but no one lis­tened. The Fort was a broken-down neigh­bor­hood with Sicil­ian immi­grants trying to make a living from the sea. Fish­er­men sold their catch at pennies a pound and were losing ground to foreign fleets. Fam­i­lies were losing too. Our first home, along with other neigh­bor­ing triple-deckers, was torn down to make space for this plant’s deliv­ery trucks.

On my first day, the Boss handed me a sharp knife and never said another word. I stood next to Josie, who cut fish in the plant and grew poppies at her home in the Fort. She was fast with her knives as she slashed the heads and tails of mack­er­el slosh­ing in the bins.

I tried to imitate Josie as she held the slimy mack­er­el down with the palm of her left hand. She brought the blade down swiftly slicing through skin and flesh. The knives scared me, and my fish just kept sliding off the con­vey­or belt. Josie com­plained to the boss man that this was no place for a four­teen-year-old who let the mack­er­el slip through her fingers like silk.

 No one ever said I was fired, but the next day I had a new job at Lippmann’s, a herring plant on the State Pier. I never learned how my mom managed to find these jobs so quickly, but her drive to keep me away from boys must have been intense.

The fish plant was cav­ernous, dark, and cold. I took my place at the packing station—a gray metal plat­form with two rows of tightly packed girls and women. We faced each other like a firing squad, but our eyes never met. Instead, we looked down at the metal rolling station that sep­a­rat­ed us. We worked with down­cast eyes and two hands reach­ing for fish that sloshed with blood and guts in a stream of frigid sea­wa­ter. Our hands moved quickly, stack­ing one-row fillet up, next row fillet down, corners tight, and repeat­ing this pattern until our boxes were packed to the rim. There was an intri­cate rhythm to this madness. Our boxes rolled down the belt to the men at the end of the line. They smoked as they weighed, and laughed as they carted our work away. They were the fish carters, and “not the lowest job, Glouces­ter.” I wanted that job. Fish packers were the lowest jobs in Glouces­ter, and I was one of them.

I worked with girls and women whose dreams were mangled like fish in nets. I learned to survive, to live inside my head, to fan­ta­size that I was not at this fish plant. I learned that if I sang all my favorite Grate­ful Dead songs, ninety minutes would pass. I did divi­sion and math in my head. And when I glanced up, the boss man would be glaring down. He sat in a glass-enclosed station perched close to the ceiling, looking down at us. I hated this fucking packing place and hated even more that my mom thought this was good enough for me.

My summer days started at 5:00 a.m., and I dressed in a uniform of worn jeans, a sweat­shirt, black rubber boots, and a red bandana around my head. It felt like prepar­ing for war. My aunt, Zi Zi Maria, arrived at 5:20 a. m. in her Chevy and sum­moned me with one short blast of her horn. She kept the engine running, eyes straight ahead, with hands gripped to the steer­ing wheel for a quick take-off.

This was our routine until one hot summer day in August. I jumped in the car and said my cus­tom­ary “Ciao Zia.”

“Hai man­gia­to?” My aunt tilted her head toward the back seat where a metal, rec­tan­gu­lar box over­flowed with Italian cookies.

“I’m not hungry,” I said, staring at more than two hundred cookies in the back seat. There were bis­cot­ti filled with almonds and anisette cookies topped with sprin­kles, but I just didn’t feel like eating.

“Zi, what’s going on?” We had enough cookies for a cel­e­bra­tion, and she looked like she was going to a wedding.

She wore a bright­ly colored V‑neck dress that cinched her waist and gold jewelry that must have weighed about five pounds. A thick gold chain with a gold cross and medals of her patron saints—Santa Rosalia, and the Saints Anthony and Christopher—decorated her chest. Her lips were painted in bright pink. Most work­days, she dressed in my uncle’s wool pants and red flannel shirts.

“Zi!” I tried again for some expla­na­tion, but her blue eyes pierced through me.

“Mangia!” Eat she told me, but she meant for me to shut up.

We entered the Lipp­mann Herring Factory with Zi Zi Maria’s arm around my waist, then walked toward the con­vey­or belt with the fish packers already at the station. I waved good-bye and watched her climb the metal steps that led to a small, plat­form close to the ceiling. She climbed the steps slowly with her shoul­ders back, and her head held high. Zi Zi had pulled on a pair of black wool pants under her dress, and men’s rubber boots replaced her shoes. A heavy rubber apron, the color of dead skin, pro­tect­ed her clothes, and a bright red scarf covered her hair. This armor didn’t protect her from the mocking spray of the guys who pum­meled cold water through­out the plant. They hosed down fish and cuts, and any worker who stood in their way. She pulled on thick, tex­tured gloves that would one day prove useless; the day she lost two fingers in the cutting blades. But today, she reigned strong and unde­feat­ed. She was a fish-cutter.

Boss said we had to cut, pack, and deliver over 100,000 lbs. of herring before day’s end. He worried about the swel­ter­ing heat, and I worried that we would be working into the night. Within an hour of the morning shift, I heard Zi Zi yelling, “shut the water” to the main­te­nance guys.

I looked up, and the water con­tin­ued gushing, and she was still cutting the heads and tails of fish that descend­ed down her chute.

 “Shut the water off!” My aunt’s voice rose above the roar of cutting machines. The water was turned off, and the machines came to a grind­ing halt. Silence now filled our space. She removed her apron, marched down the ladder toward the packing station, and ordered all of us, “Outside now.”

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s mug-up time,” she said as she strode toward the door.

I fol­lowed her to the front lot, a worn-out pier filled with dis­card­ed fishing gear, broken planks, and seag­ulls feast­ing on decay­ing fish. I squint­ed, trying to adjust to the glaring sun­light and the scene in front of me. A mob of workers drank coffee from tall ther­moses and helped them­selves to Zia’s heaping pile of cookies.

A radio blasted music, and my aunt sang along to one of her Napoli­tano favorites when Mr. Lippman, a portly, red-faced man and the owner of the plant, came toward us.

“Every­one, get back to work,” he yelled, jumping up and down with fists clenched in the air.

 My Aunt took notice, stopped singing, crossed her arms against her chest, and faced him one-on-one.

“We no go back to work.” She dis­missed him with her cus­tom­ary Italian flip of the wrist under the chin. “We want a union!”

Mr. Lipp­man­n’s face was notice­ably redder, and I was afraid he would have a heart attack. I didn’t like the man, but I also didn’t want him to drop dead. I also didn’t want my aunt to get in any more trouble. At that moment, a burly man with a clip­board appeared from the back of the fish plant. He strode toward Mr. Lipp­mann, stared him down, and announced, “I’m Lou, and I’m with the AFL-CIO. These workers want a union.” 

My aunt, Lou, and Mr. Lippman walked back into the fish plant, and we got some time in the sun. We returned to work that after­noon with a con­tract that guar­an­teed eight-hour work­days, a lunch hour, two fifteen-minute breaks, a women’s bath­room, and over­time pay.

Seven years later, this expe­ri­ence inspired me to orga­nize with the AFL-CIO and lead a union cam­paign for women office workers at Boston College. But on that day, I just felt proud that my aunt had the guts to take on the bosses, fight for our rights, and change the rules of the game between the Boss and the workers in the herring plant.

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