Transcription

• Speaker #0

  Hello my sweet creative cutie. I hope you're doing well. Welcome to Unleash Your Inner Creative. I am reporting to you live from my childhood bedroom. If you follow me on socials, you may have seen this update already, but for those of you who don't or haven't seen it, I've been dealing with a little bit of a family emergency for the past week and a half. You can go there and read all about it. If you've listened for a while, you know. that my parents are my everything. I am so, so, so close to my mom and my dad. They are my heart, and I just love them so much. I'm an only child. We're super close. My parents have supported me through everything I've ever done, been the best parents. There's never been a day of my life that I've doubted that I was loved unconditionally. And on Monday, I got a call. I have dreaded the whole time I was living in California. And that was that my dad, he's okay. I should, I should just let you know, because I would be freaking out listening to that. He's okay, but that he had bleeding on his brain. He had something called a subdural hematoma, which is when blood forms between your brain and your skull. And it was so bad that they said that they were shocked. that he was even talking. Basically, there was so much blood in his brain that it was pushing against his brain and pushing it from one side. It was, I think, I can't remember if it was on the left or the right, but pushing his brain from one side to the other. So he had to get emergency surgery. Timmy and I took a red eye. Timmy is my fiance, if you don't know. Took a red eye in that night and flew here to be with him. I'm gonna tell the full story on the podcast. Because I like to share my life with you. And when these big, great or hard moments happen in life, I like to share the journey with you. Especially because as creative people, as deeply feeling people, as spiritual people, these things can hit us even harder. And I like to take you along how I process it so that you feel less alone. And I can also share any tools that I've gained along the way for you. to implement into your journeys, whether it's a healing journey, a creative journey, or just being a person. I'm happy to say my dad is home now, but that was the scariest week of my life. And because of that, definitely did not have time to produce a new episode for you. I have a great one coming out for you next week with an incredible guest called Jane Mattingly about body grief, which is very timely for what my dad just went through. And then I'll be doing a solo episode the following week, most likely about what I've learned from this whole process of being scared for my dad's life and being a caregiver and being in the hospital and all of that. But in the meantime, I'm resharing one of my favorite episodes ever with you. It is a solo episode I did about my journey back home, as I like to say, to Sicily. to introduce my parents, especially my dad, to his first cousins there, the Lagrasos that live in Marsala, who, by the way, were praying for us day and night over in Sicily the whole time. You know, my dad was so blessed. He had people on three continents praying for him. So thank you to anyone listening who is one of the people praying. If you are listening now, please keep praying. My dad is doing so much better, but he's still... needs to recover and has a ways to go. And I want him to be here at least through 100. I think 105, 110, 120 would be great, but at least through 100. So please keep him in your prayers to have a complete and speedy recovery and keep him in your good thoughts. I appreciate you. And I'm airing this episode in honor of him because meeting our cousins in Sicily was top five best. moments and things of my life. And they've just been so supportive and wonderful. So wherever you are, hold your loved ones tight. Because really, the people in our lives, that's what matters the most. That's what makes everything else worth it. They're our biggest inspiration. Yeah, I don't really have like a cutesy way to wrap it up. I just am so grateful for my dad and I love him so much. So thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting me. Please keep my dad in my prayer. Keep my dad in your prayers. I will keep him in mine too. And enjoy this episode. about my sweet Sicilian family and why it's so important to reconnect with your roots and trace the lines of your life. Enjoy. Ciao creativo, or in English, hi creative. Have you ever been back to the place where your ancestors are from? Today I want to take you inside my trip to Sicily. I recently went there with my parents and introduced my dad to our first cousins. For the first time, he had never met them in over 70 years. And I want to tell you the full backstory, the creative lessons I learned, and why, if you're lucky enough to know where your ancestors are from, a trip back home is a must. Welcome to Unleash Your Inner Creative with Lauren LaGrasso. I'm Lauren LaGrasso. I'm an award-winning podcast host and producer, singer-songwriter, public speaker, and creative coach. And this show is meant to give you tools to claim the word creative, and trust, love, and know yourself enough to pursue whatever it is that's on your heart. The show sits at the intersection of spirituality, self-development, creativity in the creative process, and mental health. And before we get into it, I just want to say one thing. I was thinking about this a lot on my trip, especially with the war going on in the Middle East. And I want to say one thing. I recognize it's a privilege to even know where you're from originally, let alone to be able to go to it. And I am beyond grateful that I happen to not only have this ability to know, for the most part, exactly where my ancestors were from, but to also be able to go to it. And I want to acknowledge all the people in this country and elsewhere, in the United States and elsewhere, who have had their ancestry ripped away from them by any number of things like enslavement, displacement, war, or other generational trauma. It's not fair. I wish it was different. My deepest wish for you is that somehow you are able to channel your ancestors and find a way back to your roots so that you can have some sort of healing because it is so deeply healing. And I truly believe everyone deserves a homecoming. And I'm just super, super excited to dive into mine today. And I just want to say thank you for being with me and talking about where you're from brings up a lot. So anyway, I'm with you and I love you. And I'm honored to share my family story to you because something I've really realized is family is such an integral part of my creative journey. One more little caveat or thought before we dive in any further. I think something to really ponder with your work is what are your main topics? Like so often we get stuck on genre or the exact type of creativity we do or the writing. I think something really important that we leave out of the conversation a lot of time are the topics that you are most passionate about speaking on or singing on or sculpting on or creating a business around or just like pursuing day-to-day researching. We think too much about the how and not enough about the why. And so something I've been doing lately, specifically with my music, is Instead of being like, oh, what genre am I? Oh, how do I want this song exactly to be produced? Instead of thinking in that small of terms, I now think of my genre, or at least one of my genres, is family healing, tracing the lines to ancestral trauma, breaking patterns. It's not as binary as rock or pop. I encompass all of these things. One of my primary topics with my creative life, and I guess it... Makes sense because I am a Cancer Rising, the mother of the Zodiac. One of my primary topics is family. I really discovered this this past year a few different ways. One of them, you might have listened to this interview, was an interview I did with Colin Bedell, aka Queer Cosmos. And we talked about the importance of family in my work. And it just was a light bulb moment for me that, oh my gosh, like this has been at the forefront of so many things I've done naturally. So as I tell you the story. Know that this influences every part of my creative journey. And as you figure out what your creative topics are, what are the stories that you're most passionate about telling or researching or sharing? That's the kind of life experience we want to seek out. So we have things from that, not only that have great meaning to us and that will hold in our hearts forever, but things that we can be inspired by and that we can create from. Okay, so here is my Sicilian. origin story for those that don't know. My grandfather, Matteo La Grasso, left Marsala, Sicily when he was 15 years old. The story I was told my whole life was he grew up in a fishing town, Marsala, and his father and his brother were both fishermen. They went out one day on a fishing mission and they never came back. They died at sea. My grandfather's mother said, it is way too dangerous for you here. I am not going to let you die at sea and become a fisherman. You have to go to America and get a better life. Became a United States citizen and the rest is history. Okay. What I didn't know my entire life was that my grandpa had a younger brother in Sicily. that was left behind. So my whole life, I think he had this one older brother and then there was him. And then, you know, he went to America. Sadly, my grandpa never saw his mom again. He didn't get back to Sicily until after she passed away. And so this was a story I knew my whole life. Two weeks before I finally decide to go to Italy, after meeting my boyfriend, Timmy, he had a trip planned to Europe and he's like, you know, we should. tack on a trip to Italy. It's been your dream your whole life to go there. We need to see it as long as we're over there. This was the first time I went there. This is the origin story. Okay. So this was all happening in 2022, July, 2022. So we decided we're going to take a trip to Sicily. We plan specifically to take a two day detour down to Marsala so that we can see where my grandpa was from and where he grew up. And two weeks. maybe a week and a half, I don't remember the exact timing, but very shortly before I leave, my dad hands me this letter and says, go to this address. This letter was a letter that was written to him by his first cousin in 2009. Okay. So in this moment, when he hands me the letter, I find out that my grandfather actually had a brother there and that we've had very close cousins there my whole life that I have never known about. And That was shocking, number one. Number two, why did you never tell me? And why did you never write back? He got this letter in 2009, but he never wrote them back. He's still never been able to really answer that. I think that there was some fear there. I think there was, you know, he knew there was gonna be a language barrier. Probably there was some fear of, will they or won't they accept me? I don't know. There's a lot to it, I think. There's a grief involved, and I'll talk about that later. When your family... leaves one country to go to another. And like there's a there's a dilution of your roots. And so maybe it felt like reaching back out to him would be confronting. I mean, maybe he forgot. I don't know. But he did hold on to this letter. So there's something there. So anyway, he gives me the letter. He says, go to this address while you're there. Tim and I get to Marsala. And again, right before we left, my dad, Timmy asked my dad, like, is there anything in particular you want us to do or get? for you while we're in Sicily. And he just said, go to that address. So he had very specific desires for what we were meant to do when we got to Marsala. The first day we were there, we kind of just hung out. We enjoyed the sea. We went swimming because it's right on the Mediterranean Sea. It's beautiful. And we were seeing this really cute little B&B. The next day, we decide we're going to go to this address in the evening and just like hope for the best because there was no phone number. There was no way of reaching them other than mail. And by the time I got the letter, it was too late. to write them to say, hey, we're coming. So I went swimming that day before we were supposed to be with them. And apparently, I mean, I had extensions at the time and my hair had a weird reaction with the water there. It turned orange. Like I was having this like mental breakdown right before we were supposed to go meet with my cousins. Long story short, we made it work. I somehow made my hair look less orange. Weird thing. By the way, if you're blonde and you ever go to Sicily, this is what my hairdresser told me. There's a higher percentage of volcanic ash in that water because there's volcanoes around. And that can have some sort of weird interaction with bleach. So just be careful and like check your hair color every so often. But I really think it's because those extensions were like weird and defective. So anyway, we decided to go like we get into this taxi cab with a guy who speaks very little English. Because in Marsala, English isn't as commonly spoken as in... say Palermo or certainly like a Rome. And so we get into the taxi cab. All we can do is show him this written address that was again on this letter from 2009. And I'm like, oh God, like this guy could be taking us anywhere. But I did put the address into my Google Maps. And so I saw that he was taking us in the right general direction. So he drops us off. When he drops us off, we're like in the middle of the town in the city center, which is really far from our hotel. Like we would have. It would take us like an hour and a half to walk back to where we're from. So we're trying to like negotiate with him with the language barrier saying, hey, can you please make sure to like come back and get us? Like, can we call you and you'll come back? And finally, he understands what we're saying. And he says, you know, OK, I'm going to go get something to eat if you need me. Call this number. We walk up to the address and I see the buzzers. It's an apartment. And I see that it says LaGrasso. And I instantly start sobbing. I can't believe it because we got this letter in 2009 originally. Anything could have happened between 2009 and 2022. It was truly a miracle that their names were even there. And then all these things are rushing through my head. Oh, my God. What if? they're not home right now? What if they're away and they're on vacation somewhere because it's the middle of the summer? But I just start furiously pressing the button and pressing the button and pressing the button. And then I see these two men come out. One of them looks like he's in, you know, about his mid-70s. The other one looks like he's maybe a little older than me. And I look up at them and they're kind of like, hello. And I go, hello, my name is Lauren LaGrasso. I think that I'm your cousin. They look back and forth at each other, look at me and go, one moment. I hear them racing down the stairs. I pull the letter up because I'd taken pictures of it. It's on my phone. I show them the letter and they're like, yes, that's us. That's us. We're hugging and kissing and crying. Now, next thing I know, we're racing up the stairs to go to their apartment and we're FaceTiming my dad. By the way, my dad was like, apparently he was so excited, but then he's like, oh, I'm in the middle of a Zoom right now. I got to go. I'll call you back. So it's like, wow, a 70 year meeting that he had to leave to go back to a Zoom. But he did call us back really shortly. We get up to their apartment. We meet. So it's my cousin, the older cousin. His name is Nikola or Nick. And the younger one is Alessandro. And that's Nikola's son. And then we meet Alessandro's mom, Nikola's wife, Maria. And I mean. it was a total embrace from the first minute we got up there. If you've seen White Lotus and you've seen the season that was set in Sicily, think of the exact opposite of that. And by the way, I have a bone to pick with the creator of that show who I think is brilliant. I love you, sir. But I'm just telling you, I can't think of a single Sicilian who would ever do what those Sicilian women depicted on your show did. Sicilian people are the most warm, welcoming, loving people I've ever met in my life. Even if they didn't think they were related to you, they'd probably still welcome you in for a cup of coffee. There's no getting chased off with like a hic. So let me just set the record straight there. But the first thing that happens is Maria starts instantly like pouring us cups of soda. Like she pours out like 15 different cups and like has us drink. And in Italy, it's so weird. They like. I shouldn't say weird. It's different than what we do here. Everything's super-sized here. Everything's small there, including the people. They start pouring us these little cups, like teeny-tiny shot glass-sized cups of soda there. And all different flavors. And she's just giving us basically everything she can find in her fridge. And then the next thing we know, Nicola, my older cousin, is pulling out an album that says, Foto American. F-O-T-O American. And... They had been tracking us all those years. So they're literally like they somehow found a picture of me and my dad on Google. They had pictures of my cousins, my uncles. It wasn't like this was buried far away. All he had to do was open up like a cabinet right next to his kitchen table, pull it out and put it on the table. And it was just wild to see that they had been waiting for us all that time. And even my cousin. Alessandro, somehow he knew that I was an artist. And I later found out he looked me up on Facebook and he found my artist page. But he kept saying, she's an artist. She's an artist. And there was a language barrier, but there was also an understanding. It was truly one of the most magical nights of my life. So we're catching up with Alessandro and Nicola. The whole time, pretty much after like the soda pop thing happened that I'm talking with Nicola and Alessandro, I can hear Maria in the other room screaming. And I'm like, she's on the phone. screaming to someone. Who could she possibly be talking to? So they invite us to go to this pizzeria with them. We're sitting at the pizzeria and all of a sudden this guy walks in who looks a lot like my dad with this other woman. I find out it's my dad's other cousin and my other cousin, Salvatore, and his wife, Rosa. And Maria had been calling all of the LaGrasso siblings to let them know that we arrived. And I found out from my cousin Salvatore, he wrote down that it had always been his dream to meet us. And he said, this moment has been awaited for 70 years. That was what it translated to. He had dreamed his whole life of meeting his American cousins. His most recent time when we went, he said, I knew I couldn't die without meeting my cousins. Because come to find out, even though they look like they're in their 70s, you know, Salvatore is 85. Nicola is, I think, 82. We have another amazing cousin named Enza, and she's 87. And the youngest of the LaGrasso cousins is Vida, and she's 80. So, you know, just the fact that all of this happened was a miracle. Basically, we spent the next 24 hours with them, felt so welcome, so loved. And it was one of the most beautiful, magical, spiritual moments of my life. So and my parents, this whole time we were with them back in 2022 were. We were FaceTiming them a lot. We were talking with them on the phone. They were meeting everybody. I was like taking them around on the FaceTime. So they kind of got to know them. And obviously they really wanted to meet them too. So flash forward to summer 2023. We're like, we have to make this happen. So I convinced my parents, you know, my dad really wanted to come because like, obviously he's never been to Sicily his whole life. And so this is like a dream come true to get to go there and to. see where his dad was from to meet these cousins of his. My mom was harder to sell on it because she was worried about the flight. She's got ankle issues. She's got like two meniscus tears, bone and bone ankle. She was worried about not feeling good. She was worried about how long the flight is. She's always been a germaphobe, but COVID put that through the roof. So she was just highly anxious, hard to convince. I was worried she wasn't going to come. A week before we left, our amazing, beautiful... like one of the best humans I have ever met in my entire life. Aunt Santa, my great aunt, my mom's aunt, who's like a second mother to her, passed away. And it happened pretty quick. Like it was within two weeks, she got sick and then she was gone. My mom was feeling really conflicted when Aunt Santa was sick and we didn't know what was going to happen. She wasn't sure if she was going to be able to go on the trip because she wanted to be there for her passing, be there for the funeral home and be there for... the funeral. And it just didn't look like there would be any way for that to be possible because we were supposed to leave on Monday. But Aunt Santa, you know, even in her passing, is the most generous and thoughtful person that ever lived and worked it out for us to be able to go with absolute peace in our hearts because she passed away on Friday. The funeral home was Sunday. And the funeral was Monday and we still had enough time to go home, get ready for a flight and leave. And so it almost felt like Aunt Santa's blessing was kind of like the wind beneath my mom's wings that really allowed her to go on this trip with peace in her heart. And we really felt like we were doing the trip in a way for her, in a way for my mom's dad, who, you know, my mom's also Sicilian, 50% Sicilian. My grandpa never got to go to Sicily. My Aunt Santa never got to go to Sicily. Like they never got to see where they were from. And so we almost felt like it was a mission to go back there and see it for them. And it was amazing. Little teaser, we got so many signs from Aunt Santa and I'm gonna share them with you. But it was really a miracle that we were able to leave in the way that we were. So I didn't intend to do a full recap, but I'm just going to give you a highlight reel of some of the things that happened while we were there. Just so you can hear a little bit of it. I'm just remembering something. So we take a flight from Detroit. So I had already flown back to Michigan at this point. I flew back, you know, for the funeral. And also we had a wedding. It was a wild weekend. We had a funeral, a funeral home. And my mom's... one of her best friends of 40 years, her daughter got married. So we went to the wedding. And anyway, I left with my parents to go on this trip. So we took a flight Detroit, Rome, and then we were supposed to have a flight Rome, Palermo, and Sicily. And so Detroit, Rome, leg was kind of crazy. It's not worth getting into. But here's what I want to tell you. My mom, because she does have this, you know, ankle and knee issue. usually requires a wheelchair to get any great distance in an airport. And so she had forgotten to request the wheelchair from Rome. Maybe she didn't forget, but the airline forgot to put it on. Something happened where... She did not get the wheelchair she needed. Like it wasn't set up for her. I don't know what it is. And maybe it's like a worldwide thing. Maybe it's just like American culture is so like a lot more accommodating in a lot of different ways. But in Italy, if you do not play by the rules, they are not happy with you at all. Like it's like a pretty strict society. I think it's because they're more of a collective society. It's more of. all hands on deck versus like individualistic society, which is America. But basically, because she did not request this wheelchair ahead of time, there was like no getting one. And we tried for like we tried for 20 minutes at our first stop, which was at the gate. Nobody came to get her again. Then we walked to the information center. These ladies were trying for like 30 minutes. By the way, mind you, we only had a two hour connection. They couldn't get someone. So then we're really pressed for time because we have to get. all the way to the other end of the terminal in Rome. And so my poor mom is like walking. She's like hobbling with her crutch, trying to get across. Finally, I see one of those carts that you put your luggage on. And we had been asking people, we saw tons of free wheelchairs. I'm like, please, please, please. Can we use the wheelchair? Like we'll push it ourselves. Everybody was saying, no, you have to request it ahead of time. They didn't care that she was limping. So we saw one of those luggage carts and I was like, oh my God, brilliant idea. Have mom stand on that, dad. I'll take all the bags. You push her. So my mom is standing on the luggage cart, holding the cart with her crutch facing backward. Okay. And it's like out, like it could, like it could have hit anyone. And we're rushing through the Rome airport. The bags, I'm carrying the bags. The bags are like falling over as I'm trying to like re put them back together and like make sure that because we have bags on top of bags, we way over packed even with our carry ons. And I'm like trying to like yank them off to the airport while my mom is with her crutch out like a sword in her her face facing my dad. Then finally, he's like, Joanne, turn around and sit on because, you know, those luggage cart luggage carts usually have that little like tray at the top, almost like in a in a grocery cart. So she sits on that little tray at the top and she's sitting there again with her crutch still pointing out. But at least she can see where she's going. And then we get to the passport check and they're like, you can't bring that through. So then we have to abandon the cart. And, you know, we're so nervous we're going to miss this flight. It was just like, and by the way, one of the like for some reason in the Rome airport, there's duty frees and random areas where you just have to walk through it. Like you don't have a choice. It's not like you go in. It's just it's basically like a duty free hallway. And so we were like going through the duty free while she had the crutch out like a sword. It was just wild and ridiculous. We didn't think we were going to make it to Palermo by the grace of God. we made it on that airplane. The ride to Palermo was very peaceful. We got off. There was a wheelchair waiting for her there, which was incredible. And the guys with the wheelchair in Palermo were like Sicilian, sweet, lovely humans. Even with the language barrier, we were able to communicate and tell them we had cousins. And it was really beautiful. And our cousins drove all the way up from Marsala to the airport to greet us. And Seeing my dad walk through those doors and hug his cousin for the first time was just like one of the most beautiful things in my life. Maybe I'll post the video. I was ugly crying in a way that you would not believe. I was like, wow. They kept telling me not to cry. And I'm like, don't tell me not to cry. This is beautiful. If I had known what my face looked like when I cried before that, I would have understood why they wanted me to stop. But it was just so, so, so beautiful and like such an incredible homecoming. And then we spent four days with them and it was unbelievable. And I just love every single one of them so much. I learned so much from every single one of them. I felt more loved than I have in my entire life. We also ended up taking a trip to the town where my mom, her parents, or not parents, my mom's grandpa, my great-grandpa Roboto, was from Misalmeri. And so we got to go back there, and we went to this incredibly beautiful place called Shefalu, which if you can go somewhere in Sicily in your life, like, I got to recommend Marsala because that's where my people are from. But Sheffaloo, oh my gosh, it's unbelievably beautiful, like Hawaii level beautiful there. And also we got to go to Terrasini, which is where my grandparents, my great grandparents got married. So we got to see a lot of like family treasures and also just Sicily's treasures. And we spent an incredible day in Palermo just like going through and enjoying the city. But yeah, now I want to take you through. Some of my takeaways. So probably my first and most beautiful takeaway is that just learning that my cousins, their whole lives, especially the older ones, had been dreaming of us. You know, Salvatore kept saying, this is my dream come true. He gave us this beautiful present and in it it said, like, everyone in Marsala knew it was my dream to meet my cousins and pretty much everybody in Italy knew it was my dream to meet my cousins. Like. His whole life, he dreamed of us to the point where they would have Sunday dinners, their whole family over there in Sicily. And on those Sunday dinners, he would read like a fake letter from America. He was literally manifesting us, okay? He would read a letter from his cousins in America. Of course, it wasn't real. Then the story goes that cousin Nick would then get up and he would... start speaking in quote unquote American and no one would know what the hell he was saying because nobody spoke English. So just to realize that my whole life, there were people halfway around the world that I had no idea existed who loved me and who dreamed to meet me someday. When I think about this, the fact that we, I didn't even know about them and then we met. When this much of a miracle is possible, it's kind of hard to imagine really being a full pessimist, even with all the darkness, when that much light can exist. Think of all the times when I felt sad or hopeless or like I wasn't doing enough or like I wasn't accomplishing enough or whatever other millions of things that I let bring me down. And when I think about the fact that I was literally someone else's dream, it's hard to feel like you don't matter. when that's the case. They weren't only interested in me if I had done something great. They wanted me just because of who I am. And it's just a beautiful idea. Like if that's possible, what else could be possible? And the fact that it happened, it took 72 years, but it happened. That dream wasn't for nothing. That dream just... It took a little longer than I wish it would have, but it happened. And I think that's the power of never giving up on a dream. And also just you have no idea how loved you are. Like if that could be possible for me, what could be possible for you? What could be true for you? Like what kind of love like that could exist for you out in the world? It's just pretty powerful. The last night we were there, because I heard that Cousin Salvatore had this practice of reading a pretend letter from his American cousins all those years, I decided to finally give him a real letter from his American cousins. And I'd like to share that with you. This describes what the La Grasso Sunday dinners would look like in Sicily. And this is what my letter to him said. Dear Sicilian cousins, we are so happy and honored to be with you tonight. Yesterday, we heard a story about how Sunday family dinners went. You had the nokoli, then you had the salad and the cutlet, the fruit, and finally you had the letter that Salvatore read to you from his cousins in America, followed by Nicola speaking in American. Ha ha. Back then, Salvatore read a fake letter, but tonight we wanted to give you a real one to thank Salvatore and all of you for always dreaming of us, for wishing and hoping that one day, somehow. You would not only have a real letter from your American cousins to hold and read, but that you would also have us to hold, laugh with, love, and visit with. We are so grateful that your prayer and dream came true. Thank you for the incredible kindness, generosity, and love which you have embraced us with. We have never felt so loved and so welcomed in our entire lives. You are some of the kindest people we have ever met, and we thank God for you. We are so proud to be Sicilian. to have our roots in Marsala, and to be your relatives. We are so sad to leave, but so incredibly grateful to now have this connection. We are already looking forward to our next visit where we can all be together. While we're sad that we haven't connected until now, we're so happy that it finally happened. and it truly feels like we've known you our whole lives. We are always here for you, and we are deeply grateful. Thank you again for dreaming about us. We're so happy to have finally heard the call to come home. We love you with all our hearts. Love, your American cousins. Yeah, when somebody has dreamed about you their whole life, and you didn't even know it, they've loved you your whole life, and you never knew them. It's just kind of hard to not think miracles are possible when that dream finally comes true and you get to meet and realize that you've loved them your whole life, too, without ever even knowing it. OK, now that I'm choked up, one thing that is just more just beautiful and like sweet and something I love about language barriers, weirdly enough, is that. you can't hide who you really are. Your true essence shines through when words can't get in the way. So I feel like I have this deep, direct understanding of who all my family members are there because we couldn't muddy it up with English. I mean, some of them spoke a little bit of English, but really what happens when you can't go straight through to language and be a wordsmith? is your heart takes the lead. For instance, my cousin Enza, who is the matriarch of the family, and my sweet cousin Angela's mom, Angela, she calls me her American sister, and she is my Sicilian sister, even though we're cousins, we're sisters. Her mom, Enza, my dad's first cousin, I know this is kind of confusing, but thank you for bearing with me. But Enza did not speak a word of English, and I understood her soul. The minute we first met, we both started sobbing uncontrollably because it was just so beautiful to finally meet. And she took me and held my hand and she was just saying all these things to me. And I just understood what she was doing was showering me with love and telling me how happy she was to meet me. And she took a ring off of her own hand and put it on my finger. And it was like that level of generosity. Like you can't hide who you really are. My cousin Nick, he speaks a little English, but not very much. He lived in... Canada for two years when he was young. But he was so funny. Like we would be in the middle of a conversation, you know, doing I don't know, you know, Spanish and English is called Spanglish. What would that be? Italian, Italian-ish. Like we were doing hybrid Italian English. And we'd be in the middle of talking. All of a sudden you'd hear like a moo. He had this app on his phone that was like just animal sounds. And whenever he felt like adding a little spice to the conversation, he would just press an animal sound and we would be like, what the hell is that? And it was Nick lightening the mood, being the comedian. Salvatore is all heart and he's so proud and he's so honored. And you just felt that pride and sincerity come right through. My cousin Alessandro is the sweetest person you'll ever meet in your life. Just a pure soul, so giving. always tells the truth. And again, I know this because, yes, we're family. So I think there was like a read there, but also because you just can't hide who you are. Even there was this lady who worked at a snack bar that was like four places down from the B&B we stayed at. Her name was Juicy, which is a name there, like G-I-U-S-I. And we just loved each other. Like we exchanged numbers at the because we went there probably four times to get sandwiches. We exchanged numbers at the end because it was just like, oh, she's like me. I don't know. My whole life, I felt like a freak because I like and love who I am. You know, I love my heart and I love that I'm emotional and like so there with people. And I really I love being warm and I love being around warm people and embracing people. But there have been a lot of times in my life where I've reached resistance for that. Or even had some people be like. oh, like that's phony. No one's like that all the time. No, they are. You know what? I am. And guess who else is? People in Sicily. Not everyone, of course, but a great multitude of people in Sicily have that warmth and just like want to welcome you and do the right thing and love you and embrace you. And it was just so nice to be around people who are like me. It was like, I felt like I could breathe, especially the people in Marsala. I noticed that more with the people in Marsala than anywhere else. It was just so loving. And I was like, wow, this is where I'm from. These are my people. I make sense here. And I did have a thought when I was there. I mean, I'm so grateful for the sacrifice that my grandparents made. I understand, and I'm going to get to Misele Mary, which is wonderful and a beautiful experience. I can understand why my great-grandfather left that town. Leaving Marsala must have been really difficult, though, because my family there... has a beautiful life and it's right on the water and the people are incredible. And I mean, I love the people of Michigan, but it's different. I couldn't help but think, you know, would we have been happier if we never left? I don't know. On the one hand, a lot of my cousins there are interested in coming to America, but I think there is an inherent grief in... staying behind and leaving. And I just, I felt sad for my grandpa that like, I don't know, he had a really hard life. And it wasn't like a time when you could talk about that. You just had to move on. And I felt sad for him that he had to leave that behind. And I also felt just extreme gratitude that finally, in my generation, And in, you know, this part of my dad's life, we're finally getting back in touch with our roots in this deep way. So, OK, number three takeaway from Sicily. All of my cousins there, at least the great bulk of them, are creative and or artists. And it's just part of who they are. So my cousin Angela knits these beautiful purses and she sews. My cousin Stella is a singer and she's also an incredible painter. My cousin Pascal. Oh, my gosh. He is such an amazing musician. You need to look him up. We're going to collaborate on a song together. I'm super excited. Let me tell you what his artist name is. It is P.V.S.C.A.L. P.V.S.C.A.L. Get his 1995 EP. I love his song Domani. Maybe I'll play a little bit of it for you at the end. But that was just incredible to find out because I literally don't have any other blood relative who is a singer, or at least who has pursued it in a deeper way. It was so, so beautiful to hear him sing and to hear his music that he's written. I don't have any blood relatives who are songwriters. So I felt so seen by that. My cousin Giuseppe is a guitar player. My... Cousin Giuseppe's wife, Juicy, is a winemaker. Juicy, the winemaker, oh, what perfection. Brand synergy. I'd love to do a creative coaching session with her. But everybody had something. I mean, even my cousin Angela's husband, Oreste, oh, love him. He is a gem of the universe. He's so funny and so sweet. He's an incredible cook and he collects these model cars. So everybody has their thing, like everyone there. has a creative essence, and it's just many or most of them aren't pursuing it as a career, but it's a way of life. Creativity is woven into everything they do. And it made so much sense to me that I come from a culture that values creativity and artistry in that way, that it's a part of who you are. It's a part of how you give back. At the family get togethers, everyone was drinking Juicy's wine, which by the way, that is her profession. Pretty cool. Everyone was singing around the guitar with... Giuseppe, you might have seen a video on my Instagram. We sang You've Got a Friend. We also sang That's Amore because it was a great Italian-English hybrid song. There's paintings of Stella's all over Angela's house. Stella is Angela's daughter. It was really cool to see how creativity isn't something that is thought of as frivolous. It isn't something that's thought of as, oh, that's a hobby you should keep in childhood. They all had brought these deep parts of their creativity and artistry into adulthood. They're all using it in different amounts. But to see that it was something that everyone there honored and that they were so excited that I was a songwriter and a singer. And it was just really validating that me pursuing a creative life is actually in line with my heritage. And so I encourage you for your own ethnicity to look. back and see in your immediate family, like who were the creative ones? How did they use it? How is creativity viewed in your family? And then beyond that, looking back to your culture and asking, what is the creativity of my culture? How could I do something to get back in touch? Like it really made me want to pursue opera again and start singing, you know, Italian opera music. That was one of the first types of music I sang when I was thinking of starting to pursue a professional music career. And so that's something that I'm really interested in. So getting back to how creativity has been viewed. in your family, healing any wounds around it that are familial, but also looking at the beauty of creativity in your family, how it has been a positive thing and how you can kind of like let that be your guide to how you utilize it in your life. And then also looking back to your culture and asking what were the creative clues that my culture left that might help me get back in touch with both my creativity and my... culture of origin. So I kind of spoke to this earlier. I didn't mean to, but I guess this was a fourth revelation. But one is the grief that I do feel over the loss of our roots. There was a time when it was the night we all got together. So this night, my dad met all of his cousins for the first time. So he met Enza, and then he had already met Salvatore, and then he met Nicola. And Nicola was the one who originally wrote us the letter, who really was the one that started this whole journey for our families to reconnect. And then his cousin Vida came in and he met her. And so all four of them are there. Most of their spouses were there and some of their kids were there. And we were all just reconnecting, trying to get to know each other, using Google Translate heavily. I had learned Italian on Babbel and Duolingo before that, but it wasn't enough to be fluent. And, um, and I don't think my parents had done much of it at all. So really like I was speaking the most and understanding the most. And weirdly enough, as time went on, I understood it almost perfectly, especially when I was talking with my cousin Angela by the end, but speaking is a whole different beast. I would say probably reading is easiest. Understanding is second easiest. Speaking is definitely the hardest, but there was a point and this was only the second night or maybe no. This is the first night we were in Marsala. There was a point in that meeting of all the cousins where somebody asked, why don't you speak Italian? We don't understand. And when they asked, like, why don't you speak Italian? I had to tell them, like, you know, my best estimation of why it wasn't passed down was because my grandpa wanted to assimilate and it wasn't really super safe to be strong in your ethnicity back then. They... didn't accept Italians. There was a lot of discrimination. And so the best thing to do for him, for his safety, was to blend in, sadly. But that evaporation of our culture, there's a loss there. I don't know. And when they asked, why don't you speak Italian? I almost felt like this guilt. I felt guilt. I felt shame. And I know it's no fault of my own, but you really see the loss when you go back. And see what these other people who your paths like generations ago started in the same place, but have diverged so drastically. When you see how they're living and the things that they know. It's like in America, we're kind of like just floating. Like, I don't I don't know. I'm not putting this into words eloquently because I'm still grappling with how I feel. But there is a grief, I think, for those of us that do have a strong ethnicity and tie to our. heritage and live somewhere else now who have lost some of it somehow. When we try to like go see where we're from and regain it, like it's just that that grief becomes more apparent. And there's nothing you can do about that time loss. Like all you can do is start reintegrating parts of the culture back in. But that was something that was interesting. Number five for my life lessons. It was so healing to be embraced by my dad's family in this way. And let me tell you why. This is hard to say, and I don't want to reveal too much because it's not really my full story to tell. But my dad has had on and off estrangement with his brothers. He's in a pretty good place with his brother, Sam, now. They see each other. Last time I was home for a prolonged period of time, I got to see my uncle, Sam. But there are cousins on my dad's side of the family. first cousins of mine that I haven't seen in 20 years, which is wild. And there is just, it's really sad. There was a lot of time lost. There was a lot of hurt feelings over the years. Long story short, in a lot of ways, I felt very rejected by my dad's family. And I'm sure in many ways, I mean, more ways than me probably, he felt that too. So to be so fully embraced by this part of the family, by the LaGrasso side, that I have felt kind of cut off from my whole life, not because I wanted to. But just because there were circumstances that were like out of my control where I wasn't able to be connected to them, it was really healing. Because like my whole life, I kind of just felt like, wow, like my aunts and uncles and I don't blame my cousins as much because like they like me were in a tough situation with whatever was going on with our dads. But like they didn't even care to get to know me, you know. And so to have this like. the LaGrasso blood embraced me so deeply was really healing because it was like, oh, like these are my people. Like I don't feel so lopsided. Like my whole life I felt lopsided because I had this great love on my mom's side of the family and my dad's parents were wonderful, but they died when I was pretty young. My grandma died when I was five. My grandpa died when I was eight. So, you know, it was just lopsided where like. I was fully embraced by my mom's side of the family, but like I had no connection from a pretty young age on with my dad's side of the family. And so to now have this deep connection with cousins, my LaGrasso cousins, some LaGrasso cousins, it was really healing. And it also made me want to reach out to my first cousins who are LaGrasso's and just be like, listen, I want to know you. And I don't know what happened, but life is so short. Why are we wasting time not knowing each other? We should at least try because that was such a beautiful experience and gave me courage to want to do it because I think I just felt rejected and weird and obviously life goes by and whatever. But again, there's a lot to the story. There's a lot I'm not saying. There's a lot that's not mine to tell. But this kind of gave me impetus to be like, life is short. Maybe we can reconnect. And also how beautiful it felt to like have balance brought in that way and to be fully embraced. And I know it was so healing for my mom, my dad, and definitely me. Okay, moving on to Mieselmeri, which is where my great-grandfather Antonio Ribaudo was from. This was my mom's grandpa. My grand, like... This is so complicated to talk about. My mom's grandpa, so it's her dad's dad. We went back to his hometown. We were the first of our ancestors to go back there in 123 years. My mom's grandpa never made it back home to Sicily. Neither did her grandma, who was also from that town, Miesel Mary. I cannot even tell you how much I felt. the presence of my ancestors when we were in Measle Mary. I felt like they were walking with me. And I don't know how to explain this other than every description I've ever heard of my great grandpa. I felt like in my mind's eye, I saw him next to me or behind me and walking with me and taking me on a tour of his hometown. And I felt he was so proud that we were there. And the minute we set foot on that land, I just felt a thank you go through my body, like, thank you for coming home. My mom told me that as her grandfather was dying, he kept saying to her, remember Meisel Mary, remember Meisel Mary. And he wrote it down on a piece of paper for her. And I don't know, maybe he did that with all of his grandchildren. I'm not sure. But just the fact that he kept saying to my mom, remember Meisel Mary, remember Meisel Mary, and she was the first one to go back in 123 years. It's just... It was like he was giving her the map. It was like he knew she would take the message and go back. And so let me tell you the little story of Measle Mary. We left Marsala with my dad's cousins to go to Measle Mary. It was really important to us because Aunt Santa had just passed away. That was where her dad was from. She never got to go there. We brought one of the prayer cards from her funeral that had her beautiful face on it. And we wanted to leave it in a church in Measle Mary. And so we went there. We Googled churches. It's a church. teeny tiny mountain town. Okay. There's a reason my family has never been back there. It's not the easiest to get to, especially if you don't have a car. There's not a ton going on there. Like, again, Marsala must have been really hard to leave. Misalmeri, it must have been excruciating to leave their family and everything they knew. But there wasn't any, like, picturesque scenes to speak of. It didn't look like there was even today much opportunity. And it was just a tiny town. So we look for a church. We find one. The doors are closed. We're like, we really wanted to leave this prayer card in a church. So we stand outside the church. We get into our Catholic roots. We say our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be. We do three of those in Aunt Santa's name. Then we do one in all of our ancestors' name, in my Uncle Tony, who passed away last year, his name, in all of the people who we love who have passed. And we were like, okay, well, I guess we couldn't find a church that was open. We're sad. We get the name of the church and think maybe we can reach out and have them say a mass in Aunt Santa's name. Sweet. keep taking the prayer card with us because we don't know where to go. But we want to still try to leave it somewhere in Measle Mary. And all of a sudden we hear church bells. There's another church. And so we walk up. The church is open. We walk in. We start looking around. It's a beautiful church. We start praying and we're taking pictures of the church. And all of a sudden, this guy comes up to us, and I'm certain he's going to tell me I'm in trouble. I'm like, oh, no. So he starts talking to us, and then I get out my Google Translate, and I write down what we're trying to do. And he's like, no, I know you're taking pictures. I want to turn on the lights for you so you can take a nice picture. I go, oh, we're American. He goes, I know. And of course, all this is in Italian. I explained to him, you know, my Aunt Santa just passed away. Her dad was from here. We wanted to leave this prayer card and take some photos. He starts explaining all these things to us. He tells us like, this is the patron saint of Mesalmary. And it's fascinating. In Sicily, they're much more okay with death than we are here. Like literally there's the skull of the patron saint proudly displayed in front of the church. Anyway, this guy is super nice. He takes us back into this little back church office and there's a priest back there. And he hasn't gotten into his garb yet, but he introduces him. We don't know 100% if his name was Father Rosario or if he was saying, say the rosary and saying, I think Rosario means rosary. Let me look it up. Yeah, I think he might have been saying, say the rosary. But we thought his name was Father Rosario. Whatever it may be, we'll call him Father Rosario for the sake of this. He was a wonderful man. He started talking to us and we told him about Aunt Santa and he said, oh, like we're going to say the mass in her name. So there was a mass that just happened to be going on 45 minutes after we met this guy. So he commits to saying the mass in Aunt Santa's name. And he tells us, so this church was erected in 1885. My great-grandfather was born in 1887. He says, this is the only church that existed at that time. So your great-grandfather was baptized here. Like this was the only church. So he would have been baptized. So it's even more powerful and more beautiful. We're lighting candles before mass starts saying, you know, prayers for all of our ancestors. Then all of a sudden he walks up and we didn't know like how he would be dedicating the mass to Aunt Santa. He walks up to the front of the church and he says, Santa Josephine, which was Aunt Santa's name, her first name and middle name. And then he said, daughter of Antonio. And just to hear her name said. in this holy space in the town that her father was from as the first people that have come back here in 123 years was just so beautiful. And I felt the presence of my ancestors standing around me. I've never felt more connected to God. I mean, truly, I felt the Holy Spirit running through my body. It was so powerful. It was truly a miracle. Thank you, Father Rosario. And thank you, Miesel Mary. And people came up to us after and they said, oh, you're Rabados. You know, of course, all in Italian. We know Rabados here. They're really nice. Ribaudo is how you say it. And my mom's maiden name is spelled R-I-B-A-U-D-O. Ribaudo. And they said they're really nice people. It was just really beautiful and really healing. So yes, this is my little message to you. Your ancestors want you to come back home and will perform miracles to let you know how grateful they are that you're there. Also, if you want to feel the presence of God, go back to where you're from. Whatever your spiritual practice is, whether you believe in God or the universe or just like energy, something comes over you when you step foot on the soil. that your ancestors walked. And that brings me to the miracle of Cicely Joanne. Joanne is my mother's name. If you've listened to the podcast for a long time, you know my incredible mom. She is hilarious. She is incredible. She is one of the kindest people I've ever met. Something she is not is calm. This is a miracle of Cicely Joanne. In Cicely, my mother was calm. She literally did not have anxiety. This is a person that almost talked herself out of going on this incredible trip because she was so anxious. My therapist said this thing because I brought this up to her and she was like, it's almost like your mom had this piece of her that was missing or like that was to the side. It was always like kind of askew. And when she stepped foot in Sicily, it just kind of like fell into place and brought this true self like, oh, this is the true Joanne. This is the Joannie before the world wound her up. I also think that our ancestors were helping her float on a little Sicily cloud. Yeah, just something clicked into place for her there. And of course, we're on vacation and we're away from home and all that was really good for her. But there was something about the land. I just know that with every essence of who I am. Again, stepping foot on the place where you're from, I really think it... does something to your physiology, to your emotional body, to your spiritual body. And my mom was a prime example. Like never in my life has my mom been the calmest of me, my mom and my dad. On this trip, things were completely flipped on their head. My dad was by far the most anxious and wound up. I was pretty much the same as normal, except I was a little stressed because they were relying on me a lot, which is fine. And then my mom was the calmest. She didn't complain about not feeling good a single day. Like every day, she was just happy. It was so, so, so beautiful. So that's the miracle of Cicely Joanne. If you're anxious, try going back to where you're from. See if it helps. Who knows? In relation to that, this is just something interesting that I've noticed. And maybe you'll see it in your relationships. Maybe not. So I think something interesting can happen when in a partnership there are two people and one person who runs anxious and another person who is like usually considered the calm, confident one. Sometimes when that person deals with their anxiety, then the other person can like rise to the occasion even more or like focus on themselves or whatever it is. But I think something that also can happen is when one person puts their anxiety down. The other person picks it up because the balance and the force is now thrown off. And I'm not saying that's the main reason, but it was really interesting that my dad had this like massive uptick in anxiety. And I think part of that was that he was driving a six shift through basically like closet size roads. But I say closet size. I mean, like if you were watching video right now, I have a hallway. The roads in Measlemary, the town where my mom's grandfather is from, were basically the size of this hallway. And my dad was driving a crossover with a six shift through those roads. So that would make anyone anxious. But I do think it's interesting that the week and a half that my mom was there, she had not a lick of anxiety. And my dad had more than I've ever seen him with. So that's something to watch out for in our relationships. To notice, like, are you... balancing the anxiety? Like, could there be a world in which you both have peace? And if it feels like there has to be anxiety present or that tension present in order for the relationship to be, how can you start working away from that dynamic? Again, that's something I'm kind of still working through, but it was interesting and I think there's something there. Okay, so now some funny ones. We went to a Michelin star restaurant. I don't know if you know what that is. I don't know if I know what that is. Basically, it's a really fancy restaurant, okay? I mean, it was expensive, but it wasn't, like, crazy expensive. Like, it was about the price of anywhere you'd go that's, like, relatively nice in L.A. The first thing I saw on the menu was horse meat, which... I don't begrudge anyone the kind of meat they eat because listen, if we eat meat, we can't really judge any other culture for eating whatever kind of meat they think is normal. Like if we eat mammals, like who are we to judge other people for also eating mammals that are just different than the ones that we like? But personally, like I have no desire to ever eat a horse. And I found out from my cousins, like horse meat is relatively normal in Sicily, but it just... it was like upsetting to see that as the first thing on the menu is someone who doesn't want to eat a horse. And it kind of went all their foods were small on this Michelin star menu. I just like the main takeaway is Michelin star restaurants are a scam. I hate small foods and I don't want to eat horse. And I think if you, if that is your truth, that's fine. Like the normal, delicious eggplant Parmesan that we had earlier in the day. was way better than the weird little eggplant balls that they made. And by the way, it was like one ball because all food at Michelin star restaurants are small. Like I just, I don't know who you're trying to help Michelin star restaurants. Do you think you're cool? Cause you're serving food? That's a size of a dime because I don't think that's cool. I think that's rude. Like rule number one, have enough food for everybody at the party. Who's eating a dime size of food besides a really small infant? So anyway, I'm anti-Michelin star restaurants. I'm sure someone can change my mind about that. Some restaurant can change my mind about that. And I'm very anti-small foods. And I'm anti, like, foods trying to be cool for no reason. Like, just give me a large helping. Like, at least a normal size helping any day of the week. And not horse meat. Thank you. Okay. Another funny one, kind of, like, is Italians are going to do the things the way they want to do them. Like. What you want to do really matters not. It's like they're going to do things the way they should be done. And this is seen in a lot of different ways in the culture. One, like, again, going back to food, do not try to order a special thing like you will not get it. I have a lot of problems with this country. One thing I don't have a problem with in the United States of America, we know how to do condiments. We know how to do like special additions of food. If you try to make. any accommodations to your food in that country, it is not going to happen. So just get you get it the way you get it. And I do think that that comes from a beautiful place. It comes from a pride in the way things are done and like in a traditional way of doing things. It comes from there's a collectivist culture. It's like less so that individuals get their way and more so everybody's thinking about the community and how to best serve the community. Also, waiters are paid a decent wage, so they're not trying to like accommodate you. to get your tip. But sometimes a girl wants a sauce and I miss the sauces. So like that's one example of they're going to do things the way they're going to do. Another funny thing is like we would ask our cousins like, hey, can we meet at six? And they're like, we think 530. But with no explanation. And I just thought that was really funny. And this happened multiple times. And we were just like, OK, I guess we're meeting at 530. Another thing was, oh, my gosh. So pizzas. are typically eaten like by one individuals. It's not like in our country where we share pizzas. They're like decently sized, but like people usually just like to eat one pizza instead of like getting a few and sharing them if there's a big group. So, you know, my mom went to like take a slice of pizza because this night my cousins got one and got them cut up. By the way, they also don't come pre-cut. You have to ask for them to cut it. So keep that in mind when you're ordering pizza. But my cousins got it pre-cut up. so that we could all, you know, share and have different slices. And my two older cousins, Nicola and his wife Maria, were like not having it. Like my mom went to grab a slice of the pizza. And I think Nicola or Maria, I can't remember which one, literally took the pizza and like poured it all on their plate. Like the entire pizza. So it's like they just like things the way they like things and they do things the way they do things. Because of the way Italian culture... is in America, like Italian American culture. And because of the way Italian culture is portrayed in the media, I wasn't expecting that kind of rigidity. So that was interesting. Like there is a lot of fluidity to it, but like there also is a rigidity to it in a different way than I would have expected or known it from how it's manifested in America. And my final takeaway, go home while you can. There is so much happening in the world right now. It is so devastating as a human being who just wants humans to be safe. and to live free, and to not die, and to have the resources they need to live. Any deeply feeling human is struggling right now, and there's a lot of uncertainty. And I just can't stop feeling gratitude for the fact that we were able to go home. Who knows what's going to happen? I pray to God it's not true, but there could be a world war. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. None of us do. But right now... things are stable enough where in many places you can still go back to where your ancestors are from. And if you have that ability, if you have that physical ability, if you have that financial ability, if you have the ability to especially go stay with your family where you're from or to go with your family in your current country, take that opportunity to see where your roots are because you never know what could happen. My dad waited 72 years to go back to where he was from. And I just think, thank God we did. And also, I wish we had done it sooner. I wish that I had gotten to know them from the time I was one on. But at least we're doing it now. So if you can go to where you're from, especially right now when there's as much uncertainty as there is in the world, I highly recommend. you take a chance and do it because you never know what parts about yourself, your creativity, your heritage, your healing you might discover. And I'm sure many more revelations will come up. This was just a short list, but my number one is that family is everything. And family is what I'm most passionate right now about creating on. There's so much. pain and love and beauty and humor in family. Like family really captures every deep emotion. And so that's what I'm interested in creating from the beauty, the pain, the healing, the grief, the love, the joy, the laughter of family. So I think that's a ripe thing for any of us to create from no matter what our relationship with our family is, but also you. If that doesn't feel resonant, find what your main topic is. I think that might be my main takeaway. And remember, you have no idea how loved you are. There might be people all the way around the world who are thinking and dreaming of you and calling you home. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being part of the creative community. I adore you. I'm so grateful that you let me do this every week and to connect with you. It is my honor and my joy and my... amore. By the way, one thing you should know, we were telling all of them ti amo because like when you do Google Translate, that's how it says I love you. Ti amo basically means like I'm in love with you or I want you. So I was telling my cousins I want you for the past year. And when my dad first met my cousins, he was like ti amo, ti amo. So at the end of the day, Salvatore finally was like, you guys, you got to stop saying ti amo. It means I'm in love with you. It's not ti amo when it's your family. It's ti voglio bene. So if you have to tell anyone you're not in love with or you're not, you know, starting to fall in love with, I love you. That means I love you very much. Okay. Just I want to save you the mistake I made. Anyway. And thank you for listening. If you like what you heard today, remember to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Share the show with a friend and post about it on social media. Tag me at Lauren LaGrasso and add on Leisha and her creative and I will repost to share my gratitude. Also share the show with a friend. Podcasts are spread person to person. It helps so much if you can share the show with one friend. Thank you to Liz Full for the show's theme music. You can follow her at Liz Full. And again, thank you. My wish for you this week is that you trace some of the lines of your ancestry. If you can, start to dream about what it could look like to go back to the place that you're from and try to think about what, instead of what your genre is or exactly what you do, like what are your topics as a creative? What are you most passionate about right now? And also, what would you be inspired by in your own family to write about? People don't create from family enough. It happens, but like... I think because family is so complex and layered and sometimes painful, people are afraid to create from it because it's so deep. But I think we need to start writing about family more. Writing, creating, singing, making businesses around. Like family is something, it's integral to. all of our human experience. So yeah, those are my little call to actions for you. Okay. I love you so much. Te voglio tanto bene. Oh, let me look this up. Hold on. Okay. I'm going to say I love you and I believe in you in Italian. Te voglio tanto bene e ho fiducia in te. I love you and I believe in you. Talk with you next week.