Transcription Episode 8:

Better With time (Carms Malvone)

October 17, 2019

Listen to Carmela’s episode (available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Himalaya and Google Play) and hear her full story from our ‘Natural’ 2019 live show.

Clara Davis: You're listening to Unravel, the podcast, where we go behind and beyond stories featured at our monthly live shows. From Shanghai, I'm your host, Clara Davis.

STORY CLIP 1:

Carms Malvone: My husband wanted to meet me because he had heard about the fish lady’s daughter.  I swore I would never, never marry a foreigner, let alone an Italian—but Sandy was different.  Sandy was vibrant, he loved me unconditionally, we got married, we had three children.  

My twins are gonna be 50 in September, my daughter Rita is my best friend, life went on.

Clara Davis: Today’s episode features Carmela Malone, affectionately called ‘Carms’, who captured our hearts at our ‘Natural’ live show,  just last month.  Fondly renowned as our sagest storyteller to date, Carms shares wisdom and perspective gained from the ups and downs of a vibrant life—taking us from her traditional childhood growing up in her Brooklyn of the 1940s, to her life now as a 79 year old world traveler.  We think you'll hear why this story and this woman made such an impression on us and we're so grateful to her and her daughter Rita for introducing us.  We hope you enjoy my conversation with Carms.

INTERVIEW:

Clara Davis: First of all, thank you for being with us today.  One of our favorite stories from one of our favorite shows, so we’re so happy to have you here before you head off.  We met through your daughter Rita when you came to our show.

Carms Malvone: I think it was Pride?

CD: Yeah, our pride show in June!

CM: Yes, yes, yes.

CD: Can you re-explain to me for the listeners what you're doing here?

CM: Why am I in Shanghai?  Well my daughter lives here.  She's been living here for the past nine years and I have been visiting with her for the past eight, I missed a year because my dog was sick, but I come every year for at least three to four months.

CD: So lucky, what a lucky daughter and what a lucky Mother!  It's like the dream scenario.

CM: It really is…she fills my space.

CD: You started your story by taking us back to Brooklyn. The kind that we can't see or find any more.

CM: You will never see the Brooklyn that I grew up in, ever again.  I am on a site that's called, ‘We Grew up in Williamsburg’, and were all in our 70’s, in our 80’s…so we're going back to when Brooklyn was our Brooklyn, and every one of us when we talk about our Brooklyn we always say there's never going to be another one; there’ll never be kids playing on the street again, there’ll never be neighbors sitting on stoops talking to each other. What used to be a 35 dollar a month rent in an apartment railroad rooms—now, you're lucky if you can pay 200 dollars a month for the same railroad room. 

CD: Do you know much about how your parents met and what brought them to Brooklyn in the first place, or were they both born there as well? 

CM: No, my father came from Italy and he was sponsored in by a cousin.  And my mother was born here, she was the first child to be born here, my aunt was born in Italy.  How did they meet...

I’ve heard different versions.  I’ve heard that my mother was standing on the corner and my father saw her and wanted to meet her, then I heard it a match, so I don't know really how they met—but as tall as my father was, that’s how short my mother was.  And she was pretty, but he was the most handsome man—old-fashioned because he came from a real old-fashioned era, times with different when he was born.  But he came here, he left his family behind, and he came here when he was 28 by himself and how he his life was—I regret not getting into it, but we don't know too much about it.

CD: Did your parents ever get back to Italy?

CM: They went back when they sold the business and then after my father died, my mother went back without him and stayed with my uncle, his brother. Yeah, they loved her over there, and she stayed for a couple of months.  My mother and father were together 24/7…so when she lost him, she really lost three-quarters of her life.

CD: And what was it like growing up in your household at that time with your parents?

CM: What was it like?  Well, there were good and bad days.  We had a business, it was as a fish story…My father, would make whatever he could make on his own without having to buy it, like he made his own filets…So he stayed in the store and my mother took care of customers. I, on the other hand, would come home from school, do my homework in-between customers.  Can I tell you that I had a horrible life no…they were good people. 

There were difficulties along the way.  My father was old, old-fashioned even with my mother, she was a ball of fire…I think I take after her.  She always had a smile on her face, she always had a dirty joke to tell.  Yeah, that was growing up.

CD: And do you remember, I mean—what were your dreams interests aspirations of that time—like when you were a teenage girl, where did you see yourself heading?

CM: Well, I wanted to head to college, but my mother said, “What do you have to waste that money, for?—you’re gonna get married and then you won't need the education.”

So I never went to college.

What were my aspirations? I don't know, I just, I wanted to move out I got married late in life, I got married when I was 28—no, no back then—because when I was growing up, when you graduated high school, you walked down the aisle and then you walked down the wedding aisle, so there was none of this glamorous life, you went from high school to wedding.  Kids today don't realize life years ago, the ultimatum was: if you move out, you don't come back.

I could just see a parent saying that to a kid that traipsing across Russia.  Yeah, I just wanted…I wanted a different life than what I had and I wasn't strong enough to fight for it.

STORY CLIP 2:

Sandy went to work for the city of New York, and one Sunday morning, as he was parking his car in the parking lot, he was attacked.  He was attacked so brutally that they left him for dead.

What do we do?  I had just started going back to work, Sandy stayed home.  Our roles were reversed, but we survived.  I finally retired, Sandy…I retired, we were happy. We were like lovers all over again. And then a very unexpected visitor came.

My husband was diagnosed with lung cancer and in three months he was gone. How do I do, what do I do?  Married 41 years, he's my soulmate, he’s the man that I went to for all my problems, I had to do something.

I listen to the words of Red…from Shawshank Redemption…and he said, you can get busy living or you could get busy dying.  I chose to live.

Clara Davis: The loss of her husband came as a shock and marked the start of a new chapter. It wasn't in her plans, but plans change and now Carms would have to change too...I spoke with Carms about meeting the man who became her husband, the life they built together, and the accident that redefined their roles within their marriage.

INTERVIEW:

Clara Davis: But you met your husband, they met through…you said, the store.

Carms Malvone:  Yes, his mom would come into the store and evidently, she would say, “Oh, the fish lady's daughter she’s so nice…”

Because Sandy came from Italy, he came from post-war Italy, and it was very, very bad.  So, at 12 years of age,  Sandy went to work on the tank ships…so he didn't have that great of life either, but he was really a good, good person. I'm crying for him today, 'cause I miss him so.

But at any rate, he...yeah, so we went out and I liked him from minute one because he wasn't old- fashioned like my parents were.  I smoked in front of him, I couldn't smoke in front of my parents, actually on the first date he bought me a pack of cigarettes and we were comfortable with each other. 

What was my first impression? Well, we laugh about this because, when he came in to meet me, it was a Saturday afternoon and I had my Saturday cleaning clothes on and he came in and he said…we were talking, and he wanted me to go out with him on Sunday and he said to me, “I want you to know,”—in his accent, “I want you to know that I walk a straight line.”

CD: What did he mean by that?

CM: If he goes out with me, it's me—and if I go out with him, there's nobody else, so... 

CD: And how long after meeting him, did you realize you wanted to marry him? 

CM: Well, let’s see, we got married in ’68,  I must have met him in ’66.  So, what were my feeling towards him?  He was a very kind, giving, person and I always said, he was a better father than I was a mother.  Did I fall in love with him immediately?  No, I don't know, I liked him immediately. He was different than other fellows that I had gone out with.

CD: And what was it like for the two of you to start a family?

CM: We got married in May, I got hepatitis in June… so I had to quit work, Sandy always had two jobs and then when the twins were born, and he was working two jobs, the only feeling he could do at that time was the 11 o'clock shift, 'cause at that time he was on his way to his second job.

So how did we live together? Very good. My husband loved to go out to dinner, he never demanded anything from me.  Yeah, we had a really…we had a nice life.

I have to say we were very happy, but a scary experience when my twins were born they were born a month early.   I didn't feel good that morning and I said to Sandy—it was a Sunday—I said, I really think we should go to the doctor. I called him up, and he said to me, "Come on over. I'm at the hospital.”

When I got in there, he said, “You're in labor.” 

I said, “I can't be in labor, I still have another month to go.”

He says, “Well,” he says, “your labor.”

And then all of a sudden I hear him say get two incubators ready, these are twins.

And I said to him, “You’re not giving me twins.”

He said, “No, why?”

“'Cause I only have one bassinet!”

CD: You didn't know that it was...

CM: Yeah, that's a scary thing.  And my husband stayed downstairs, thinking that I was going to have my exam and come right back down, so they sent a nurse to tell him that I was ready to have a baby. I was in labor, and then when the twins were born, so he tells me, the doctor came with the ‘V’ sign and Sandy he said, “Victory?”

And he said, “No, twins.”

And my husband fainted. That was a scary moment. 

CD: That is a crazy moment.

CM: No, because it was a shock, it was a shock.

CD: Oh my gosh…

CM: Yeah, no one knew that these twins were coming.

CD: In your story, you mentioned that Sandy was attacked.  And I wanted to know a little bit more about what happened and what shifted in your relationship.

CM: Sandy was an air-conditioning and heating engineer for the City of New York, he had a great city job.  He was two weeks away from taking his chief’s test, that would have made him be in a nice place. It was Sunday morning, I got a phone call from my neighbor across the street to tell me that Sandy was in an accident and that he was going to pick me up and take me to the hospital.

Well, what happened is Sandy parked his car in the parking lot of the building where he worked, and these two guys, jumped him and beat him.  Sandy had 150 stitches over his eyebrow, they took a chunk of his cheek, and the plastic surgeon did such a job, that he had to pull skin from one place and put it over so that he would not have this opening…they knocked the iris of his eye out, which back then no one had experience of what to do with it, but we found someone and they just beat him…Well, he became very bitter because he couldn't go to work anymore, he never took the Chief’s test and his bitterness rolled off to me.  He was fearful of going out by himself. If we took a walk, he was always looking behind us, over his shoulder.

How old would he had been? Oh, I must have been about 50-52, because I went back to work at that age.  Yeah, I had just gone back to work when this happened.

So our roles became reversed. He was the homebody and I was the worker…about the 17th year that I was working, he said to me, "It's time for you to retire,” he said, “I've been alone enough.”

And it was good 'cause we had two and a half good years before he got sick.  And when I did retire, we were out every day, taking rides to Long Island or Upstate New York, or some place and he, he would come into the bedroom and he would say…he called me Vigiola, he would say, “Vigiola, wake up,” he said, “Come on, we’re going out.”

I said, “Where we going.”

He says, “I don't know, wherever the car, takes us.”

Yeah, he was special.

STORY CLIP 3:

Carms Malvone:  And all of the sudden, this alien comes out.  Who is she?  It’s me!  I unlocked me... Me, who was afraid to make a decision, afraid to make a mistake, someone who was timid.  You gotta understand, I was very shy at one time.

What happens? She disappeared and in her place, is me.  Me, who isn't afraid to be authentic, who isn't afraid to say what's on her mind.  Me, who was never allowed to be out, because of my crazy parents so all of the sudden—she’s sociable, she's personable. Hey ma, look at me—I’m sitting at a bark, talking to strangers, having a drink!

Clara Davis: Carms rediscovered herself in a new way, after the loss of her husband.  The way she was raised, the way she'd raised your own family, that was behind her and what was in front of her—well, that was up to her.

We spoke about the release that accompanied the pain in getting to know herself again in the wake of Sandy's death, and about how she has lived intentionally and courageously ever since.  One of the first things Carms told me, when I started speaking to her about her story, was that she doesn't have a bucket list, she has what she calls a portfolio of all the incredible adventures and experiences she sets her sights on for herself with her daughter Rita by her side. 

This shift in language and perspective from bucket list suggesting the impending end of something to portfolio suggesting a process, a journey to me, symbolizes the kind of person Carms is, living in the moment, honoring the past, and hoping for the future.

INTERVIEW:

Clara Davis: In your story, you talked to us a lot about unlocking these parts of yourself that you hadn't known or you kind of—

Carms Malvone: —You know what it was?  I came from a very structured house and even though my husband was good, it was still...because I was raised to be the Italian housewife, and I kept that.  Sandy didn't demand it but that was imbedded in me...so we had that kind of respect—my daughter will say that nobody loved each other the way two did.  I never took advantage of him, and he never took advantage of me, but there was a release within me…

I think it's because in my heart I felt I lost the most important thing in my life.  What could happen to me now? There's no more hurt left in this world to give me and finding this kind of an attitude  allows me to not take bullshit from anybody.

I don't know if that's gonna be allowed, but I don't have to take bullshit from anybody anymore.  I don't have to be the one to say I'm sorry, even if it wasn't my mistake.  I don't have to be the one that's the nurturing one, I want be nurtured…that’s the difference now.

CD: How long did it take you to kind of have that realization that you needed to get busy living?

CM: Sandy died in January, I was told by my children, you better go to Florida mom, because it's winter, you don't drive in the snow.  So I went to Florida on February 9th, and I think February 10th is when I felt I had to start living.  I don't think I ever grieved the right way, I didn't pound my chest and say, “God, why did you do this to me?”

I picked myself up.  I know I got strength from Sandy, I know I got strength from God, I’m a very spiritual person…and I started, I have my moments, I have my emptiness a lot, but I started because I had no choice.  And people that say, "Oh I can't do this and I can't do that. And my wife died and my husband died.”   

Life is gonna pass…and I have a pretty decent life in Florida, I have friends, I work at the church, I love the theater.

CD:  You said in your story and you've told me that your daughter Rita is your best friend.

CM: My best friend.

CD: Have you and Rita always been this close or has your relationship evolved? 

CM: Rita and I were always close, we were always, always close. 

CD: Every daughter, and every mother's dream.

CM: Yes, yes, from minute one, we had a great relationship.  She’s my little girl.

CD:  Can you tell us a little bit about your portfolio?

CM: What would be inside of it? Whenever I do something unusual, I always say, “Well, I could put this in my portfolio.”

I love my kitchen, I love to travel, I love to explore new things…inside of my portfolio are places that most people haven't gone to. I went to North Korea.. I went to North Korea.

CD: When?

CM: About four years ago.  With Rita and another couple

CD: What was that trip like?

CM: That was surreal, it’s the saddest country you’d ever want to visit…it’s unexplainable.

CD: That sounds like quite a trip…

CM: Or having my six feet of intestines taken out in Alexandria, Egypt.

CD:  Yeah, tell me that story again. 

CM: I went on this hot air balloon ride and they didn't have a step stool for me to step on, to get out of the basket so trying my best to get out of the basket, I ruptured my intestine and I had to have emergency surgery in Egypt.   Alexandria, Egypt…yeah.  You like that part of my portfolio? 

CD: Wasn't that when you guys were the elevator and Rita met that... 

CM: She met an oncologist and he said, “So how are you enjoying your trip?”

And she said, “Not too much, my mother is not feeling well.”

And he gave her a card, and he said, "I'm an oncologist, I am here on a convention, but I want you to call this doctor, Dr. Muhammad.”

And we did.  I went in for x-rays, the doctor came to see me, and he said I'm doing surgery this evening…he said if not I could die, because my intestines were gangrene.

CD:  Do you, or you and Rita, have any upcoming plans or goals that you're especially excited about?

CM: Yeah, I was...well, I'm going home on Tuesday primarily because I have doctor appointments, but if I get a clean slate and everything is okay, I am coming back to China and I'm spending the holidays here.

CD:  Now you’ve been coming here for eight years, to visit Rita.  What do you make of Shanghai? What are your impressions of this city?

CM: I absolutely love it, I have no hesitation as far as going places by myself. I love food shopping here and I'll take myself...and I’ll just wander neighborhoods.  Rita’s Ayi is amazing.  She treats me like a mother.  I love it here.  I’m sorry I'm going home.

STORY CLIP 4:

Carms Malvone: I like me, I like being silly, I like being with young people because as you scan see ‘me’ is new. She's recently born, so she is okay with young people.  Me loves to wear silly hats, she loves to dance— Oh my God—I could get up on a dance floor by myself!  I don't need a partner.  

But me is okay. We survived. My Brooklyn is no longer the Brooklyn that I grew up with, she became the most expensive place in New York to live. She changed, I changed, I think we both did okay.

I just want to say that if you look for your ‘me’, go find him or her…go deep inside of yourself, let her be liberated.  Find your me, and soar.

Clara Davis:  Carms left us all with a message we won't forget, and hers is a journey that reminds us to treasure every day, every experience, and never feel like it's too late to change or grow.  

I asked her about what it was like to share her story and if there was any additional advice she could leave us with, so we can keep channeling her incredible energy and zest for living.

INTERVIEW: 

Clara Davis: So you came to our June pride show, I met you, you watched that show, and then by the next month you were ready and willing to share your story with us.

Carms Malvone: Well, the way I heard it... 

CD: We recruited you!  But I'm curious, given all of these different experiences you've had over the last nine years, and the last eight in Shanghai, what was that experience like sharing your story with that audience?

CM: It was a magical experience, it was great. I didn't think that I would be the way I was up there.   I was very comfortable, I don't know why I was so comfortable.  I don't know, I thought it was for me it was okay, it was and I think I just kind of left my ‘real self’ and became ‘me’ and that's the me that I really am.  The old me,  she doesn't exist anymore.

Yesterday, last night…we went to a Rotary dinner, I became an honorary member they presented me with a t-shirt.

CD: That's so nice.

CM: I mean…how do these things happen to me?  I mean, it's me, I'm a Brooklynite…I’m not educated.  You have to understand that I'm not an educated person. Street smarts, I got them.

CD:  But I think you live your life, and you put out so much energy into the world and I feel like now it's just coming back, coming back at you.

CM: Yeah, but I'm very fortunate, fortunate that I Rita, who has exposed me to a lot of the world. I don't think I would have seen this world without her.

CD: Having gone through the transformation that you describe in your story, what advice would you give to women entering school, marriage, family, all of the different phases of life?  What wisdom would you impart on me, on us.  
CM: Well, you’re a different person than I grew up to...I had to reach 80 years of age to be you. Most women today, do not have the upbringing that I had.  My daughter moved halfway around the world, I never said to her you can't go.  I said to her, what would your father say, he would go— pack up and go.

I would tell them, be as independent as your mind allows you to be.  It's a new world out there. I'm jealous of the independence that women have, young women have today.  To come out of college and and go live across the ocean.  I couldn't move around the block.

Don’t give up your dream. Don't wait until you’re 80 years old to make your dream, do it while you can.  Live you life as beautiful and as magical as you want it, that’s all I could tell them.

CD: I’ll take it.  I am so grateful Carms, that you first of all shared your story at our show that was such a gift to us and the audience, and I'm so thankful that you came in today to talk to me.

CM: Oh, my pleasure, really.

CD: I look forward to catching up with you on your next visit to Shanghai.

CM: Oh God, let's pray that everything goes well and I'll be on the next plane. It was my pleasure to be here. I hope I didn't make a fool it of myself.

CD:  Never.

Clara Davis: We’ve come to the end of the first season of our podcast.  It has been an absolute dream and an incredible opportunity for us to dive deeper into some of our favorite stories from across more than two years of live shows produced here in Shanghai.  I just want to take a moment to thank all the storytellers who came on this journey with us for season one and say a very special thank you to Sarah Boorboor for her tireless editing and production and passion and Ricardo Valdez aka Cardi V for putting up with us and sharing his expertise with us so generously and gifting us with original music we love.

Thank you to Robin Popa for doing our visual design, to Jim Demuth and Nowness Studio, to Yong-Yi Chiang for supporting the production of this podcast and to the entire Unravel team and community for their support and love for stories.  Producing this podcast has been a dream come true for us and we cannot wait to see what's next. Thank you, our listeners, for listening, subscribing, reviewing and recommending. We want to hear from you, so please don't hesitate to reach out at hello@unravelstorytelling.com, we hope you stay tuned for season two and if you're in Shanghai, stay tuned for more information on our finale event, November 14th, where we’ll be bringing back together all the storytellers from season one.

I'm your host, and the founder of Unravel Clara Davis, thanks for being a part of our story…