The Black Scarf: Goal #2

For Christmas, my Nona (Italian for "Grandma") knitted me a black scarf.

The scarf holds much more meaning to me, of course, than just some black yarn tied together, or weaved - however that's done.
I never did stop to wonder how she became such a wonderful seamstress. My grandma had to learn to knit from somewhere didn't she? In fact, she has been an exceptional seamstress since before I can remember. I have picture of my sisters and I in Easter dresses she sewed for us.
It was a cold day in December, my Twenty Fourth birthday actually, a day I planned to sulk away at the thought of my youth slipping away from me, that I instead sat down with my grandmother, and slipped into hours of conversation that I will remember for the rest of my life.



There are moments in life when everything around you seems to fall apart, as I previously demonstrated in my first blog, and there are moments when everything stands still and you are absorbed completely in the beauty of the moment. The only thing I felt absorbed in at this moment was myself.
I sat in a quiet, still room listening to my Nona lose herself in memories of her brother, and best friend. Two people who had tragically passed away nearly a year ago. Tears glazed her aged, and wrinkling eyes as I found myself in tears of my own shame. I give myself panic attacks when my double cappuccino with one pump of vanilla isn't made right while the woman in front of me was still suffering the loss of not only a brother - but over seventy years of shared memories. A sadness I am no where near able to understand.
It was then that I realized; life is too short to worry about the petty things. The grades, the right school, the cute guy, the best job. Hell, I'm the black sheep right? So, I started asking her questions....

Her thick, spanish accent began to speed up with excitement, even slipping into full spanish to which I had to kindly remind her: I did not speak a word of.
"You are a disgrace" she sweetly informed me,
Thanks Nona, my next goal will now be to learn Spanish.

After a longer conversation with my Nona, I realized; this woman has a lot to say. So, I began my second, more spontaneous, goal. And yes, this was at the suggestion of George the wise...
I turned on my computer, turned it into a recording device, and said "tell me everything".

Welcome to story time with Nona, get ready for a history lesson.


"Tell me about your mother" I began with.
Through hours of conversation, giggles, and several photo albums I never even knew existed.... this is what I came to discover.

Now, I knew my Nona came from Peru, and was raised there... but our family in fact began in Spain.
Once upon a time there lived a man name Manuel Aguirre. He left spain on a ship .... not just any ship .... a Pirate Ship.

"Wait..... what?" I believe was my response as my Nona burst into fits of giggles and laughter.

Turns out, to my dismay, he was not in fact a pirate, there is no pirate blood in my family, he was beaten by the pirates, and cleaned the decks. Hence his decision to jump ship and run away in Peru.
In Peru he met a beautiful woman named Clara Mena, and they had four children; Alfonzo, Clara, Anna Luvinda - her mother, and Juan.

We continued to flip through photos when she suddenly ran like an excited little girl to pull a few framed pictures off of the wall. Upon returning she pointed out a rather finely dressed woman with her hair elegantly slung back.

"This is Barbara, my father Francisco's mother" she leaned closer to me with a mischievous smile "She was a Madame" she whispered.
"Uhm... What's a Madame" I replied feeling left out of an inside joke
"She ran a whore house"
"............oh..... right"

After the more scandalous, and adventurous stories we moved on through the photo album until we reached a photo of her mother, Anna Luvinda. She was absolutely beautiful. The picture was in sepia tones, her dark hair fell in waves just above her shoulders as she stared serenely out into the distance.


Anna Luvinda was a mother she would never know, she died six months pregnant with her fourth child, when my Nona was only two years old. It was several years later after her death that her father Francisco Altuna married Anna Luvinda's sister, my Nona's Aunt Clara who raised her as a mother. It was Clara who taught my Nona how to sew...
My Nona, her two sibling, and three step sibling grew up on a farm in PIta Peru while their father Francisco worked at a cotton factory in Sullana.
My Nona was nineteen when she met a studly, young Italian man doing construction work on the roadside who liked to call himself "Joe Hawk". (This was going to be his movie star name when Hollywood discovered him).
They were married in 1954, a while later my father was born, several months after that they moved to New York. Which is where they stayed for Nine and a half years until their move to the great city of Glendale.

Now, this is, of course, a long story short. I could probably write a book containing the rest of the history of all of my family, and the beautiful insanity of Vitello. I'm sure it would be the next hit series on HBO, and win numerous Golden Globes.
But, This is not a book, it is a blog.

In all seriousness though; my goal in this journey back in time with my Nona turned into a journey of self discovery. Now, I had toyed with the idea of blogging about some great discovery I was going to make about myself, something of course deep and philosophical that would get me recognition with, say, Barbara Walters. ... I did not expect that discovery to be self centeredness.

Life is too short to not know where you come from. It is written into our souls, our family, our ancestors have passed along traits we are stuck with whether we like it or not. It is only meant to be appreciated.
I looked through the aged, and wilting old photos of my ancestors and even saw traces of my aunts, and of my sisters, and wondered which of their traits each of us may posses. I looked at the beautiful picture of Anna Luvinda, my great, great grandmother, who sat serenely in this picture staring off into the distance, and wondered; what was going through her mind at this moment?
I could have never known any of this. I could have stomped off angrily that my cappuccino did not taste right, and never known the depth of my background, and only a very small part of my background. Which makes me wonder; How much can we learn from our elders, and our elders elders if we just slow down a minute, and not focus on ourselves ....

for just a minute?

For Christmas, my Nona knitted me a black scarf. I love this black scarf, it holds history to me. It holds memories of story times I never really got before with my Nona. I look at this scarf and I feel more confident in the path life put me on right now. It seems I need to be constantly reminded of this, but this is my new reminder that; it is ok to slow down and breathe life in sometimes. It is ok to take life one step at a time, and I am not a failure because I cannot pass a math class to get into a University.
If I am seventy years old and all I have are stories similar to: "my grandfather escaped a pirate ship", or "my father's mother-in-law was a scandalous, Madame" to tell my grandchildren .... if I grow old to be just like my grandmother .... I will be more than alright with that.


Until next month,
- Pepper

"Time makes you bolder, children get older, and I'm getting older too" - Stevie Nicks.

Goal #1 "Pepper"

Dear friends,

it has been a long, cold winter season, and I have been through a whirlwind of emotions. I apologize for the slight delay of blogage. Yes I just made that word up.
But! Here I am back in full swing, and ready to conquer the blogging world once again!

And I present to you now.... goal number one



A dear friend of mine once said “There is a stripper inside of every girl”.

Yes, I’m back, and with a vengeance.

Now, I know what you must be thinking at this point; "she's given up on life and become a stripper - great".
Well, no, stop. Let me explain.

To begin with a little back ground information; A long time ago one of my friends and I decided it would be a great adventure to try pole dancing. We also thought it would be a great adventure to hunt haunted graveyards and just ended up scared shitless, but that's neither here nor there. So, we looked into classes, and did a lot of procrastinating. It was, of course, through the webs of life, and school, and work, and everything I am now escaping that this never happened when we planned it.
My friend eventually moved away, and I regret having never been able to have this great experience with her, but yes, I signed up finally for pole dancing classes with a company called S-Factor on my own, like a big girl.


Here is what I learned about S-Factor within the first couple of weeks I began researching, and diving into this company; Long story short this company was founded by a woman named Shiela Kelley. Now, Shiela was not always into pole dancing, she was actually a ballet dancer, actress, film maker - there's basically nothing the woman doesn't do, but as an actress taking on the role (ironically) of a stripper she found herself in love with the dance, but not with the label it was given.
After taking it up independently in her home, and getting into incredible shape, she slowly began teaching independently in her home as well. Well, one of her students/friends happened to be Desperate Housewives Terry Hatcher (Lois Lane to those troopers who remember). Terry eventually ratted Shiela out while being interviewed on an episode of Oprah, which inevitably led to this, now growing, pole dancing franchise.
What caught my attention for the most part was Shiela's mission; "Helping women become comfortable with, able to express, and own their wholesome sexuality. Seeing the world through the eyes of women, and making sure that our woman’s gaze defines everything we do and say and live"
A place I could be free to be a woman. To indulge in my beauty, and body, and sexuality, free of the judgement of what society tells me I should look like. Free to be me. How liberating as a woman....


So, why pole dancing you ask? Or better yet, as my mother asked "why couldn't you just try belly dancing?" Well, let's go back to high school. Back in the ice age, when I was in high school, I was not one to have very high self esteem. I was not the pretty cheerleader with scores of boys after me, I was never the confident, sexy, cool girl everyone wanted to be around to earn popularity.
In fact, the only identity I really had was "that home schooled girl". So, really, I hadn’t a clue who I was or where I fit in. As I got older, and began college I got even more confused about what life was really about, and I caught wind of this lie I fell for (like a moth to a flame) about how girls were suppose to be pretty, and skinny if they ever wanted a boyfriend, or confidence for that matter... well I just gave up, and developed an eating disorder.
Long, sad story, yes, and maybe someday I will write a book about it, but this is not the time nor place. This is about achieving not losing. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.
So, through many years of never feeling beautiful, or skinny enough, long conversations with dear, dear friends who, tried (and some really did) their best to cure me, over a year of therapy with a wonderful lady, I really did gain quite a bit of my confidence back.
But, through all of the fighting, and falling I went through with this particular struggle- I learned something that comes very strongly to my attention now.... when a woman is told by society, friends, boyfriends, children, etc... that she is not beautiful, or just not enough... something inside of her dies. As women we have this very strong voice, and sense inside of us that tells us our beauty is apart of what makes us feminine. Our beauty is what knits us together as a woman (men pay attention). When that piece of us dies it’s like that voice we are inevitably born with that whispers “not pretty enough” from birth suddenly starts screaming “Life’s not worth living anymore!!!”. So, we try.... and god bless us.... we try so damn hard to revive that dead, or missing part of us again. In fact, we try so hard that we go to the extremes sometimes of nearing death completely, of starving ourselves, of trying diets that make us eat raw chicken or vegan beef, of going absolutely insane....to be pretty.
Well, let me tell you something ladies; it is, I believe, incredibly healthy, and important for us to feel confident in our beauty, in our curves, our bodies, and our sexuality, and guess what? That does not mean starving ourselves to fit into those size two’s. Some of us *cough*me*cough* will not ever fit into a size two. But, that does not mean, by any way shape or form that we do not have beautifully crafted, GORGEOUS, and sexy bodies!! The beauty is in how different each one of us is uniquely crafted, and not only realizing that - but embracing it.
After learning Shiela's story I realized it was everything I stand for, and I was obviously called by higher powers to be apart of the S journey. I justified it as an "extension of therapy" as I walked down an L.A. alley behind Jack in the Box, through the giant, cast iron, purple doors of an abandoned warehouse where the classes were located. I had to hack it. I was called.

*note to men; don’t worry, this blog will not be all about women things, I will add plenty of gore later, and honestly - you will probably thank me later for writing this.


I ran into my first intro class twenty minutes late, because, you see, I have this problem with directions. So, of course my blood was racing through my veins, I was nervous, and I sort of wanted to kill myself since I am little OCD about being on time. The bouncy, little dance instructor with bright eyes, and a huge smile plastered to her face turned around and greeted me like an old friend
"Hi! What's your name?"
"Uhm... I'm.... late" I stuttered, and stumbled into the small class room similar to a ballet studio minus the mirrors and plus long, steel poles.
"That's ok! grab a mat and sit down"
I instantly felt my soul begin to adapt to the new environment, and my breath begin to steadily slow down as we began warm ups with some incredibly relaxing yoga, and pilates stretches.


I was sold by the end of class.


So, ladies. Any of you out there wanting to search out a unique way to find not a little, but a HUGE confidence boost in your beauty, wanting to get a healthy work out (let me tell you, I felt like a goddess leaving class, even though my thighs and abs were on fire the next day), or just wanting to have a little..... no let me rephrase that, A LOT of fun, with crazy wonderful instructors, and just being a girl then it is all about being an S factor girl.


With that said, feeling sexy, healthy, on top of the world, and B.E.A.utiful I would like to introduce you to “Pepper”.
Pepper is my inner stripper, and she stands for supporting women in feeling comfortable, and beautiful in their God-given bodies just the way He made them - despite what the Taylor Swift billboard you drive by everyday on your way to work tells you.
In all seriousness, I have never felt so confident in my beauty. I know I am repeating myself, deal with it, but I cannot praise this company enough. Confidence was a thing I never, ever thought I could achieve. I owe it to wonderful friends, therapists, and groups like S Factor who make a point to embrace beauty in its rawness and honesty.

Then again, maybe sometimes it just takes a pole dancing instructor screaming “That’s HOT ladies!!!” in your face for you to believe it.

You are all beautiful, now go feel sexy.

Pepper is happy.

Goal number one accomplished, and still kicking!!!

Pepper will be back at the end of the month!

- Pepper



"I want to be beautiful, make you stand in awe, look inside my heart and be amazed. I want to hear you say; who I am is quite enough, just want to be worthy of love, and beautiful...." Bethany Dillon