Coats: Chasms of Bliss

Notes on personhood

Mon Papa recently returned from a trip where he, together with Ma Maman, spent time exploring all inches of the land of his paternal grandma, Sardegna. She passed away when he was very young so he remembers her very faintly now, speaks fondly of Gianna, how she would call him ‘La Bellezza de la Nonna’ and pinch both his cheeks. Her maiden name was Carboni, and the elemental side of his family names together was something he’s always been proud of. The Sea of Marmara and Coal. He’d gone on this trip to visit the village she grew up in, the one that would carry infant Gianna into a woman who shed her name to become a Marmara. How strange it must be to leave a person within a maiden name behind, one day waking up as a new member of a new family, the remnants of the original cast away within the chronicles of a life. From coal to water, such was the destiny of Gianna. When Papa got to the village everyone always mentions as being her birthplace, he realised this to be untrue: ____ was created in 1930 by Mussolini. Gianna Carboni was born in 1895. There’s also a family legend: her dad had his own cork-top company. He lost his fortune, apparently, due to extreme generosity. The truth is, it was probably gambling. No one knows. “I really wish I’d known her better.” he’s been saying.

We’re hunting for her now, we want the story of Gianna. Knowing he had the wrong story makes him miss her even more. Knowing Gianna lost her coal along the way makes me sad. I, too, have always had so many questions about who swims in my blood, but I neve asked them. I yearned, as usual, to personally know the people within them exactly for who they were. Somehow, I knew the answers we had about these people I drew from were wrong and I didn’t want to know of mistakes.

I went to a very sad funeral once. The hole the person left behind was sad and all the questions that went with it too. It felt as though, through eulogies and tears, people were constructing unclear, hazy versions of that person. Palpable differences in the understanding of our closeness with them made conversation unnatural. Above all, I sensed a looming question: did anyone even know them?  

The parts of these people that know one knows of, where do they go? How many portraits and facts about people did we get wrong? Where were you born, Gianna? Gianna’s dad, was he generous or did he gamble? How did you become a Marmara? Are there papers with your pen on them still around, Gianna? What did you look like, Gianna? Your favourite food?

Very often I return to thinking and placing my own name: Marmara. A sea floating between two countries, Turkey and Greece. Aside from his immediate Alsatian and Italian blood pool, my dad found ancestors in Malta, my sister in Milos. My name is everywhere in Turkey. There’s another Alexia Marmara in Alexandria and she used to always add me on Facebook. I’m French though. At least that’s what my passport says. It also says I was born in England. Not a crumb of my family is English. I don’t look French, I don’t think. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I can’t eat bread. I feel French the most when I’m not in France. My accent is a little off when I speak my native tongue, le Français, even though that’s the language I grew up speaking. What language do I think in? I write better in English, but no one can place my accent. I could never understand my paternal grandfather’s accent either but I loved that his hair grew upwards. My mother was homeschooled in Spain. She always says the first time she saw her married name in full, she couldn’t identify with it. She has an uncle called Norbert somewhere. Dad jokes about where her family is from but apparently it’s a joke and I don’t get it. I’ve never met her grand-parents but I’ve spent all my Christmases in their home. I’m born in England but not a crumb of us have English blood. I have a unibrow. I joke it’s like the Sea of Marmara, floating between two countries. My middle brow, floating between my eyebrows. I don’t know which my favorite song is out of the 5 final contestants and I bet you didn’t know I was never taught to dive. So who am I really? And who cares? 

Personhood is crafted in a myriad different ways. Fashion highlights personality through world building and stressing certain penchants towards silks or cotton, not polyester but brocade. Coats coat me with my own obsession. Coats make me feel cinematic. Don’t ask those who know me to write about me. Apparently, if history teaches us anything, it’s that they’ll have no idea. Call me crazy, but I do believe the way to this woman’s cranium is… her coat(s.) So if you’re reading this because you want to be my biographer here’s all you need to know. The life of I through the things I’ve coated myself in.

The inner layer, that Wallace Collection type beat, what a find that was.

We’ll start here because I believe this vixen gave me the parka bug. I was with Belinda when I bought this. I was immediately drawn to it because it reminded me of a boutis provençal and I liked the gentle nod towards my people. It’s always a good time draped in you. This one time, I was wearing it a little differently, and someone imitated the sound of a light-sabre which felt exhilarating and new to someone who, at the time, referred to herself as being ‘strictly rococo.’