By Madeleine Johnson | January 23rd, 2022 | “Notebook” Back in October, I had the good luck to travel to Italy. COVID cases had dropped off and the Omicron variant had yet to hit. While there, I ate nice meals, bought Perugina fruit candy, and caught up on clothes shopping from my favorite stores, where I found a dress for my son’s wedding. I also … Continue reading Not so bad? Think again

By Madeleine Johnson | December 17th, 2021 | “Notebook” On my recent trip to Italy, many of my Italian friends often surprised me with a question I honestly didn’t expect. They wanted to know what I did all day in America. I did my best to gloss over the question. Why? For one thing, I found it a little weird. What exactly were they getting … Continue reading American Alfie

By Madeleine Johnson | November 18th, 2021 | “Notebook” In October, I was finally able to return to Milan, where I lived for almost thirty years. I had not visited since 2018 — the year I returned to the United States and settled in rural New Hampshire. I had no idea what to expect after the pandemic. Though it seems like decades, it was less … Continue reading Letter from Milan

By Madeleine Johnson | October 7th, 2021 | “Notebook” Fall is here. For some, autumn is associated with pumpkin spice and sweaters. For me, it’s the start of Japanese knotweed season. That doesn’t mean I don’t like comforting spices and warm woolly things as much as the next person. It does mean, however, that those delights simply don’t excite me quite like the fading flowers … Continue reading Killing the assassin

By Madeleine Johnson | September 5th, 2021 | “Notebook” My memory contains many 50-year old snippets of overheard adult conversations. Misunderstood words and phrases would rise above the tinkling of cocktail glasses and cigarette smoke to my perch at the top of the stairs where, in my nightgown, I listened in on the era’s controversies. “Trust me, I tried it. You can check Marx out … Continue reading Heard along the way

By Madeleine Johnson | August 12th, 2021 | “Notebook” Doris Lessing stirred a literary tempest in the 1980s with an experiment intended to illustrate just how hard it was for an unknown author to publish a book. Although the future Nobel Prize winner had already acquired both commercial and critical success with global best-seller “The Golden Notebook,” she decided to submit a manuscript to her … Continue reading Noblesse oblige

By Madeleine Johnson | July 13th, 2021 | “Notebook” I have a friend who can watch any movie, no matter how suspenseful or violent, with complete detachment. She scoffs when I have to cover my eyes in the cinema when tension or fear become unbearable, which is often for me. She marvels that I can’t see past the artifice and remain unmoved. “But it’s just … Continue reading When the Gestapo starts streaming

By Madeleine Johnson | June 10th, 2021 | “Notebook” There are some words whose definitions you just never forget. One of these is “vapid”, which my mother used to describe my friend Penny in fourth grade. Thanks to her trenchant criticism (which I felt extended to me), it’s a word I notice even to this day. So this recent headline in the “Washington Post” caught … Continue reading Vapid and vaunted

By Madeleine Johnson | May 15th, 2021 | “Notebook” I started out with World War I. The YouTube lectures and books I consumed while working on a family genealogical project soon led me to YouTube lectures and books on World War II. After reading Spanish author Almudena Grandes’s family saga “The Frozen Heart,” my interest spread to the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. The … Continue reading Back to the Cold War

By Madeleine Johnson | April 11th, 2021 | “Notebook” I have found myself up against a reality I thought had set aside when I returned to the United States from Italy four years ago, settling in a small town in New Hampshire. The problem has come up again with TV program “Stanley Tucci Searching for Italy”, airing on CNN, and the repeated invitation to join … Continue reading The Italian dream conversation