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By
Kristin Bux
Early Island Visions
In third grade my pen pal, Ryan, asked me in sloppy cursive what
it’s
like to live on an island. I responded, somewhat patronizingly, that
my home is not really an island. Sure, if you drove for a while in
any direction you would see water, but I pictured an island as an
independent entity, simple and serene like a picturesque puzzle-piece
suspended in crystal blue water. My home, with all it houses, strip
malls, cars and clutter was nothing like my eight-year old vision
of what an island should be. When I wrote Ryan back I told him that
Long Island isn’t really an island, it’s just a name.
Only after arriving in Sicily, the concrete embodiment of my island
vision, did I realize how right I was.
Unlike the numerous tangles of metal and leaky tunnels that connect
Long Island to Manhattan, Sicily remains independent from the
mainland of Italy. Although
the construction of a bridge was underway to end this isolation, it was never
finished and the 85% of Sicilians who didn’t want the bridge were glad
to hear of the project’s abandonment. They know the heart of their land’s
unique nature and powerful spirit thrives within its barrier waters. Having grown
up in the midst of constant expansion and development and learning to recognize
the detriment it holds for island life, I couldn’t agree with them more.
Going to Sicily from Long Island, from a life lived behind tinted windows, within
closed doors, and enclosed fences, feels like less of a culture shock and more
like a wake-up call from life itself. Unpretentious and pure, Sicily paints the
picture of what island life, or any life, should be. In a surrounding world of
corporations, greed, and always taking the easy way out, Sicilians have somehow
managed to retain the culture, pride, and tradition that defines them and their
island life.
Time Is of the Essence
One O’clock, and the sun has positioned itself behind a cloud above the
town of Taormina, casting a four-hour shadow. All is quiet, as the only town
residents not observing the daily ritual of siesta are the stray cats who slink
stealthily around the corners of narrow road. The change the town has undergone
in the span of an hour has left me perplexed. The spoiling of my plans to stop
for a quick lunch and continue shopping cause me to look upon the town with the
same disappointment as a child walking through a shut down carnival. The cafés
have closed their doors and turned off their lights, locking in the sweet smell
of cappuccinos and tomato and mozzarella sandwiches. Vacant metal tables line
the outside piazza like closed tulips, with pushed in chairs and unfurled umbrellas.
The alluring patina of marzipan and other glistening storefront confections have
dulled under turned down lights, and sit like fake plastic decorations behind
glass windows. The typical “tourist trap” stores that vend the same
Sicilian trademarked wine corks and ceramic bowls sit equally dark at this ominous
time. Having spent the better half of the morning becoming a regular patron of
these stores, passing up their generic inventory is particularly painful. The
homogenized sound of general afternoon activity, the mixing of voices and bells
of opening doors, have completely diminished, as there is not a man, woman, or
child in sight to keep them going. Now, the shuffling of my Nikes on uncertain
ground and the rhythmic crunch of a lone plastic bag against my knee are the
only sounds to be heard. I could not help but question how this could be. How
a town so full of life, with places to shop, eat, and sip cappuccinos in the
sun, could now feel like a vacant movie set, just a collection of props adorning
a charming backdrop. I continued on, partly because I didn’t know what
else to do, and partly driven by a morbid curiosity about this strange time.
I wondered how I would explain this phenomenon to my friends back
home on Long Island, where the notion of turning down the fluorescent
lights
and
closing
up shop for any reason other than nuclear war would be preposterous.
I thought about
how different lunchtime is at the Smithaven Mall down the street from
my house, where I shopped just a week before on Long Island. Crowds
of people
rushing
in and out of stores, toting bags of designer glasses and tight jeans.
To maximize shopping time they grab a quick lunch at the food court,
a string
of fast food
chains grouped together to form one, greasy strip of neon lights. Lines
of disgruntled
shoppers staring at their watches back up so far that there is no distinguishing
who is waiting for Taco Bell from who is waiting for Wok N Roll. Each
person moves haphazardly like an impatient marionette, plucked
up and down, over
and under each other’s agendas, trying to make their own way while tangled
in the strings held by the hands of time.
The sun returns from its own siesta behind the clouds and kisses the
empty tables and cobblestone grounds a warm hello. I am awoken from my
thoughts
with a strange
understanding and new eyes and ears for the desolate, silent town. The
nagging urge to burn the euros in my pocket has relaxed and although
the streets
are still empty and silent, they have shed their mysteriousness and threat.
I imagine
that behind these closed doors friends and families share tables and
beds, strengthening cultural ties and values. Far removed from thoughts
of productivity,
agenda keeping,
and money, in striking uniformity, they rest. While time outside their
doors doesn’t stop, it seems that it never really mattered much in the first
place. I reduce my signature “type-A” walk to a calm saunter, moving
almost solely at the will of the gentle Taormina wind. At a bench I put down
my bag, put up my Nikes, and throw my head back into the sun, at last giving
in to the sweetness of siesta.
Less Is More
An open window draped with perfect white lace leaks the contents
of a quaint dinner conversation onto the streets of Cefalu. The
curtains’ small holes
reveal the flickering of a candle and the offshore wind delivers a flood of unfamiliar
words wrapped within the scent of fresh baked bread. Next to the window, carved
into the wall of the building is a small cove where a vigil is kept. A framed
picture of the Virgin Mary, fresh yellow flowers, and a burning red votive candle
complete the scene. Although from afar they all seem to reflect the same deep
pink and beige hue, each wall of every building in the small fishing town is
held together by a different combination of stone and rock. The broad sides of
the buildings expose different layers of pastels as their exteriors have peeled
away, some leaving deep holes which have been filled with flecks of red brick,
and multicolored pebbles within concrete. Although I know these are people’s
homes, I cannot keep from running my hand along their textured exteriors as I
walk, scratching my fingertips curiously along the changing relief of each different
wall.
Looming from the weathered walls are fantastic balconies; concrete
floors encased in wrought iron that’s twisted and detailed so beautifully, you can’t
imagine it could have been made by human hands. Although they look uniform from
the streets below, each protruding structure differs drastically from the last
in shape and design. Earthquake damage and the general passage of time has rendered
each a suspended antiquity, reflecting the art and architecture of different
time periods and influences. From those that look barely stable to those that
display the most modern art deco, each balcony is adorned according to the individual
tastes of its residents. Many are dressed with potted green plants and multicolored
flags that flail above the lines holding the white sheets and children’s
clothing that’s been hung out to dry. From behind tall, skinny double glass
doors with crooked, rusty, shutters, short women in tattered dresses, opaque
stockings, and small shoes come onto their balconies to sweep and collect laundry.
I spend the day walking up and down each block and snapping pictures
of every crumbling building and unique balcony that contributes
to this town’s simplistic
lifestyle that is so strangely foreign to me. Having only lived in my town on
Long Island, I haven’t spent time in a structure that was not encased in
aluminum siding since the womb. At home, the slightest peeling of the ceiling
paint calls for a new roof, and lace curtains and opened doors are replaced with
closed blinds and tinted windows to ensure privacy. Instead of outside balconies
with hanging laundry, garages enclose weekend sports cars and the middle–aged
men who spend their Saturdays waxing them. Streets divide neighbors who look
out from behind fences to compare their cars and landscaping to that of the people
next door. It’s amazing how people in towns that are so full of stuff,
can be so overwhelmingly saturated with a constant want for more.
I unconsciously stop to watch an old woman pulling some clothing
from off the line on her dilapidated balcony. She is wearing
an apron over
her long
wool
dress and her gray hair is pinned up in a bun. Somehow feeling
my eyes, she stops what
she’s doing and looks down at me on the street below, her tan, wrinkled
face showing no discernable feelings about me watching her pluck her underwear
from the clothesline. Nervous that I may have violated her privacy or embarrassed
her, I resort to flashing an apologetic smile. She answers with a single nod
of her head and a half smile that reveals missing teeth. She points to the camera
I’m wearing around my neck and then to herself. Relieved that I had not
offended her, I point my camera up and snap a picture. With a t-shirt still enclosed
in her fist, she smiles, waves, and goes back about her business. I left the
scene with a new understanding and appreciation for the amazing degree of pride
that resonates in this small. I’m convinced that it is pride I could never
know myself nor witness again, for I feel that there is not another place where
one could devise a life so natural, simple, and deserving.
What You See is What You Get
The ground is flooded by a water and fish juice cocktail that
splashes on my ankles as I move about the crowd of the
fish market in Catania.
Older men and
young boys alike stand before wooden crates where shiny,
silver fish and purple octopi thrash and vie for room. Proprietors,
dressed in
sweatshirts and soiled
aprons, yell over each other to the passing masses from
behind tables piled
high with beady, black, eyed prawns and spiny urchins.
An octopus
opens like
an umbrella,
its tentacles flared in alertness, after being fished out
of its crate by the bare hand of a vendor. The octopus is put
in a clear
plastic
bag and
transferred
to the hand of an old man in a derby hat and scarf who
exchanges it for a few Euros that quickly soak up the saturation
of
the vendor’s hand. Ascending
a few stairs delivered me from the fish section of the market into the raw, sour
smell of flesh. Cross sections of different animals sit haphazardly under red
lights upon scratched cutting board tables. Men with butcher knives add to their
blood stained white jackets as they cut fresh sides of beef for their customers
that it so pink, it doesn’t appear to be dead. Seeing our amazement, the
men pose for us to take pictures of them amongst their eerie inventory. One man
provided us with a newly severed pair of horns and laughed wholeheartedly as
we placed them on each other’s heads and snapped pictures. Near the end
of the meat section of the market a severed pig head dangling from a metal hook
and its neighbor, a full bodied, skinned, lamb carcass that has been stripped
of all but its wide eyes and hooves, signify the entrance to the fruit section.
Here, shiny masses of color glint in the sun, perfectly round and unblemished
like clusters of birthday balloons. Old men sit quietly amongst tables of blood
oranges and green-leaved lemons below the hanging scales they use to weigh them
out. Bunches of scallions and heads of cabbage still wear dirt on their stems
and leaves.
Having perused each table of shimmering fresh fruit, trudged
across the wet ground around crates of live fish, and
through the red
lights of
suspended severed meat,
I’m in utter disbelief at the difference presented in the shopping experience
Sicilians undergo on a daily basis and the weekly trips I take to my home’s
Super Stop and Shop grocery store. Every Long Island market, whether it is SUPER
Stop and Shop, Food town, or Pathmark, is the same monument for delusionment
and postmodernism. Bright lights on white tile and beads of cold water on aged
fruit serve to delude shoppers into believing their standards for cleanliness
and freshness are being met. Packed with preservatives, cuts of meat and fish
sit motionless and stagnant behind glass enclosures that intend to keep the “offensive” smell
away from the customers. People in tandem express lines purchase various boxes
of food that contain the “traditional” faces they are told they trust,
like the Quaker oat man and Aunt Jemima, who make your breakfasts just like the
ones grandma used to make, only faster. Any signs of tradition and putting work
into preparation are tossed aside to make room for the “new,” “improved,” and
increasingly important, “ready in less than five minutes.”
At the Catania market, a mother and daughter pair emerge
from the disorderly crowd with half a chicken, three
lemons, and
a bunch
of broccoli. Each
item dangles from their hands by clear plastic bags,
sized to scale, strangers to gimmicks,
signs, and sales. Sicilians at the Catania market have
no reason to hide the fact that fish are indeed alive
before they are
bought and
don’t smell
like roses, that meat is from animals and is, therefore, bloody, or that fruit
comes from within the dirt. Their market, and the products they purchase there
are as raw and natural as they come, the only way they would have it.
Out of Sight Out of Mind
Congested and noisy, the streets of Palermo make me
feel at home. Public transportation vehicles beep
incessantly as they
maneuver
through the
traffic, clumsily ushering
the cities 1.5 million people along the narrow streets.
I get dizzy trying to read each storefront sign as
it
whizzes by
the bus window
and, instead,
switch
to leaning back and enjoying the balconies that loom
above them. After an unexpected turn out of the city
bustle,
the
bus stops
outside a
weathered terracotta building
that lends no initial signification of what lies
inside, though, sight of
the structure itself from the bus window somehow
makes the grayness and chill of
the day more evident. Once off the bus, I notice
the rusty colored overhang above the double door entrance
that reads
Ingresso Catacombe
in plain,
bold, black
letters. A middle-aged homeless man stands beside
the door in red sweatpants and a tattered leather jacket.
He holds
his hand
out,
callused palm
up, and rocks from side to side repeating “so sorry” in time with his sway. Not
looking at anyone in particular, the man continues to beg and serve as a morbid
foreshadower of what’s to be found behind the doors he works.
Once inside the first things I notice are the cold
temperature and the pamphlets that line the walls.
I reach for the
English edition
and read
that the building
I have just entered houses an above ground cemetery
of monks and eminent people dating as far back
as 1599. Although I
was sure
I noticed the
word “buried” in
the text, a photograph on the adjacent page showed that this was just a technical
term. My strange excitement gave way to a bout of nausea after skimming the packet
in full and realizing that each picture revealed that these people were not buried
at all, but hung on the walls, dried out like flowers, and fully clothed.
Ascension of the hard concrete stairs confirmed
the pamphlets somewhat unbelievable material
as the last
step landed
me in a straight
away with high, pointed,
ceilings glowing with white light and walls saturated
with dead bodies. Although most
hung from the walls in the same style that a
museum would display paintings, some bodies resided inside
wooden
boxes that you
could view by looking
through the metal mesh that composed the broad
side of each.
Once the initial shock of the environment had
dulled, I stopped my aimless wandering to look
up at a
skeleton dressed
in
a faded blue-suit
jacket
on top, and enclosed
by a burlap sack from the waist down, bound
where his feet would be with thick rope. As though
he was looking
right
back at me,
is head
hung limply
toward
the floor and his jaw had detached on one side
revealing three, delicate, brown teeth.
One of his eye sockets is stuffed with paper
while the other sits round and vacant, a window
to the
hollow darkness
behind
it. A
small tuft
of dusty
hair somehow
persists despite the bare bone of his head
and looks as if it would turn to dust should a gust
of wind
come through.
A small group of other onlookers attract me
to a man in a two-piece black suit whose
remains are laid
in
one of
the
catacombe’s makeshift wooden caskets.
His skull is turned toward me and through the mesh I see that his face is two
different colors; a yellowish-brown and dark green hue are perfectly separated
by a invisible vertical line running from the top of his skull to his chin. Unable
to resist, I comment to the stranger next to me that he must have been a Packers
fan and his oversized “# 1” foam hand must have been a casualty of
grave robbing. Looking at his actual hands, however, my raillery is no longer
funny. At his side, against the fencing of the casket, his hand is an almost
transparent ending of his arm, paper thin, elongated, and bereft of any indication
of every being made of skin and bone. My stomach turns as I crouch closer to
inspect the five fingers that extend from the flat base and curl upwards and
then back, like ribbon. Left alone, I feel my obsessive-compulsive tendency momentarily
overpower my sense of moral violation, and, without thinking, I reach through
the mesh with my own round, pink, finger and steal a strangely needed touch.
Back on the bus I reflect on this unique
experience and compare it to the strict
death ethos I
have been taught
at home.
I realize how
sheltered
the few funerals
and experiences with death I encountered
throughout my life on Long Island have
been and the fearful
way they
have made
me feel
about
death. They’ve consisted
of the ritualistic reciting of simple prayers and viewing the end of another’s
life from before a closed box that is put into the earth, with only a stone to
share embellished words on the person’s true nature. It is no wonder that
death has always evoked nothing but fear in me, I have only seen it in the same
uniform and hasty context that’s employed to keep the prying notion of
individual mortality as far removed from everyday life as possible.
In viewing death in a way I had associated
more with wax caricatures and modern
art, visiting the Palermo
Catacombe
provided provocation
that I
have never
derived from any experience I had ever
encountered. It left me with different
feelings
about not just death, but life. It somehow
put
everything in my mind, from my haunting
apprehension about approaching
graduation
to my
temporary late
afternoon
fatigue, into a perfect perspective that
made me feel good to just
be breathing. As strange as it was at
first, viewing those dead bodies did
not remind
me that I was going to someday die, but
ultimately made me realize that I am
very much
alive today.
Learned Island Conclusions
In Spite of all the comparisons and parallels
my visit to the unique island of Sicily
created in
my mind,
returning to my
own island
home made me realize
that
each of these different experiences
essentially guided me
to the same didactic realization. The
dynamic streets of Taormina,
pride
infused
rock walls
of Cefalu, thriving tradition of Catania,
and life-lending Catacombe of Palermo,
collectively
taught me the importance of relativity.
Although each of these towns made it
is easy to temporarily
look
down upon
my home
on Long Island
that seemed
so
corrupt by comparison, I have realized
that geographic definition is just
a technicality. The core of each Sicilian
lifestyle that
I found
so fresh and appealing was not specific
to
the individual island
town, but
inherent within
the people
themselves.
While the place you have grown up and
called your home
may influence the way you live by setting
standards and establishing
norms,
no piece of land,
island
or country, has the capacity to define
or limit an individuals desired way
of life.
While I
am sad to
have left Sicily
and all it has to
give and teach,
I
will return home over the Throgs Neck
bridge with the invaluable knowledge
that whether
one is a
Sicilian vendor, Long Island
businessman, or
Pennsylvanian student,
anyone, can live any way, anywhere.
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