#45 Taking a walk

a slice of life from Sicily

Hello Friend,

This morning I walked around my little Sicilian town, and it had been weeks since I'd done so. For many reasons, I cannot recall when my last outside walk was, either because of the rain, the cold or a lack of desire to move outside my house.

I've done the same walk for years, yet every time I do, I notice something different or have a new experience or encounter. Today I saw a new view in the panorama. Each season has a different quality in the light and sometimes just hits the mountains differently, revealing something new.

Today perhaps it was the sunshine or maybe the fact I was looking firmly up to the horizon, but I noticed the town atop the mountain. The little mountain town that looks at my village down in the valley.

Then I noticed the jumble of houses in the centro storico. My street is in the oldest historic part of the town. The historic centre is a maze of parallel streets, alleyways, courtyards, laneways and stairs in every direction up and down.

I love seeing how so many houses have been lovingly restored to maintain their historical character, brickwork, stone masonry, arched doorways and uneven steps up to them.

Occasionally there will be an abandoned building, either partially demolished, without a roof, slowly falling down, demolished by time or boarded up, slowly filling with detritus in a mixture of crumbling building materials and pigeon poop. So sad, beautiful, hopeful and disgusting all at the same time.

It reminds me of visiting other big Sicilian cities like Catania and Palermo, where the Centro is always maintained clean and pristine for visitors. Yet, explore beyond it towards the outskirts. You will always find plenty of garbage, rundown buildings and infrastructure that is run down, falling apart, rusting, paint falling off and overgrown with debris and overgrowth.

As I sigh at the contrasts between the well-maintained and falling-apart buildings, I continue my walk home, even in my small town. As I move along my street, two different women come out onto their balconies, each on adjacent streets; they cannot see one another as a row of buildings separates them, but from my particular angle on the road, I see them both, walk out on their respective balconies at the very same time.

I am captivated by my particular viewpoint. Being on the street, I can look up onto the jutting balconies, see people at the windows and sometimes peek into front doors often left open by people cleaning or busying themselves inside the kitchen. Life in small Sicilian towns is often lived right by the street, with many houses' front doors opening onto the roads and more often than not, people's daily lives also spill out into public view.

One lady is in a house dress, the other in her pyjamas; they flick their washing in the same synchronized motion as they hang a towel to dry. The precise moment I pass, I witness their strange little dance. I feel like they were performing especially for me.

It's a small ritual that they performed without thinking, and it made me instantly smile to think I was the only one to see them both together. It was as if they were two synchronized swimmers, lifting their arms to salute the judges in an elaborate pre-performance flex before they dive into the water together with their heads bobbing up and under the water for their routine.

I always love the small slices of life you can witness while walking in Sicily.

I hate to be long-winded, so I will stop here for now.

I'll keep trying to write something worthwhile here every week, perhaps more often if I get in some karmic writing zone.

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Speak again soon.

With love and light from RDB

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