06-04-04 – Sicilian Autostrada, to Siracusa
As the sweaty, sticky Sicilian afternoon sinks its sleepy golden rays into our stuffy little rented car (“I got a great deal on it,” our tour guide Douglas said a few hours before we couldn’t get it to start), I realize I haven’t written at all since Capri.
Perhaps after rambling on for nine pages, my pen tired of my observations. Or maybe the volume of pages full of sketches, designs, and caluculations convinced me that I’d run out of room. Whatever the case, I fear I’ve heated my audience out of a great many experiences, especially Genova (upon which I must expound before my memory fails me).
Still, I mustn’t gripe about the past (there’ll be plenty of time for that later – that’s what retirement is for, right?) but focus on the present. I’m bouncing along the autostrada at 130 km/hr across a golden Sicilian landscape, and wondering why I always write when the road condeitions worsen my already poor handwriting. Etna’s smoky summit smolders behind my left shoulder. The winter wheat on the high, rolling hills burns yellow-red with the setting sun. The lemon, orange, almond, olive, and fig trees for which the island is famous crouch, gnarled, in groves, while the tall, spindly eucalyptus, imported for paper, line the roads. They do not stand proudly (though they tower over the more indigenous greenery) but droop their foliage shamefully in the still heat, nodding only to the passing trucks.
Amazing how a few days can completely alter your prejudices. Not too long ago was I fretting about surviving in this hostile, “foreign” country that spoke a language I would not know. Now, I’m brainstorming on how to live here! The scenery is breathtaking: Mount Etna, which rises twice as high as anything else on the island, can be seen from most of it; Agrigento, whose incredibly perserved Greek temples made mee feel like the group in “Jurassic Park” when they first see dinosaurs; the little hillside town of Savoca, where the entire industry is the one bar where the “Godfather” was filmed; Villa Armerina, with its endless mosaic floors depicting Roman life.
In accordance to the slow, relaxed Sicilian lifestyle (and I thought the rest of Italy was lethargic), writing these few paragraphs carries me to the sixth of June. In a gelateria in Noto, a much-under-construction Baroque town, we have learned from an Italian paper that Reagan has died.
I must backtrack several days, though. About a week ago, Dad and I left Roma Termini on a train bound for Napoli (as much as I dislike the town, I sure end up there a good deal). This time around, finding the way to Capri was a snap…
My time in Italy was, in a word, life-changing. As difficult as it was to return to the States, I came back refreshed, with a new perspective on life.