How I Cracked the Code on the "Isola" of Sicily

An excerpt from my upcoming memoir

Taormina, Sicily

Isola means island, a cognate of isolare, to isolate, to seclude, to shut off. Even though I now live on an island, I'd never made that connection, so obvious in Italian. Perhaps that is why I feel such a deep sense of isolation on the island of Sicily, where I feel so uncharacteristically like a foreigner. Unlike in the rest of Italy, where my much improved language skills, designer duds and attitude have most Italians fooled and greeting me as a local, Sicily is proving to be a surprising challenge.

Despite its superficial welcoming of tourists, Sicily remains a closed community, with its Greek influences and places that still remain war torn. It is an island with its own personality, uniqueness, eccentricities and limitations, things I am becoming familiar with on my own rock in the middle of the Pacific. Native Sicilians make sure that tourists understand who is in charge. Though every meal ends with an abundance of sweets, the irony is that that Sicilians are anything but dolce! Forte, tenacious and unwavering, traditional, self-protective and stoic, they must be explored with respect. It requires care to gingerly peel back each layer and expose the vulnerable and tender core—the essence of a Sicilian.

Ask Quietly ... Then Wait

Me and Mr. Bud

Early on Wednesday morning I awake to a swell of anxiety, still haunted by my fall off a horse some years ago. I must be crazy to get back on a horse. Then I open the box of black Massimo Dutti riding boots and am reminded of the day, the place, and what was in my mind when I bought all the riding equipment I needed to get back to dressage. I can vividly recall coaching myself aloud to dive into what I feared, in order to create my own happiness.

I load my little white convertible with riding gear and head up country. Minutes later, as I zigzag up the mountain highway, I am awestruck by the beauty unfolding before me —cane stalks as high as my shoulders, pineapple fields wafting a sweet, almost acrid scent, and the green, green mountains straight ahead. I catch site of a double rainbow stretching across the horizon like a multi-colored canopy. This is my Wednesday morning, my life now. 

The Wishing Stone

An excerpt from my upcoming memoir

A special friend reached out to me a couple of weeks before my travels east. He and I have known each other for years. We share the same spiritual sensibilities and optimistic glass-is-totally-full attitude and philosophy of life. He has watched and waited, sitting quietly with the patience and wisdom of Gandhi, always offering sage advice and encouragement as I worked to realize my dreams. He also told me that I could manifest anything I set my heart and intention to, so when I called to tell him that I had finally moved to Maui, my “somewhere over the rainbow,” he replied, without a trace of surprise, “Of course you did because you manifested it.”

We get together from time to time to walk the ocean path, to admire the incredible beauty surrounds us and inspires us and on Maui, and to catch up or, as he would say, “talk story.” Aside from being my spiritual guru of sorts, he is a gifted artisan, avid gardener and collector of artifacts. One morning, 10 days before I boarded my east-bound flight, we met to wish each another a wonderful summer. His purpose for our meeting, I learned, was to give me a wishing stone—a triangular turquoise stone worn and rubbed smooth over time that had been blessed by a native chief of stature and high regard. He had intended to set it into a piece of jewelry created especially for me but there was not enough time prior to my departure.