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February 22, 2010 … … of a house in deepest Sicily? … of clouds and earth and stone?
Of lying under a fig tree with days wide as an ocean? … Dream away… There are so many broken-down homes in Southeast Sicily waiting to be tamed. Waiting and waiting for you. February 11, 2010 Well, I’ve been blogging on and on about my adopted Sicilian village for several months now, forgetting to give you an overview of the place. Do you want to see her? Shall I locate her in space?
Do you see why I fell head over heels?
She floats like an island, surrounded by a moat of gorges. Ragusa lies south of Bizerte, Tunisia in latitude. The soft African air wafts through her piazzas on winter days; rainstorms can deposit Saharan sand. xxx
[gmap] My husband spent a few hours figuring out how to put this Google map on my blog. (Thanks, honey!) Be sure to check out the satellite view, too. xxx Click to subscribe. (It’s free.) *** If you liked this post, you might also like: January 24, 2010
I had cast myself into a new life with all my heart. But I’d forgotten my head. Cold reality soon set in. My new digs recalled the toilets at Penn Station: grimy white bathroom tiles were glued to every available surface. Water stained floors and ceilings.
I dropped by the comune to ask about getting a building permit for a renovation—secretly hoping they’d wave me away with the well-worn Sicilian phrase Non preoccuparsi!, Don’t worry, and tell me to go do as I pleased. Not quite. A goggle-eyed man in a pink cravat presented me with a garbage pail and a list. A list so long and bewildering it brought tears to my eyes. I’ve translated it to the best of my ability (italics mine).
I’m so doomed.  graffiti on the back of my house *** Thank you for reading! Won’t you please subscribe? (It’s free.) January 21, 2010
Here’s how I got into trouble. After teaching a short course in Ragusa in 2002, I’d returned year after year to Southeast Sicily to root around for a little casa. The Fates pushed back with all their might and I finally admitted defeat. In the spring of 2007, I came to see friends one last time and close the Sicilian chapter of my life. Ciao, Sicilia. A day before bidding the island farewell, I scaled the long staircase up from Ibla’s Piazza Duomo to see the cupola from on high. After many years cocooned in scaffolding thick as wool, it had reemerged triumphant.
It looked good enough to eat, like whipped cream on a tumbler of granita. I felt a secret joy. Bells tolled, clouds slipped up from the valley. I inhaled la zagara—orange blossoms on the breeze—like a drug. I turned. There, on an unassuming little row house with a mottled wall and weatherworn door, I saw the magic words: VENDITA.
I saw. I called. I bought. Cast myself into a new world just like that. 1-2-3. Never imagining for a minute what was in store.
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Ragusa Ibla is a huddle of homes and churches, the kind of place you want to cradle in your hands.
