Living the Dream

I'm writing this as best I can, distracted by the landscape in front of me, the sea somewhere off in the distance. I feel like I can smell the salt in the air but of course I cannot. The water is far too far. You would think that being on an island would make for a watery existence, with boats bobbing nearby and the sound of gulls creating a never-ending somewhat discordant symphony. But this is a big island. I am nestled in gentle hills dressed in grapevines and cypress trees.

It was a lark, really. Buying an Italian house, on Sicily, in Sambuca. The article made it sound so simple. Buy a house for one Euro. Agree to put in an additional 15,000 Euros to fix it up. Ecco! For a very reasonable amount of money you now own a lovely little casa in a town that wants to welcome you as its newest citizen.

And it was simple. The buying part. The fixing it up part was a bit of an effort. Sicily is an island, after all. Sambuca is a tiny village. But as it turned out there were more than a few locals who were eager to find work and had an interesting assortment of skills, some of them useful. I tried to explain, in my elementary Italian, what I wanted to do with the house. They listened attentively, and then did what they knew how to do. And while my house may not have emerged from this process as I had anticipated, I am not disappointed. The house was sufficiently repaired. I myself was restored.

At at time when I needed a distraction, the house, and Sambuca, became my passion. I immersed myself in something that took me literally and figuratively to a place that I had imagined but never expected to actually occupy. I learned to speak Italian from villagers. I bought groceries daily from tiny little stalls full of fresh food tended by little old men. I drank red wine and Aperol spritzes. I grew to know and love the people of Sambuca, people who obligingly served afternoon (!) cappuccino to the crazy American who seemed to enjoy getting up before the sun and running through the town for no reason. I made friends.

It's so easy to imagine all of this. I feel like I should make this into a movie...

Here I am sitting outside my house, writing.

Me with the men who helped fix my house. 

Learning to enjoy red wine. Not the best picture but you get the idea...

And just so no one worries, while all of this is going on Dave is happily ensconced in his 2,000 square foot shop in Kentucky surrounded by unending supplies of beautiful hard-grain woods that are so plentiful they are dirt cheap. I send him postcards from Sicily. He sends me beautiful, artisan furniture for the house. He visits often. He has learned to love Aperol.