Last minute flight to escape the future

I click the submit button. The page refreshes to show the moments date and time highlighted red. 8^th October 2020 22:37pm. Eight days late and eighteen years of education, all for this? This glowing red sign which I’ve been told will add meaning to my life – A masters degree, amazing! – yet the more I stare at those numbers, the more they glow and, underwhelm, and, alienate.

I cancel the page then flick the kettle on, throwing a teabag into a cup, but missing. As the water boils, I pull the curtains. I think of how the neighbours watched me throughout the process of writing my dissertation, typing away, rubbing my forehead, reading Routledge books almost daily. I pour the water into the cup and sip.

I notice an emptiness residing within me, a coldness that conflicts the heat of water on my tongue. It is a strange certainty that even my supervisor, a lecturer on Ottoman autobiography, will find the thing that I spent three months of my life doing, a boring, predictable read. I continue sipping, staring, imagining myself in years to come trying selling the damn thing at some fresher’s event of another, future, leftist university: “It concerns history of statelessness in Kuwait, still a largely underrepresented topic. Please, pop £2 in the box, just for the printing costs?”

Fast forward four days and I am sitting cross-legged on the carpet of the multifaith prayer room of Stanstead airport. The room is bare and painted white except for a sign reading Qibla positioned in top right corner and one wall which hung a circular tapestry of one of the most beautiful artworks that I had ever seen, in an airport at least. It featured multicolours and airplanes buzzing around different floating religious signs. I then click my neck either side and close my eyes.

‘Sorry to disturb you,’ he says, ‘but do you mind if I leave my stuff here, just whilst I make a phone call?’

‘I just didn’t want you to worry, you know, about me leaving the things in the room and you’re here, you know, maybe wondering why I have gone.’

I smile at the strawberry blonde boy, who for some reason I thought was Australian, who like me, had a green rucksack and a goofy big face.

It took him a while to get it and I too was taken aback by my brashness, and the sudden realisation of where I was: sitting shoeless, plaits in my hair, in a multifaith room (I once claimed to be a strict atheist). What in the world had led me to become the architype of the good girl? Then suddenly, the strawberry-blonde boy replied.

‘You can’t make jokes like that!’ He seemed half joking, half word-policing.

I laughed, yet continued. ‘You’re right, not in a multifaith room.’ Even I didn’t know what I meant by that, what was I getting at?

He laughed, then left. I readjusted my position and quietly said my thank-you’s and guru-guru-wahey-guru’s. Multifaith indeed, I giggled, sneakily snapping a photo on my blue Samsung A10 before the boy returned. What is our generation except a blending of the past?

All that praying made me almost miss my flight. Actually, no. It was buying the fact I went to buy cup of tea that I really didn’t need. Gate 55 was miles away. Almost a flight’s worth.

And hot drinks weren’t even allowed onto the plane. Human are, not hot drinks. Ryan Air is not a London bus, you know? So, from the multi-faith room, I next found myself standings, at the flight attendants request, just outside of the aircraft, sipping yet again on a tea getting damp under the English autumn rain. And standing there, towards the end of my drink, I reassured one woman, a mother it seems, who was last on board. ‘Are we on the right plane? The younger girl from behind her asked. ‘I hope so,’ the woman said trying desperately to check the four tickets in her hand but breathing so fast and shaking too heavily to separate them. ‘It’s going to Palermo,’ I said, after removing my face mask and taking my final sip of tea. ‘Oh, good.’ She stopped shaking and took a deep breath and upon finishing the tea, I too found my seat.

Airports during a global pandemic are fun; empty and desolate and also so quiet and tranquil. Only those who do not fear what the newspapers are spreading travel across borders during these times and evidently, that’s not many.

We were informed we would have a nasal and mouth test on arrival. A giant cotton-wool bud shoved into our holes by some Italian airport guard, I don’t think so. And luckily, nothing came of it. Instead, on arrival to Palermo, a sheet of paper was handed to us and it said ‘sign up to this website.’ That’s all, for a so-called deadly virus.

I then walked to the train station, the wrong way. I left the airport and started walking down the motorway until my mind told me – ‘wrong!’ – to turn around and do the sensible thing and just ask someone.

I did ask someone. The train station was downstairs and my stubborn adventure to find the train without help meant that I would have to wait another forty minutes for the next.

Yet something amusing came from it all. When I followed the signs to the train, I followed them exactly and it ended up with me opening a small door and walking into a cleaning cupboard. Did I really think that that was where the trains would be?

I eventually found the train, brought a ticket, and then went back upstairs to explore the excitements of the tiny airport. I found a two Euro tuna sandwich and some nuts. Then I went back to the train station.

I arrived off the train station and walked towards the place I was staying. It was an art space, a single room, a mid-way between a hostel and a fancy hotel. It was raining. I asked a drunken man the way to get out of the train station and he spoke no English. Then finally, on the way to my apartment, I overhead a conversation. It was three people, one explaining the Arabic word for ‘love’ and ‘darling’ and translating it into either Spanish or Italian. Thank God, I thought, my degree had taught me something at least: a few words in other languages.

The place is beautiful. I stood outside waiting for a person to let me in to the apartment. The clouds had cleared by then and it was the first time I had seen stars in a long time. Drunken people in the small bar opposite were one of the only two sounds I could hear. The other was the raindrops falling off the balconies of sleeping people’s homes, onto the cobbles beneath.

‘You’re going to love it here, never want to leave!’ He told me, flashing up a photo of a blue sea on his IPhone. ‘It’s only a half-hour bus ride away! And the churches! They’re amazing, you can walk into any one of them, I love doing that, and there is one that has a clock inside of it, like inside the building, so unusual! And it’s all so cheap! And friendly! You know, I am from Bristol, but I have decided that I am going to move here. I leave Wednesday. I will cancel my gym membership, then come back.’

Jesus Christ, I thought. Not because of the churches, because of the enthusiasm this guy had for the place. He was staying in the apartments, like me, and had come to check me in exchange for a favour that the apartment owner had done for him. I though he was drunk, or high, or in love at first. Then, as we said our goodnights, and I opened the doors to my tiny balcony, I smiled. I watched him walk away, back around the corner he came from, whistling. Maybe he was just happy, I thought. And anyway, he did well at selling this place to me. Already I too want to move, and all I have done so far is check-in.

I’ve certainly escaped it. You can’t think of the future when indulged in the present. And I use the word indulge not lightly. Ice cream, arancini stuffed with seafood, and coffee that will blow your heart out through your eye balls and make you want only to grasp onto every beautiful sight of this island. The future, you ask, what’s that?

The view from my room is of ruins. Every architecture here is a mish-mash of European, Arab and Roman design. It works, and contrasts the hardy-greenery: palms, monstera, olive trees, lime trees and of course the mountains in the distance: those looming shadows that remind you that all of this human beauty and chaos birthed from a natural silence.

And I don’t even want to write. It feels pointless to try to capture the flavours of this place in words. All you can do is submerge in it, as though a soup about to become cold. It makes me wonder why I live in a place so organised and grey, a site of mundanity, a place where people…

BANG! That’s what just happened, twice. Gun-fire it sounded like, coming somewhere from the hills. Now, that’s the spontaneity I mean: you wouldn’t get that in Greenwich.

But there’s no point comparing places, or people of that matter. It is what is and it is what it is not. And it is the same for each person.

And today, as I sat in the sun, eating first, my seafood arancini – that turned my teeth and tongue black with squid ink – and second, my pistachio and hazelnut ice-cream – that kindly I was given to for two euros instead of three – people passing by smiled at me. One person even waved and said Ciao as though we were neighbours. Did my face show that much pleasure, I wondered? Could they tell I had never tasted such orgasmic food before? Or maybe, I thought, I omitted a pheromone which smelt like the timeless enjoyment of this planet. Who knows, but regardless I felt that I was in on the local secret: that this life, no matter the weather, can be wholesome and delicious.

And the earthly temptations are plentiful for the cats here too. This afternoon, after a few sudden rainfalls, I took a walk towards the seafront; the fish in my stomach made me crave its source. I perched for a while enjoying the sound of the waves then after, I took walk across the small green areas which bordered the road from the sea. And there I saw a tabby cat, her eyes-wide, focused on something that was in the bush. I watched her, though it was too concentrated on her pray to care for my presence. I kept staring, as she kept staring at the bush. Then she wriggled leg muscles, lengthened her neck, and then repeated the movements again, once or twice. I assumed she was praying upon a butterfly, a bug, or something else insignificant. And moreover, I assumed that whatever it was, would escape before the cat pounced. But this was no European house cat. She again tensed and wriggled its rear then finally jumped half-way up the bush, higher than its original target vison, and landed instantly after with a plump mouse clamped in her jaw. Finally taking notice of me, she then proudly trotted away as another person was approaching along the path. I smiled and so too did the man who also caught sight of her success and turned to me and saying excitedly something about a ‘gatto,’ possibly the only Italian word I know.

Blue skies now shine upon the ruins which are in view from across my balcony. Upon the yellow-bricked, illuminated wall is graffitied artwork of a white-bearded man and a woman kneeling behind him, dressed in red and touching his right shoulder. I’d usually scoff at such a thing but here, I want to stare at it forever.

The same day, in the evening I met up with Justina. She’s also here and was actually the person who urged me to travel to Sicily in the first place. Three days I booked my flight, I had received a text from her, typed in capitals: FLIGHTS TO PALERMO £13. I LEAVE TOMORROW. COME! Nevertheless, when I met up with her, I realised that actually, Justina had plans to do her own thing, as she does: Absolutely no one on this planet is like Justina.

Justina is constantly on a mission to spend as little money as possible so she’d rather travel alone and for free than with a person (possibly me) who may cost her.

We sat together outside of the large theatre (where there is also free public Wi-Fi connection) and spoke a while. She told me she had spent the day at the botanical garden and then handed me a grapefruit and some Qud leaves that she had found on the garden floors. ‘The whole place was full of drugs!’ She proclaimed. ‘But no one knows because they put the Latin name HA HA!’ ‘Qud’ is illegal too, in the UK and possibly the rest of Europe. They give you a high and Justina explained how in Yemen, people are addicted to chewing them, they have their cheeks stuffed with the greenery. Her and I chewed on a couple sitting on a bench, just before a street beggar approached us and attempted to sell us roses. We refused. We hadn’t chewed enough Qud to give us a high (for that you need half a bag), but enough to want to chew more. And that’s is Justina too, the ultimate forger.

Walking back, she brought an ice-cream whilst I brought myself a small pizza. I felt the stodge sticking to my insides but didn’t care. As I said already, this place is teaching me that life is delicious. We then went our separate ways and I quietly, before sleeping, saluted myself on my now solo adventure.

I craved the sea. The second day I jumped on a train heading east along the coast to a place named Cefalù. I had no care for the ‘old, historic’ (tourist) town rather, I headed away from the yellow bricks and towards the coastline. There I saw the most beautiful sights and beaches and, surprisingly, they were all almost empty. From what I have heard, locals believe that 20 degrees is too cold of a temperature to sunbathe. It was the first day of sun and only a few half-dressed bodies lined the sands. I came across a small fishing port that harboured a small sandy beach. I had my bag of Lidl food and a small hand towel, and I was already wearing my swimming costume. I was ready. And even better, I had spent half an hour doing exercises on a shoreline rock which had also made my mind ready to relax and my body, ready to lay down. I walked down the steps towards the beach, smiling and feeling at home noticing the fishing nets scattered around. Ahead in the distance was an old ruined fort, crumbling into the sea below. I laid out my tiny hand towel and placed my belongings under the small shadow cast by the back of a large sports boat, then I went in.

The water was blue, warm and covered in seagull feathers. It reminded me of the waters that sometimes I used to swim in as a teenager, down at Hardway in Gosport. It was near enough harbour water but it was better than any other water I had swam in this year. I then crashed, on the sand, in the sun, stomach full with bread and hummus. I awoke in one of those hazy dreams, where it takes you a few moments to decipher your body and the real world.

The view along the coastline reminded me of Iceland: the dark greys of the rocks, almost black, contrasted against the whites and the clean blues of the crashing waves. The sea brings out a wildness in me.

I swam again in Cefalù, just before the last of the sun disappeared behind the mountains. This time I swam at a more public beach, North of the town. The water felt warmer here yet the waves were more violent. I danced and ducked under the racing white horses as they galloped towards me. I imagined myself a giant seagull cleansing her body after a day’s wondering.

Although, just as the sun set, a coldness came over me and too, I felt a strange awkwardness with myself. What should I do? I didn’t want to drink beer, something I would have done maybe four years younger, it felt pointless. And I didn’t want to return back to my hostel, only to sleep. I wanted warm food and somewhere to sit inside but I realised that I didn’t want to spend the money on myself. I walked, wondered, sat on a rock hoping it had heated up throughout the day and could heat me up too, but nothing. I was still cold. Then I walked past a restaurant, the only one which didn’t position a person outside to lure in any hungry eyes. Tagliatelle with mushroom’ E10. Local wine ¼ litre E5. Too expensive, my gut told me, I then continued. But another 20 minutes later and sure enough, I was sat at the table of this place, feeling awkward as the only person to be sitting alone. Yet desperately I tried to gently relax, both into myself and the place as minutes passed. I caught myself gazing away from any person, out into the window which, being dark outside, I couldn’t actually see anything anyway. And I caught myself hunched over, as though an old, widowed woman, protecting her heart from another potential lover who may break it. What was I so shy of? Why couldn’t I gaze at the people around? Why didn’t I own this experience, of taking my own self out for a meal? I finally sat back in my wooden chair, unfurled my shoulders and thought about all the many days I had eaten reduced supermarket food: mouldy vegetables, slimy stir-fry, stale bread. Enjoy this Amy, I said to myself, everyone deserves this, right? So why not you?

It turned out that I couldn’t not enjoy it: the wine, the taste of the mushrooms. What I mean to say when I say the food is semi-orgasmic here, is that whilst you are in front of it, you cannot think of anything else other than it. You are it. I felt my cheeks become pink with the hot food and wine. I had to consciously slow my pace to savour the moment but losing control, I sped up, unconsciously, with a smile on my face.

And afterwards, with my belly satisfied and finally feeling warm, I thought some funny things sitting alone with myself. I thought not entirely of the future but I could see myself looking back to who I am now, as someone else, just as I now look back upon that younger version of myself: the all-out hippy, smoker, vagabondess wondering aimlessly but ultimately, away from herself. I wondered if I too was running away from myself by coming here? But escaping what exactly? I asked. Difficult conversations, uncertain futures? But no, I realised that it felt different this time. I realised I felt more with myself than I ever had been. I didn’t feel nervous to enter a youth hostel, or to ask for directions, or to say to a stranger ‘look, you can do that but I am going to do this.’ It’s all new, this quite basic and mild confidence and somehow, it strangely affirms that travelling alone for me is no longer distractive or destructive galivanting.

On the way back to the train station, I noticed a group of people looking through small windows and onto a dome, what sounded like a sports hall: I heard trainers squeaking and voices shouting. I joined the viewers to see a group of young people, boys and girls, playing basketball. I watched for a while and possibly began to smile at the sight from underneath my face mask. I felt a weird sense of belonging. That, just as those young people were running, shooting, scoring, I too was doing my thing: walking, staring, observing. And neither of us, although one in the universe’s eyes, cared little for each other’s presence in that moment. They were living, moving, and so was I, happily. And that is a thing that connects us and everyone, the now. SCORE!

Whilst waiting for the last train back to Palermo I ate a plum, just as I had done on arrival to Cefalù. I liked the full circle of it, the silly, meaningless patterns that are created both consciously by humans and naturally, by randomly occurring coincidences. It was a sweet day.

A strange thing happened this morning. I arose early in the hostel bed, showered, and ate the grapefruit that Justina gave to me for breakfast. The plan was to leave the hostel in Palermo and begin heading East toward Catania. I would stay one night half-way in between the two cities in Enna, a commune located high in the hills.

All was running smoothly and then, as I headed down stairs to check out, I noticed a person on the sofa bed, laid out as though he was asleep. ‘Ciao’ I said, expecting that he was the person who worked at the hostel and that he would be able to check me out. Then, as he turned, a different face appeared.

‘Hey… hey!’ He said and I too replied enthusiastically and with surprise. I recognised his face although couldn’t think where form.

‘You’re the Buddhist lady!’ He said, just as I too remembered where I had seen his face before: he was the strawberry blonde boy who I’d met in the multifaith prayer room of the airport, the person who also had to deal with my on-the-edge joke.

We exchanged the news of what had happened since we’d last met. I told him about my adventures so far and he told me the troubles he had getting here. It turned out that he was supposed to be on the same flight as me but missed it, due to being on the phone too long perhaps? He mentioned that he had instead got a flight to south east Italy the same night and since then, had been sleeping on the streets with his rucksack. ‘I’m so tired,’ he said, ‘I’ve only just arrived to Palermo.’ It’s odd, I thought, how despite all the mishaps of his plans that we still met, in the same hostel out of so many in Palermo. It is a strange and small world.

We exchanged more surprised glances at the synchronicities of it all and then introduced ourselves properly. It turned out that he was not Australian, but a student at Sussex university studying an undergraduate degree in psychology and more precisely, whether meditation can be a method which help to transform perceptions of the self. ‘So interesting,’ I said and being that I was ‘Buddhist lady’, he eventually asked me if I would like to the guinea-pig for his research. I agreed partly wondering whether it was some kind of strange chat-up line instead. ‘And you’re welcome to come to Brighton, we would love to host you.’ He told me also how he has recently become so rooted in the seaside town due to the amazing group of people he has met. ‘Of course, I would love to, thank you,’ I replied, thinking as Justina would that it is always good to know people around the world who will host you for free in different places.

I then checked myself out, said goodbye to Simon, the strawberry blonde boy, and finally jumped on the train heading east with minutes to spare. I made it, just on time and even was able to stop at Lidl to buy another 40c croissant which only after, I realised was filled with ham, not sweet pistachios. Oh, the surprises of this life!

I knew that Enna, the town, was an hour walk uphill from Enna train station but I wholly underestimated just how uphill something can be on a volcanic island. I arrived, stepped onto the train station platform and looked upwards. Enna was a kingdom in the sky. ‘Ok,’ I muttered to myself, fastening the straps on my rucksack, ‘time to burn off those pastries.’

Unsurprisingly, after twenty minutes I was sweating and more than I ever had during the leg, bums and tums classes at the gym. It felt good, my heart was pumping and that, along with the gentle winds and the view of the mountains around me, made me feel so alive.

I looked up again towards the town I thought I was heading to, then looked down again at the Google map on my phone. It directed me to turn 180 degrees to walk the other way and so I did, as an obedient servant of modern-day GPS. And that was when I saw where I was really heading. All that time, I had been looking at the wrong town. I took a deep breath and looked up at my new destination. If the last town was a kingdom in the sky, this one, Enna, was beyond the heavens. It was so high that the road I had to take gradually disappeared into the distance above. I wondered if I would make it, especially with my overloaded rucksack, and prayed only that the clouds would keep blocking the midday sun a little longer.

‘Alright universe I hear you,’ I said panting, ‘I ate one too many pastries.’

After eating two plums, a hummus olive roll, and the cheese pasty I had brought in Lidl earlier that morning (I ruthlessly teared the ham away from the cheese and threw it into the bushes beside me), I did ten minutes of yoga on top of a drainage system. I then decided to rest my head and shoulders upon my rucksack. I was tired, form the walking and sweating and the headache I had that I was certain was due to not drinking any caffeine that morning. Without resistance, I quickly fell into a deep sleep, arm hooked around my two bags, and dreamt of the faces of old friends. Where are they now?

I awoke after twenty minutes, in the heat of the sun. It was one of those sudden awakenings in which, for a brief few seconds, you forget where you are and whether you are alone. I looked around, no-one. Only the mountains and the town that still towered above me. I looked up. The clouds were lessening, burning away. It was past midday. I felt soon, they sky would be clear and the heat would slow me from reaching the floating city. I said my prayers, to end the yoga, and then strapped on my rucksack once more.

The smaller, winding road that would have led me into the city was being dismantled by big orange cranes and men in florescent jackets. I laughed in joy knowing that Google maps, despite all its powers, had no idea about the local restructurings of Italian mountain communes.

The destruction of the winding road, left me only with the option to walk along the side of the motorway. Luckily there was enough walking distance along each side of the road for me not to get jolted by the air pressure of passing cars or worse, run over. Nevertheless, it was still a hairy walk; one which I felt more comfortable to look behind me to double check that the car approaching had noticed me. There was even a moment whether I questioned how I would rather get run over: ‘Is it better to get squashed between this metal road barrier and fall over the side of the mountain to my death? Or better, should I cross the road to get flattened between a car and the city wall?’ I chose the former.

All that thinking must have made me step up my pace as, before I knew it, I had arrived into the city. I took a deep breath yet still felt too wired to take a seat in the city, relax and find a coffee. Instead, still in mission-mode, I headed straight to the hostel.

The hostel doors were closed and lights were off. I called the number that was taped to the front door to hear an older man, speaking Italian, answer.

I was going to call back but now tired and restful, I instead sat on the chair outside, hoping that with time, something will happen.

And sure enough, it did. Not long after the older man answered the door, threw his cigarettes and keys onto the reception desk and asked for my passport. He then took me to the dormitory room and with no other word said ‘Ok?’

And that was that. I had a bed, actually eight. I was the only one in the hostel room and, I think the only person on the entire floor of the building.

Tea. I made tea. And, to my correct diagnosis, my headache went away. I sent Maryam a message. I unpacked and then laid down, rubbing my aching legs. I watched a pigeon bathing in a pool of water that had collected on the plastic roofing outside of my room. I breathed, finally.

Then later, in the afternoon I walked. I headed up again, more up, to the old castle of the town and the rock which many had regarded as a spiritual place of worship. I sat there, on top of the rock, alone mostly, (where was everyone?), watching the sun set across the city and the land which I had walked up shadow amongst purples and greyish greens.

Only three other people had stuck around for the sight. A couple and one man, Franco, an Italian who took many photos of me whilst I was sitting. I felt uncomfortable at first and pretended not to notice, then after I took advantage of his skills and asked him to take one of me on my phone.

What the fuck does internal holiday mean Amy? A five-star, all-inclusive hotel inside a stomach? And how do you expect a person knowing such little English to understand that? I laughed afterwards at myself, realising also Turin, not touring, was the place he was from. I noticed Franco another ten minutes afterward, taking more photos of me from the bottom of the rock. My awkward words obviously hadn’t scared him off.

I was along again, for a while, before two young children ran up the path towards the rock. At first, I wondered where their parents were. But then I remembered that just after Franco left, I had saw the young bodies approaching, kissing and cuddling each other under the pinkening skies. I watched them run up the rock an alternative route, and climb over the barriers. They were full of spirit, too much, overwhelming spirit. I felt like photographing them, just as Franco had photographed me. I looked again to see them again, kissing, feeling each other’s young bodies, exploring this world and their own existences. They seemed no older than twelve and so utterly in love.

Young lovers, a sunset and swallows flitting across the skyline. What more is there to say except I ended the day in the cathedral, praying, and then after, quickly knocking back my first, large, sweet, locally made limoncello. Another sweet day.

And then I realised, hazily walking back to the hostel, that words will never suffice the feeling that arose on that rock. A part of me was a foreigner in a different land yet more so, I felt a timeless sense of belonging to this world. A homage, to simply be here.

I boarded the train from Enna to Catania full of soul. The walk down the mountain earlier that morning, with Mount Etna in sight, filled me with so much light that I felt as though I was bouncing down the hill. I was singing, loudly. And also, earlier that morning, I had woken up at 6.30am to return to the rock to see the sunrise. And after, I treated myself to the three Euro breakfast at the hostel and for once, it was not only just pastries. I ate egg, fruit, toast, and even better, somehow made good friends with the young Ethiopian woman who worked in the hostel and who I had met briefly the night before. We laughed, at the things we miscommunicated, and agreed that the day ahead would be a good one.

So, I boarded the train to Catania with the plan was to meet Justina and her friend at three o’clock for lunch. But eventually it turned out that Justina, being Justina, didn’t reply to my WhatsApp messages until she was at the airport, departing to the UK. She called me, just before she was due to board the plane and, possibly feeling awkward, passed me over to her friend who had just arrived. Possibly like me, this friend had been invited to Sicily by Justina only ended up meeting for less than two hours. Oh well. I spoke to her friend who had just arrived and didn’t have much to say. She was German and we agreed to meet the next day.

So, I spent the day in Catania alone and I noticed that the town gave me strange feelings. It felt familiar, I think it reminded me of home: a run-down port of wonders and drunken souls. It also reminded me of earlier travels, in the less affluent parts of east Europe. When I stepped off the train station, the sun was shining and I took two videos of mermaid statues that had fish legs; that’s right, not tails, two fish legs. I thought to send the sight to Audrey, my mermaid mate who is living in Egypt.

I then wondered to the port, having over an hour to kill before check-in. I threw chunks of my bitten apple into the harbour water below. The different sized fish didn’t seem to interested and soon, the sight of them was replaced by a bright yellow floating condom. The water had churned up due to a fishing boat from the harbour leaving the dock. I watched it head out into the sea and looked, from the side of my eye, at a man preparing the fishing equipment on the rear deck. He waved at me from ashore. He was possibly the most tanned and leather-skinned man I had ever seen. I wondered if it was a social requirement for all fishermen across the world to have this thickened skin.

But what gave me the strangest feelings of all was the hostel I was staying in. I hadn’t been in a ‘proper’ hostel for a long time and instantly, I felt eighteen years old again, uncomfortable in my own skin and slightly intimidated by the ‘travelling free spirits’ that congregate indefinitely in places like such. It is as though some hostels are global target points for some underground network of hedonistic free-lovers. It seems beautiful at first sight, but then soon enough, hanging around in the common areas, you realise that everyone is lost, all of them, and soon, if you stay long enough, you will be too. Just have another beer, they’re only a euro! And doing nothing constructive with the endless time you have in the day, ‘travelling’ soon becomes just an expensive excuse for excessive smoking and beer drinking. I’ve seen it, it’s sad and you can feel that these places are full to the brim of drama and bathroom snogs. And would these people, my eighteen-year-old self, really have destructed themselves this much as this in their own bedrooms? Maybe a first-year student would, but me now, no longer. I don’t want to.

So when I was sat in the hostel in the evening time, drinking my ‘welcome drink’, then moving on to the happy hour beers, chatting to three girls – one German, one Dutch, the other a London-living Kiwi, all of them working away in these times of a global pandemic, all of them chain smoking cheap cigarettes – I felt like I wanted to run. And I did. I realised suddenly that I was there to entertain no one but myself and instead of another round, I’d rather wake up early, destroy the experience of sunlight with force, relish every waking beautiful sight of this city, whilst eating every cheap and delicious food and seeing the morning light through the trees. So, I ate my free hostel plate of pasta then left the hostel soon after, alone. I walked around, shrugged of a man who invited me on a date, and then ate a big pistachio ice cream cake on the steps of some old building to only manically walk off the sugar rush afterwards, listening to Elizabeth Cotton through my earphones. I felt a belonging to this earth like no other, and in that moment, I realised that I needed no person or cheap beer to confirm that to me. And as though excited to live, shamelessly, I told myself that I wanted it all, the real stuff, not the ‘happy hours’ of a hostel: something that this trip has taught to me.

Earlier that day an encounter with a stranger led me to sit on a bench, put my feet up, and soak up the sun. At the time, I had another half hour to kill before I could check-in to the hippy-beer drinking hostel. I was slowly walking around with my rucksack, plaits in hair, knowing fully well that I looked like a sitting duck for any tourist guide trying to sell trips to Mount Etna (which by the way, very majestically loomed over every sight of the city). Anyway, I was wondering around a city square with my rucksack and little did I realise that someone else was too. A young boy with thin, blonde strangely hairs growing from his chin. He was wearing a short, green cotton poncho – new age hippy festival style – a multicoloured bumbag and I saw, beheld a flute whistle in his back pocket. He approached me slowly, almost from nowhere and said something in Italian so softly that I was even unsure he was speaking. I smiled, asked him to repeat what he said, to see if I could decipher any words. Nothing again, only quiet Italian mummers. Then I noticed that he had tears streaming down his face, shining like diamonds on his golden skin. ‘God bless you.’ I repeated three times and loudly, as though from nowhere, I had suddenly become the mother of this crying love-child. ‘God bless you!’ The words were no longer mine! He then reached out both of his arms, tears still flowing, and slowly, we hugged lightly, our hands resting on each other’s backpacks. He was so young, I sensed, so full of innocence that suddenly I felt much older, so much more distanced from my heart compared to him. And his graceful, emotional and open youthfulness reminded me to relax, that time was on both on our sides and that the sun, in that very moment, was shining for either of our pleasures. We smiled, parted ways, then I took a seat on a bench and watched him standing on his skinny legs as he listened to the busker who also, throughout our brief interaction, had serenaded us with cheesy acoustic guitar music. It was all cheesy but I say blow your flute whilst young boy and fuck you, mundanity.

So, I felt sick by the night time. I had eaten a huge pistachio ice-cream cake then desperately tried to walk it off. It worked out but afterwards, I checked my pulse and my heart race was still throbbing. So instead of returning to the party hostel, I circled the city once more and ended up sitting under the elephant statue by midnight, watching the Friday night world go by. I was pretty happy by then. It’s odd, in the whole four days no man had ‘senorita’d’ me, not one. And it was a surprise, not because I think highly of myself, but usually that as a solo female traveller, it’s the price you pay for your freedom. But nothing, no one had bothered me, until that walk…

Three men. “Hey lady.” Maybe it was because it was Friday night, maybe it was the run-down port-town vibes. Either way, I did well to brush two off, although still very politely in the English way. (I still have to pluck up the balls to say fuck off, or simply no). And the other man, I did accept the offer of the drink at first, again only out of politeness, and then around fifteen minutes after, I changed my mind and did a U-turn. I didn’t want to, I stuck to it, it felt good. Conserving energy, for myself, and not feeling selfish for it.

And due to the decent night’s sleep, I awoke (for the fifth time in the night, the party hostel is loud) at 6.30am. And before my check out, as I planned, I visited the fish market (which surprisingly was still setting up when I arrived), brought more pistachio pesto, did my kriya and sat-nams in the park, and sat silently in the morning sun. I also touched a dead swordfish which was all a part of the adventure too. Its eyes were like wobbling egg yolks, not dried yet, and completely stunned.

Then after breakfast at the hostel and still before checkout, I visited the other market. I brought my usual random second-hand tat. It had to be done. I spent two pound on a rusted brass tower. What was it? God knows but that’s why I liked it. And I also liked it because the man whose stall it was chose it for me. We joked continuously for a good five minutes about how it could be used a weapon: how I could throw it at the middle of someone’s head if ever in danger. I brought it and spent the next twenty minutes buying more meaningless shit: a small plastic statue of Mary, a shining photo of Jesus, and a green woollen jumper for one euro, which little did I guess, a week later would be sent to a UK charity shop because it was crazily itchy.

But my time in Sicily did not end with a brass tower, or more swordfish sights, or second-hand junk from the market stall. No, it ended with the sun and the sand and the sea and Justina’s loopy friend, Emily. Emily is polish, born German, absolutely a huge leftie and so much older than I expected. Justina had told me she had just finished her PhD thesis and I therefore assumed for some reason that she would be in her late twenties, maybe thirties, but she was mid-forties. But anyway, none of that mattered, her heart was young. She was single, not afraid to be vulnerable, a strong leftist socialist, and the wildest of talkers. After three days of being with myself, the three hours of her company and the words she threw at me in the meantime, were enough to make me feel I had been traveling months with a group of characterful socialites.

‘Jesus Christ she is mad.’ I said to myself as Emily walked into the sea. I meant it and felt bad instantly after, realising that I too probably seemed so mad to the fishermen who noticed me earlier that same morning, chanting some Sanskrit song and squatting up and down in the local park. But hey, calling her mad was not a dig and besides, I’m sure she, like me, knows she is.

We talked, well mainly Emily, about ‘the oppressed’, how to ‘enlighten’ the ‘fucked up west’ and eradicate the ‘neoliberal bullshit’ from capitalist economies. I nodded and at times made the occasional comment about how, for example, Paulo Freire said that the pedagogy of social education in the so-called ‘third-world’ is important.

Before coming to Sicily, Emily had been studying the economics of social work for her PhD thesis and for her talk, I could tell that she had been head and soul deep into it. But regardless, social theory, all that university talk, seemed so distant from me at that very moment, and such an obvious distraction from more personal talk. And I realised that especially upon hearing the waves behind me – come in, their sounds stroked me, come in – and remembering the man, the many men and women who I had met on this trip, who had seemed so happy with just a piece of delicious food and greeted me so cheerfully, a stranger. Emily’s words of social oppression just couldn’t sink in.

And acknowledging what I had learnt on this trip, that there are so many ways to be rich in this life, and seeing so clearly how material substance has not uplifted my mother from her depression nor the many people I know who had migrated to the UK in search of ‘better jobs’, and witnessing in myself how I’ve been the most content when I have had absolute uncertainty in my future, and how exactly my life would turn out in several years, Emily’s talk felt empty, like old news. I knew oppression and suffering formulated in social life and I knew it was unquestionable: yes, social structures are apparent and people, everyone are derogatorily classed, raced, gendered, in economic and political ways. But what about the rest of it, the magic? The coincidence that I met the same man who I joked with in the airport prayer room, the oddity that we were sitting on the same land, wondering around the same city that only four hundred years ago was destroyed by molten lava, that there is a fucking giant bubbling volcano in the distance, shadowing this very blue sea ahead of us? What about that? That we were sitting here, two women, wonderers in Italy, watching planes land ahead of us in the distance whilst the world is caught up in the drama of the covid-19 pandemic. Was that all just ‘individualistic neoliberal’ talk? Was I too caught up in my own dreaming not to see the harsh realities of this life? Possibly, but rather I feel it was too in awe with the experience of it all to be weighted by grand theories.

We took turns to swim and the sea was delightful, as ever. And never did I imagine my life to have led to swimming across from the same giant volcano I had fascinated about since we learnt about tectonic plates in my GCSE geography classes. And I realised, all I ever wanted to do was to learn.

A collection of shells had been washed up too, along with a dead fish which I threw back into back the sea. Swim fish, die in your home. Its eye, the one that had been faced down was also egg-like, like the swordfish’s eyes. I wondered how the fishermen had kept them so clean and moist.

Strangely, all of the small shells had tiny holes in the top of them. They seemed purposefully drilled by human hand. They were too neat and centred I realised to be anything otherwise. I collected a few, thinking I could give them to friends who liked natural things as such: the girls mainly, although it also made me think of hairy Alexi, the French man who I met in Ljubljana during my younger travelling days. He too also liked shells and gave me a holey shell similar to these ones once.

I stuffed the shells into my phone case then fed the beach pigeons some of my shop-brought biscotti biscuits whilst Emily went for another swim. I felt blessed to share the last few moments with the quietness of the surrounding lands and the fighting sandy city birds. They each had turns and struggled to peck the hard sesame things, that had quickly turned so sandy. Nevertheless, I thought, it was good that for this moment, we were all, pigeons and humans, entertained by the situation.

Emily and I headed back to the hostel. Her wild talk had lessened by then and just as we said our goodbyes, I noticed that I had become very fond of her, comfortable. So much so that I genuinely hoped that we’d meet again somewhere. We hugged and then we brought together two matching wooden necklaces from a Senegalese lady. Emily kindly paid two thirds of the price. Emily’s was orange and mine was blue. It was like the sand and the sea, I thought. We then hugged again, exchanged emails and did ceremoniously, the Italian three-cheek kiss.

I had met a man earlier that morning at the hostel. He was waiting for me outside, before I met Emily. He was from Toronto but lived in Malta. His hair was greying and he seemed much older. ‘You seem very grounded’ he told me. I thought it was a coincidence he used the g-word, considering I had focused every day on my root chakra for the last seven days. I brushed the comment off and changed to topic. I instead told him that I had studied Maltese language and asked him whether or not he thought it was a dialect of Arabic. He said yes.

Talking with him was easy. He gave me an apple from the mountains and I told him about how, earlier that morning, in the market, I had proudly held up one rounded cactus fruit to the fruit stall owners who were both laughing and pointing at me. I told him that I thought it was because I had looked like some warped, Mexican-like statue of liberty. But it was not that actually. I told the man, as he knew, that it was because you are not supposed to touch those fruits due to the tiny needles that perforate your skin. And even now, everything I touch in with my right hand stings a little. The man laughed at my story and then gave me another apple, as though it was a kind of currency in exchange for my funny time. I brashly invited him to the beach, to join me and Emily. But I soon after, I retracted the offer thinking it was unfair on the unknown person I was about to meet. I also could sense that this man, and the apples he had given me, had ulterior motivations. So instead, I suggested that we exchanged numbers. I asked the man to pass me his phone after I had struggled to member my number. He told me that he was embarrassed for doing so. ‘Why?’ I asked. Because next to my name, he had already typed in the words ‘very beautiful.’ I cringed but tried not to show it in the thought it would embarrass him further. I wondered if the fetish had of my ‘beauty’ was the same thing that urged other older men in my life, to tell me they loved me. It made me wonder if I am still naïve enough to be ignorant to the romantic visions that older men have of me. It was an uncomfortable feeling.

However, on return back to the hostel, from the beach me and this man met again. He had messaged me to tell me he was waiting in the hostel lobby and wanted to say goodbye to me. I ignored it at first until I was half way through the hostel doors. Come on Ames, a goodbye can’t hurt. I turned around, and walked back through the hostel doors, leaving behind my rucksack, everything, on the stairs of the apartment.

And I’m glad that I did turn around! I found him writing and he told me that he knew about the morning pages that Maryam and I have so often talked about. And also, once again, he told me that he spoke to me because I seemed very ‘rooted’. I then finally, to play along with the hippy talk, told him that all week I had been working on my root chakra. He then told me he also did yoga. I then told him I had been doing Kundalini. He then told me he was a Kundalini teacher. I then told him I was, since this year, doing my training. He then told me about a famous teacher in New York. I then said Sat Nam to him and left. And that’s just how the universe works.

I can only wish that the man who I had brought the brass statue, tower thing form was with me when my rucksack was pulled aside during the airport security control. I was certain and even confessed it to the security guards that it was because I had five glass pots of pesto pasta stuffed in there somewhere. ‘I know what it is, it is the pesto, I forgot, I’m sorry!’ But when the security lady pointed out the suspicious item on the X-ray image of my rucksack, I saw it: the brass weapon. I immediately laughed. ‘What is it?’ She asked. It’s a rusty brass tower of course, silly woman! Who does take one of those in their hand luggage? I didn’t say that of course and instead, almost embarrassed, pulled out the object to show the security man who had come over to deal with me. ‘Ah ok, a souvenir’ he said. I was glad someone understood what my strange item was, although possibly out of sympathy.

The after the security checks, I sat with a spinach and cheese arancini, a pistachio cannelloni and a cappuccino in the café of the airport. I had just finished joking around with the two bar tenders who kindly made the foam on the top of my coffee into a love-heart shape: ‘with love,’ the man said as he served it to me. All of it felt like the perfect full stop. Sicily, my goodness, had treated me well. I felt alive, stuffed with good food and so in love with this life. (Stop it now or you will start tearing up like the poncho god-child).

Honestly though, what a trip. The essence of travel was absent: the ‘wow-foreignness’ was instead replaced by a gentle belongingness to the beauty of this earth. And although lonely at times, I felt whole, unfrightened both of myself and the empty void I had so previously tried to fill (with beer and men) on other solo adventures. The reflections that I glanced at in the mirrors along Sicilian roads showed me the extent to which I had grown in these last four years. And it feels so good to know that despite it all – the grey skies of London, and the coldness it had shadowed upon my heart – I’d still grown and gained an irreversible confidence. It’s all endless, I realise now.

And that enough about me, for now. And I must remain humble. This life, I know, has more to offer (although, I am certain no better tasting food that that from Sicily!).

Ps. I mentioned little about the fact that I travelled amidst the global pandemic Covid-19. It’s all chaos. The restrictions that have been in place seem only to increase public fear of social interaction, petty bureaucracy, tightened border controls and granted everyday folk (such as flight attendants) to be nothing else but police-like rule enforcers. It’s sad to see. If I had arrived to the UK a day before, I would have had to have quarantined myself for fourteen days. And what difference does it make exactly, if I wonder around the street of an Italian village compared to London? And what difference would it make if, say I did arrive 8 hours after my landing time, at 4am, when all of a sudden, I am required to isolate and subject to a fine if I don’t? Its madness, non-sensical law making and it is a clear revealing of how little control and power the daily individual has over their life in contemporary world. Of course, I understand that I speak as a person not at risk of death from the virus and I pray that no one before their time suffers. Although, I feel sure that such measures only increase fear and worry throughout people’s mundane activity and that, for certain, that stress is by no means healthy for the immune system. So apologies, Italians and British, that my nostrils over the week had sometimes dangled out and over from my stuffy fabric face mask.