Sicily: Part Two (Palermo and some of Ancient Sicily)

The chronology of our Sicily trip is a bit out of order in these two posts but I'm trying to remain focused on a few themes related to gardening and the green spirit. "Buon divertimento!"

Cucuzza squash in the Mercato di Capo in Palermo. 

We'd planned to drive into Palermo twice during our time in Sicily but a food poisoning incident put an end to that plan two days before we were scheduled to fly to Rome. What's worse is that I'd intended to spend that last day at the botanical garden but all I could do was vow to return. What's a girl to do? Seriously.

This meant that we had to leave the island with only a few memories of the chaotic città di Palermo, but at least we saw the catacombs and il Mercato di Capo. My other hope all along had been to visit a market in Palermo and somehow we landed at one of the largest quite by accident.

Ok, maybe it was fate after all, a big hug from my Sicilian family from beyond the grave...

My great-grandpa Frank Amato with a cucuzza he grew in his garden in SE Portland. Since it's much colder here in Oregon than in Sicily I know this was a triumph for him. I'm sure this photo was taken to always remember this accomplishment. 

All I could think about that day in Palermo was my family. Everything I saw as I looked around brought color and life back into the black & white photos I'd grown up seeing. This awakening of snapshots invigorated me and although I walked beside my husband, I knew then as I know now that this experience was my own and I embraced every awkward moment of it. (Honestly, he'd bought a platter of pastries and was reliving his own Italian childhood as we walked through the market that day.) There we were walking together reliving our own memories yet his were real and mine were only the half-imagined stuff of stories, old photos, and dreams mixed with raw emotions. I wanted so badly to be a little girl walking beside my great-uncle Charlie (holding his hand), or to be with his best-friend, cousin Joe.

It felt strange to be in Sicily alone.

Il Mercato di Capo.

Yet, that was the beginning of an ongoing chain of epiphanies for me as I walked through the market.

Any American with a strong tie to another culture can make choices—either cut their ties and let the past remain the past or inject new life into it. I've always straddled my Italian-American identity and dealing with being bi-cultural in Oregon in the 1980s was not easy. Countless times Americans have told me I wasn't Italian enough to be Italian and they were wrong. Children should never have to grow up defending their identity. They have no idea how painful and damaging those words were to me.

Besides, Italians don't quantify their identity, they qualify it. That's why I have a blood right (jus sanguinis) entitling me to Italian citizenship. I've been given that choice by my bloodline. In Italy it doesn't matter how much Italian blood you possess, what matters is what you do with the heritage that's been passed on to you through birth.

As a girl I'd looked at photos with family members and I'd been told that these were a part of who I was and of my identity but I know now the damage that can do over time. I was always confused because those photos weren't of my life in the 1980s with a mother who wasn't in the least bit Sicilian and with two brothers who in no way cared about any of this.

We're the American generation that really is able to choose to be called American but I'm the only one of my siblings who's chosen to remain hyphenated. This is what happens in bi-cultural and bi-racial families. Individuals must be allowed to decide who and what they're going to be and the family fabric will change.

I wish I had siblings like me, but I don't, and honestly, we're not that close. For me it's always felt like a cultural rift or divide but it's difficult to say.

Instead of dwelling, I've lived my own independent life and have chosen to remain Italian through my marriages and I'm pleased now to have an Italian mother-in-law. It's the way my life is, has been, and will be. I'm happier now than I've ever been. I love to cook and garden. I have an undying love for produce and fresh food. And when I wake up I drink my coffee and spend a lot of time everyday thinking of making new dishes for the many friends I invite to eat at my table.

Seeing a market in Sicily one day can make all of this happen if you're the right kind of person in need of that kind of emotional catharsis. I've been crying out for that experience for so long and it's sad I had to wait for so long and travel so far but I'm a better person now.

Ok, now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

This mosaic floor depicts the bountiful harvests available on the island during the era of the Roman Empire.  Many of the orchards had been planted by the Greeks centuries before so there was already an agricultural system in place. 

Leading up to that epiphany in the market we'd spent the day before driving from Termini to the Villa Romana del Casale in the interior of the island. The villa contains the largest collection of Roman mosaics in the world and is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The "bikini girls" is by far the most famous mosaic work in the complex. Seeing it in person was a highlight of the trip for me. It was absolutely nothing like I had imagined. The figures are quite large and they're more real when seeing them in person. The shading on the leg muscles was much better than I'd remembered seeing in books.

I also noticed all of the botanical bits and pieces as we walked through the entire complex. Recounting what I knew about the meaning of each plant as we looked at the mosaics was interesting to John. Although he has a Master's degree in history, with an empasis on the Italian Renaissance, he'd never read much about ancient Rome and Italy. It was fun sharing with him.

Nowhere in Rome will you see anything quite like the Villa Romana del Casele. It's huge and very well preserved. Walking on walkways overlooking all of the rooms and floors was a brilliant design plan too. You see so much!

It really made me long to return to my days as a student of art and landscape history. I'd once worked hard to specialize in ancient art, philosophy, and history. Using my knowledge while there though really enriched the experience for me. John left knowing a lot more about Italy's flora and the history of it too although we both still have so much more we want to learn.

Driving several hours though the countryside, stopping in the road for a shepherd and his flock of sheep, and chatting all day with John about his impressions of the place made for a dream-like day. We still had one more stop though.

We drove for a few more hours to Agrigento, on the southern coast of Sicily. This is where you'll find the Valle dei Templi. In addition to being a national monument in Italy, it's also one of the best places in the world for Ancient Greek architecture. 

The temples are above the valley, along a ridge. As we drove into town they were difficult to miss. The view from the road below was truly breathtaking and I was left speechless. I've had few spiritual moments in my life, but that afternoon was truly a spiritual pilgrimage for me. 

Yes, there was an attached garden too but its gate was closed. 

And it was so lovely that in the middle of the ancient Greek temples, catacombs, and necropolis you'll find this humble home built by an Englishman by the name of Hardcastle who came to "save" the temples. I will not get onto the topic of what other Europeans have done in Italy in regards to preserving the history of the ancient and artistic heritage we all seemingly share, but I'm certainly of the opinion that this lovely eyesore should have been built somewhere else—oh, and that England should hand back the Elgin Marbles to Athens. 

(I also highly recommend the novel Nike: A Romance by Nicholas Flokos. It's a love story like no other concerning the repatriation of the Winged Victory statue in the Louvre.)

This should probably make my sentiments and opinion quite clear. 

Here I am standing in front of the Temple of Concordia.

It is sad to me that John does not share my interest in the ancient world, but he has other things to buoy his interest up north and happily we ended up learning a lot from one another. 

Life is a funny thing and we all need our own raison d'être as the French like to say. I think it's important that we each find our own and respect others'.  There truly are so many options out there that make life truly worth living. 

As we walked back to the car, I spotted this sign and glimpsed over to the area it was describing.

Only exhaustion at this point kept me away.

I wanted the signs to tell me more—so much more.

But my body was in no mood to make the descent.

I definitely need to study more and return refreshed and prepared to Sicily.

We drifted from that ancient universe to Palermo and then to Cefelù after several trips into Termini. The days truly all blend together now. 

That evening in Cefalù I purchased seeds at this shop for my mother-in-law and myself and it was a bit like a candy store for me. All the necessary new Italian vocabulary I needed to communicate with other gardeners was there on the shelves. 

(This is not vocabulary you learn in your regular Italian language course.) 

Then I ate something that gave me food poisoning and the trip took a turn. 

John and I after a day of bed rest due to food poisoning. Our nausea made walking difficult but we made it down to the common area at least. 

Our last full day in Sicily was spent recovering from the food poisoning. John only had three bites of the aranchi rice ball that made me so sick so at least he empathized. We were both unable to move much that day so we just processed what we'd seen so far and John and I talked about what was yet to come.

Wild native Gladiolus italicus growing in the olive orchard. 

I wandered around where we'd been staying to take more plant pics and after John returned to our room, I sat with the Sicilian tourists at the restaurant below our lodgings and soaked up their noise as I wrote to friends back home using the Wifi connection.

The day-trip tourists ate daily at the restaurant and then danced to loud music and talked to one another. (Yes, Sicilians love agroturismo too and they'd all paid to take a bus to artichoke country to spend time basking in the harvest.) We were largely ignored as outsiders, but that last day it changed for me.

The day before I'd heard an old man on the patio playing traditional Sicilian music with his mandolin. My heart had seriously skipped a beat. That day he was back. The tourists piled onto the buses and only he and I were on the patio. He hobbled over to me and sat down speaking Sicilian dialect as he slowly crossed the distance. Looking right into his eyes, I pieced my words together carefully.

I told him in broken Italian I understood him but did not speak well. He shifted to Italian.

I pointed at his mandolin and said to him (in broken Italian), "the music of my great-grandparents".

He asked me if I was Sicilian. I said yes. He asked me my name. I said Amato because that's what a Sicilian means if he's asking about your name. He wants to know the name of your family. He asked where my family was from and I said Termini.

Cha-ching!

And that's the key to opening up a Sicilian. He smiled a wide smile and his eyes lit up. Then he asked what my mother was and I said "American". As is usual, he told me that was ok and then he played music for me and sang. He apologized for his playing and blamed his age. He told me he lived nearby and was widowed and alone. He walked to the restaurant when he could for the exercise.

Then we talked about Oregon. He was shocked that Sicilians so long ago had moved so far away. This was not the first time I'd heard this either. I didn't have the heart to tell him that they'd avoided other Sicilians in the United States intentionally. At least that's what I'd been told by a relative not long before he died. We never had spoken much about it when I was a kid, but he told me because by that point it no longer mattered. What's done is done.

The view from our bed. The doors to the room are glass but then there is a second lockable set with louvers. It's a great way to manage the Sicilian sun and heat. 

This is part of my American story and I'm proud of it. My Sicilian family thought differently and I'm happy they landed in Portland.

It's also been said they came here for the soil. They wanted nothing more than to be able to grow vegetables in peace and to prosper beyond poverty. Unlike many other Italian emigrants, they saw success early on and their sacrifice paid off.

Last photo before leaving. 

Driving through Palermo in the dark on our way to the airport I recalled having seen the bleak monument near the waterfront only days earlier dedicated to AI CADUTI NELLA LOTTA CONTRO LA MAFIA (those who'd fallen in the fight against the mafia). I thought of the judges who'd been blown up along that same road. I thought too of the brave Sicilians participating in addiopizzo. Many of them are of my generation and I know that if I lived there I too would be in their ranks.

I abhor the glorification of organized crime in any way, shape, or form. The commodification of this way of life feeds on the glorification of interpersonal violence and it's not what Sicilian culture is about and I'm ashamed of the ignorance of those who play into these stereotypes.

Leaving Sicily that Friday morning was very difficult for me. I'd only just started watching as something inside of me had germinated and began to grow. At least whatever it was was going with me.

When the wheels of the plane lifted off, I felt an emotional tug in my gut. I did not want to leave but I left with my eyes wide open for what felt like the first time in my life.

A Few Blooms of Summer and the Plant Path Ahead

As summer begins to wind down here in the Pacific Northwest (and we enter into my favorite time of year), I thought it might be a nice time to review a few beautiful blooms of summer.

Many of these images are older ones—so forgive me if you've seen them before somewhere on here.

Love-in-a-mist after it's finished blooming (Nigella damascena).

The traditional school year begins soon. Maybe you've noticed all of the back-to-school fanfare and hoopla whenever you go shopping? I know I walk into stores wondering what back-to-school plants look like but I'm still not sure.

(Let me know if you have a clue. Somebody must have marketed something for just this occasion. I just know it.)

California Poppy, (Eschscholzia californica).

So, maybe this might be a good time to mention that I've finally taken into consideration how many folks I've been chatting with recently who've mentioned that I should stop acting like such an amateur and admit to the fact that maybe I could grow beyond where I've been making circles in the dirt with my fingers. (This is how I perceive their thoughts on the subject. I may have filtered their comments through some rather large tumblers of gin and tonic this past weekend so I'm a bit fuzzy on exactly what they said, but I got the gist of it.)

Large-leaved Lupine, (Lupinus polyphyllus). 

Ok, darling friends of mine, you win (and I know at least one of you regularly reads my posts so thank you C).

Western Columbine, (Aquilegia formosa) along the Smith River in CA.

I'm going to admit to having an aptitude for the sport, but with some reservations. As I write this, straddling my words loosely between images of an Aquilegia and Mimulus I shot while visiting the Smith River in Northern California last year, I should mention that right after I took these pictures I fell and gave myself severe whiplash.

Just sayin'.

Common Monkey-flower, (Mimulus guttatus) along the Smith River in CA. 

But let's get back to some of those summer blooms [insert awkward transition here].

There are so many amazing little plants and blooms for our sentimental green souls to treasure and like so many others, I have that insanely nerdy desire to know how, where, and why they grow. That's why many of the plants you see here I've grown from seed at some point, or else I had plans to play with that process this past year, but it had to be postponed until now. 

Yes, I can "announce" too that I will be back to my old routine soon and the basement will be filled with light and life this winter and I will stratify outside and I will be so happy about it. 

Yes, it's these subtle little touches in the natural world which matter and are important. It's these blooms that often have idiots like me coming back over and over. 

Calico Monkey-flower, (Mimulus pictus) at Annie's Annuals & Perennials.

Some of them are just amazing and you know of few other sights quite like them.

Sticky Phacelia (Phacelia viscida) at Annie's Annuals & Perennials.

I don't think I even need to mention what blue blooms do for a lot of people—myself included.

Rose Snapdragon, (Antirrhinum multiflorum) at Annie's Annuals & Perennials.

Some flowers you just want to touch and caress, and you wonder if you should purchase a whole new wardrobe based upon their merits—or at least a new pair of boots or some nail polish. (OK, maybe it's just me who thinks like this but I am becoming more and more convinced by messages I receive that a lot more oddballs are out there. Raise your hands! I know you're reading this right now.) 

Sticky Monkey-flower, (Mimulus aurantiacus) at UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley. 

But then there are the glowing blooms that brighten your way and shine a light down that plant path we must all wander down.

Mexican Prickly Poppy, (Argemone mexicana) at UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley.

I remember visiting the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley for the first time and remembering how funny I used to think it was that my friend Sean Hogan worked as a curator there. As someone who'd studied art history, I'd never thought of curation taking place outside of an art museum or gallery. So I looked around and thought about how much visual literacy mattered in both of these arenas. 

I knew that I fit in when I thought about having compared hundreds of Christ images as an undergraduate and how that ability could easily overlap with a survey, say, of Agave—or any other group of plants. So similar to most, yet some of us just have a knack for discerning subtle differences—and these differences often matter a great deal and they tell us a lot. 

I'm not great at that game but I can spot and identify seed heads at great distances in their natural environment—sometimes while driving a car. It's a skill—a very strange one, but it's part of this whole process. 

Prickly Pear, or Opuntia bloom. 

I remember walking around, looking at the students and employees, and I thought about how sad I was that I'd been unable to complete the plant path long ago. I had to turn around defeated before I'd even really gone very far. 

My illness made physical activity and a lot of technical work too difficult. I had to slow down and at times I just didn't make much progress at all. My mind didn't work as well and I no longer had near perfect grades. It took years to discover I had swelling in my brain that was impeding me and inhibiting my growth as a person. I was trapped inside and I struggled for years to find the words to describe what I was experiencing. 

I turned to art to soothe and stimulate my mind. 

I moved indoors, inside of myself. Later I moved indoors because I had no choice. My immune reactions disallowed me from being outside. I had to look out the window and I started to play with seeds to keep the hope alive. 

Life circumstances prevented me from being able to return to any of these green dreams until these last few months. Now they surround me again and I am surround by green friends too who've made me feel so welcome despite my typically stylish and late arrival. Just when I wanted to give up hope after nearly 18 years things started to unravel in very mysterious ways. 

What matters is that I've arrived and I know why I'm here now and what I want to be doing. After a really long time, I feel like I've finally grown and that at long last I truly bloomed this summer. I've never felt like this before but I'm getting used to it. 

Elegant Clarkia, (Clarkia unguiculata). 

It's one foot in front of the other once again but this time I get to laugh and walk because I want to do so—not because I have to or need to do so. My load is so much lighter now—literally too. 

My mind is calm and silent now and I'm open to what's ahead of me. I have the mental space again and have found my old quiet personal nature waiting there for me. It was there all along waiting for me to be well enough to come by and pick it up and wear it again as my second skin. It's warmed me to the core to be myself again, and as time goes on, and I keep at this, I hope to better understand and explain my dormancy. 

Until that time, I will revel in the simplest of things, the blooms of summer and the magic they bring to gardeners and plant lovers around the world. I'm a believer and if you're here reading this, you probably are too. 

In the Weeds

This has never been a how-to garden blog, but maybe in this case, I'll make a grand sweeping exception. If there is one thing I can teach all of you to do, it's how to be in the weeds in your garden. With the grace of my rough and rebellious American hand we'll brush off the argument that my garden is a mess, and I'll show you how to do so from the zero gravity chair I pretty much live in for the majority of the gardening year. So yes, today, I am playing as the armchair garden philosopher. 

Our passion vine (Passiflora caerula 'Blue Crown') is a bit wild. I blame all of those young adult mystery books I read as a child. I think this might be called Scooby Doo Chic. 

If there's one thing I've always been good at it's been taking on far too much. As a kid, I'd often have to give up an activity or two, but up until the last decade, I'd usually toss everything up into the air and over time, it would all work out.

When I was in college this nasty little habit of mine helped me to get my work done. Integrating unrelated information worked for me, but in the art history department I pushed beyond its unstaid envelope everyday and not all of the other students enjoyed or understood my work, and a few of the professors tended to think of my presentations more as mental acrobatics than as real academic work. And to this day, I will never understand why not a single art history professor ever assigned a philosophy book. Since the entire field has its origin in aesthetics, this was always very sad to me, but the same thing goes for garden design. Yup, it too is based on aesthetic theory and philosophy too. (Don't groan. I can hear you and the chorus of other groaners out there.)

I am in the weeds.

And here we go, I'm at it again. I'm about to wrap this egg roll right up though so hold on tight.

I realize now that stasis (in a Greek philosophical sense) has always been important to me, but I didn't know what to call it until I was introduced to Giovanni Bellini's St Francis in Ecstasy and the study of ontology in high school. I could write a tome about this painting, but I will attempt to resist in this post, and save that for later. 

I was able to go on a little pilgrimage to The Frick Collection to see this painting with an art history classmate while she was still living in New Jersey. She'd moved to the NYC area to pursue her graduate studies and I am so proud of how far she's gone in her career. (I am also happy she's now a gardener.)   

I find that I now tire of the same thing in garden design that I used to find dull and problematic when I studied art history and that it's not just illness and broken fingers which has led me to being in the weeds. Instead, what's been holding me back is my inner battle with mimesis.

Internally, yes, I struggle, and with this post, as well as a few others, I've exposed myself as a bit of a navel gazer who prefers to build her castles in the sky rather than on dry land, but that's because of my struggle with beauty, representation, design, art and reason. 

Like that overwhelmed server in a busy restaurant, I am so far behind in my garden that our green customers have overwhelmed me and are attacking. Well, so what if I'm in the weeds in my garden? Maybe I want to be the oldest kind of garden designer of all, not a farmer, but the kind of person who let's nature grow up against her. It just so happens I'm in a city though, but I'm not afraid of the chaos of nature and you shouldn't be either. We've been mimicking her since to dawn of man and I'd rather mimic her than the newest garden design fads.

So that's enough for now. We'll flog this not yet dead horse again soon.