"I'm home! Sicily" COMU VENI SI CUNTA
How many years has it been? In 2017, I was invited as a founding member of a modern art museum in a town called Sant’Alfio, and in 2018, I was invited by my cousin’s child to a school Art Workshop to paint a mural on the school wall... We always came as a family of three. We were always surrounded by Sicilian family and friends, and I remember it as a time when something within me was greatly liberated.
Back then, I casually said to one of my relatives, "I'll live in Sicily someday." --- Yes, that's what I said, getting carried away. I had completely forgotten. When I came back this time, my cousin said, "Seriously, you're really going to live here? I didn't believe you when you said it before! (lol)" with a warm retort. My friends also told me, "ARRICOGGHITI" (Come home)... There are so many warm people, I can only be grateful.
Upon arriving at the airport, my uncle and my cousin's child were waiting. It's hard to describe. I don't understand the language perfectly, but those two just smiled and hugged their daughter immediately, giving a strange sense of familiarity as if they had seen her yesterday. At the airport bar, they immediately bought me Cipollina (a food with onions in bread), a must-try in Catania!, and Chinotto (a citrus soda juice), and then the
How many times have I moved abroad? Tokyo - LA - Tokyo - LA - San Diego - Zushi - Honolulu - Tokyo - Sicily...
Moving abroad, I always think, of course, traveling and living are vastly different.
I have to study the language from scratch again. There are many things about the lifestyle I don't know.
It's been a really amazing time. It might feel like my youth at 53.
Every morning when I wake up, I hear Italian (Sicilian) from outside the window,
And then I suddenly think, 'That's right, I left without a place to return to in Japan, this is where we live.' My stomach feels a little fluttery.
From now on, I'll write a little bit at a time, including those days.
P.S. Eight years ago, so much has happened since then. I went right, then left, hit walls, and changed direction repeatedly. But maybe I was moving forward little by little (lol). Well, never mind that, the three of us in the family have really come here before we knew it.
