The struggle to learn the language was wearing, when study necessarily took place after long days of dealing with endless kind visitors who felt it their duty to welcome my uncle’s niece. Brief visits, they evidently felt, would hardly have been polite, so they would stay and stay until my head was reeling.
A few years back I serendipitously found a used copy of A House in Sicily, a memoir and travelogue by Daphne Phelps, at a sale somewhere.
Phelps was unknown to me, but we’d been to Sicily in 2016 for a week in Catania. Tauromina is a short distance away, and we should have gone to roam around, but in any event but didn’t.
In retrospect it would have been nice to visit the house, or at least gaze upon it from the street.
Kirkus provides an overview:
At 36, Phelps inherited Casa Cuseni, generally acknowledged to be one of the finest houses in Taormina, in the northeast corner of Sicily. Without meaning to, she fell in love with the house and the locals, a colorful cast of characters, including Concetta Genio, housekeeper and friend. By transforming the Casa Cuseni into a modest pensione, she managed to keep it for the past half-century and attract an eccentric group of English, American, and foreign visitors. These included Bertrand Russell, Roald Dahl, and Tennessee Williams.
I always hoped that something (or anything) might have this sort of “A Year in Provence” impact, depositing me somewhere in Europe — even if in a hovel. It’s unlikely to happen at this point, pushing 64; I suppose there’s always a lottery win.
There’s a bonus in Phelps’ book in the form of a misplaced gay Kentucky artist, Henry Faulkner (1924 – 1981), of whom I’d been previously unaware until reading this book. Evidently he was one of those uproarious characters we’d all like to know, at least until we’re rescuing him from the drunk tank.
Henry Faulkner: An Outrageous Kentuckian, at Sam Terry’s Kentucky Blog
Dedicated to living a bohemian life, Faulkner lived in various places including New York, San Francisco, Key West, and Lexington and along the way he did odd jobs, spent time in a psychiatric hospital and jail. He worked primarily as an artist, creating an estimated 5,000 paintings.
I’ve traveled a fair amount, although Sicily remained elusive until 2016. There’s no way I’d have ever crossed paths with the folks in Phelps’ book, and yet it remains possible that had I found my way to Tauromina, her housekeeper might have been standing next to me at the vegetable market.
During those early trips, wandering through Europe as in a fevered trance, I’d stop to rest on a bench and eat an apple, all the while looking around at perfectly normal life all around me, speculating on what it must be like to have a normal life, or if I’d ever have one.
Presumably this occurred. Or it didn’t. I’m probably not the one to pass judgment on any self-interpretations, fearing it might yet transpire that sanity isn’t a condition for assuming.
And the book? Very enjoyable.
Photo credit: A fascinating episode at Female Solo Trek.
