The catacombs in Palermo certainly make the top five of the most macabre things I’ve seen in my life. Somebody had the idea to display five hundred years of bodies to make money. You can see the empty caskets under their feet. They were removed and then placed on the wall–like saints lining cathedral borders.

Some of the bodies have signs in front of them, to which their hands are bound. It makes them look like criminals. Their clothes look like they have been in prison. Of course, some of these decomposed people are hundreds of years old… so they are bound to look a little prison-y.

But, still, in other portions of the extensive underground, you see people put to rest in their sunday best–suits, dresses, gowns even. The ones I’ve thought of as ‘criminals’ are seemingly dressed in sack cloth. The levels of decomposition vary, but you can usually ascertain facial expression–which seems frozen.

Predictably, the children are hardest to look at. I sort of stumbled through the halls with permanent worry lines etched into my brow. It was disconcerting, all of it.

Many took pictures. I–for whatever reason–didn’t quite feel like it. The murky halls and the empty gazes of the deceased kept me still. I was grateful there weren’t tour guides with microphones or gift shops to distract from the quiet sobriety of it all. Though, even making light of it from time to time didn’t help the dripping water of uneasiness.

On the ground above the haunted tunnels are recent graves so plastered with flowers, pictures, memorabilia and marble that it seems more full of life than death. Pictures of the deceased are in color–as are the flowers. You can’t even see the basic, rectangular outline of the grave because of all the items. It’s almost a lacking acceptance of the situation at hand, whereas beneath it’s been made into a caricature of itself–death as spectacle. Above it is barely acknowledged. It’s a weird contrast between two things that occupy the same place on a two dimensional map.

I find myself writing about this inevitably; it was such a departure from the rest of Italy for me, which was defined by food, beauty and the sort of places you would want to retire to. The title of the post, while a bit heavy-handed, indicates a very palpable experience in a very small space. The experience was all the more emotional given that I was there on Good Friday–a day of complicated emotion in which death takes a weird place between celebration, mourning and spectacle (what with all the reenactments, films and whatnot). As a tourist, I felt like I was impinging on a private space, but death is always inevitably communal.

The poetic symmetry of the catacombs and the grave sites needs no substantial elaboration. Death as poetry is pretty self-evident, but it’s still a strange feeling coming out of that tunnel to the pictures, the flowers, the well-wishers. The balance of the scene is tentative, but an apt  moment for life in general and for Eastertide in particular.

Thanks for reading.

Your friend,

Travis

One of my favorite memories of this vacation is bound to be the last train ride. I’m writing so much about trains, because it really has defined my experience of Italy this go around.

The train left from Catania and went to Palermo. There were only 4 total stops, and the train was about three and a half hours long across the majority of the island of Sicily. Initially it stuck to the coast, which I expected to be the majority of the journey. I was admittedly disappointed when the one car train veered inland and the ocean disappeared and was replaced with a black tunnel.

At this point, I tried to doze, assuming there wouldn’t be much to see. However, when we burst through the other side I was overwhelmed by the hills, the fields, the cliffs. It was totally unspoiled land for two straight hours. It was the sort of thing that would be cheapened by pictures or by my own feeble stretches of language. So, unfortunately for you, it’s a picture that I’m keeping for myself. If I could share it adequately, I would. So I shall say that it is a train ride that you should prioritize should you ever find yourself in Sicily.

About halfway through the most beautiful stretch, we came across a solar/wind farm. Not to be ageist, but some of the older tourists immediately complained that the view had been soiled.

I take issue with this.

First, because the view that solar panels and windmills soil the earth is inherently paradoxical and consequently absurd.

Second, because aesthetical judgments are wildly personal. One person saying that windmills obscure a view of the ocean is actually not dissimilar from someone arguing that broken down roman ruins take away from a really cool contemporary, urban block of city. Why is the windmill ugly and the pile of bricks not? The perception of these things is entirely what we make of it. We are taught to revere ruins, so what is an aesthetic judgment starts to feel like a moral one. We feel morally obligated to like ruins because they are historical or whatever.

I’m not here to argue with you; I am here to tell you that I experienced a solar/wind farm along the most beautiful train ride of my life and that it added to the beauty. First, because I personally think solar panels and windmills are regal looking and neat. Second, because it represents mankind’s effort to better harmonize with a world that it can do a crappy job running. To me, that is a stronger moral imperative than a historial one.

So there.

Thanks for reading.

Your friend,

Travis

Train compartments hold six people. Initially, on my train to Reggio Calabria (proper pronunciation TBD), five of these spaces were filled. I was backwards–relative to the direction of the train–and closest the window. The man across me was wearing a black blazer, chinos, a blue shirt with a collar so spread it was practically inverted, a maroon cardigan, and a navy/yellow pin dot tie. He was in charge of where I could put my feet. Sometimes, he would extend his legs. At this point I would move mine up onto a ledge. Sometimes he would put one foot on the ledge and stretch the other. Then, I would clamp my legs together and fit them in the gap between his. It was like a dance.

Two elderly women were next to both myself and maroon cardigan man. They were immensely chatty and had impeccable skin. Nearest the door on one side was a middle aged man with a poodle in a bag. He was generally friendly and helped everyone properly stow their luggage. He immediately offered everyone a cookie from a sleeve. When we all refused, undaunted, he handed the cookie to his poodle, leaving us all to wonder if he was trying to feed us dog treats.

After a time, an older man sticks his head out from the compartment next to ours. He has an oxygen tube thing and immediately starts talking in that loud, classically Italian way to the two elderly women. He clearly is family. I can say this because they are all the same shape. The women close the door on him and immediately start giggling. The women next to me turns to me and says something I don’t comprehend. I laugh anyway. I get the idea.

We pull into a station and the oxygen man drags his tank over to say hi. One of the women tries to ask me something about her camera. Inept with both cameras and Italian, I do my best to explain I am not the man for the job. This does not stop them from assuming that I can understand and that I can help their cause. They pose for a picture. I take one. Dissatisfied, the women points to the on/off button and gestures for me to press it. They pose for another picture. I point the camera at them and hit the on/off.

It turns off.

I don’t know what I expected to happen.

We all laugh. The woman offers me chocolate. I decline. Taking this as a challenge, the woman demands I take her chocolate. I do so.

What I just described took about two hours of time. They were keen to include me on their conversation, in spite of the fact that I could not converse with them. When I didn’t understand, they all started saying the same thing differently at the same time. This was obviously a huge help.

Every mile I was convinced that the view was more beautiful than the last. Even the strip mining had been rounded by wind and time into something worth starting at.

Thanks for reading.

Your friend,

Travis

 

******

Matt LaMar deserves photoshop credit on the previous picture.

This is what I am trying to do here–in case you don’t remember.

If you didn’t know, term finished, and I am back home for a spell before I head back to Europe. I am disinclined to blog while home, so I will start up again with the next ‘five expressions series’ once I resume my travel.