Baptized by the Sicilian Sun: A Pilgrim Returns Each Year

Every Year, I become a pilgrim to Sicily.

I fold myself into a suitcase,

Toronto’s steel and glass still clinging to my skin,

and land where the air tastes of lemon and salt.

The sun is different here.

It’s not just warmth, it baptizes.

It presses its fire into my bones

until I am molten,

until the goddess I keep locked away all winter

walks out in bare feet across the hot sand.

In Sicily, every table hums with history:

tiles cracked by centuries,

walls whispering in dialects older than maps,

laughter that lingers like incense.

Here, they hand you limoncello not as a sale,

but as an offering.

A backyard lemon tree distilled into liquid sun,

and they wait, eyes bright,

to see if your tongue recognizes

the sweetness of their land.

I walk away each summer

changed, sharper, softer.

The overstated textures,

red volcanic dust,

blue Mediterranean mirrors,

ochre walls collapsing into beauty,

sear themselves into my memory.

My irises expanding to absorb every detail.

I carry them back with me,

tuck them into the corners of my work.

So when winter drapes its heavy shawl,

when the sky hangs low and colorless,

I pour fire from my moka pot,

sip bitterness that tastes of Sicilian mornings.

I remember the woman I become there,

my alter ego rising like heat off stone.

And so, even in the deepest cold,

I stitch August into February,

bringing the South into the North,

so that my work, my words, my days

are brightened by the goddess

who wakes every summer

on that island of sun, sand, and sea.