A Week in Sicily

I've spent this week in Sicily. Not actually -- just in my mind and at my keyboard.

I wrote a short story two years ago in one sitting at the Starbucks in San Francisco at the corner of Bush and Grant (I think). First time I'd ever done that. I liked the story and recently pulled it out to reread it and to my surprise I liked it even better now.

A year ago I wrote a scene that I didn't think involved the same two characters.

On Monday, all of a sudden I knew how the two characters in the two-year-old story met. It came upon me like a memory. There were no hazy edges open to interpretation or to be colored in. It was as detailed and complete as if I'd just seen a movie depicting these events.

They met in Sicily.

And I realized that the fragmented scene I wrote a year ago was about the end of their relationship.

I've only spent six hours in Sicily -- an annoyingly enticing day excursion on a cruise that consisted of a lickety-split bus ride up to Taormina, a march through the amphitheater and a frustrating perp walk past what seemed like dozens of tantalizing restaurants not yet open for the day.

I want to go back -- not just in spirit, but also in body.

Nevertheless, I've been there all week. I've heard the water in the fountain at the small family-run hotel, I've seen the colors of the fish at the market at the edge of the sea and I've been surrounded by the fragrance of little white blossoms on the bushes outside my fictional window.

I have no way of knowing if any of that has any counterpart in reality. I guess I don't really care right now. I've entertained myself for days with unreeling the dialog that's going to have this woman start to fall in love with the man who will break her heart in the story I wrote two years ago.

So far I haven't been able to get myself to sit down and actually write that scene. Once it's written, even in shitty first draft, I won't be able to play with it the same way, to turn it over in my mind as I fall asleep, as I make tea in the morning and as I drive on the 405.

No wonder I never finish anything. It's too much fun to be in the middle