Should I stay or should I go?

Out and about on the daily adventures of my life, the two questions I get asked the most these days are: What brought you to Sicily? (Well, we all know the answer to that) followed swiftly by, So do you think you'll stay? Of course, the answer depends on whom I'm talking to, and always brings What's Best for My Kids into it. Sicilians unanimously agree that my kids would have better opportunities and a better future if we go back to Ireland. They think my family would rally round and be on hand at all times, unaware that in Ireland we are raised to be independent by 18 and get on with our lives elsewhere (unlike Sicily where it is common to live with parents well into your thirties). We have just come back from a month in Ireland and my children are missing their cousins, reliving the glorious summer memories, sunset by pierjump by Whipped 99 ice cream. They know school would be better and would even don a uniform if it meant jumping on the trampoline and playing hide and seek regularly rather than hanging out virtually with bad internet connection. It would get me away from the Evil Eyes from the X Famiglia and I might even get a well-paid stable job (the condition for the Move). But when I start imagining what life would be like without Sicily I get this hollow feeling in my gut. A separation after a 15 year relationship is hugely unmooring, but to also leave your adopted homeland would be a double unmooring. This weekend I was in Palermo and had a little headspace to give the matter some thought. It has something to do with the awe I feel when I walk into the Palazzo Normanno, overwhelmed by the sheer brilliance of the Arab artists who evoked through mosaics and geometrical shapes carved in the wooden ceiling Islamic and Christian symbols of paradise. Together. Ruggero's cleverness at inscribing stones in four languages - Latin, Greek, Arabic and Hebrew - Sicilian inclusion in the Middle Ages. Or the warmth of Palermitan women on a singing workshop with me, and chance encounters with female singers reminding me that I have projects here to complete. While walking past the nude statues around the fountain of Piazza della Vergogna, I was reminded of how much Ireland and Sicily have in common. Shame (Vergogna) is one of those vestiges of Catholic guilt that still lingers in the conscience of both populaces (and fuelled XMarito's treacherous court separation). I prefer to believe in Miracles (the other name for Piazza Pretoria) which are never far away, and enjoyed a miraculous moment of solitude at Zisa (from the Arabic Azis or Splendid) Castle, with not a single tourist in sight by the fountain at its centre. And for now, I'm staying in Sicily.

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