Into the Wild Spaces

The Aeolian islands caught my attention like nothing else in all the blue and yellow that made up my map. But then, my passion has always been islands. Even as a young boy I was acutely aware of the bays and harbors that surrounded me on all sides, and ever since I've been unable to resist the allure of those corners of the world that live surrounded on all sides by the sea. So it was that the Aeolian islands called to me from the azure of the Mediterranean that surrounded them on all sides.

We departed in the early morning from Milazzo on Sicily's north coast, bound towards the northeast to a delicate archipelago whose reputation preceeded them and whose very name evoked the sound of the wind and the fury of gods that still lived among mortals, parting the choppy sea during the 60 minutes it took us to reach the islands. We chose Salinas: neither the closest of the archipelago, nor the most popular, because the boat that took us northward into the waters of the Mediterranean carried many more than just the two of us. on that little ship.

A shower passed over us before we reached the shore of Salinas, wetting the dry side of our boat and driving us inside under the fiberglass roof to wait out the rain. But just before we reached the island, the clouds parted and we stepped onto shore under the tenuous sunlight of the after-rain. Salina was captivating.

Above us, the clouds covered the peak of the massive peak that formed the center of the island, obscuring from us the real dimensions of the island. A single road circumnavigated the island's perimeter, beckoning us around the ever-present curve of the island. We set out on foot towards the north, where a little basin and a sandy peninsula pointed us northward toward the next island. The road left the water's edge and ascended the mountain's rocky slope, lined on both sides by wild flowers and tall grasses that plunged off the vertical sides of rock faces towards the sea. With the exception of the occasional vehicle, we remained quite alone on the side of the island we explored. Above us, we saw gulls cruising the water's edge, and saw the burrows where small mammals had dug homes into the island's quiet interior. The sun grew brighter and warmer, and we continued.

Towards the north of the island we found a small beach, off of which a striking yawl twisted on its mooring in the changing tide. The shore was rocky and hard to cross but we made it to the water's edge in sandals and then stripped down to swim in the Mediterranean. It was still and cold, and the shoreline sloped off quickly to depths unimaginable from the surface. Instead, we dried off on the rocks and watched the sailboat bob on the waves.

Salina was neither the first nor the last island where I caught myself wondering what it would be like to be cast free from the rest of the world and make my home among the so-clearly delimited confines of an island. The rest of the world would remain comfortably insulated by the cold sea, and I could find my peace among the shore birds and the morning wind. But Salinas was my home for no more than a day, and Ericka and I returned to Sicily - paradoxically both the mainland and an island in itself - to continue our exploration elsewhere. From the back of the ship we watched the island of Salina drop beneath the horizon as the ship's wake spread beneath the afternoon sky. Be it the abode of gods, it was our home for a day, and awaits us the day we decide to walk the other side of the island's rocky shoreline.