reflections | Lines of Wonder

Last night, I held a poetry reading in my home.

There were five of us gathered in my living room, connected by more than thirty years of friendship and a shared willingness to be present with one another.

I had a feeling that if this evening was going to invite anyone to open up, it would need to be just us. No larger audience. No strangers. No need to explain ourselves or perform for anyone outside the circle.

What I didn’t know was that one of us didn’t even like poetry.

And yet, as the evening unfolded, the poems began to find their way in.

Katharine’s words, read aloud, were like an incantation. They awakened memories, evoking people and places, losses and longings, moments from the past we perhaps hadn’t realized we were still carrying. They opened small doors.

They brought with them feelings of guilt and shame, joy and sorrow. And yet, at the end of each poem, there was a feeling of satisfaction—a sense that something had been revealed, acknowledged, and allowed to rest.

The words offered a kind of permission, gently allowing us to let down the façade we spend so much of our lives constructing and maintaining. They slipped beneath the familiar roles and identities—the selves we present to one another and to the world—and touched something more tender. They gave us space to simply be.

They were also a balm.

There was something in hearing another human being name an experience—especially one we might have thought was ours alone—that soothed old wounds. The poems allowed us to acknowledge the complicated things. To feel without immediately having to explain. And perhaps, most importantly, they reminded us that we are not alone.

Maybe that is what poetry can do at its best.

It does not always need to be understood in an intellectual sense. Sometimes we don’t need to like poetry before it can move us. Sometimes we simply need to hear a few words that find the place in us where something has been waiting—quietly, patiently—to be recognized.

Last night, in a small room filled with women who have shared more than three decades of friendship, poetry became a key.

And for a little while, we opened.

Travel is a privilege — a chance to step away from everyday routines and experience the world. It allows me the space to discover more about myself and the time to think and reflect about the world and how I see it.

Catania arrives all at once.

Dark stone. Heat rising from the pavement. Motor scooters and tiny cars threading through narrow streets with impossible confidence — and saintly patience. Laundry fluttering above balconies. Bougainvillea and cacti trailing down fences and cascading over terraces. Church bells rousing the city from slumber, alongside the steady hum of life lived loudly and unapologetically.

Catania may be new to me, but it is ancient and complex: a city founded by the Greeks in the 8th century BC, repeatedly reshaped by earthquakes and eruptions from Mount Etna, yet somehow always rebuilding itself again.

At first, Catania feels chaotic — but as the week progresses, a rhythm begins to emerge. This is a city shaped by fire and resilience, sitting firmly in the shadow of Mount Etna, where volcanic stone gives the architecture its distinctive charcoal colour and the mountain itself seems to watch over everything.

It is a working city, but turn your head in any direction and you will find beauty. Grand Baroque buildings softened by age. Tiny espresso bars tucked into ancient streets. Lush parks paying homage to the thinkers and creators who shaped this place. Fish markets bursting with colour, noise, and the kind of theatrical energy that feels entirely Sicilian.

Catania does not perform for visitors. It simply is what it is. I think that is what I like about it.

Life spills outward here: conversations from balconies, late dinners stretching into the night, generations gathering in piazzas as the evening heat finally softens. The people are warm and welcoming — though their disapproval is immediate and unmistakable when you ask not to have sugar with your espresso.

There is something freeing about arriving in a place that feels gloriously unscripted.