Remember when I almost died in Venice one year ago? I mean, when I melodramatised that I was going to die in Venice from the naturally heinous consequences of unforseen humidity, recent emotional turbulence, and rapid national/geographical transitions? That had been my first weekend in Italy, the first venture out of Turin with my new Italian family, and I had been too busy with keeping food inside my body to enjoy the setting. This time I slowly paced the island and tried to appreciate, without too much fore- or afterthought, the unusual chance to walk the same paths in the same clothes on the same summer days, that I walked exactly one year ago. To look at exactly where I was, and where I am. Talk about closure.
Same weekend in June. Low humidity, thank the skies. Same five hour train ride from Turin to Milan to Venice. Same ferry from the train station to our island, same dormitory, same nannies, most of the same kids. Same aloof Italian parents - khaki and pearls, Blackberries, spritzes - disappearing to a different part of the island for their mysterious conferences. In place of Henry James' "Washington Square," I read Zora Neal Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God." The holiday in August - I'm still referring directly to my original "Death in Venice" blog entry - turned out to be one week in Paris and one week alone in Turin; I did indeed visit Christa in July; and I didn't come home for Christmas, making this the longest I period I have ever passed away from my hometown and immediate family. 375 days since my plane took off, and I'm so much bigger for it.
Irene, the Filipino nanny, remembered me from last year. We have both shortened our hair. "So you are leabing soon to go back to California," she said, smiling. "You are lucky." She has a son and husband in the Philippines to whom she sends the money she earns in Italy from ironing and doing laundry and raising Federico, a vivacious 4-year-old. Irene always smiles.
Our trip coincided with the first strains of the Art Biennale, a biennial international art exhibition that takes over the whole city. I managed to visit the Arsenale exhibition space, the Ireland and North Ireland pavilions, the Morocco pavilion, and a few of the public exhibits. My main aim, however, after doing the Student Thing with my study abroad group in 2007, and the Tourist Thing with the family last year, was to find the real Venice: where do actual Venetians live? What do they do? Do they actually exist, or is everyone here part of the tourist culture? I snatched the few opportune hours to wander Venice alone, stuffed them into my shoulder bag with an umbrella and my journal, and took to the streets. Here's what I found:
Venice is even pretty in post-rain Monday evening.
Someone wore this tiger suit so much that it had to be washed.
Rainbow laundry dries on the line between house and tree.
Australian couple swinging barefoot to the jazz band playing in front of this historic cafe, to the delight of white blazered waiters and various passersby.
There are, in fact, some corners yet untouched by tourist culture...
... such as the wine bar (above) that I entered to escape the rain, only to find Eric Clapton's "San Francisco Bay Blues" playing on the flatscreen. I ordered a big glass of red wine and picked a corner table to attempt to journal, and instead struck up a conversation with a fellow American traveler that lasted all afternoon. Takei, a 28-year-old architect from New York, and I drank our way to the end of the passing rainshower and shouldered our respective loads to wander Venice together. He said he was losing focus in New York, unsure of his next steps, and I assured him that he was headed in the right direction if only by asking himself about it. We tossed coins into the case of a group of lean, hatted, teenaged gypsy guitar players improvising under a portico; I photographed his flannel shirt and bearded grin on a narrow gondola dock; he told me about the girl he lived with and now no longer lives with, and the siblings he barely knows. I wrote to myself
venice is as pretty as usual, and i got a straw hat like i wanted.
i feel like i've run out of things to write. all this time has gone by, and i'm no longer 1. in crisis from graduation, nor 2. alone.
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