FEAR OF FLYING

I’m leaving Venice in two days to do the cruise.  

Because I don’t feel that I have yet found the meaning of my Venice experience, I’m happy - very happy - to be returning to Sydney, but I’m also very pleased that I’ll be returning to Venice late November.  I haven’t even begun to unravel the layers, because Venice is dense, impenetrable, and yes, unfriendly.  I have unfinished business, and I’m not sure what it is.  I knew I was ready to leave Nepal, England, Turkey, Morocco and Italy the first time. But Venice hasn’t yet shown me her hand.

San Marco and surrounds

My plans with S&G have unravelled. Remember I wore about them taking me their lawyer, and the conversations I couldn't understand, and the forms I refused to fill in?  And that I'd called Dawn and read her some of the Italian, and her replies could be heard from France. NO!    

I came here initially because I was ecstatic to be invited, under any guise, for an extended stay.   The reasons are quite convoluted, but basically it involves my not having a work permit and S&G not wanting to put my jewellery in their windows because they’d get into heap big Italian trouble because I don't have that work permit. (Lesson #1 in Italian logic.) Then they hit on the very intriguing idea of having me take over their shop, once the Guggenheim idea had floated down the canal, along with the flotsam and jetsam of Italian bureaucracy.  I have no intention of taking over any shop, even in Venice. I thought I was going to work here, with them, designing.  But I’ve realised they thought that if I took over their business, they’d be able to retire.

Briefly, over a seductive lunch of stuffed zucchini flowers, grilled fish and seafood soup, on the last days of summer, we sat in a courtyard under vines and in they suggested I take over their smaller shop, on which they still had many years of a long lease. Again, I stressed that I didn’t want to take over a shop, but I would consider it for a few months during winter, providing that I’d have enough free time to spend with MrM and my other friends when they come. I have re-enrolled in morning school for the first weeks of my return; they suggested I go in the evenings.  (When it gets dark at 4pm and the temperature averages zero, with a possibility of snow.) And when restaurants are closed, and the seasonal food isn't available and I can't negotiate Mestre.

So could I have the shop for a few hours a day for a few months, no contracts? Certo! Of course.  We clinked chilled glasses of wine from the Veneto.  Later G took me back to the shop.  The rent is very low, he said.  It is, I agreed.  After two years, you will earn enough money to buy a villa here.  I’m sure, I agreed, watching the thousands of people who pass there every day.  But, I said, I don’t want to be here for years, I have a life I want to return to in Sydney.   Oh, why, he said, you’re becoming Italian.  You’re learning the language quickly. You look Italian already. Forget Australia. 

Er .. what happened to the problems with the work permit, I allowed myself to think. 

Giardini, Venice

Of course, G smiled, when you take over the shop, you will need to pay me 30,000 Euro. For the shopfittings we put in ten years ago.  The lights, the floors, the shelves. 

But if I did want to take it over, I allowed myself to think, I would tear the place apart and make it contemporary.  I might leave the Murano chandelier, but right now it’s Brick-a-brack heaven. Although the thought of buying a villa here in two years is enticing.

In Australia, my mouth moved behind my poker face, the new owner doesn’t pay for past renovations.  But you will get that back when you sell it to the new owner in ten years, G replied unconvincingly. 

Also, G added, more unconvincingly, all their existing customers will come into the shop, especially to buy the rare collection of paperweights they bought from Murano a few years ago.  So I would also have to pay him 50,000 Euro for the 1000 paperweights.  Good news is that I wouldn’t have to pay him all at once.

I need a thousand antique paperweights like I need measles.

80,000Euro.  For goods I don’t want, a shop I don’t want, and a business I’m not sure I would have the courage to do again as long as it involves a contract and hours on a door.

Helicopter ride on Lido

Poker face firmly in place, I excused myself, and chuckled all the way back to mi casa. I called Dawn in Paris to debrief. She was agog.  F and P - who were introduced to me via a J, my beautiful Sydney friend, came from Geneva and Verona respectively to visit.  We had a fabulous weekend exploring the city on foot and boat.  Sitting at Al Buca under the Rialto bridge, while we settled into our seafood platter, they too were agog at the turn of events, as bright lunch turned pink evening over the Grand Canal, and the muscular gondolieri paddled their lovestruck tourists plonked on pink velvet down dark watery lanes.  To cheer me up they invited MrM and I to spend Christmas with them in Geneva.  P and MrM would stuff turkeys, and we’d shop for handbags.  Bellissimo!  Christmas is looking bright indeed.

So I walked away from the “deal” with S&G which was beyond ridiculous.  Never mind the cash investment I was supposed to make, but I don’t have a work permit and won’t be able to get one.  And though I love Venice, I don’t want to marry her!

(So ... postscript filled in years later:  Apparently it happens in Italy, that little old ladies are tricked into buying businesses as tax dodges for the owners.  If everything goes pear shaped, the little old lady who now owns the business she knows nothing about, takes the blame and the crunch and the legal ramifications, while the original owners get away with - everything.) 

Which left me in a bit of a quandary about what to do with all the beads I’d couriered from Sydney.  So I packed up the pieces I’ve made here, ready to return with me to Sydney.  The rest I put into Mario’s (let’s hope waterproof) basement as I saw my first hint of high water today, lapping the fondamente at Rialto Mercato, as I moved my winter luggage on the vaporetto to my new home in Cannareggio.  I’ll think about that when March comes ... in the meantime I’ll enjoy creating during winter.

My mood lifted immediately in the new apartment: it’s filled with afternoon light. My current apartment in San Toma has morning light, which is quite beautiful, but mornings I’m at the Institute. Cannareggio is less touristy, although there are plenty of restaurants, bakeries, patisseries, pizzeria, and a local fruit and vegetable shop. I know I’m going to have long happy days curled up on the sofa learning Italian, or reading, or when friends arrive, cooking with the local produce. Heaven.  Priceless heaven.

Luggage stored, and with 6 hours left on my last Venice day, I met P and M from school for a helicopter flight over Venice and the lagoon, under the Cavalier in San Marco, lured in by touts who didn’t have to do much convincing. Riding in the wooden paneled speedboat that reared up in the grand canal like a wild windblown horse, our hair tore around our heads, salt stung our eyes and I clung to the ridge of the roof as we bounced along at high speed screaming at the top of my lungs - I LOVE VENICE!!!!!

Sitting white faced and shrunken in her seat inside, ignoring the villas and palazzos and promenades that she’d never see walking,  was a woman in her fifties;  I don’t want to go on a helicopter, she complained. He wants to.  (Pointing to her husband).  I don’t like heights.  I don’t like water. I’m scared we’ll crash, we’ll drown, I’ll vomit, I’ll feel sick.

Here’s a woman whose husband has brought her to Venice. Has paid for her speedboat and her helicopter, because he wants some adrenalin, some excitement, some butterflies.

And I got to thinking about fear, and how nothing has scared me for a long time.  I got to thinking about how if we were limited by fear, we would never do anything.  Explorers would never have left home, discoveries wouldn’t be made, music and art wouldn’t break boundaries, and I wouldn’t be in Venice. Marco Polo would be fat with pasta, and he would have had time to argue with Mama.

Burano at dusk

Fear is limiting, inhibiting and debilitating. I’ve learned, through many fearful experiences that the only way through it is a physical letting go. You don’t have any control over the fear inducing situation - you have control over how you handle it.  I was in a light plane crash in a field south of Perth, and I remember that cold, sickening knot of visceral fear, that dried my mouth and weakened my legs, made me sick to my stomach, and fast tracked the blue light of impending death.  I watched as my life flashed behind me. Then I felt the fear pop inside me like a bubble. Flooded with adrenalin, I became calm, relaxed and detached. Once in a helicopter flying sideways through a canyon, I was so petrified I couldn’t take any photographs.  If I’m truly terrified now, I try to reach that spot.  It’s how I handled hurtling to the ground from three kilometres up, with no visual reference of ground or sky. I just let go.

Burano from the air

I looked again at the frightened, cowed woman in the speedboat, dreading her aerial discovery of this magical city.  Just let go, I suggested.  It is your choice to get on that lovely yellow helicopter - let yourself enjoy it.  You won’t have time to be scared.

Burano at dusk

What a treat that ride was; skimming over Torchello and its gardens, Venice’s cemetery, the ruins of the monastery,  Murano and its glass furnaces, colourful Burano and its lace, the Lido and its beaches and then Venice and San Marco’s footsore tourists, green Giardini, Biennale and the boatyards of Arsenale, all of which gave us the best insight into the sort of land that was settled by people fleeing persecution more than a thousand years ago, to become the biggest and richest seaport in the world.

The frightened wife took the flight and made no comment on her 12 minutes over Venice. I wonder how she’d feel, back home soon, this experience gone forever. I, though, was on my last day, determined to get the most out of it.  We landed at San Marco and immediately caught the vaporetto to Burano, but landed up on a distant mainland by mistake - our boat hugging the weeds and passing fishermen. In fearful mode, we’d have fretted over to get where we needed to be, but instead enjoyed the unfamiliar scenery until a change of boat eventually took us to Burano, where we spent a few very chilly hours walking and refuelling with linguini and coffee, before we returned late to Venice floodlit with a full moon.

Murano and glass foundaries 

Did I take a boat along the canal back home? Not on your Tintoretto! P and I shared a seafood platter at the Rialto, watching the gold and pink water, and the ghostly gondolieri. I walked those dark, shuttered, echoing, cold lanes at midnight, remembering the three enormous Americans in their bullet proof vests who asked me if it was safe to walk Venice at night, and my reply.  And remembering that I’d survived a cold night long ago in Patagonia, when I’d walked to my cabin alone, and turned to find a pack of wild dogs following me so close I could feel their breath on my heels.  I’d picked up stones and flung them at the dogs, and then ran as fast as I could - two very stupid things to do. There were no stones unturned in Venice, no wild dogs - they’d have been well fed and perched on velvet cushions, their pink tutus and diamante collars tucked away,  this time of night.  Of course I wasn’t afraid.  This was my last night in Venice for a while and I wanted to breathe in every experience.

I packed away my party frocks, brought for the many evenings I’d be introduced to Venetians by S and G.  I put my summer clothes in my coming home case, and my winter clothes in my staying behind case.  For my last breakfast, I made a mushroom, olive and carciofi omelette, finished the last of my pomegranate juice and took some crackers for the boat ride to the airport. I went to the shop to say goodbye to G, who said, Oh! You’re leaving already? How long have you been here? When you return, you will come for dinner at our villa.  Magiare!

M, my landlord upstairs,  apologised for being so busy while I’ve been here and for not having me over. He offered to make me his speciality onion soup when I return.  He helped me with my luggage to the vaporetto, and I caught the Alilaguna to the airport. Everyone was bundled up to their earlobes. The glove sellers were out.  There wasn’t a sandal in sight.  Hats were pulled low.  The wind was wild, the water choppy, the vaporetto lurched and struggled through the waves. I turned green.

I was blown into the airport.  I wasn’t upgraded.  Two young Australian men sat next to me. We don’t like Venice, they said, we saw everything we needed to in three days.  I didn’t bother correcting them.  Venice will only show you what you’re ready for, I tried to tell them.  They were ready only for three days. We don’t like Italy, they said, the Italians are unfriendly. They’re all talk.  Here, I reluctantly concur. I’ve made friends from Geneva, Verona, Holland, Switzerland and Sweden, with the girls in my favourite bag shop who are from Moldovia and Korea,  but not my landlords or the people who asked me to come. Maybe when I return. 

My time in Venice has yet to reveal its purpose.

Flying into Sydney very early, I was delighted to be coming "home" where all is familiar, and dear, and easy.