Return to La Serenissima. Or Rolling the Dice. Or Houses of Cards.Sometime during this journey, I ruminated about how when someone else makes a choice that is even one degree left of plans, one’s carefully constructed house of cards comes tumbling down. And so it came to pass. One unexpected toss of the dice and every ensuring plan has altered which left me in an anxious flurry of Now What? on my pilgrimage of Yes.
The S&G not-happening thing, for reasons stated earlier, was a major disappointment, as I was anticipating some income here, albeit, given I’m not a Nigerian Prada bag seller, highly illegal. When my “benefactors” pulled out, I lost the opportunity to stay in the subsidised accommodation around the corner from their shop. Dawn found me a magnificent apartment in Cannareggio, that I'd stay in on my return, but it cost much more. Then I got a fit of the blues because much as I love this city with something bordering on divine devotion, Venetians are not friendly. My Italian can get me around, but it won’t make me friends. And there is only so much shoe and bag shopping I can do before I’ll start having psychological problems related to the merits of retail therapy and my bank manager’s patience.
I liked the Cannareggio accommodation, and decided to re-enrol at the Institute. I reasoned I’d master a modicum of the language, write my book, and continue to make jewellery from the beads I’d sent from Australia during the long winter. Friends would come and go. I stored some bags with Mario and others in Cannareggio. I'd returned to Sydney for the cruise, with full intentions of returning to Venice for my final three months.
Except I hadn’t computed how much I wanted - no - needed to be with people I love, with warm friends and sunshine and a language that doesn’t cripple my tongue. I had serious recurrent wobblies about the long winter haul. Sure, friends may visit, but I couldn’t depend on them to allay my winter blues or make the sun set later than 3.30pm. And that old initial problem that would have alleviated all the above: I didn’t have the work I’d been promised. Then the friend with whom I was staying in Sydney had her family move in - and I had store my beads in a hurry and move out. This falling card collapsed upon the one on which was written my scheduled pre Christmas bead show that I was to hold in her house- compounding the no-income card. Should I go? Should I stay?
Sydney beckoned, but Venice called, loudly for a dame of her age; we have unfinished business, young lady, she admonished.
So I rearranged my return flights to coincide with Carnevale, and be back for Liza and Ben’s wedding. That would mean Christmas in the cold and fog, but another season to unravel Venice. I'd have some more of my "fix", I'd return with more words. Time was still on my side. Opportunity still had a habit of knocking.
But fate has her own way. And Italians don't like to be kept waiting. A handshake deal is finite. Paperwork doesn't matter. Hand over heart and I have your blood, and if you cross me, you die. Or your lose your apartment. You lose your place in school. You lose your new best friends, your job, your income, your status, your favourite table in your favourite restaurant, and suddenly even the woman on the vaporetto must have heard you'd betrayed the system, because she too won't keep those ropes open as you run for your life to leap on board.
This much is true. I told the owner of the Canareggio apartment that I'd like to push my accommodation forward a few weeks because my daughter was getting married. Mama Mia. I would have had a better reception if I'd told her I was going to entertain a hundred and one poodles over the silly season. She sternly told me she couldn’t keep it that long: I would need to and fetch my bags immediately. She kept my deposit. Mario also told me that I couldn't leave my bags with him, because they'd be damaged during Aqua Alta. Mama Mia! Mama Mia! The logistics of trying to get the baggage back to Sydney from Venice when I'm not there - is prohibitive: besides, it was nobody’s responsibility except mine. I cancelled one ticket. I booked another. The dollars mounted. The points dismounted. Suddenly, urgently, my Venetian plans drowned with the tides and there was no longer a 3 month plan. Now I had to return to Sydney, even though I was far from ready to end this adventure, far from ready to give up on becoming Italian. Far too soon to relinquish the aroma of leather and the tap tap of the cobble.
This also meant financial wranglings. I now needed to buy a car and find a place to live in Sydney. Pre Christmas, I had less chance of doing both than making friends in Venice. I was, for the first time in my life, homeless. Friends offered a room, but I need a home to unpack and restart Travelling Bead. Inspecting hideous units in a crowd of 20 anxious nail biting couples was excruciating. I want a house.
Once again, my life had become a shambles. I stood on the fondamente like the bedraggled French Lieuenant's Woman, tears dribbling down my cold cheeks, wondering what would become of me, just as I thought my trajectory would continue.
Once again, my life had become a shambles. I stood on the fondamente like the bedraggled French Lieuenant's Woman, tears dribbling down my cold cheeks, wondering what would become of me, just as I thought my trajectory would continue.
For several nights I did the 3am stare at the ceiling what the Fook is to become of me thing, I’m just a bag lady, I’m homeless, I’m dependent, I’ll never have sex again, one day I’m going to be 70, how many Valium will I need to eradicate myself, what happens if I fall into a canal and there is nobody there to see the splash, this is all that scumbag D’s fault, I love Venice .... blah blah blah blah blah blah blah until five minutes before sunrise and the clop clop clop in the calli woke me. I thought I was going to unravel.
On my app, I watched Venice’s temperatures plummet. Sydney’s improve. I was upset with myself that my year is not yet over and I feel as if I’ve let myself down. But nowhere did I say that I should force myself to do something that troubled me deeply - coping through the bleak, damp winter. And nowhere did I promise that my year had to exclude Australia. Perhaps my “happy ending” is in Australia ... and to quote TS Elliott loosely again - the aim of all our travelling is to return to the place and know it for the first time. I stopped berating myself and sniffling about lost opportunities. I licked my wounds, I booked a third ticket with a 12 day turnaround and I returned to Venice to pick up my luggage, visit the museums I’d missed, and buy some orange leather boots. And red ones. And a bag or two or three. And more underwear from Intimissimi. And walk till I know the calli like the back of my gloved hand. Because Mr M had vanished, with his plans and his ideas and his promises. Teste di Cazzo. Dickhead.
There are a few cities in the world that each time I return, I feel as if I am coming home. Venice is my city. I know its cobbles, and its tides, and its shadows. I understand the boats, and how to buy fruit (with a disposable glove) and I know its smell. Sydney fills me with light. Cape Town fills me with the music and mountains of my childhood. But Venice? Venice fills me with love.
I have not yet been on a gondola; I would like to honeymoon here, walk the streets hand in hand, be imbued with the majesty of the city and see it through other eyes.
On my app, I watched Venice’s temperatures plummet. Sydney’s improve. I was upset with myself that my year is not yet over and I feel as if I’ve let myself down. But nowhere did I say that I should force myself to do something that troubled me deeply - coping through the bleak, damp winter. And nowhere did I promise that my year had to exclude Australia. Perhaps my “happy ending” is in Australia ... and to quote TS Elliott loosely again - the aim of all our travelling is to return to the place and know it for the first time. I stopped berating myself and sniffling about lost opportunities. I licked my wounds, I booked a third ticket with a 12 day turnaround and I returned to Venice to pick up my luggage, visit the museums I’d missed, and buy some orange leather boots. And red ones. And a bag or two or three. And more underwear from Intimissimi. And walk till I know the calli like the back of my gloved hand. Because Mr M had vanished, with his plans and his ideas and his promises. Teste di Cazzo. Dickhead.
There are a few cities in the world that each time I return, I feel as if I am coming home. Venice is my city. I know its cobbles, and its tides, and its shadows. I understand the boats, and how to buy fruit (with a disposable glove) and I know its smell. Sydney fills me with light. Cape Town fills me with the music and mountains of my childhood. But Venice? Venice fills me with love.I have not yet been on a gondola; I would like to honeymoon here, walk the streets hand in hand, be imbued with the majesty of the city and see it through other eyes.
A man wrote to me a few days ago: “I would like to make love in Venice to someone who is in love with Venice.” Beautiful sentiments that sound even better in Italian.
When I left Venice five weeks ago, it was in the death throes of summer where the light had a burning orange intensity with definite outlines. Now, galloping into winter, the city has turned silver. Boundaries are blurred. Skylines appear like mirages. Gulls fly lower. Pigeons peck brazenly and sparrows hijack the sugar on tables, storing crumbs for winter. The leaves have fallen, brittle and brown, soaked by the high, slurping tides. The sun is weak and pink and noon shadows are as long as my arm. Long, dark Giacometti shapes appear around corners before their owners; and rugged to their earlobes, the Venetians - able to get around now without being accosted by tourists - may have opened their shutters and displayed their cyclamens - but hunkered down beneath their hats and scarves, they are are even less friendly.
The air is as thin as a blade: mist taps at my morning windows in the dusty, dark hotel in which I’m staying - midway between Zattere and Accademia water stations. All day I hear different music played by optimistic buskers: an accordion, a violin, a cello, even a medieval lute: and sometimes the plink of a euro as it hits an offering cup. The bent-double woman, still in her spot with plastic cup and picture of Christ at her knees, is the bleak subject of photographers who steal her misery from a safe distance. The Nigerian dudes selling knock off handbags are now left alone by the carabinieri who gave chase in summer just for the thrill of it. Voices are sharp and high, the gelati dripping, pizza dribbling, upside down map holding tourists have gone, bar a few dazed myopic Japanese in odd socks and pompoms.
The domes, turrets and parapets, the lives behind the doge windows, the long midday shadows, the bounteous buckets of white cyclamen, the shimmering expanses of water that resemble mercury and reflect Venetian lives upside down are all softly veiled with a gossamer web that softens the colours and silvers what's left. It is possible that hearts can break in this fragile city. A dowager to her mossy slippers, Venice is so gently feminine, so precious, so haughty, riddled as she is with an invisible tuberculosis of the stones; creeping with vivid slime and grey moss like an incurable skin disease; aristocratic to her foundations and arthritic to her heart, pared to its gaunt bones from centuries of high living.
Vulnerable to her core, you wonder what would happened if she coughed. The tides would swell. Gondoliers would nudge the fondamente. Certainly skeletons would tumble from behind rotting doors. Spiders and rats would scatter to higher ground. Pampered pooches would whimper and leap back into their Prada handbags. The ladies who take cafe and biscotti at 17th century Florian, would allow the cello pause, tut and dab their lips with lace napkins: Venice will survive whatever she is given. Casanova's sexual exploits. Thieving marauders. Masked revellers. Plunderers, geniuses, philosophers and Royalty. Vivaldi's music. Tintoretto's masterpieces. Doges with grand designs. Marco Polo's booty. The titled, the poor, the place of the first jewish ghetto; decadence and high living. Leather. Lace, Glass, wool. Improbable skylines. The purest of skies. The first beads in trading history.
What a city. What a city. I walk around with my heart pounding, my face stretched from smiling. My hair shines more here. My eyes glisten; dilated with the grande amore this testament to all that is gracious and magnificent deserves.
I cried when I collected my luggage because I closed the door on a longer stay and what might eventuate, and the guts to stick with Yes even though I was trembling in my boots. I am delighted and enthralled to be here: I am sorry I didn’t have the courage to endure the winter; but I also want to return to Sydney in ten days.
I may have lost the chance to design and become famous here; the counts have left for the Alps; and all the restaurants and shops are closing for the long bleak winter.
When I left Venice five weeks ago, it was in the death throes of summer where the light had a burning orange intensity with definite outlines. Now, galloping into winter, the city has turned silver. Boundaries are blurred. Skylines appear like mirages. Gulls fly lower. Pigeons peck brazenly and sparrows hijack the sugar on tables, storing crumbs for winter. The leaves have fallen, brittle and brown, soaked by the high, slurping tides. The sun is weak and pink and noon shadows are as long as my arm. Long, dark Giacometti shapes appear around corners before their owners; and rugged to their earlobes, the Venetians - able to get around now without being accosted by tourists - may have opened their shutters and displayed their cyclamens - but hunkered down beneath their hats and scarves, they are are even less friendly.
The air is as thin as a blade: mist taps at my morning windows in the dusty, dark hotel in which I’m staying - midway between Zattere and Accademia water stations. All day I hear different music played by optimistic buskers: an accordion, a violin, a cello, even a medieval lute: and sometimes the plink of a euro as it hits an offering cup. The bent-double woman, still in her spot with plastic cup and picture of Christ at her knees, is the bleak subject of photographers who steal her misery from a safe distance. The Nigerian dudes selling knock off handbags are now left alone by the carabinieri who gave chase in summer just for the thrill of it. Voices are sharp and high, the gelati dripping, pizza dribbling, upside down map holding tourists have gone, bar a few dazed myopic Japanese in odd socks and pompoms.
The domes, turrets and parapets, the lives behind the doge windows, the long midday shadows, the bounteous buckets of white cyclamen, the shimmering expanses of water that resemble mercury and reflect Venetian lives upside down are all softly veiled with a gossamer web that softens the colours and silvers what's left. It is possible that hearts can break in this fragile city. A dowager to her mossy slippers, Venice is so gently feminine, so precious, so haughty, riddled as she is with an invisible tuberculosis of the stones; creeping with vivid slime and grey moss like an incurable skin disease; aristocratic to her foundations and arthritic to her heart, pared to its gaunt bones from centuries of high living.
Vulnerable to her core, you wonder what would happened if she coughed. The tides would swell. Gondoliers would nudge the fondamente. Certainly skeletons would tumble from behind rotting doors. Spiders and rats would scatter to higher ground. Pampered pooches would whimper and leap back into their Prada handbags. The ladies who take cafe and biscotti at 17th century Florian, would allow the cello pause, tut and dab their lips with lace napkins: Venice will survive whatever she is given. Casanova's sexual exploits. Thieving marauders. Masked revellers. Plunderers, geniuses, philosophers and Royalty. Vivaldi's music. Tintoretto's masterpieces. Doges with grand designs. Marco Polo's booty. The titled, the poor, the place of the first jewish ghetto; decadence and high living. Leather. Lace, Glass, wool. Improbable skylines. The purest of skies. The first beads in trading history.
What a city. What a city. I walk around with my heart pounding, my face stretched from smiling. My hair shines more here. My eyes glisten; dilated with the grande amore this testament to all that is gracious and magnificent deserves.
I cried when I collected my luggage because I closed the door on a longer stay and what might eventuate, and the guts to stick with Yes even though I was trembling in my boots. I am delighted and enthralled to be here: I am sorry I didn’t have the courage to endure the winter; but I also want to return to Sydney in ten days.
I may have lost the chance to design and become famous here; the counts have left for the Alps; and all the restaurants and shops are closing for the long bleak winter.
I am not finished with Venice. I still haven’t ridden that gondola.
