Venice - in times of tired serenity

I was in Venice in August 2017. To see the Venice Art Biennale. And to spend time alone, in this city of lovers. I just painted some pictures with my words.

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I.

As I sat in Campo Bandiera e Moro, watching children from nearby homes run around and bike in the wide open space, far away from the touristy squares and lanes, I could feel my tired legs slowly drain out their pain. There is peace to be found in the laughter of children. Mothers sit on benches talking and laughing, and some tourists have coffee in the cafe on the edge of the square. In a little balcony in a row-house made of brick with a typical Venetian lamp over the door, two men and one woman sit having tea. The adjacent church is almost like a home. A tiny breeze finds the soft hair of a girl dancing to its own tune. A father stands by, in long shorts and t shirt, watching over as his tiny son runs rampant in the square. 

This was home away from home. 

Venice has renewals amidst it's crumbling decaying beauty. At its core lies its promise of allowing time to find its own in both the ancient and the young.  

I wandered the lanes in search of some predefined places, but was bent upon not reaching them. I had my Google map on, the coordinates set, and walked in the opposite direction. I got where I wanted to reach anyways, but I saw parts I hadn't known about. I stopped at Pasticerria Chiusso beside a tiny waterway and had a chocolate ball infused with rum and sprinkled with chocolate sheaves and a cocoa-sprinkled cafe latte. The world went by as I sat watching everything and nothing.  I walked to Arsenale and Giardini and the ramparts and the gardens, and the edge of an island with benches alongside the busy lagoon. Lonely figures looked out into the water, in front of lovers who kissed at virtually every wave left in the wake of a boat. Everything was a microcosm of the only two worthwhile things which the world offers - love and loneliness. 

Beyond the islands the sun was setting. And I wondered would it behove this city if I left. Or should I just stay and never leave? 

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II.

I sat with my legs overhanging the side of the walk-away pier looking out into the Venetian Lagoon. Across me was the Chiesa di San Giorgio Maggiore church in its own island. They say you must climb the tower there to see the city in all its glory. Look to the city rather than from it. The skies are streaked red with the sun reluctant to leave. Boats zip by. Ships lumber along. Piers are like pontoon bridges with oaks dug in the watery deeps. Couples beside me talk softly. Hush is the appropriate way for words. What does this beauty make everyone think about? Surely a time of some pain. Because it is only then that things get to be so clear. Because one lingers not to waste time but to invest it with things of one's own which one has forgotten. The reasons why we love, the reasons why we live, the reasons for why nothing ever needs to have a reason to be right. 

The evening is blue now, growing deeper by the minute. A breeze has sprung up. The lights have found their nature to be of stars on earth. Everything is finding its shadows. 

I decide to find mine. 

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III.

Love has to be this. When you show your blood flowing in your veins. Freely. As if you are not afraid. Of the other's comment. Of someone seeing its darkness or its turgidity or its stillness. As if you are not even afraid to show the body around it streaked with tired lesions, crumbling in its aeons-old resistance. Such is love.

 

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IV.

As I walked the pristine quiet dawn streets of Venice, I wondered who kept a city's soul? It's walls and streets and canals or - it's citizenry? Or maybe just me - and everyone like me - who came with their memories and made new ones and left some behind. And in some mysterious way these clung to the air till someone else picked it up - and left something behind too. But geography is atmospherics too. And man-made edifices are a concrete symbol of feelings too. Buried in the masonry might be avarice or pride or loot, but after years of aging, the patina of dust and cracks leaves, and conveys, a broken soul. 

This is a city I love. It creates a panic in me. It's so beautiful and frightful and so intimate. It is also a lover which will never be faithful. It is too beautiful to remain that,  it is too conscious of how quickly its beauty will run to dust. But to not love it is to love life less. 

So be damned, as everyone realizes. One has to love - and be heartbroken. 

I promise to do a newsletter with just my photographs of Venice. I was just seeing them - and I love them! Will share!

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I have also written on other cities I love!

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