Venice - The Last Verse
Do you ever just say to yourself, “I am not going home. I am never going home."
From the archive of January 2023. I hope you enjoy this 4-minute journey. If you have read it before, thank. you!
The clock in the breakfast room has been stalled at 3:12 for several days. Time and tides move very slowly in the smaller canals of Venice in a chilly November. I sit at the table over a restorative bowl of caffe latte, a crusty ciabatta, unsalted butter and gooseberry jam. The entire front of my rumpled shirt is covered with bread crumbs.
I am basking in the minor victory of having been the first one down the hall to the shower this morning, just in time to head off the cigar-smoking Bavarian from Room 7. Scowling, he had shuffled back to his room, slippers flapping. At the pensione Mezza Luna this morning, we are the quick and the unwashed.
Last night a gondola rounded the corner of Rio Rimedio bathed in starlight just below my miniature third-story balcony. An accordion warmed the crisp winter air. A tenor was singing Santa Lucia, serenading six ecstatic Japanese gentlemen. Man! I love this stuff!
Do you ever just get little tears in your eyes when you are on the road? I mean, at moments when some old sentimental fantasy is somehow realized? Do you ever just say to yourself, “I am not going home. I am never going home,” and then try to figure out what you could sell or who could send you money?
I listened and watched until the final notes died away in the shadows. Then, suddenly struck by an unexplainable bolt of inspiration, I turned to that sagging, lumpy frame that has been impersonating a bed for the last four nights, torturing my aging bones. I threw the pillow on the floor , tucked in the sheets and blanket at the head of the bed, pulled them loose from the foot, placed the pillow down at that end and with great resolve climbed in. Ahhhh ... Un vero miracolo! It is a miraculously different mattress down at the foot! Jotting down this revelation in my notebook for future reference, and saying, “Buona notte” to the house cat who was crouching under the dresser, I slept like a woman with a clear conscience, for seven blissful hours.
I woke to the reveille of canaries that reside on the roof next to the clothesline. Thin sunlight poured into my tiny room. I lay there in heaven for a while, my bones at peace, listening to the boatmen making morning deliveries below – fruit, flowers, crates of mineral water. “Oyyy! Oyyy! Ao Hoyeee!” they call — a lively warning as they enter Rio Rimedio from Rio d’Angelo to avoid colliding around the blind turns of the canals. This is my eighth trip to Venice and, at my age, very possibly it is my last. I plan to spend this day taking time to walk slowly and really see, to fix it in my memory.
Three vignettes this morning:
Most of Venice is brick and stone; earth is scarce. On a quiet side street, I see a frustrated cat digging around in a planter box full of geraniums, round and round in circles he goes, stepping carefully over the blooms, looking for the simple necessity of a small patch of dirt.
Under a park bench I find scraps of a torn up photograph. I pick them up and put them back together like a jigsaw. A smiling couple embracing on a bridge. Apparently the romance is over.
Further down the street and around the corner, early rock and roll spills out of an open doorway of a workshop. A stone-cutter is carving names and ornaments into a tombstone to the incongruous accompaniment of the Coasters’ 1959 “Charlie Brown, He’s a clown!” Well why not?
In the small Trattoria Antica Sacrestia, the Pizza Margherita is crisp and creamy. The Pasta alle Vongole, sublime. The Fritto Misto al Mare, fish paradise on a platter. But the real reason I have lunch here every day is Vittorio, a most attentive waiter – a young De Niro with a soft voice and irresistible black eyebrows that join above his nose like the lyrical double arc of a blackbird in flight from a painting by Van Gogh. Oh, if I were only thirty years younger. Okay, make that forty. Yes, I am old, but not so old I cannot conjure up a romantic fantasy.
In the Piazetta this afternoon a solitary tourist in scuffed Adidas, camera bag slung around his neck stumbles erratically through the winter crowd as tourists in Venice do when simply over-awed by sheer iconic beauty. Mouth open, gazing up and down, he is in his own little world and is not aware of the young boy following close behind him on tip-toe. The mischief-maker mimics the wanderer’s pace and gait. Then another little boy, and a third, join quietly in the line behind the unsuspecting tourist. Soon there are five boys walking in a queue quietly behind him wherever he wanders, giggling silently, their hands over their mouths. People have stopped to watch this little prank. Finally the man turns around to discover the parade he is leading. He does a double take, sees everyone looking at him and is a good sport. He bends over in laughter, as everyone applauds the morning show. He applauds as well.
Venice is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. Over the years I feel as if I have crossed each one of them. I have written page after page of the spontaneous delights there are to behold and experience in this small city of Titian, Vivaldi, Canaletto and high-carbohydrate foods. And, of course, it has all been told a thousand times or more by writers far more gifted than I. However, who else ever told you how to get a good night’s sleep in a sagging Italian bed?
As I end this ( perhaps my final ) paean to Venice, Queen of the Adriatic, I am reminded of the words of Walt Whitman: “… the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
For what they are worth, these Italy stories have been my verse among the powerful plays.
There are eighteen more short personal travel stories like this one in the TRAVEL archive. Have a little browse HERE in case you missed them. Several relate to Italy.
I loved this bittersweet, comical, and sublime day in the life of Venice. I can really relate to that mattress hack, although it doesn't work well when one flips a queen bed. The indents are surprising.
The boys prank on the tourist reminds me of my grandson and, at three, his wicked sense of humor. Boys can be so much fun even when they're aggravating.
As I walked down Venice's streets with you, I remembered similar walks I took in Israel: the sensual shape and waxy textural of the sandstone walls, the burlap bags of grains and spices in the old shops, the sounds of street life filtering upward to the rooftop terrace of an old Jerusalem house. Cats wandering the alleys.
Thank you, Sharron. Eight visits to this city. It is a marvel you didn't stay forever.
Such beautifully interwoven stories of a wonderful trip, Sharron! The de Niro waiter, the gooseberry jam, the jigsaw photograph, the gang of small boys. Thank you so much for the peep over your shoulder into such a magical place.