I'll Miss You, part three

   

   

   
     Venice was not how he remembered it. As an impressionable kid, he was introduced to a city of quiet canals and hidden courtyards, siestri and plaza. Venice offered surprise and romance, the promise of discovery if one embraced the possibility of what could be around the next corner, a wandering maze to solve with a reward at the end. It was a city of pockets, campo to campo, moments of relief after passing through walkways the width of an arm span. Without the vantage point of height or depth, Venetians had to accept the chance that anything could happen, that inspiration or a dead end were always just footsteps away.

   
     However, the novelty of Venice had been exploited since he was last there, for the city was, after all, a center of merchants aiming to please and earn a lire. Glass shops and fabric stores were replaced by pandering food walk-ups and curios made quickly, consumed even quicker by people led through the annals of Venice like sheep. Familiarity is comfort and comfort opens wallets.




Plastic bottles floated in schools atop the Grand Canal. If there was one thing he despised while traveling it was being catered to, to be reminded of home. He came to Venice to feel Venetian but that Italian way of life was buried under a cloak of distraction made by the tourist trade.

     But his memories of Venice were sentimental and strong, not just of tight quarters but also of grand squares filled with cafes and music, compari and soda ordered with grace, sam bucco sipped slowly. He recalled the surprise of a paisley dress on a beautiful woman moving briskly beneath a portico, the sun setting over the Adriatic, the soothing sound of waves lapping against the limestone foundations of palaces. He could hear the calls, today, of a cliched romance trying to claim intangibles, to commodify heartstrings, to package and sell love. He clung on to his memories like they were old photographs from his past.

     And he would not give up, for the memory of being there with her was strong with an almost folk lorean stance, as if he had always been there with her, never left. Could he find the heart of Venice, which he hoped was still beating somewhere and waiting to be found? He believed he could. He believed in them, but it would take some effort to peel back the clutter of days gone by. Only a lonely walk would do. He could run another day.


For solitude, the walk had to begin early, or late, when the rolling shutters of cafes were pulled down closed. The last vestiges of light stuck around to well after 10, 22:00, on this midsummer's night eve. More patience. The beauty of Venice, he discovered first hand as a boy, was in wandering its passageways and campos approaching each journey in stages, stopping at a storefront display of linen fashions or a bar offering cicchetti, to be open to the possibilities of new experiences in a city a thousand years old.

     So he walked with no particular destination in mind, just the goal of a brief taste of the Venice he remembered. When a noisy crowd blocked his way, he ventured down a quiet side passage. Each turn increased his chances of getting lost, each turn taking him past laundry hung from lines, each turn along buildings of crumbling plaster revealing foundations of brick.

Around one of these turns an old woman stuck her hand out for change. He dug into his pockets for some coins that had been jangling around for half a day, forgotten. Dropping the change into her weathered hands, he paused for her to express gratitude. But she looked at the coins in disappointment. He hadn't thought about their worth, but now looking down into her palm he figured it was the equivalent of giving her a few pennies. She may have been poor and begging, but insults were insults. Quickly, he pulled a thousand lire from his pocket.

     “Grazie a mille,” she whispered with a smile and a touch to his shoulder. They went their separate ways.

   

A long quiet slot between two buildings called to him. Absent of much light, he shouldn't have been intrigued. But he was. The sound of his steps lightly echoed upwards like something out of a movie. Each of his hands could touch opposing buildings as he walked arms outstretched. From behind curtained windows came the sounds of Italians living their lives – dishes clanking, water trickling down drains, “Aspetti...per padre...prima di mangiare.” Finally.

     The welcome surprise at the end of the walkway was that it ended at the water. He sat down on the stone with his back against the wall, his feet near the dark water's surface. He waited...

     ...for what he believed was so close. It had to be. There was no where else to go. It didn't matter that she wasn't there with him, he still kept inside everything she gave him. He just wanted to feel it on his fingertips, close at hand, without the weight of cliched romance that visitors to Venice often fell prey to. It had to be real.

     The high water line was marked by seaweed and barnacles attached to pitted brick, salt water up high where it didn't belong, causing Venice to slowly sink. They'd figure something out. A city doesn't last 1592 years without some creativity. He started brainstorming ideas, but the science and the hour and the sound of lapping waves lulled him to unconsciousness.

     His time spent asleep was hard and quick, so much so that he wasn't sure where he was when he awoke. But it was tranquil to the point where he didn't care. Silence was something to behold, not destroy by movement. He felt good about his decision not to run. It was moments like these she taught him to wait for.

     And that's when she came back to him at last that night, on the wind as the scent of a perfume she once wore, of tropics and vanilla, of style and desire. Scent took him to somewhere he'd been before, delivered him to a place beyond nostalgia. Venice tonight or yesterday. It didn't matter. As he found himself now resting in the heart of Venice – it's subtle charms scratched in walls, taste of garlic in the air, cool stone on his palms – he also rested on the water's edge with her deep in his heart, that place of protection beneath the distractions of the days spent without her. Nothing was lost. It just took some quiet.