Return to Venice (San Servolo)

Remember when I almost died in Venice one year ago? I mean, when I melodramatised that I was going to die in Venice from the naturally heinous consequences of unforseen humidity, recent emotional turbulence, and rapid national/geographical transitions? That had been my first weekend in Italy, the first venture out of Turin with my new Italian family, and I had been too busy with keeping food inside my body to enjoy the setting. This time I slowly paced the island and tried to appreciate, without too much fore- or afterthought, the unusual chance to walk the same paths in the same clothes on the same summer days, that I walked exactly one year ago. To look at exactly where I was, and where I am. Talk about closure.

Same weekend in June. Low humidity, thank the skies. Same five hour train ride from Turin to Milan to Venice. Same ferry from the train station to our island, same dormitory, same nannies, most of the same kids. Same aloof Italian parents - khaki and pearls, Blackberries, spritzes - disappearing to a different part of the island for their mysterious conferences. In place of Henry James' "Washington Square," I read Zora Neal Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God." The holiday in August - I'm still referring directly to my original "Death in Venice" blog entry - turned out to be one week in Paris and one week alone in Turin; I did indeed visit Christa in July; and I didn't come home for Christmas, making this the longest I period I have ever passed away from my hometown and immediate family. 375 days since my plane took off, and I'm so much bigger for it.

Irene, the Filipino nanny, remembered me from last year. We have both shortened our hair. "So you are leabing soon to go back to California," she said, smiling. "You are lucky." She has a son and husband in the Philippines to whom she sends the money she earns in Italy from ironing and doing laundry and raising Federico, a vivacious 4-year-old. Irene always smiles.

Our trip coincided with the first strains of the Art Biennale, a biennial international art exhibition that takes over the whole city. I managed to visit the Arsenale exhibition space, the Ireland and North Ireland pavilions, the Morocco pavilion, and a few of the public exhibits. My main aim, however, after doing the Student Thing with my study abroad group in 2007, and the Tourist Thing with the family last year, was to find the real Venice: where do actual Venetians live? What do they do? Do they actually exist, or is everyone here part of the tourist culture? I snatched the few opportune hours to wander Venice alone, stuffed them into my shoulder bag with an umbrella and my journal, and took to the streets. Here's what I found:

Venice is even pretty in post-rain Monday evening.















Someone wore this tiger suit so much that it had to be washed.















Rainbow laundry dries on the line between house and tree.















Australian couple swinging barefoot to the jazz band playing in front of this historic cafe, to the delight of white blazered waiters and various passersby.















There are, in fact, some corners yet untouched by tourist culture...















... such as the wine bar (above) that I entered to escape the rain, only to find Eric Clapton's "San Francisco Bay Blues" playing on the flatscreen. I ordered a big glass of red wine and picked a corner table to attempt to journal, and instead struck up a conversation with a fellow American traveler that lasted all afternoon. Takei, a 28-year-old architect from New York, and I drank our way to the end of the passing rainshower and shouldered our respective loads to wander Venice together. He said he was losing focus in New York, unsure of his next steps, and I assured him that he was headed in the right direction if only by asking himself about it. We tossed coins into the case of a group of lean, hatted, teenaged gypsy guitar players improvising under a portico; I photographed his flannel shirt and bearded grin on a narrow gondola dock; he told me about the girl he lived with and now no longer lives with, and the siblings he barely knows. I wrote to myself

venice is as pretty as usual, and i got a straw hat like i wanted.

i feel like i've run out of things to write. all this time has gone by, and i'm no longer 1. in crisis from graduation, nor 2. alone.

Open Your Ears

I have met so many people here and around who assure me that a change is coming, that the current course of the modern western world is bound for ruin and the only way to redirect that course is with informed, intentional action. Lindsay said the other day that what we need now is brave people, courageous people. The most recent issue of the Re-evaluation Counseling publication “Current Times” opened with a quote: Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength. Loving someone deeply gives you courage.” It seems that a lot of important historical action has come from like-minded individuals bringing talent and skills to a community*, and inviting other enlightened individuals into a pulsing group of activists via late night conversations, substance experimentation, the wholehearted execution of bad and great ideas – and the more I read about the literary groups and artists’ circles that came before, the more I consider the potential of the community my friend Kelsey mentioned in a recent email:

Clare and I have been fantasizing a lot about the post-Ecuador San Francisco life [they are currently in Ecuador on a Colorado College post-graduate grant to film a documentary] and, I have to inform you that you are intimately involved in our future fantasy. So, here is the deal. We want to move into a big house in the Mission in the fall with other like minded artistic, into the healthy lifestyle/going out on cultural ventures type people.... know anyone who fits this profile? (hint: try looking in the mirror)

And there’s no way that venture could fail, simply because we would be together.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been soaking up a ton of new information about the past and current states of the world. The first was a film called Terra Madre about the SlowFood movement – a documentary based upon the urgent call to renew the once-sacred bond between Man and the Earth – after which I had a chance to talk with the director and filmmaker Ermanno Olmi about what effects the film may have on viewers, and on the larger population. As the end of the film was a 30-minute wordless chronicle of one farmer’s seasonal process (tilling, sowing, smelling, cutting) I told them during the Q&A that I thought the film fostered attentive listening. Active, deliberate listening: something often forgotten in today’s age of output. Blogs allow people to publish mindless grievances and ravings; text-message capabilities allow lovers and friends to say things over the mobile phone that they cannot take back, let alone defend or explain; and email correspondence has contributed, in my opinion, to the rapid breakdown of the written English language as a means for articulating one’s ideas in an intelligent way. In another part of the Q&A, Ermanno Olmi mentioned President Obama and his story-telling campaign, and I agreed that he has indeed opened the door to individuals of each life path to come together in love. The next step, however, is to listen. Really slow down and listen. Absorb. To give ourselves the time to do that, then take that new information with us into the action.

* Torino's Promotrice delle Belle Arti (an elegant exhibit space in the big riverside park, my favorite museum here) is currently hosting collected works of husband and wife Camilla and Valerio Adami. They had a circle, too, in the 1980s, which included literary theorist Jacques Derrida. Cool.

In Which She Finds the Dream Position

I went with the family to the mountains near Monte Bianco, Valvaraita, for a few days' repose in a hostelly cabin. We happened to share the weekend with a first place European outdoor someoneorother (Olympic mountain climber?), a young couple of fresh polenta-cooking newlyweds, and some scruffy sweatered locals who spoke not Italian but a fascinating language called Occitan. They apologised to me, in Italian, when they would lapse into their own language in front of me, but I waved it off because I like trying to guess what they're saying. I will miss Italians' hand gestures, as they make eavesdropping so much easier.

In the early morning of each of the three days we stayed there, I awoke with the final words of a dream on my lips. I've found in recent weeks that sleeping on my back with hands crossed over my stomach, aside from making me feel like an old man, encourages fast and furious dreaming, often of movement and contentment.

The mountains were moody when we arrived, all crags and fog, driving us indoors to play cards and Forza Quattro (Connect Four). I read aloud from "The Indian in the Cupboard," and to their parents' amazement the stircrazy boys stayed quiet for a solid half hour! They love it. I'm pretty good at imitating the different voices. They especially love the cowboy Boone's Texan accent, though I'm sure they only understand 29% of what he says.

On our last day the blue sky won out over pouting clouds, and set the background for a long wander up into the painted scenery. The boys complained of thirst and boredom, until we started to spot marmots and their outlooks changed from whiny to alert. How spoiled I've become that I don't think twice about how cool it is to read about Obama in the Italian newspaper with a focaccia sandwich in one hand, sprawled upon the grassy lawn beside a ruined stone cabin, nestled between snowy hills! One of the boys contented himself to build a dam in the snow runoff creek; the other fought unseen enemies with his walking stick. Dad walked off for a good half hour with his binoculars to birdwatch/moosewatch/marmotwatch, and came back unsatisfied. Mom stretched out in the sunshine, tanktop straps pulled down for maximum sun and minimum proof. These photos haven't been retouched.

On other fronts, I've run into that funny Hawaiian au pair a few more times in and around the neighborhood park, and each time I envy anew her carpe diem attitude, her freckles, and her sweet leather shoulder bag. She's one of those people of whom other girls always say, "Oh, no one could pull that [obscure fashion item e.g. sailor hat, buttoned gloves, leiderhosen] off except whatsername." Her regular videoblog updates reminded me that I should strive for diligence in documenting these last four weeks at Corso Galileo Ferraris, 67.

My dad asks, "Doing OK?" I reply, "Yeah. Racing time." He says, "Believe me - you lose every time." Listen to this with the lights out and you will see the saddest, brightest bits of your life montage before your eyes.