Two Days in Venice

We took the train into Santa Lucia both days, as we usually do. I scan the green fields as we pass, wondering how it is that the same, somehow, looks different here. Chicken coops and laundry on lines. An overstuffed garage and shuttered stazione bar. The lagoon gets closer and the fields give way to cement blocks with aquatic supply companies. Car rental depots. A hospital. I could be anywhere and nowhere. Before long, we’re in arrivo. The train slows down when it walks on water.

In those first few minutes, I can understand why Venice has the reputation that it does. You’re part of the mass, absorbed in a throng of travelers all elbowing for their view. Like ants that invade a wedding cake, you feel wrong, ashamed even, to be traipsing over such beauty. So that’s why you keep going—to let her delicacy breathe.

We continue down the alleyways. A river of people squeeze along the canals so that life is pressed in on equal sides. At welcome moments, we spill into piazzas that it seems no one else has found. A tiny bookstore provides an escape, with espresso and fizzy water to alchemize the soul.

To make it all the way to Isola Sant’Elena is to give yourself a gift. Spacious trees there hold up time, blocking the sun, shaped by a breeze. It’s here you can finally think, sinking back into forgotten senses, remembering the humanity you possess isn’t something to escape.

Indeed, it’s in the quiet shade where I tend to find my way, enamored by the history that stretches out before and behind me. Floating on it, balanced atop it, I’m just a visitor here in this city on the sea.

And this too is a narrow path.