If I were to think of my favorite Venice memory, I think it would be of a moment. One of many, of course, that I experienced in this most fantastic of places. I can think of several moments, but the one that most stands out, to me at this moment, is something that happened on October 3, 2000.

Now you might think that something crazy happened, like I fell off a motoscafo and was rescued by Val Kilmer who was there filming something or someother, or that perhaps there was a lightning storm and I ran out into Campo Santa Margherita from the bar Marguerite DuChamps and saved a small child from being hit from lightning. Or even, just sitting on the steps in front of Santa Lucia Train Station – this has slayed others, for sure. But my memory is a bit simpler, and comes back faster, because I am listening, right now, to the sounds that I listened to then.

I had come from Sicily. I’d spent ten days there and then flew to Venice for four, because I could not go to Italy and not go to Venice. My time in Sicily had been incredible, but when I boarded the plane for Venice it felt like I was going home. And really, I was going home.

The weather in those first days of October was warm and gray and humid, with some flooding. I stayed at the La Calcina on the Giudecca Canal in a tiny single room looking over a small canal that constantly overflowed onto the Calle. While I was there, Radiohead’s “Kid A” was released, and I bought it in the record store on Salizzada San Lio. I was with a friend, and went into the store inquiring, and when they had it I jumped up and down with joy. My friend said, “I wish I could still get excited about music like that.” Kid A went into my walkman, and I walked all over Venice listening to that record. I have a photo on my ‘fridge, of my walkman, the Kid A cover, a split of Prosecco, and my room key at the La Calcina, with the Giudecca canal in the background. I call it, “Still Life with Kid A and the Giudecca Canal.”

Anyway. Walking one afternoon, I was taking a shortcut to the Zattere that I know, a tiny, unnamed, unmapped, long and skinny calle that no one goes down because it looks too dark and poop-worthy. I love that calle because moss grows in it. I walked down it with the actual song Kid A, the title track, which no one knows what the hell means, blaring in my earphones. Out of nowhere, a little kid blasts past me on his bike. I could feel his spirit as he went by. I looked back, and his mom, a young, pretty Venetian, was walking behind me. She smiled, and I smiled. It was a beautiful moment, and a moment of truth. I decided right there I would make Venice my home, even if briefly.

And I did. Six months later I was living there. We all make things happen for ourselves, sometimes in odd and unproductive, even scary ways. It’s pretty insane what we are capable of when we really want something. But it is all part of being human, I guess.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 5th, 2004 at 8:50 pm and is filed under How do I get there, from here?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.