Venice, Who Will Tell Your Story?

Venice, you hollow shadow of a once beautiful city, you who once housed the mad, the lonely, the drunk, the roused at dawn, the soldiers, the sailors, the sinners...

I have watched too many movies about Venice, Italy. Too many movies that made the city seem like a city where you floated on the water by moonlight.

Moonraker, Casino Royale, The Tourist. The Venice I was expecting was a little like Greece: romantic, elegant, little old ladies in black living in houses along the canals, hanging out their clothes. Children chasing cats and dogs. The smell of food drifting out of people’s kitchens. Tiny winding streets, gardens. An ancient city.

Venice is a hollow city. There are tiny bits of community here and there. The city’s population has dropped from 250,000 to approximately 45,000 because of overtourism, which contributes 1.6 billion euros to the economy each year.

Vacations always feel like being thrown back and forth on waves. I work; I walk. I write. I think. I think big. I walk around in big ideas.

Venice has no cars. Wonderful water taxis take you everywhere, and then you walk through tiny streets, over bridges, through alleys. We take a gondola ride with a man who calls himself Valentino (I expect his real name was Matteo, but Valentino gets more tips). I’m glad we came, but the days of stumbling into a native resident’s shop in a tiny alley are long gone.

It’s odd to have such a huge disparity between my dream of the city and the actual city. Things I didn’t realize:

That it would be so crowded.

That the sewage is dumped into the canals.

That it would be 100 Euros for a gondola ride.

That the city is a shell of Venice, a lovely shell left for tourists to walk around and remember what it used to be before the tourists chewed it up.

That when you stepped into church during mass, you felt quiet.

That the pizza would be so good.

That the wine could be so bad.

That the desserts would be so delicious.

That kissing under bridges, although cheesy, is still kind of fantastic.

In Venice, they still blow glass, make pastries. They come in from some other town or city to serve the tourists who stay in hotels and walk around amongst the mostly empty houses with windows staring out like blind eyes.

Venice is like many people I know. The idea of Venice is different than the real Venice. I know people whose idea of themselves is different than they are. I was talking to a man recently who spends his time watching Fox News and staying at home. His wife takes trips to see her family, and he could travel himself, but doesn’t. He no longer has friends, because like many men in his eighties, he never learned how to make friends in the first place. Their friends are her friends.

“Does your family think of me as a hippie, kind of a free thinker?” he asked me.

“No,” I said. “You’re part of the MAGA world. It’s surprising that you don’t move back to Florida where you would fit in and have friends. California has to be rough for someone as conservative as you.”

Sometimes, we think of ourselves as being something we are not. Venice, you hollow shadow of a once beautiful city, you who once housed the mad, the lonely, the drunk, the roused at dawn, the soldiers, the sailors, the sinners, the harpies, the whores, the hangers on, the hellions, with bells on, the monks, the friars, the cardinals.

Two popes came from Venice.

Pope Julius II, who had a daughter while he was cardinal (the church was lax then), was quite a fan of the arts, so some good, some bad? The other Pope from Venice established the Sistine Chapel, the Foundling Hospital, and the Vatican Library. (He also had six children. Busy times.)

Our gondolier bragged of the two popes, and I thought, if my church history serves me right, I believe those Venetian popes were a bit naughty, but now apparently revered.

The question is, who tells your story?

Venice was beautiful once; now, tourists own the streets.

The churches ring the bells and people stream in for services, tourists lighting candles and praying. The Catholic church doesn’t dominate politics as it did in the Middle Ages, but there are still 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.

It’s interesting to think that the Crusades were fought to combat the Muslims from expansion and to take back the “Holy Lands.” The Crusades went on for nearly two hundred years, killing off nearly two million people in nine Crusades.

There are 1.9 billion Muslims worldwide. Your story of yourself as the world’s best religion might be wrong.

Venice is an adventure of canals, and shops, and a city sinking. When the icebergs melt, it will be gone, so I am glad I saw what is left of Venice. Our gondolier reminded us of the most famous person to live in Venice, so I’ll end with my poem to Casanova published in my collection, The Goldilocks Zone. Our gondolier said that Casanova may have fathered most of the people in Venice, including himself. I’m not sure if that’s an overstatement. But, I know that Casanova’s writing made him out to be quite the lover, so I leave you with Casanova.

Casanova and the Aphrodite of the Modern World

Casanova, 1725-1798

Prince de Ligny, “At 73, no longer a god in the garden or a satyr in the forest, he is a wolf at table.”

This window is the one he climbed out to escape his second arrest by the Inquisition. No glass. Just an open space. Curtain over it. There were bars. He escaped twice.

Son of Italian performers. Early ambition to be a priest. Thrown out of seminary. Decided to travel. Visit all the capital cities. Be expelled from them one by one.

We see him lolling on beds. Linen strewn. Serving girl astride. Dog barking down below. Clothes on the mirror. Smell of semen. Chamber pot in the corner.

We see him with ladies, maids, duchesses. Hear cries of ecstasy. Casanova liked condoms made from lamb intestines or linen condoms tied off with a ribbon.

Casanova fought duel after duel. Carried off without a scratch.

Many near misses at the altar. Casanova’s coach always in time.

Last fourteen years of his life. Corner of Bohemia. Chateau Dux, Casanova worked as librarian. Wrote his memoirs. Spooled out his exploits, the twins who seduced him.

Nin, Colette, Casanova, captured something. Reveal what you wish. It’s your story. Tell the story they want to hear. Story of desire. Story of passion.

I am starting my diary. I am the greatest lover of the twenty-first century.

Men who sleep with me never recover. Nor do women. They are all of them mad.

I am Aphrodite of the modern world. Music precedes me. Stories follow me. Give me fourteen years at the Chateau Dux. My name will be synonymous with pleasure.