Years ago my father worked with a man who had an Italian wife. His name was Jim and hers was Eolina. My parents became friends with them, and after Jim stopped working with my dad and moved away our families still saw each other periodically. One of my earliest memories is driving to their house in Maryland in the Fall of some year to visit them. When we got there my dad and I went down with Jim and his son to a lake they lived by to skip stones. The leaves were in full change and I remember how all the yellows reds and oranges reflected off the black glass of the water. I remember my dad teaching me how to throw the stones to get them to skip because I'd never done it before.
Jim and Eolina moved to Italy in the early nineties and the last person to see them was me, when I went to Europe on a school trip in seventh grade. Then our families lost touch completely. My dad heard somewhere that Eolina had died. Knowing I'd be in the neighborhood for this trip I searched for their now-adult children on the internet and found the son, Terence. I wrote him and he responded saying his parents had split up, that his father had wound up in Cali Colombia after leaving Italy but that Eolina was still in Venice. I got in touch with her, made plans, and now I was on my way.
I took a bus from Ljubljana to a suburb of Venice called Mestre, then a train to Venice proper, and then finally a canal ferry to Lido, an island adjacent to Venice where Eolina lives. She met me at a cafe and bought me a gelato and we stood outside the open window of the cafe catching up. I told her about my mother's death. I realize now that the urge to convey this news was perhaps the single greatest motive driving me to this place, this reunion. I believe she was the last person on earth who knew my mom well and still hadn't heard the news (well, besides her now ex-husband). Telling her wasn't fun. "For he that increases knowledge increases sorrow." But I felt I had moved toward completing something, some vague morbid duty.
In her home she treated me as her own son. As soon as we got to her apartment she sent me off with a beer to her balcony where I read and watched the boats on the sea glide past. She cooked a dinner of old family recipes with fruits and vegetables and herbs from her own garden. Later I was offered clothes, a bathrobe, slippers. For someone used to hostels you can imagine the kind of respite this hospitality provided.
Nobody likes losing touch. I'm sorry to say it's already happened to me with some of my friends from high school and college who've moved away. But because our families were close and because of what happened to my mom I felt a responsibility to reconnect. Venice was out of my way, and I'd sacrificed a magical destination - Prague - to go there. But it was one of the best things I'd done on my trip so far, and I was so glad I went.
From Venice I flew to Vienna Austria for another brief stay of just two nights. It was beautiful but sleepy - I arrived on a Sunday night before midnight and wanted to get a beer and bite to eat at a bar. I couldn't even manage that - everything was closed and I ended up eating McDonald's. The main reason I'd gone to Vienna was to see some paintings by Gustav Klimt, and I got this done at the magnificent Belvedere museum.
In three days I'd experienced the tranquility of a family home in Venice and the beauty and culture of Vienna. Now I was ready to get into some trouble. I was headed to the right place. My next stop was Budapest Hungary.
Location:A Personal Detour - Venice
this is really sweet brian! Glad to have shared a slice of thiS!
ReplyDelete