Piazza San Marco

I could see the Lion of Venice from my bedroom window, spreading the pages of a book with its paws. Winged and perched on top of a pillar at the mouth of Piazzetta di San Marco, it faced away from Saint Theodore and his dragon on the western column.

Looking at the Lion became ritual. As did opening the shutters to let light spill in to a rather dark room, lending an ear to seagulls who squawked the day’s news and listening to bells sing from more than 100 towers. A reminder of another hour lost or another hour gained, depending on perspective.

It was quiet on my side of the lagoon, away from swarms of tourists filling vaporetti and taking selfies to capture an authentic view. It was slow, spacious and comfortable here. More so when I occasionally ate lunch near the water’s edge, alongside fishermen baking in the sun. Their lines, limp and lazy, swayed ever so subtly on the tips of waves. Swells which slammed against the land only to shatter into yet another delicate expression of movement.  

I kept a notebook with me. Writer’s habit. A place to scratch thoughts as they surfaced. I had been travelling for a little over a week at this point. Marseille to Nice and Nice to Venice, basking in that Mediterranean light. The pages were moist and curling from salt, sea and the breeze that carried every worry far, far away.

Where does one begin to understand everything that has happened here? I wrote in one entry. It was a thought from an early morning walk in Piazza San Marco, when the square was empty save for a kit of pigeons waiting for their next Instagram debut. I liked to visit the space before the gelato carts opened and tour guides with their well-rehearsed accounts waltzed through. Much like pigeons, they were repeat offenders of orchestrated chaos. A life-source surging the square.

Piazza San Marco is old, 800s old. While walking where so many have walked, my contributions to humanity (and civilization as whole) shrunk in comparison, cowering in the coolness of Venetian shadows. 

It’s easy to question purpose and place when travelling. To crack open insecurities and revisit old wounds. My thoughts shifted and changed with the rise and fall of the sun. By twilight, my heart was a firefly, flickering and sparking joy. In a city where darkness is a character unto itself, with only restaurants and lamp-lit passageways aglow, my curiosity resurfaced. More so when I stood near the Lion of Venice, admiring its long tail and arched wings, wondering what such a thing would look like if it existed. If it dared to close the book beneath its feet and take flight.