Mom and I thought we'd step off the train and be accosted by gondoliers eager to take us on a guided tour of the city by waterway. Since it was barely sunrise, there weren't many folks around, and no gondoliers could be found anywhere. Enjoying the cool breeze off the water, we grabbed a bench, and got to chatting. As Mom would say, we talked about "first one thing, and then another." My mother is normally a fairly predictable soul. She is a creature of habit who does grocery shopping every Friday morning, has my Dad do the house cleaning every Saturday, and attends church every Sunday morning and evening, barring hospitalization. Imagine my surprise, when mid-conversation, she crouched over her totebag, and came back up with a disposable razor in hand.
In disbelief, I kept talking, not missing a beat, just watching to see what she had in mind. Sure enough, she responded to each turn of conversation without pause, casually leaning over to swipe the razor across her calves with a practiced hand, as if shaving her legs in public were the most natural thing in the world.
"Mom!" I sputtered, looking around. "What are you doing?"
"Well, we've been so busy, I just haven't had a chance. I just need to get the long ones." she responded reasonably, shaving away, not a care in the world.
I again scanned the mostly empty square, wondering if I should shield her with my body, and then remembered the open, jubilant body confidence of Lower Bunk Woman, and sank back against the bench. We were in Europe. Mom was a seventy five year old woman traveling abroad...let her do her thing.
As I finished up my sketch, Mom noted the handsome young man getting up from the bench opposite me. "Nikki, there's another one." she whispered, just loud enough that he might hear.
I smiled. Yes, I certainly had noticed. I'd spent most of my sketch time checking him out as he checked me out. Italy is a beautiful country. Every moment I spent there was full.
We left our bench reluctantly, and wandered until we found an open café, all silver shiny countertops and warm, good smells of freshly baked croissant and brewing coffee. We were the first customers, at least to sit, and snagged one of the three tiny tables, cover charge be damned.
I remember reading once that when something -food, music, lovemaking- is good enough to overwhelm your senses, one of them must shut down in simple defense. Most often it is sight- the person experiencing almost unbearable pleasure, will close their eyes, and savor the mode the experience is channeled through best...taste, hearing, touch, smell.
That is how I ate my breakfast in Venice. The cappuccino was not the best one I'd had in Italy, and the orange juice was only average...but the chocolate croissant! The chocolate croissant was likely the most pleasure I'd taken in for over a year, and I ate it with my eyes closed... all the better to enjoy it with, my dear.
As I waited for mom to finish, who was having a torrid love affair with her second crème-filled croissant (take that, diabetes!), I listened to the peppy music that filled the air. It was an odd playlist for early morning, consisting of mostly dance music, even some pulsing techno thrown in for good measure. Most of the lyrics were in Italian, but the occasional phrase was heavily accented English, perhaps intended to make us tourists feel at home. I listened closely, picking a phrase that had me doubled over giggling, "We fist pump and stand on chairs..." Now, there was a mental picture.
Full of good Italian pastries, we left the café, and set out in search of our gondola riding experience. To our dismay, we searched the water's edge up and down, finding only water taxis and water buses...effective enough, but not the overpriced, cheesy tourist experience my heart desired. Tired of wandering, I left Mom standing in the shade, and set out with a postcard picture of a gondola ride. I stopped a handsome, middle-aged Italian man, and asked in a halting mixture of Italian and English for directions. I had long since discovered it did not matter to these men if you spoke a word of Italian, as long as you were female, fairly young, and at least marginally pretty. They were more than eager to help a maiden in distress, and often fell just short of taking you under the arm and delivering you to your destination themselves, looking greedily down your top the entire way.
This kind gentleman was much more subtle if he eyed my cleavage at all, and instead put me in the mind of my father as he gave me directions, actually taking my left hand at the wrist and shaking it repeatedly for emphasis, whenever a left turn was required in his spiel. This made me smile as I recalled my dad doing much the same thing as he tried to teach me my left from my right when I was a small girl. I thanked him profusely not only for the directions, but for making sure I understood them before I walked away. He beamed at my passionate thanks, and right there on the street, made the gallant gesture of kissing both my cheeks. I nearly felt I was be given away at my wedding by a loving uncle, or at the least a treasured family friend. The Italian are an affectionate bunch, and touch was just what I had been without the entire last miserable year.
Jake is at the age that he will look to see who is around before touching me in public, even so much as to take my hand in a parking lot. Tim has been ill, and even when well, was not raised to show affection in public or private. Cory had been my girl to raise for the first six years, and I had lavished upon her all the love and affection I myself craved during those lonely years without her father. It had stuck, and that sweet girl had no qualms about holding my hand through the mall, or kissing me good night full on the lips until her dying day.
Turns out, Mom and I were a ten minute walk from the gondolas of our dreams. Before we knew it, we were seated comfortably, and listening to our gondolier, Antonio, holler out in warning to other gondolas as he oared us out of narrow alleys.
I asked Antonio if he liked his job- a question to which he lit up, describing that being a gondolier is a honored family profession being passed down from generation to generation. He, for instance, was a seventh generation gondolier. The business had been in his family for over five hundred years. He told me proudly that this gondola was his own, and named Monica, "after my momma." I asked him if he had a family of his own- a wife, children?
"Yes, wife. One child. Ten months. She no sleep so much yet." he responded with a tired smile of a new parent. I watched his face so full of love and pride as he talked about his daughter, and wished Cory could have known that type of love from her father as a baby. It made me sad for her, and as Antonio leisurely rowed us through the city, pointing out the gorgeous architecture and famous sights, I took a private trip in my head, remembering my daughter at all stages of her life. She had endured so much, and brought me joy at every turn. I lifted my head to the city, my heart heavy. Venice looked back at me, and seemed to understand completely.
Those almost ghostly buildings silhouetted against a light blue, nearly white sky, were all the more striking because of all they had endured. Their beauty was only accentuated by their flaws. The tide had threatened them at every turn, but they had stood down, year after year. They were meant to be here. They were meant to be seen. Their suffering, as well as their strength would speak to someone in the future just as they spoke to me this day. Occasionally, Antonio would interrupt my reverie with a snatch of serenade.
"You sing in the daytime, too?" I asked, with a smile.
"Oh yes, we must do the singing. But more at the nighttime. Nighttime gondolas rides very romantic. More expensive- say $100. Good for the couple, good for the kissy-kissy."
Kissy-kissy, I mused. Yes, this was definitely not that trip to Italy for me. The daytime gondola ride had apparently been an excellent choice.
Back in my head, I saw my girl...her first steps, taking her to kindergarten on the first day of school, loaning her my favorite necklace and earrings for her first formal dance. I saw her smiling, laughing, and crying. I remembered how she would pounce upon me when I took a nap, and pull me off the bed by my ankles as I giggled helplessly in protest. I remembered her at my side, watching intently as I cooked a meal- never intending to learn the recipe to make it herself, but just enjoying the sight of my hands at work as I prepared her meal. I remembered teaching her to dance in the kitchen while making dinner, nearly falling on my butt laughing because she could not move her hips whatsoever- a fact that comforted my mother's heart endlessly.
I remember laughing the most. We somehow found ourselves in the most unlikely situations. A couple of years ago, Cory and I had taken the car down to the carwash to vacuum out the inside. It had been a sweltering hot day. Cory had helped by taking any phantom straw wrappers or stray water bottles to the trash. As I put my hair up into a haphazard ponytail, and fed the machine quarters, she patiently lined the floor mats up to be cleaned. For some reason, I was short cash that day, and it was a race to finish before the vacuum shut off.
I do not enjoy cleaning, but once I begin, I am in a zone, focused on nothing but the task at hand. I remember that day I had been wearing a floaty black t-shirt that tied at both shoulders. As I climbed over seats, worked my way around the console, flipping seats back and forth like a mad woman, I had become hot and disheveled, in a world of my own. Cory appeared suddenly at one side, screeching, "Mom!!"
I looked up, irritated to be disturbed at my work. "What?" I demanded.
"Your boob!" she responded.
What? I remember thinking. I looked down to discover all this frenzied cleaning to beat the clock had popped one breast completely out of its bra cup, and thrust it through the slit opening of my top's shoulder. You'd think I would've noticed the warm air on my nipple, or at least wondered why the trucker in the next aisle over was standing there, the vacuum hose in his hand all but forgotten, and his mouth wide open.
Did we laugh? You have no idea.
As our ride came to stop, the gondola gently nudging the dock, I thought about how my trip with Cory was over.
Innocently referring to the gondola ride, Antonio asked, "Did you have a good time?"
In that split second, I thought back to someone asking me at some point ( I think it may have been my oldest sister), if I had known Cory would be taken so soon, would I have still wanted to have her for the time I did?
At the time I was asked, I honestly wasn't sure. The pain was that bad. It blocked out the world. I looked up at the Venice sky before nodding vigorously to Antonio, perhaps not in answer to his innocuous question, but to finally give my sister, Tammy, the one she'd been looking for all along.
Yes. I'd had the time of my life.
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