An Observation Exercise
Written in Venice Italy in 2019
Hello and thank you so much for being here! I’m Kimberly Anne, a U.S. expat who moved to Portugal solo in 2022, sight unseen and without a support group. Want more of my backstory? Click here.
This week I’m sharing something completely different. This is an unedited piece I wrote in Rachael Herron’s writing class in Venice, Italy in 2019. I haven’t shown it to anyone, you’re the first. The prompt was to go outside in the beautiful city of Venice and write what we observe…. Use your five senses, or not… You do you…
The Writing
The birds talk to one another in a wondrous cacophony. One type sings and another responds, a game of marco polo in the trees.
Scents overwhelm.
Cigarettes, first with a dampness that can’t be escaped. The fresh scents must be hunted for they hide beneath layers of B.O., food and smoke.
The sun, in all his glory peeks out from behind the cloud covered sky as if playing hide and seek with the multi-colored landscape.
Does the child cough from sickness or from exertion?
Are the suit-cased people just arriving in the city of secrets and dreams, or are they saying goodbye with tear stained cheeks and hearts bursting with gratitude?
What are the birds saying? Do they proclaim their undying love for each other? Do they sing for the unveiling of the sun? Do they warn of predators, or call for dinner?
Maybe it’s just pure joy.
Maybe they sing because they don’t have the ability to stop. Because singing is in their nature or because singing lights them up. Maybe they wish to share their joy with the world. To spread their light the way they spread their wings.
Maybe they don’t know why.
Isn’t it human nature alone to assign a reason for everything?
What if, all the answers to all the whys are simply, why not? What if there is no meaning to anything except that which we assign?
Is meaning then, at least in part, subjective?
Puddles form in the uneven stones that pave the roads of Venice, each one a tiny lake. Dirt and cigarettes live in between the cracks and crevices just like the thoughts stored in the cracks and crevices of my brain.
Luminous clouds sail across the sky, il circlo. More beautiful than ominous. They vie with the sun for our attention, like a finely dressed woman, la donna. Look at me, look at me. I am stunning and powerful. I can create dreams, spark your imagination, and blot out the sun.
Trees reach toward me, trying to touch, but they don’t even skim my surface. Birds in flight zoom upwards but they fall short. I am elusive. Something you can see but not touch. Something that affects you that you cannot control. Something powerful, both quiet and loud. Depending on my mood.
How many secrets does the water hold hiding in her depths? Another power force. Dark and light, dependent on the sun. Beautiful. Deadly. Claiming life and giving it.
All those doors that open up directly onto the canal, what secrets lay on the other side? Are they filled with storage or treasure? Is there a difference? Or does it all come back to a matter of perception? One person's trash…
What would it be like to live behind one of those doors?
The bright green mystery over a small arched bridge.
Surrounded by so much life force.
Venice is a city of nature, I've never seen her this way before. Built for the people yes but built around nature in so many ways. Incorporating her. Working with her.
The sounds of the people are loud, but they cannot block out the sounds of the birds and the wind and the water.
A flutter of wings. Clicking heels on the hard stones. A bird song. The layering of many languages.
The movement of water splashing against the sides of a building. Microcosm hidden in plain sight within a microcosm.
The monumental tranquility of an empty square immediately filled with the lovely tinkling of a wind chime, piano music, and talking people. As if sound just has to fill or enter every silent crevice.
What I noticed most were the birds, but overall it was the way that humans try to overcome and control nature and yet we can’t. We live among it and it's incorporated into every aspect of our lives.
It reminded me of the way I, myself try to hide. All the ways I try to hide. From the sun for fear of wrinkles and cancer. From leaving my house for fear of being uncomfortable. From fear of myself, hiding from the deepest, darkest, most uncomfortable parts. The past, mostly the past.
Venice herself reminds me of this. She incorporates the past and marches it unabashedly into the present. Venice and all the feelings, emotions and physicality she envokes.
Marlies next to me laugh-crying at herself because she can't think of anything to write. Maybe it's because I've been journaling since fifth grade but I can't stop writing. I can't turn it off. It pounds inside my head until I let it out.
Back to the simplicity of nature, amidst the complications and mess and ugliness of humans. We mold and change everything around us for our own convenience. To benefit us. How can we feel good about ourselves knowing that we single-handedly caused the planets destruction? Why can't we live among nature, in harmony with it? Why do we feel this need to control everything?
Our environment.
Our friends.
Our family…
Our significant others…
Even our dogs.
“Stop licking your dick!”
Why can't we just be? Just exist? Why isn't existence enough?
Human nature—yes but there has to be a philosophical answer, not a catch all… or maybe not.
Maybe that's our true connection to nature. It's in our nature to control, to change, to force, to question.
It's probably no accident that we use the same word for both us, and the world inside of us.
Maybe I can find a way to incorporate true nature into my daily life, and also to accept that is—to find peace with it.
Thoughts are basically you talking to yourself, so stop and say hello.
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That was lovely Kimberly - thank you for sharing! I'm not sure I have the courage to share a journal entry!
I've been to Venice. It's beautiful. I think my focus would be on the water. How you can look out over the Adriatic Sea. Being a child of Florida, I love "big water." :)