Long Way to Find Sadness
Posted on April 17, 2010 with 0 comments
The Venetian mask maker draws his brush slowly and intently across the face of Pulcinella and then with similar economy of movement lifts his eyes and looks at me over his glasses. Perhaps he’s curious to divine my origins but with equal likelihood I am an unwanted intrusion. Seated on a high stool behind the front counter he continues to paint, his eyes glancing up now and then as I move through the shop in silence. The huge noses of il Medico della Peste hang limply from rafters, pointed downwards towards my head. Here in Venice a sense of hidden deity is pulsating - from the massive weathered wood and iron clad doors of locked palazzos that stand sentry-like over damp, cobbled streets; from the hurried, sharp footsteps that echo and fade, detached from any person. The dusty windows just beyond a neat row of smiling Gianduias suggest indirect sunlight – sunset must be just now caressing the dying city's perimeter. I’ve come a long way across an ocean to unwittingly stumble over this threshold and find sadness.