“I hope Venice will recognize me,” I think, as my train pierces the silver lagoon and carries me across the bridge that hooks the fish-shaped marsh to the mainland.
In the thick of winter, I’ve traded sub-zero temperatures in Montreal for bone-chilling fog. I’ve come back to this place that has known me since my teens the way a first love does. I can’t hide anything from her—she knows all my tells.
The problem is, though, I’m not even sure I recognize myself.
It’s barely been 10 years since I lived in Venice during grad school and only 2 since my last visit, but they’ve been marked by what my psychologist refers to as “a series of life-altering crises” and what an editor recently described as “too many plot points”.
The version of me that Venice first met hadn’t unraveled from a full-body illness, or walked out on her dream career as a scientist to protect her well-being. She hadn’t had five surgeries for endometriosis or three miscarriages or a hysterectomy or a stillbirth with a surrogate who was meant to circumvent further loss. She didn’t have 14 seams etched on her abdomen or a double chin or glitching nerves or a bloated belly that is just as easily triggered as her sorrow. Her laugh sounded different then—not waterlogged, but free. That version of me never doubted that she could persevere.
At home, since our stillbirth last Christmas, I’ve felt paralyzed. By 3 p.m. every day, I’m invaded by darkness. In the throes of grieving two boys in one year, my husband Ethan and I must decide if we’re continuing with surrogacy. Our love story is as irreversibly altered as my anatomy, our conversations dominated by bowels and bladder and baby. I can hardly look at him because he reminds me of all that we’ve lost and all that we may continue to lose.
So I’ve come to my lagoon for some melancholy me-time. Where better to nurse a severe depression than here, where I’ve always felt most alive?
I haven’t told my friends—either here in Europe or back home—that I’m hiding out in Venice. I no longer want to perform positivity to spare them the discomfort, or to pretend it helps when they tell me I’m strong. Mostly, I don’t want them to expect that I’ll be cured. Grief is hauling a suitcase with a broken wheel that is packed heavy with things you can’t leave behind. Being here won’t be a reset, but maybe it’ll jolt my senses awake. Still, I’m afraid of traveling solo when I’m barely functional. The most mundane choices have felt daunting. I can’t imagine making plans, deciding how to fill my days, or what to eat. Sometimes bravery feels foolish.
When I arrive, the palazzi look crestfallen in their winter light and the emerald canals are rippled by rain. Venice’s mood is as volatile as mine, and I’m grateful for it.
All I do for days is walk. I take every artery and vein of the city that I can, obsessed with tracing them all for safekeeping. I walk the Fondamente—the long banks lapped by the lagoon—and stare into the fog at the fragmented glow of boats humming past the wooden piles.
