Venice

Venice, it was ten long years since I had seen her last. How was I to know on that fateful day, ten years ago, that when we stepped onto the plane to go home, my life had changed, in every detail, from a major to a long minor chord, without explanation; forever and without resolution.

And now finally, I had returned alone—late at night so I was unable to see those familiar sights. I took the same room, with the same view and in the morning, very early, I opened the shutters and looked out upon the city. How am I to explain that strange sensation? A sensation of a type only experienced at best, two, perhaps three times in one lifetime.

It was that feeling of returning to yourself after a very long absence. That moment when you begin to do something extremely ordinary, characteristic of your own personality but practically forgotten during that long stretch of time during which you struggled to be someone else, for someone else.

You look at your duplicitous self, you want to apologize, but then you say, "It’s all right, I’ve forgiven you already, let’s just go out and get a cup of coffee, you and I, my friend.”

Richard Britell Housatonic, 2008