09 Nov

How do you read?  How do you read a book?  How do you read a building?  How about a city?  A good book allows for something new to be uncovered upon every meeting.  The same book read in a high school English class will mean something different five years later, and still something different in ten.  It will continue to unfold and retell, and you will continue to rediscover.  A good building should do the same.  Upon each visit something different is noticed, something new found that had always been, but with changed eyes, only now able to be seen.  As a city, Venice does the same.  It is read by many.  Travelers from far and near come with their own stories, and listen to the different tales Venice chooses to tell.  Read Venice as a map; it’s a short story (trust me).  Read it as a tourist; you may not get lost, but you may not be found.  Read it as a local; you’ll have to tell me how that story reads, but give me time and I may tell you.  You can read the city in the buildings, from it’s history, from it’s geography.  Understand the stage that was once set and the new stage that is unfolding.  You can look at the streets and read the sky.  Where there should be roads there may be water, where there are roads there still may be water.  You can read things upside down, right side up, rocking back and forth, and ducking umbrellas.  And each time you step into the city from outside of whatever dwelling you were just in, you read something new.  Venice never tells itself at once.  It hides, and it shows.  Different always to one than another, but know this: Venice keeps telling; hopefully you continue to listen.