Hitching Up

Starting from the age of three our son insisted we buy him cords or light rope so he could mimic this toss-and-tie that the marinai do at each stop. He'd toss the rope around chairs, around bed posts, around door knobs, around anything he could, and as he grew older and his ropes proliferated and he grew more skilled at making knots, our small living room/dining room would be criss-crossed so thickly by ropes tied to every conceivable object that some days it was almost impossible to simply walk through it. This is what it's like to raise a child--or at least a certain kind of child--in Venice. (photo: 17 June 2015)