Saturday, February 1, 2025

Misty Morning, Grand Canal

30 January 2017

I haven't posted here for quite some, and have actually not been inclined to do so since the American election in early November. My disgust over its outcome was such that it took up much of my attention, and left little available to think about Venice and my life there. The past seemed irrelevant given the nightmarish present and the alacrity with which the American media bowed down to even the most fascistic impulses, statements, and acts of the incoming administration. (Of course, this is the obvious danger when 90% of America's media is owned by 6 corporate conglomerates. Freedom of the press quickly becomes a thing of the past, as do broader freedoms.) I also had two manuscripts I was in the process of revising. One of them, my second children's picture book, sold in December to a US publisher who hopes to bring it out in spring of 2026. The other, a novel for adults, I've just finished revising and given to my agent. 

In any case, I'm going to make an effort to return to combing through my much-too-large collection of un-posted and unedited images of Venice, in spite of the concerns that come with living in a country in the midst of becoming a mafia state, in which corruption and extortion and the threat (and use of) violence against the most vulnerable of the country's very own citizens are openly practiced and boasted about by those occupying the highest offices in the land. 

But that's enough about all that for now. The above is an image of what was my family's regular morning view for the last 5 years of our life in Venice. Do I miss it? Very very much.