Romancing Venice

I went to Venice, once.

I am not really the type to read books that are tied to a time and place. The books that I read, and the stories that I write, could happen anywhere. They involve bodiless entities floating in an ether, spiraling inwards. They are books that discover the self, and ideals. They rarely muck themselves up with time and space. If setting is required it is generally a minor feature, gratuitous, less than a backdrop. However, I had a friend who read me a book in which one of the many story lines was set in Venice. The book was gorgeous. The author said so much by saying very little. She eluded. She drew on history and stereotypes. Her writing drew me into Napoleonic France, the Russian front, and ultimately a love story behind closed doors along the water-ways in Venice. The book, in case you have not already guessed it, was The Passion, which is not really about any of those moments or places at all, but it does an excellent job of drawing the stories out of these places, and putting a new glaze over them. It is just brilliant writing. It was so brilliant that among my "places I really need to go while in Europe" list, Venice was on the top, followed with Hemingway inspired Spain and a large empty space beneath. When I had the option of tacking Venice onto my marathon trip to Rome I did not hesitate. I went to Venice.

Venice was everything that I had hoped for, but then my hopes had not been concrete and were, therefore, easily met. My partner and I strolled lazily along the streets, letting monuments reach out to meet us, if they so wished. We were more concerned with relaxation and good food than site-seeing. Our ultimate experience in Venice was sitting by the water, eating bread and cheese from a deli and drinking tap-wine from an old water bottle. We repeated the situation several times, culminating in a final morning of sparkling wine and an old woman grumbling at us for plopping down in the middle of a set of steps rather than finding a proper piazza to infest. It was a glorious holiday, and as I look back I am still grateful that the city was able to live up to that bubble of romance that long days listening to my lover's voice drone out Winterson had created for me. I am grateful that although the city dipped into stereotypes I was able to ignore them and to bathe in that romance.

The romance and the stereotype of a place are two very different things. The romance of Venice involves the idea of love, adventure, risk and trust. It is courtship and sacrifice. It is dedication to your cultural past and current ideals. It is political engagement, slyness, and creativity. It is darkness, mystery, shadows and an ever changing world. In romance you meet a person on the streets and they show you a secret passage, inviting you into their existence. Or, in romance you don't meet anyone. You end up on a deserted dead-end path and wonder, briefly, where you go from there before caving to consult the map. At least that is my romance of Venice. My stereotype of Venice involves a typical stereotype of Italian males: arrogant, forward, constantly pressing for more, loud, and trustworthy only as long as you remain sober, with an added threat of pickpockets, irritation at foreigners, and touristic prices at every cafe in town.

I realize that neither my romance nor stereotype is founded in much. A book or two, a movie or series, and a few interactions is not really much to make a judgement on, which is why I am trying to refrain from judging and allow space for myself to be wrong. I want to be surprised, both in the thought that more than romance is possible and that stereotypes will not actually be met. At the same time I am curious as to where I constructed these two, slightly oppositional views, from the same material, and how I am able to keep them separate in my schema. What I have decided is that romance and stereotypes come from two different emotional places. Romance comes from hope and excitement. It comes from desire and is developed only through medium that allows a person a safe space to explore their desires and dreams, such as a one-way media experience including books and films. Stereotypes, on the other hand, come from a place of fear. They are formed through personal insecurities and awareness of weaknesses and are developed through bi-directional interactions that contain risk of threat or actual threat. So even though I have built my stereotypes and romance from one experience I am able to keep them separate because romance is everything that I deem good about a situation, and the stereotypes come from the threats and bad things. I am threatened by an aggressive male that might take advantage of me  physically or emotionally, and so he becomes a stereotype that I can protect myself against. However, I romance the same actions when portrayed by a male that might love and protect me, or offer safe, consensual adventures. That man becomes romanced.

An example: Night time on Saint Mark's Square. My friend and I arrived after nightfall, hoping to enjoy a bottle of wine and a snack. Two men approached us, trying to get our names and obviously trying to engage us for the evening in some form. According to my fearful, stereotypical telling of the story these were aggressive men and their intention was to either swindle us as tourists or to ply us with alcohol until we had sex with them, or something along those lines. According to my romantic telling this attention was very flattering and those men might have been the person that we were supposed to be with. My romantic telling saw much more, positive potentials from the same interaction. Romance allows you to take risks that stereotypes warn against. However, that night the stereotypical viewpoint was much stronger and we evaded the boys to continue on our own. My question then is WHY? What makes the stereotype triumph over romance?

Perhaps it is a cultural thing, or a sexist thing. Women live in constant fear. It isn't a gripping fear, or a disabling fear. Maybe to call it fear is wrong. Women live in an awareness. Women live in a land of possibility. Women have to be more aware of possibilities than men do, which makes us constantly evaluate situations, often basing our judgements and risks on our experience of romance or stereotypes. The higher the perceived risk in a situation, the more likely a woman defaults to he stereotypical view. If a situation is low-risk by being in an environment that she knows or with people that were introduced through someone that she trusts, then the woman is much more likely to default to her romantic view. This leads to women  romanticising assholes just because a good friend introduced them to us, or we met them at a burner event, and stereotyping potentially nice guys as creepers because they didn't have the right introduction.

I am not sure where I am going with these thoughts. I have only been to Venice once, after all. It isn't much to base anything on.

Ghosts of Boyfriends Past

“Have you ever stared in the mirror for so long that your face stopped making sense? It just become a bunch of shapes. Just shapes. Not good or bad.”

—	Noelle, The Truth About Cats and Dogs

It really only happens in the heat of engagement, and even then it is not a common occurrence. Just before the dissolution of self, when my mind is hanging on to the last threads of coherency, sometimes-rarely, he changes. I tend to think it is marvelous, and wonder about it, before forgetting to even think about it until the next time it happens.

No, I have already gotten it wrong.

He doesn't change at all. He is still the same sweet, loving, playful boy that I have seen before, except I start to notice new parts of him. I guess I am the one that changes. It isn't unheard of- the mosaic of intimacy. You bring yourself so close to another person that they lose their form. They become a collection of shapes with ends and beginnings and overlaps, but cease to be, just for a moment, the person (As a whole, complete, manicured being) that they project to the world. In general I love that moment. I think that it is the most honest that two people can be with each other. It is a moment of humming and becoming, of once was and existence in the now. It is quite beautiful. But sometimes what you see is not what you expect and the moment jolts you more powerfully than the liquid grace that it normally wraps you in.

Sometimes, he jolts me.

It isn't that he becomes something completely foreign that I can not relate to or understand. Quite the contrary. The shapes that I see when I let go of everything and draw myself up into him, far enough to make him my entire existence, are eerily familiar. They are beyond familiar. They are actually recognizable. I have seen that jaw line before, not in some vague way, but in a way that I can name the place and time and person that I saw it connected to. The nose, too. The set of the eyes, both the left and the right, and the angle at which his hair sticks out from his head. They are all KNOWN to me.

Now I get that it is rather creepy and perhaps disrespectful in some ways to contemplate past adventures in a new bed. I am rather good at putting aside the recognition, drawing back, and seeing my husband for who he is, but afterwards I got to thinking. Maybe it isn't creepy. Maybe it is fate. Maybe I have been trying to find the man that fits with me, and I have kept finding repeating shapes. I have found the correct set of the mouth and the correct tone of voice but never the whole person that just fit me. Until now. Now I have finally found a package that collects all of those shapes that I have been magnetically drawn to over the years. I have found my destiny, and every person that I have met and loved before him has helped me to be able to recognize the smallest, most beautiful details about him. Sometimes I watch him sleep, so very peaceful, and I see my life flash before me... from the very first crush until now. But it is more than that, because when I draw out and look at him as a whole, and he opens his sleepy eyes and smiles at me, I see my future. I see all of the amazing things that we have the capability to do. I see a whole lotta shapes. 

Of Dogs and Men

By the time that I had reached the park I wanted to relax and exhale. The streets in my neighborhood were busy, and the sidewalks narrow (as always). Women refused to give even an inch to the foreign girl running headlong towards them and I was forced off the curb, into traffic, and occasionally had to slow to a walk. It was not a glorious first kilometer and I longed for the soft mud of the wooded path, the silence of the park hidden only a few meters from the busy street, and the sound of my breath, feet, and mp3 player. Instead, as I rounded the corner and mounted the steps I was greeted by an unfamiliar small yapping, and a set of fierce, bared teeth.
It took me a moment to realize what was happening. I had stumbled upon a dog protecting her two very new, adorable puppies. I slowed to a walk and backed away from the dog, deeper into the park. A few meters up the hill I saw another dog, not growling at me but very aware of the situation. I sighed and resigned myself to a steady, slow walk until I hit the main park path, well out of the dogs' territory. I was sad and frustrated to have lost my anticipated release, but it was an understandable situation that in some way made me happy. Although it conflicted with my personal desires it showed enough of love and protection, not to mention the cuteness of the puppies, to ease the edge off of my disappointment.
I got away from the dogs and began the ascent to the central loop of the park. The central loop of the park is only 1km long, but my run was only supposed to be 10km. I spent the uphill section debating whether the dogs would be gone or if I should alter my route home to take the main road instead of the park, and it passed quickly enough. I had slipped my earbuds into my ears once again and was preparing for a quick but hard workout when I noticed a man running behind me. How I noticed him I am not sure. Sometimes you can just sense a presence around you. Sometimes that sensation is a good one, and others, like that day, they make your skin crawl.
The man had jeans and a leather jacket on. It was obvious that he wasn't out for a run. But he was jogging along behind me, increasing his pace until he was beside me. He started talking to me in Turkish. I told him that I do not understand Turkish. He continued with the most basic phrases- You do sports. Friend. Now, perhaps I would have found this conversation appropriate if he was dressed in jogging gear. Maybe he wanted a running partner. But it was quite obvious that he was headed for the metro and the only reason that he was running was to talk to me. I told him that someone was married (my Turkish had left my mind and I could not think of how to claim that I was married.) and tried to show him my ring, which I had unfortunately left of the bedside table the night before. He continued to run beside me, insisting that we should be friends. I shrugged and put my earbud back in, signaling that the conversation was over. He thought otherwise, reached around my head to my far ear and took the bud out, touching my cheek and shoulder and trying to pull me towards him when he returned his hand to neutral territory. He then looked at me with those big brown eyes- full of sex and playfulness- and made a clear motion of "me, you, kiss." I very firmly said no, and increased my pace, beyond what I could hold for very long. Thankfully I was to the metro turn and he was left behind at the bottom of a steep hill.
I did two laps of the central loop, trying to figure out what about the interaction bothered me so. I could tell that I was bothered because my chest was welling and I was short of breath, and I really didn't want to run anymore. My first reaction when I saw the man was fear, and that bothered me. For the most part in Istanbul I feel safe, and I like to think that I am safe, and yet my first reaction was fear. I found a certain unfairness in that reaction and I am not sure if the unfairness is to me as a woman, that I have to constantly consider my safety, or to Turkish men (or men in general) that I assume the worst from them. After the initial fear, but while I was still pumping with adrenaline my thoughts turned more logical. I thought of escape routes and whether I could outrun him, or overpower him, and whether anyone would hear and/or come if I screamed. All of these thoughts were before he even talked to me, and again, they are unfair both to me and to men. Once he began talking to me my thoughts changed. For a moment I was hopeful. I love interactions. I love friendships. Also, I felt the need to be friendly and encouraging of his interest in me. After all, it can be hard to approach someone that you don't know. But there was something in his speech and in his eyes that quickly ruined that interest and I started to become fearful again. Then he touched me- reached into my space without permission with what might have been a very innocent motion, and that fear became anger. I became rude and left.
I left the situation but the situation wouldn't leave me. It stuck in me. With each loop I continued to assess exit routes and the danger of running in the park. Was it worth the risk to be off the main road and away from cars? Was there really any risk? Usually there were construction workers in the park. Surely their presence assured my safety, or did it make things worse? In the end I cut my run short and decided that it was a form of social gaslighting. We talk about gaslighting as a current act imposed from one individual onto another, which it can be, but we rarely look at gaslighting as a social phenomenon. As a woman I am completely set up for gaslighting. I am constantly told that women over-react to simple things, dramatize events, and make things about themselves. If I had pushed the guy away surely the response would have been that physical force was not necessary as his action was obviously harmless. Even my rude response of, "No," was unmerrited as I couldn't really understand what he was saying and maybe he did just want to be friends. However, if I had done nothing and let things progress then it would be my fault if anything happened as I had obviously encouraged the interaction in a secluded place.
Running home I decided to change my route in order to avoid the stray dogs. I cut my run short by 5km and decided that enough was enough for one day. On the way home I debated whether or not I would write about it. It seems kind of pompous to write about it at all; to assume that the guy was even interested in my sex seems very egotistical. Yet somehow to keep silent and not write about it seems worse, because there is obviously an issue if a woman who is as strong, confident, and optimistic as I tend to be, can be frightened and put so off her balance by such a simple encounter in a park. I ran by the entrance of the park and the puppies were no longer there. I was disappointed, partly because the puppies had been cute and I wanted to see them up close again, but partly because the dogs were a violence that made sense to me. Everything was clear and strait forward in those flashing teeth, and I needed something simple that I could understand to settle my nerves. I decided that it is indeed a sad world when a woman would rather face a pack of stray dogs than a single man.

Fits in the Night

Last night my brain decided that it was time to whirl again. After two months of constant stimulation I finally had some time to relax. I was away from people, in a familiar bed, in the quiet of a place that I know. It felt peaceful. Except the peace came with a price. The release stimulated a bit of mania. I use mania too loosely. My brain swims. It runs. It fucking gallops. Is it "mania?" Maybe. Whatever it was I was happy that it had waited until we were back in Istanbul, away from weddings and relatives and such, to surface.

I wasn't exactly amused by it. In fact, I was rather bored and irritated by it. I suppose that I should clarify what exactly "it" was, but it is rather hard to describe. As long as I was stimulated I was fine. I could watch a movie and everything would feel normal, except that I was very sleepy and did not want to watch a movie. Then, as soon as I turned off my computer and tried to go to sleep my brain would not let me. I was gripped with a sense of impending doom. Anxiety? I felt like there was something I had forgotten to do, something important that I had left unfinished. I have had to dot so many i's in the past couple of months that it is a fair feeling to have. But it was beyond a normal irritation gnawing at my brain. It was a fear that bounced around and sank into my heart. I thought that maybe I should stay awake and write. It has been awhile since I have done a night of writing, but really I wanted to sleep. So I watched a couple of episodes of Friends, took a melatonin, curled up against my husband and tried to sleep.

It took awhile for the melatonin to kick in, and in that 15 minutes I lay there thinking that I really should try to describe what was happening to me. I remember thinking that it was funny because I can always recognize it as my "manic stage," now, and I can know when it is coming and how it will feel and yet it always feels new and different and unexpected. I remember thinking that was very important and that I should remember it and explore the concept in the morning. It is morning now and I can't really understand why I thought any of that was important. It was only fits in the night. Nothing real. Nothing solid. Nothing. 

Married Life

They say that things change when you get married, but they don't really say how. Too often the depiction of marriage centers on the cold feet of the wedding day. I will admit, that standing in a foot of snow my toes were a little icy, but I cannot relate to that gulping fear of commitment that represents my generation. In the days immediately following the wedding I remember thinking that the wedding didn't really change much. It was great to be with our friends and families, and it was great to see their support, but from the perch of an egoist I didn't really NEED the validation of the state, the church, or even my community, to give my relationship the permission to continue for eternity. In my heart Nikola and I have been "married" since we told each other that we would stay together through everything, forever. Laying in bed, wrapped up in the heat of fading fall there was an honesty that I thought could not be topped. The wedding was a treat and a formality. It was a time to share our decision with the world, but I didn't expect it to effect me like it did. (does).

First of all, I was overwhelmed by the love and support given to us by our friends and family. At times it was a bit stressful to be the center of attention, and to meet so many new people while trying to give attention to loved ones from different realms of my life, but it was completely worth it. Even though we didn't need the PERMISSION for our love, it is comforting to know that the support is there. From the generosity of our friends and family in making the wedding happen and the gifts we received to start our new life together, to the absolutely wonderful wishes that were given to us on the day of the wedding, I could not be happier. It gives me such warmth and confidence in my choice to stay in Bulgaria and start a family here. Knowing that if we have children they will grow up among such warm and caring people is absolutely priceless.

Secondly, things did change between Nikola and I. It is difficult to express the exact nature of the change, and it was completely unexpected. In fact, it didn't happen the minute that we exchanged vows, or said "I do." (Well, "Da") It came later, slowly, like a fire on a cold night, just sparks and hints at first and now quite enough to stay warm by. There has been a change in the way I release into his embrace. A change in his kisses. A change in my heart. I have never allowed myself to love this deeply, this completely, and this passionately. I was terrified of this depth, without ever admitting the fear. Now there is no fear, just an absolutely wonderful relaxation in the security of our relationship. It is indescribable.

So, the first thing most people ask me these days is, "How's married life?"

Well, it is no different from our previous life together, except it is, completely, and I love it.