Eric Shaw Quinn

The blisters on my feet are gone for the most part.  A little more work with the pumice and the luffa and they’ll be just a memory.  The pants that I struggled to button in Florence are falling off me now.  And, of course, there’s the ear I can’t quit talking about, still “pressurized” since landing at Heathrow on the way home from Venice.  But none of these are the memories I take away from this dreamy excursion into unfathomable history, iconic art and a glimpse of the exquisite.

I loved Italy.

Ah, Venice. Now this, for me, is the happiest place on earth.

I’m a little surprised how much.  I knew it would be a wonder.  I expected to be amazed by the art and the sheer historic gravity of pretty much everything.  But they don’t call me princess for nothing.  I’m a pretty good sport and a good traveler.  I can bear up when things go wrong as they so often do on extended trips.  Still, I’m like a silk shirt – best under ideal conditions.

I figured Italy for a sort of Mediterranean, late-for-a-nap kind of ambiance, delayed everything and disinterested people fatigued of being trampled by ugly Americans.

The late-for-a-nap part was kind of true.  There were some surprising gaps in the service at some of the more remarkable and elegant locales, but the Italy I found defied my preconceptions and much of what I had been told to expect.  I suppose it’s the Isenberg Principal.  My Italy is unique, having as much to do with what I brought as what I found.

It’s like with everyone’s friend: Angry Guy.  Angry Guy gets to the restaurant, or the store or the hotel or the DMV and begins yelling at people.  What do  you know, everyone is shitty to Angry Guy.  Angry Guy believes he lives in a world out to get him, acts accordingly and, presto, that’s where he lives.

It was like that.  For whatever reason, though I was certain I would be amazed by the gravity of what I saw, I had very few expectations otherwise.  The trip was a gift so I had almost nothing to do with any of the planning.  The hotels, the schedule, even the airlines seats were a surprise to me.  Christopher, the friend who gave me this amazing birthday present, has known me a while, so I’m sure he made choices with me in mind.  But, honestly, I was freed of expectation of much beyond simply being in Italy for the number of days specified.

The Ponte Vecchio and il Turistica Vecchio. It's a bridge and a jewelry mall (the Ponte not the Turistica).

Everyday in Italy turned out to be a surprise party.

I guess every vacation is to some extent.  Each morning we’d meet for breakfast and decided what we were going to try to see.  Then, we’d see what actually happened.  Like placing a bet.  Some days went as planned, but we had just as much fun on the days that didn’t.

And oh my God, what I saw.  Just the thought of having lunch across from the Pantheon in a piazza where Augustus Caesar might have sat and contemplated the events of his day 2000 years before.

The Pantheon from my lunch at Augustus' usual table at Cafe Napolitano. That baby at the next table was out of control.

Or sharing an artist’s vision and as he struggled to express himself and his talents while being restricted to painting or sculpting on the same couple of dozen Christian subjects over and over again.  Or witnessing the love that the Emperor Hadrian had for his lover Antinous writ large in massive sculptures that endure to this day.

Antinous got up as Dionysus -- the one camera right.

Or seeing how the sensibilities of the Europe’s first banking family, the Medici, still inform the attitudes of the modern city of Florence.  Or wandering through the living work of art that is Venice and realizing the it was born as the dream of people trying to escape the persecution and pillaging of those who surrounded them on land.

By the time it was time to come home, I truly had difficulty bringing to mind what it was like to live in West Hollywood.  The trip was like a long, vivid dream I could not seem to awaken from, even when I returned home.  It wasn’t just those I-don’t-want-to-come-home-from-vacation Blues.  Indeed, I was completely exhausted and ready to come home by the time we were done.  I guess after spending so long in a heightened state of awareness in order to navigate a world so completely outside my experience, it was hard to slip back into the sleepy indifferent comfort that one feels for home.

One of the many renderings of David with the head of Goliath I saw that day at the Vatican.

Whatever the case, the trip seems almost illusory and improbable now that I’m back in familiar environs, but like tinted glasses, the perception of life that I found on that dusty old peninsula still colors how I see everything.

. . . More soon.