Venice

Today is a day off, so to speak, though the relaxation yields excellent dialogue between the Donne di Pace. We leave Udine and journey to Venizia, Venice. We take a boat through Venice and we visit St. Mark’s Square. I was last here when I was about four years old. I remember standing in the square and feeding the pigeons, who eagerly ate the food and perched on my shoulders. The photo of that day later turned into a Christmas card that my parents sent out. I make many photos of me in the square so I can compare the younger image and the current one when I return to the States. The birds flock around Habiba. I make a photograph of Zalina with a bird perched on her arm and it makes me think about how she is still able to fly, even with the broken wing of her suffering for her children. Zalina later tells me that she feels that even when she is smiling and laughing in this world, in this body, she feels that her spirit is with her daughters somewhere else, above. We drink rich coffee and visit the church. I find a pink gondola and a pink theatrical mask. We eat a delicious lunch of mussels and on the walk back through the Venetian alleyways, I drift between conversations between Costanzo and Liz about punk rock bands, and the incomprehensible chatter of the Russian women, and the hum of this aquatic city, and finally the lapping of the water and the sound of my breath crystallizing on an exhale.

We drive to Milan at night and arrive just in time for dinner at the hostel at the edge of the city. The hostel is brand new and everything is comfortably Ikea-d out. I give up aspirations of going to the discothèque when the snow begins to pour out from somewhere I cannot see through my small window. The snow sticks and covers the heap of discarded furniture and building materials in the yard next to the hotel so that it looks like a beautiful modern sculpture all in white marble has suddenly been erected where trash once lay.

Liz and I stay up very late talking about our experiences in the counter-recruitment movement, and we talk with a group of young men about their stay in Milan and eat pizza. Then we discover how to use the Ethernet connection and download hundreds of emails.