## Venice 3 Venice. My gf went on her own to rebuild her life., much like I have done with Berlin some years back. She's not the luckiest of people and so during her first week a small selection of misfortunes happened to her: dust allergy, painful period, she fell and broke her glasses, a bad sandwich made her vomit. Despite all of this, the stories she told me about her first week, when I was at home taking care of Mr. P, the cat, were some of the most positive she has ever shared. The people, the city, the culture, her favorite coffee shop, the poems and scientific ideas. Traveling changes you or rather putting yourself in radically new environments is a deliberate act of changing yourself. The day I came to stay in her Airbnb she was moved: "It's like the first time you stayed at my place in Lyon". She made a grand plan and showed me where to eat the best *cichetti* , where they serve you *uno spritz select* first, a sympathetic guy who sells carnival masks, a street corner that is particularly beautiful. The second day we fought. I noticed she was closing herself up and being exhausted and irritable. We ended up at a ridiculous rooftop bar in the Hilton, because the building, an ancient flour mill, is impressive and newly renovated. We fought with each other instead of directing our anger at the place that sells you mediocre cocktails, lack of sympathy and service and 5-minutes-of-effort house music for an arm or a leg, you chose, the client is king after all. The reason: she wanted to make every day of my stay perfect, found the place trash and felt bad for costing me money, then shut down. The vibes went out like light in a blackout, as is so often the case and I instinctively defend myself against an onslaught of negativity. We say bad things to each other, I shout but after that we quickly explain our respective reactions at home. She's chasing perfection, I take her sadness and anger, even if directed at herself, as personal insults. The whole scene took 30 minutes and ended positively, the solution is empathy and management of expectations. "Just tell me when you're getting in this mood and I'll take over", "please never shout at me again, try to read the room, take initiative", okay by nodding. The carnival has come a long way. It began after Venice had already lost it's place as the top merchant republic and had tried to reinvent itself as a cultural hub with the accumulated riches. Similar to Berlin in the 1920s they probably also tried to mask the apparent economic problems with a period of uninterrupted festivities, as long as six months a year at one point. Nowadays, maybe 10 percent of the people in town are dressed up and a good part less than that is wearing quality costumes. There are many different festivals over the course of February but even then it's surprising that the city a part from that one street leading to the Rialto is not exactly bustling with folk most of the time. I cannot help but compare this to Le Puy en Velay, a small city of some 10 000 inhabitants, which has a similarly themed folk festival and the streets are packed with dressed up people, old style food and alcohol stands and a really well done procession of professional performers reenacting Francois I return from his campaign to Italy. It is objectively done with more care. At peak hours you have phenomena like waiting in line to advance in jammed narrow streets and and people riding gondolas among big motorized vessels and so densely packed that they are constantly at risk of bumping into each other. I don't know who can find that romantic. Some people are however really poetic, tourists and locals (or at least italians) alike. You find them at the *punta della dogana* in *Dorsoduro*, on *San Giorgio Maggiore* or even abandoned foggy *Lido*. In fact, it is there that we say the best costume: a red haired girl with a hat carrying a quadriga and an elaborate red dress with feathers, bells and whistles. Lido had maybe seven other visitors total at that moment and the winner of the costume contest was walking there of all places. In front of the old customs house, where A tells me you can comfortably sit and write almost all day long, there was a pair of girls carrying matching robes and masks which were also really well done. And on San Giorgio I was taking pictures of A. She wanted to go there a day earlier, the weather was warmer than normal and sunny for the first time in a week. "Of course, that's because I am here now", I joked. A is a bit shy and chose a more remote stage but the view from there also allows you to see San Marco and the customs house beautifully. The church had sparked A's fascination with ex votos a year earlier when we had gotten of there by accident. I start the session, carefully framing a crying Pierrot mask which A had bought 15 years ago in a shop run by a very old owner, that doesn't exist anymore. The mask is black and white with a half silver, half golden circle alluding to the passion and sadness of the character. Black trousers and blouse fitted at the waist with large white points, a simple white cape and a black coiffe like those sold by Fortuny. White ballerina shoes with black fluffy balls sewn to the tip. At first, three older ladies ask if they can take a picture of her, standing left right and center and raining the virtual shutter sound on A. "Paparazzo, portaci la telecamera!" Then a couple comes over, in their 40s or 50s and the woman almost jumps in the air from excitement, asking her husband in french: "Do you think I could ask her for a picture together?" She sits down, happy like a girl and I am proud for A while both me and the husband commit the memories to silicone. I would guess she is moved, but behind the unmoving, elegantly melancholic mask nobody could tell. Lastly a father with an expensive camera comes over: "Would you take a selfie with my wife and daughter?". It's not clear whose idea it was, the girl is shy, almost scared, a dynamic we'll observe later at San Marco with other costumes and other kids too, they pose. A holds the girl's shoulder, a large black tear painted on her face. We then pack up and leave. A's costume was the most moving expression of a dramatic figure somewhat lost to the past I can imagine. Simple like a diagonal line that cuts over a canvas, that pizzicato last chord in Sibelius' first symphony, three points hinting to unspoken catastrophe at the end of a play. "La commedia e finita" All visitors to the island this morning were enchanted. But only I know that this costume started taking shape almost a year ago, when A was heartbroken and contemplating suicide. Pierrot is the character who loves but never gets what he wants. Over months I saw her buy small pieces of clothing, testing, comparing, sewing until it finally all clicked together and I saw a eery renaissance persona in my living room, beautiful and timeless, I heard no sounds and my mind went blank like its paper-machee skin. Something died during this performance in Venice. Attachment and dreams, but somebody survived and was greeted by life: "Good work!" - "Vous etes magnifique!" "Che belezza!" Behind the crying mask, a face free from the fear of being seen the wrong way laughed. But behind that laugh, who can know what was really felt? I told my friend R that day: "There is always death in Venice". And there is always a new beginning.