The Labyrinth

Carnevale, a personal history of walking & parenting

So long haunted Venice and welcome back tourists.

In January the city rested, quietly breathing her secrets. Sunbeams punctured the clinging wet cold of the lagoon fog, and the sweet smells of early flowering trees wafted over high brick walls. Only the steeliest visitors wandered the streets; Venetians smiled a little bit more than usual.

It seems fitting that during the first days of Carnevale the extremely low tide revealed the stinking mud and refuse settled at the bottom of the canals. Drunken, masked tourists swayed and stumbled on the boats; bros marched through the streets shoulder to shoulder clutching beers and watery spritzes in plastic cups.

Turns out I really enjoy taking pictures of other people taking pictures.

I may be guilty of leaning a bit heavily towards the melodramatic here, but there is a noticeable wariness that descends on the city after these momentary periods of normalcy, a tired resignation that Venice is no longer for Venetians.

Not wanting to succumb to wholesale grumpiness about the weeks-long festival, we ventured out this past weekend to explore and ogle, and surprised ourselves by genuinely having a good time. We ate frittelle, watched street performances and marveled at some of the more beautifully made costumes. And that was enough. In the evenings, as festive revelry turned the corner towards inebriated idiocy, we retreated back to our apartment.

This was a particularly sweet scene: kids, stilts and bubbles.

My frustration with the onslaught of visitors to the city has much to do with the way that their bodies impede the flow of movement on the calli (walkways). Without the crush of too many humans, this city is a pedestrian wonderland. Moving through the labyrinth— feet to Istrian stone, navigating narrow passageways and crossing marble bridges—is to me the apex of urban exploration. The absence of cars only heightens the experience; it’s a constant reminder that a city built on a human rather than automotive scale is an infinitely more pleasurable place to be.

According to Abrahamic traditions, the first commandment God gives Abraham is to walk. In Zen Buddhist traditions kinhin meditation—walking meditation—is the spiritual companion to sitting meditation (zazen). And of course there is is the pilgrimage; the long walk as a journey of religious devotion.

Venice is a sort of multicursal labyrinth —meaning it is a labyrinth with many possible paths as well as dead ends. However, once you come to know the serpentine routes and patterns of the city, it begins to resemble the more meditative characteristics of a unicursal labyrinth, a maze meant to be navigated as an aide to unwinding the mind. On the quietest days (or late at night or very early in the morning) you can walk and walk and walk through the city without stopping, no cars or traffic lights interrupting your flow. It is at these times that this city expands into its most otherworldly and enchanting self, the sounds of water lapping against the canals a reminder that you are really just floating…

This walkway is so narrow that I usually have to smoosh myself up against the wall if I encounter someone else walking in the opposite direction. It’s particularly challenging if I’m carrying bags full of groceries.

It’s taken me years to understand that I have a longstanding, firmly established, spiritual practice of walking. Although walking with others gives me incredible joy, walking alone is the way that I return to myself. I am more alive, more present, more physically “here” in this world when I am moving through it on foot.

The first walk I remember taking on my own was when I was around six. I know it was summer because I can still recall the rough texture and concentrated heat of the asphalt; I’d left home without my shoes on. I wandered down Berry Ave past the Olson’s house—where I’d been in daycare from the time that I was six weeks old—and suddenly made a wild decision to make a right turn down a road completely beyond my scope of knowing. I wandered until I reached a dead end sign tacked to a wooden fence. (I should note that the name of this road is Diamond Ct —I’d traveled a very short distance.) I shimmied under the fence, emerging into a suburban eden, a walnut orchard improbably located in the middle of my neighborhood. I folded myself quietly into the grass under one of those trees for what felt like hours but could have been just a few minutes. Then, I retraced my steps and walked home. The experience was overwhelmingly positive.

In elementary school an enormous Peruvian pepper tree marked the mid point on my walk to and from school. I liked to stop at the tree, picking large bunches of the pink pepper seeds, rolling them in my fingers, smelling them, and then throwing them at specific landmarks along my route. During the summer I sometimes rode my bike up to the sun parched hills above my town, ditching the bike against a fence or under a bush, and hiking along the hard-packed dirt trails studded with bay trees and scrub oaks.

In middle school I warded off crippling insecurity by walking and listening to cassette tapes on my yellow Sony Walkman. Music was a cloak of protection from my own thoughts and from what felt like the constantly prying and judging eyes of everyone around me. Also, for some reason, walking felt less lame than riding my bike.

I can’t remember walking much in high school.

Later, in college, I frequently hiked from my classes up on the hill at UC Santa Cruz down through the expanses of Wilder Ranch. I’d spend entire afternoons traversing the rugged coastline, wind whipped and happy, then reluctantly returning to my moldy room on the Westside to smoke pot and fall asleep reading Russian history textbooks.

During my junior year abroad in Budapest I bundled up in an ugly wool jacket that I’d purchased at a charity shop to wander the icy streets. One night my two roommates and I were followed across the city by a group of skinheads —I truly thought they might kill us. Thank god we weren’t out walking alone. The next year I spent 3 months on a field study backpacking through the rainforests of Belize and Guatemala. My feet have never really recovered from the fungus I brought back with me.

After college I moved to Berkeley and then San Francisco. This was my first real foray into urban hiking: impossibly steep hills, catcalls, vistas of bridges stretched across the Bay. When I eventually moved to San Luis Obispo, I established a routine of scaling Mt Madonna or Bishops Peak every morning before clocking time at a series of different shitty restaurant jobs.

On my travels in South America I learned that sometimes you cannot walk safely alone.

It wasn’t until I moved to Little Black Mountain in Cazadero, California that I realized that the walks were the point of it all. Andy was gone for weeks at a time building a glass studio in Central California, and I was learning how to really be by myself for the first time in my life. The tiny cabin we lived in had no electricity and it got dark early. We had no computers or cell phones. Aside from teaching PE two days a week at the one-room elementary school down the mountain, and substitute teaching in Santa Rosa from time to time, I spent the majority of my days gardening, reading, making art and exploring the mountain on foot. I fell deeply in love with the steep and wild terrain. I navigated the mountain by its creeks and and meadows and learned to identify mushrooms, wildflowers and the location of mountain lion dens. I knew the sound of my own footfall and I was not afraid.

Portland became my home over the course of the 17 years I explored it on foot. Each day I walked in a different direction: seeking novelty, cataloguing the progress of construction projects, looking for newly flowering plants in my favorite gardens and observing as the city grew and changed. My daily walks became twice daily walks when Cleo was a newborn. I’d strap her to my chest or back, her curled little hands and feet pressed up against my body, and walk as far as I could physically manage.

At the beginning of the pandemic I was amused, then annoyed, then charmed by the crowds of walkers that descended on my daily routes. I made it my personal goal to walk in the middle of the street whenever possible, taking full advantage of a city momentarily devoid of traffic. I walked through two pairs of running shoes that first year alone.

Secret paths on Murano

The pandemic was the first time that Cleo started to venture out by herself on foot. In the first months it was just little trips to the large open space (aka the “Doggie Bowl”) by our house to pick wildflowers or gather stalks of fennel that she used to build forts in our backyard. Then she decided she wanted to go further. Once it was safe, she’d put on a mask and walk to 7-11 to buy candy, or go to a nearby Thai restaurant to get a bubble tea.

I’m not going to lie: It scared the shit out of me to let her go. These journeys included crossing busy roads and possibly encountering sketchy people. But, she’d been marooned at home for so long, her burgeoning independence disrupted by the virus, and I wanted her to feel empowered and to see herself as capable and brave. So, Andy and I instructed her how to be mindful and aware of her surroundings (no headphones), how to ask for help, or in extreme circumstances, when to run if anyone or anything made her feel unsafe.

I should note that our decision to let her roam free engendered some tense conversations and critical comments from other parents. It’s hard to be told that you are acting recklessly when it comes to the safety of your own child, even if you believe you are doing the right thing.

When she was around 3-years-old, I routinely let her climb a challenging play structure at the park by herself. All the other parents would stand under their children, arms extended, making sure that if their child fell, they’d be there to catch them. I used to sit at a distance, watching her navigate the hand and footholds, observing as she made her own calculated decisions about how high she could go before it got too scary. Invariably, one of the other parents would get worried about her, peeling her off the structure and looking around with a pinched face to find the shitty parent who’d abandoned their kid.

Shitty parents also buy their kids cotton candy, because who cares about teeth!

At the end of December Andy and I had an errand to run in Venice and Cleo was less than excited about joining us. When it was time to depart she was still in her pajamas. As a family we decided that she was ready to navigate the city by herself, and that instead of coming with us, we would rendezvous by the Rialto at an agreed upon time. Two hours later she arrived with a GIANT smile on her face. She’d locked up the apartment, caught a boat, and walked 20 minutes through this maze of a city to meet us—all without Google maps. It felt like a really big moment.

Thus, it wasn’t surprising when, a few weeks ago, after spending a long day hanging out with a trio of adults (my friend Ryan was in town), she asked if she could head home from Venice by herself. She was bored and had homework to do. We happened to be standing by the Grand Canal in a relatively unfamiliar (to her) part of San Marco. Just as she posed the question, the #2 boat pulled up. The #2 is not a boat we take regularly, but it’s a direct line up and down the middle of Venice. She looked me in the eyes and told me she was going to find her way home.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Yes, I can figure it out,” she replied confidently.

And so I let her go. I didn’t run it by Andy, who was standing out of earshot with Ryan, and I didn’t overthink it. Instead, I instructed her to “Run for it!” She sprinted onto the boat, waved goodbye and then was gone. Again, it felt like a big moment.

A minute later I got a text from her: Mom, I feel bad that I left you all.

I wrote back: No worries! We’re boring! Have a fun adventure and go relax at home. We will see you in a bit.

Then…nothing. It was totally unlike her. She’d never end a conversation without a string of way too many emojis. So I called her. Instead of her voice, I got a message in Italian that I couldn’t understand. I realized her phone was probably dead. Then I realized that she had neither her I.D. nor her wallet with her.

My heart started racing. I texted her again and tried calling a few more times. Nothing. That’s when I really tripped out. How could I have allowed her to simply jump on a boat without checking to see if her phone was charged? And who lets their kid loose in a foreign city with no money and no identification? It felt like a total parenting failure. I imagined her lost and wandering around Venice with no money and no phone. Andy and Ryan tried to reassure me, reminding me that she speaks Italian and that she would be resourceful enough and smart enough to make it home, but I felt absolutely sick.

Almost an hour later I got a text from her: Sorry! I’m ok! My phone died! I’m home now. All good! (Then a string of about 100 cute emojis.)

Relieved, I was forced to completely re-imagine the scenario I’d constructed in my head. She’d hopped a boat, gotten off at the right stop, walked through Venice to the other side of the island, gotten on another boat, walked home and let herself into our apartment. All the while she’d been alone with her own thoughts; no phone or music to distract her. She’d been on the kind of adventure I’d only dreamed about when I was her age. She’d had to problem solve, stay calm and work out a plan. And it hadn’t rattled her. In fact, she’d had a great time. I was the one freaking out.

This is the part of parenting that doesn’t seem to get any easier: the release of control. It involves an acknowledgement of our own fear, of knowing full well that so much can possibly go wrong, and making the choice to give our kids space and autonomy anyways. Because, as I have to constantly remind myself, control is really about fear, not love.

I don’t know where my parents were that day that I first wandered out on my own. (I mean, it was the eighties.) Maybe they were busy working in the garden or my sisters were supposed to be babysitting. I remember very little from my childhood, but that mini pilgrimage to the orchard is imprinted clearly and viscerally. It gave me the confidence to believe that I could always find my way home. And as I’m starting to finally understand, home is just a quiet and knowing place inside of myself. To quote one of my favorite dead Germans, Rilke, “The only journey is the one within.” Ain’t that the truth.

And that’s where I leave you.

xo, Belle

Hot Links:

I just finished writing this and I realized I basically just wrote my own version of this classic scene from Donnie Darko.

I really enjoyed the book Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason. In a way, it reminded me of Fleabag: very funny, a little mean, and heart wrenching in the end.

I’m about a third of the way through Hernan Diaz’s Trust, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize last year. I’m not going to lie, it’s kinda tedious! I am told that I must persist through the first two sections, and that the third section will make all of the torture of the first half of the book worthwhile. We will see…

Andy and I have been watching and loving the show Poker Face. It’s a perfect blend of humor, silliness, grit and Natasha Lyonne. Plus, it’s got a great soundtrack. The 5th episode starts with one of my favorite songs, Jackie Shane’s Any Other Way.

I finally watched Tar. I have LOTS of thoughts about this film. Certainly the most important of these thoughts is that it was directed by Todd Field, aka Nick Nightingale from Eyes Wide Shut! I mean, can you even? Also, I would watch Cate Blanchett read the back of a shampoo bottle. She is the GOAT.

My attempts to grapple with extractive tourism led me to Jamaica Kincaid’s excellent text “A Small Place”. It’s brilliantly written and seems more relevant now than ever. Here’s an excerpt if you’re so inclined:

“You must not wonder what exactly happened to the contents of your lavatory when you flushed it. You must not wonder where your bath water went when you pulled out the stopper. You must not wonder what happened when you brushed your teeth. Oh, it might all end up in the water you are thinking of taking a swim in; the contents of your lavatory might, just might, graze gently against your ankle as you wade carefree in the water, for you see, in Antigua, there is no proper sewage-disposal system. But the Caribbean Sea is very big and the Atlantic Ocean is even bigger; it would amaze even you to know the number of black slaves this ocean has swallowed up. When you sit down to eat your delicious meal, it's better that you don't know that most of what you are eating came off a plane from Miami. And before it got on a plane in Miami, who knows where it came from? A good guess is that it came from a place like Antigua first, where it was grown dirt-cheap, went to Miami, and came back. There is a world of something in this, but I can't go into it right now.”

Andy, Cleo and our friend Gioanna exploring the industrial side of Murano.