I watched the St Mark’s sermon on Wednesday.  (Can’t seem to motivate myself on Sundays to go or even watch online.)  I feel a little guilty about that, mostly because I am not availing myself of a church community to which I could contribute and from which I would probably benefit.)  Like Amy Farrah Fowler in TBBT I can’t quite picture a supreme being who takes attendance.)  The sermon involved Nicodemus and Jesus’ telling him one must be born again.  Reverend Cooper talked about the need at times in life to start over.

I wrote recently about being over Mardi Gras.  I am actually feeling over a lot of things lately.  I am definitely not getting joy out of many things that I used to love.  This is one of the main symptoms of depression, a condition with which I have fought many rounds.  But I don’t feel depressed.  I don’t have difficulty getting up in the morning (well, no more than usual.)  And things do bring me joy.  I am currently in my backyard drinking coffee from a little cup that Z bought me at the Ren Fair and eating Pepperidge Farm raisin bread toast which reminds me of Mom.  I shoveled leaves off my sidewalk yesterday and felt a certain amount of satisfaction with the results.  (Of course, there is a lot more to do.  My yard is a mess.) I think I’m in need of a new beginning.  (Could this be a mid life crisis?  I certainly don’t want a new car and I am still deeply in love with my husband.)  

I have had a lot of new beginnings in my life, some good, some difficult, and many of which were incredibly unlike me (or at least the me I was at the time.)  I have said that I am the least qualified person to predict what is next for me.  As a young person I stated that I would never get married and never have kids.  Check and check.  I said, if I did have children, I would never have an only child.  Then we had Z and were quite satisfied for 6 years before changing our minds and having another.  I was an atheist, then I wasn’t.  I thought I would never work with children.  I would never move back to New Orleans, never raise children in New Orleans.  Here I am.  Sometimes I think I should declare that I will never win the lottery just to see.  (Of course, I have already won the lottery in so many ways.)

I won’t make a list of the things that I am over so as not to offend anyone.  Suffice it to say that events I used to greatly anticipate, plan for and savor, I can now take or leave.  Some of which I bow out of (with the amazing patience and acceptance of my husband.)  I am not done with any of the people in my life but I am certainly becoming more withdrawn, in a comfortable way.  I have always liked to be alone.  I am certainly not over that.  I have told David that I knew he was the one for me when I realized that I never had the need for him to go away.

Venice 2025

Catherine Sasanaov - deliciously scathing.

Offshore, the Apocalypse

stays contained

to one island and its church.

Venice's ruler's out wedding

himself to the ocean

while I'm ankle deep

in the Adriatic,

eyes raised to a book

unencumbered by words: A Bible

that reads from East to West. Guidebooks

want only

to see it as ceiling—the Basilica

San Marco,

where Christ's hands open on wounds

embedded with rubies, and priests

hold back the sea with brooms.

I'm taking on incense,

bowing at altars dragged out

of Constantinople,

sloshing across marble

sacked from Jerusalem.

Offshore, the sea's a bride bought

with a fist full of diamonds

the Doge throws into the deep—

a sign of his true and perpetual dominion.

Then why does walking into this church

mean stepping into the ocean?

The sea is a dog—

Priests throw in bones just to placate it.

The year's nearly 2000,

but the millennium already hit once

on the island Torcello,

a kind of plague the Venetians contained.

999 years,

and the dead still crawl from dirt

towards their radiant bodies,

they still gather up

missing limbs: arms, legs, hands

sharks and beasts keep regurgitating.

We do what we know—

But Christ never wanted to manage

resurrections in Venice.

Underdressed in the flesh

from dead civilizations,

he moves among us in Byzantine skin.

I'm getting close to this God

worshiped only by tourists.

He picks at the wounds

on his crucified body, the injury

In July 1902, the north wall of the St Mark’s Campanile in Venice began to show signs of a dangerous crack that in the following days continued to grow. Finally, on Monday, 14 July, around 9:45 am, the campanile collapsed completely, also demolishing the loggetta. Remarkably, no one was killed, except for the caretaker's cat. 

The same evening, the communal council approved over 500,000 Lire for the reconstruction of the campanile. It was decided to rebuild the tower exactly as it was, with some internal reinforcement to prevent future collapse, plus installing an elevator.

I had to sneak a photo of the altar and choir benches before services on Ash Wednesday.  The church has been making some effort to restore the church to something closer to what it was when first built.  I’m not sure if it was that or a misguided effort to be humbler* which was behind the make-under of the altar, but I’ll be honest and say I rather miss the big gold cross.