"When the moon hits your eyes, like a big pizza pie, that's amore".

It's back! My passion is B-A-C-K!!

WOO HOO!

Well, last blog I wrote was maybe not the best choice of my life. I have been in better places emotionally and mentally in my time, and trying to force myself to feel inspired is never going to end in fireworks and parades. But, now something has switch-flicked inside me and I am running at full cpacity again. That, coupled with the fact that I have discovered a brilliant way to pull one over these con artists who charge me 3 euros an hour for the internet (I type all correspondances in Word Pad, and copy and paste it- using minimal internet minutes... gosh I am a genius), means that I am now going to write another blog, because I feel like I really need to do this corner of the globe justice. I need to express what it has meant to me, now that I am able to let it mean something real.

I was a little worn down when I arrived here. Not unhappy, I was just finding it hard to be inspired and moved by what I was doing and seeing. I'm not going to hover around that fact like a fly on a turd, because I'm through with it now, but that's how it was, and it's not anymore.
Today I went to Burano, a little island of Venice where they make a lot of lace. The buildings are coated with the brightest, most vibrant colours, pinks and yellows and torquoise blues. Walking around that perfect little island was like walking in a rainbow. It was like all my childhood plans to reach the rainbow, to touch it and ride it like a slippery-dip had become a reality.
I walked through the tiny little alley-ways between people's homes and for these brief breaths as I passed someone's door, or their window I sank into their lives. I could hear the most intimate sounds- the water beating the tiles in someone's shower, the tinkle of cuttlery being washed in the sink. People's washing draped the edges of my vision and cats slinked around the corners in copious numbers, some eating left-over pasta put out for them on a sheet of newspaper.
Sometimes the breeze would blow the curtain covering someone's gaping doorway and I would be offered a guilty little glimpse of the interior- an old woman eating lunch in the centre of her sparse living room, an ancient framed photo of a man from years ago- who knows who that man was, and what he meant to the people who placed his image there. Maybe it was all a bit voyueristic of me... and maybe it was a bit creepy... but it's such a central part of what I love about this trip, about travelling, seeing the reality of these different universes, the different shades of humanity. I love being able to drink it up a little, just for a moment, to take a sip of what it is like to be someone else, and to live this different life.
So, I had fun!

I really love Venice dearly. It's a very special place. I am so happy to be here, I am so happy to be doing this, and I am so happy that I am happy for it all.