Category: Everything

Recently, my son was planning a trip to Venice and I was giving him a little practical advice. Thought I’d share it with you. This is what I wrote to him:

I’ve looked at a bazillion hotels in Venice over the years, but in order to be (1) central, (2) easily accessible, and (3) relatively inexpensive, I haven’t been able to beat the Hotel Commercio e’ Pellegrino.  The boutique hotel is small and charming. The fact that breakfast is included is a big plus because it’s difficult to find in Venice.  (And it will be your introduction to an Italian hotel ‘full’ breakfast: croissants, sliced ham and cheese, something sweet, fresh whole fruit, maybe yogurt, and a couple of different kinds of juice – and the same server who’s been there for years, only speaks coffee in English, will bring you a cappuccino on request.) Your key will be on a massive tassel, and you hand it over to the front desk each time you go out, and they hand it back to you upon your return.

The biggest selling point of this hotel is location, though.  Take a water taxi (an expensive indulgence!) or vaporetto (essentially a water bus, which requires a bit of research) to the San Zaccaria stop.  You’ll be right in front of the Hotel Danieli.  Posh! (I just looked: tonight, the Danieli is ten times as much per night as the C e’ P.  But it’s a great landmark.)  This is the only place you can go where you have to cross zero footbridges (which have STAIRS) with your luggage.  Roll your luggage in Venice and you will get either a reprimand or a fine.  You’ll see people trying to do it anyway.  Don’t be one of them.  What you will not get is a porter.  You’re on your own.  That’s why this location is so cool.  Walk beside the Danieli, down the Calle della Rasse.  The Hotel Commercio e’ Pellegrino is half a block down, just a few steps, actually, abutting the wall of the Danieli.  Dad always stayed in the Danieli.  Go there for dinner or just for cocktails at sunset because they DO have a rooftop bar open to the public – you just have to finesse your way past the bouncer oh er I mean door man.) (Of note: there is an ATM there.  They can be hard to find.  They are called bancomat in Europe.)

Putting location into perspective for you.  In Venice, all directions given are to Piazza San Marco (Saint Mark’s Square).  The Doge’s (think ‘king’) Palace and St Mark’s Cathedral are on Piazza S. Marco.  As you get lost in Venice (and that is a goal easily achieved) every little piazza will have S. Marco with an arrow, painted on the side of a building.  This will still make for a convoluted path back to your hotel – there are no straight lines in Venice.  It’s comprised of something like 118 tiny islands, with at least two bridges connecting each one.  It’s like a cat got hold of a string toy.  It’s a mess.  You’ll love it.  (To illustrate: I have been in a square with S. Marco and two arrows, pointing different directions.  And I have been in one that led me to another that led me back to the first.)  HOWEVER.  The Danieli, and therefore the Commercio e’ Pellegrino, is next to the Doge’s Palace.  So if you can find S Marco, you can find your hotel.

*Amazing dining experience (Michelin, and only 9 tables, at the end of Calle della Rasse, quick left/right) Il Ridotto (il ridotto means the reduction).  Lunch is fixed menu, cheap by comparison, and reservation only. Read about it before you go – the chef is renowned, and quite likely to be the one taking your order.

Venice is not listed right now on any Magic Wineglass tours, but can be added to yours.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve attempted anything creative at the computer. When Larry died, I stopped editing the websites.  Stopped painstakingly processing wedding photos.  Stopped playing with graphic design, and although I was still writing, it was all too intensely personal to share – I filled journal after journal with angst and grief and agonizing questions about purpose and time and loss.  Time is a funny thing.  Tomorrow marks five years since he died.  Just yesterday and a million years ago.  Neither is easy.

After all this time, I’m resurrecting my blog.  Having combined the one from Timberwolf Creek with WrightClick and stepping out into this new Magic Wine Glass world, I’m finding that I can’t just dust off the old posts and keep going.  Not only have I lost the muscle-memory of how all this works, the technology has changed, and so have I.  There’s so much to learn!  And as I clumsily climb this learning curve, and get the old posts organized, I came across this one below – it was stored in a draft folder, never published.  My widowed friends will recognize the emotions, and the process.  It was written at the beginning of the new year, in a new decade, and I was just coming to grips with my new life.  Everyone has their own timeline for grief.  For me, it was just about two years before I could exhale.  And that’s when I wrote the following, at the beginning of 2020…

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There comes a time when you have to start from scratch, and recreate yourself out of thin air. Well, not quite thin air. You have to use the materials at hand, which aren’t quite what you’re accustomed to using. Some familiar ingredients are missing. Some strange ones have appeared. Quantities are different. And the chemistry is all off kilter.

This happens throughout a lifetime. Changing jobs, relationships, moving across the country, each upheaval requires at least a bit of re-evaluation and reorganization. But then, life throws you something big, and everything -everything- changes.

I was fairly certain I understood what it would be like, when Larry died. I knew that being part of a deeply loving relationship, so involved with each other, that I’d have to be something entirely new after he was gone. Intellectually, this made sense to me, and I felt prepared to face that. What nonsense. First of all, I was only thinking about what approach I’d take to life. Maybe activities. Career. I thought I’d be inconsolable for days, and then accept and move on. More naïveté and blind ignorance.

The reality is, when Larry died, first I had to die with him. First I had to sob and grieve and be zombie-like for weeks on end and be lost and sad and in constant unrelenting agony. First I had to miss him horribly and look for him everywhere and ache in ways in which I’d never conceived. I’ve heard the process compared to losing a limb. The pain is excruciating. The phantom pain is no less. And you just want to die. To escape the unending sadness and depression and loss. And then, through a fog of unfathomable pressure, you learn to deal with the prosthesis. Eventually to manage without help. To walk again. Even to understand that, if you’re willing to do the work, you might even run again. But make no mistake: the pain is not gone. The grief is not gone. You’ve just learned to manage your reactions to it, to skim over the emotions, to save the frustrated tears for private moments, and to press on. It’s never gone. It’s always right here, in the throat, pressing constantly just under the surface.

I thought I was prepared. After all, I had years and years of alarming news from his doctors. So much, that, “I’m sorry Mrs. Wright, there’s nothing further we can do for your husband. Call the children. Put your affairs in order,” was absolutely commonplace. After hearing this from so many doctors, for so many years, I’d stopped reacting to it. (This displeases doctors, by the way. They’re sure you haven’t heard them, and they start over. And over.) I have to say -had to say- that I understand, thank you, I know that’s difficult information for you to deliver, and I’ve heard it many times before. They’re still displeased, of course, because they are certain It’s Time and that I’m not paying attention. For the record: nobody was predicting anything of the sort when Larry actually died, and I’m grateful that I didn’t have that drama.  But I was woefully unprepared.

We had talked about this.  We had explored all of the emotions, the outcomes.  We had years to prepare.  Larry was no more prepared to die than I was prepared to lose him, but we did our best.  I am so glad we had those years of warning, because there was nothing left unsaid.  We said our goodbyes ten years ago, when predictions were dire and he’d taken a bad turn and our mornings began with tearful farewells over coffee.  But we remembered, together, some excellent advice: you can be living every day or you can be dying every day: pick one.  So we navigated that together.

And that’s the thing.  There’s no more together.  Solo flight is freakishly scary when you’re accustomed to being the copilot.  At least I wasn’t just a passenger – I already knew how to manage a business and a household on my own, and I wasn’t managing Larry’s healthcare any more, so that weight was lifted.  But I didn’t have a clue how to do all that and grieve, by myself, without my partner, my best friend, my whole world.

Two years have passed, in horrifying slow motion.  But they have passed.  And I’ve been holding my breath for so, so long, barely breathing.  Today, the fog is lifted a bit, and I can make out shapes in the distance.  I can put one foot in front of the other.  Accomplish small tasks, and even make some plans for the future.  A long exhale.  I am indeed having to reinvent myself, but I find that incorporating the things I’ve learned from Larry have made me a better person than I was.  Little by little, life is becoming routine, and normal, like a slow awakening.  And there’s a good deal of peace, in that.

I stand, stock still, frozen, immobilized, and more – petrified, but not in the sense of danger, rather in the sense of one once biological, living and moving freely through space, and now motionless rock, stony, solid and everlasting, and I’ve gone and used up all my commas in the first sentence. But I’m like that.

Yes, exactly like that! I’m at a comma in my life. It’s not a period, putting an end to one thought and marking a beginning to the next. It’s not a new paragraph, I’ve already done that and I’m well into it. But it’s a comma, a point where there’s more to this thought, and worth a moment’s pause for emphasis.

It’s a small thing, that short inhale as you continue expressing an idea. Barely noticeable. But when you’re exactly in it, paying close attention to that precise moment, you’re breathless. And here I stand, in my comma, on the high precipice of this moment. I look back over my shoulder at all that has come before, and ahead to all the possibility of that which is to come, and I take stock. In this brief yet timeless instant, in the absolute silence of now, I can look back and take notice, without judgement, of all that has passed. I can see it shape the choices now before me.

Those choices loom large. The moment I take a step, as my foot hits a path, all the other choices change. Some disappear, some alter, new ones appear unanticipated, and down the hill I charge toward the next comma.

Only rarely is that moment recognized. Even rarer do I bother to allow it to belay me, although I should. Taking stock is always beneficial. But it’s rarely painless, so I generally walk on by.

Today, though, it caught me. And I stand breathless on that precipice. Looking backward. Looking forward. All those choices taken and those to come. Today, it’s not a measure of how well I’m doing (never good enough) but simply a notice of where I am. From whence and to whither. And for once, just this one time, at last, I can say: I am content.

This is a good place to be. It’s a good place to have arrived. It’s a good place from which to depart. The array of choices before me are varied and interesting and mostly non-threatening. So here in this motionless moment, lost to time, right here right now in this comma, all is well.

And what more can a person hope for in life, ever? Surely, ecstasy and over the moon thrills etc, but those highs are balanced by all the lows. I’m not talking about that sort of thing, the amplitude of emotion. I refer to taking stock, at any given moment, pausing in your comma. Finding it a good place, and ‘all is well’, is its own kind of thrill.

Pleased, I’m about to plant my foot on my next path. Wish me luck.

Click.