high tide in Calle de la Madona

When hot scirocco winds blow in from Africa and the moon phase is just right, the tide is exceptionally high here. The water burbles up through drains and washes over canal banks. The people don wellies and soldier on.

 

San Giorgio Maggiore

Today I was at San Giorgio Maggiore — the big church on an island right across from S. Marco — where there’s a library in a former convent. One corridor of the library consists of a huge second story cloister, glassed in, entered from the courtyard by a regal double staircase. Cold day. Bright sun. Absolute quiet punctuated only by periodic bells. As I slowly made my solitary way out, the silence was nudged by the softest possible twittering of three sparrows flying above my head. At first I thought they were trapped, but the enormous stairwell is open. There was something that quiet, and that sunshine, and those three little birds and their gentle, intimate chirping that struck me to the core. Made me want to cry. How? Why? I don’t know, but it was a beautiful moment. (And knowing that pms played a role doesn’t detract from it at all.)