#160
Two older American ladies eat gelato in the shade and watch people while discussing the price of ice cream and how the hazelnut isn’t as good as it was across town.
On the other side of me is an older couple who speak to me in German, a language I don’t know but wish I did. The woman has white hair that anyone would be jealous of. Lush and long and shiny. Kept up with a tortoiseshell clip, wearing a long summer dress that keeps her cool in the sun. Her husband - he takes a photo of the dog and me and we talk about film and photographs briefly.
They are inseparable. It’s easy to see. Their love has developed into an archive. The man does small sketches in a notebook where he keeps receipts from their travels. Something I also do. It feels like I’m seeing myself in thirty years. Sitting with my notebooks and my love and a dog. Watching the early summer crowds of Venice walk past. I feel outside myself, beside myself, above myself, as I have for weeks now.
Disassociated.
The woman pets the dog and asks “Is he good at chasing pigeons”? Her husband makes a joke and she laughs a delicious laugh that would turn heads at a loud party because everyone would want to be close to her. A beauty that radiates easily, without heaviness.