At the intersection of dreams and reality

Yesterday began with my favorite things here: An espresso, a small table in the sun, a good book, my favorite pen and small notebook, and people watching. I don't mind a few cents' cuperta for the right to sit down instead of gulping my caffe standing up; the romance is such moments is well worth it. These are fleeting moments of peace, of expectations met, of living briefly inside the pages of the books I've been devouring.

I've faced it. I know I will never live in Europe, never belong here in any real sense, never master the languages (even English) or fully comprehend the cultures. I returned to Hawaii from the U.S. Mainland in part because I realized that I would never know anyplace as well as I know the Islands of my birth, not even the Pacific Northwest, where I had lived for 20 years and where at least I could "pass," not having to answer any questions about when my family arrived there, or what "nationality" I was.

Still, in Heinlein's words, I "grok" Hawai'i. Or, in the Hawaiians' own word, which encompasses a meaning much more nuanced that merely "knowing": I am "ma'a" to the place.

I made reluctant peace with this years ago, in my late 20s, when my dearest wish was to move to England, live in a village along the Thames, marry a lockkeeper and have two children, Nigel and Rose. But in the space of just a few weeks, it became clear that there were insoluble problems, both practical and of a more elusive nature. On the practical side, immigration requirements made it unlikely I'd be able to work there.

Also a consideration was the fact that my British boyfriend didn't want to marry me.

"The thing is," he said, fumbling for words, "your awfully American, you know."

I sat there with my tweed wool skirt from the Scottish Highlands and my "jumper set" (shell and cardigan) from Marks and Spencer, my painfully acquired BBC accent and mastery of idiom (I even knew to call it "Marks and Sparks"), my radically scaled-back speaking volume and emotional range and saw my dreams shattered like a dropped tea cup in his mother's drawing room.

The British are so very, very, very good at sussing out class differences and summarizing them with the least expenditure of words. "Milk first, dear," one well-born character confides to another in one of E. M. Forster's books, condemning in three words the pretentions of a woman she met at tea. One simply does not pour milk in the tea cup first; you might as well drop your h's and refer to your sister as "our Alice."

Longwinded route to this, mi dispiace (I'm sorry): I understand that I don't belong here but I love to "make be-dend," as we used to say when I was a child; it is one of the joys of travel.

One reason I'll never fit is that I don't carry, and talk constantly on, a cell phone. I've got one but can't seem to make it work and, anyway, at international phone rates, I dare not use it. Venetians, on the other hand, can't seem to walk the few steps between one canal and the next without taking or making a call. At least their talking isn't particularly distracting since I can understand little that they're saying. It makes only a musical backdrop.

Yesterday, in one of those fortunate coincidences that can happen in travel, I'd been contemplating a short vaporetto ride to the tiny island of S. Giorgio to see the church of S. Giorgio Maggiore and, in particular, to take the elevator up in the tower to see the city from above. I'd not said told Bonnie yet when she, having checked in with the New York times Web site, came out with, "There's an exhibit at S. Giorgio I want to see."

Despite this, the day didn't begin well; we chose the wrong vaporetto route and, since the exhibit involves a film shown only on the hour, Bonnie was a bit fraught about arriving five minutes after showtime and having to kill an hour in a place that offers few public attractions.

Once a sprawling monastery farm, S. Giorgio now consists of the large and historic church (full of the sort of gloomy paintings of ascending saints, marble statues fronted by flickering tiers of candles and carved wooden pews and that don't interest her but do me), a tiny Benedictine monastery (8 monks) and, from the public perspective, not much more. The bell tower of this gleaming white edifice, designed by Palladio and a short distance across the lagoon from the Piazza San Marco, offers a 360-degree view encompassing all of Venice and many of the surrounding islands.

The Cini Foundation, devoted to artistic and musical research, took over the disintegrating property some years ago. Today, its renovated grounds, farms, quadrangles and courtyards are off limits except to scholars, children in attendance at its summer art camps and other guests. Except when, as now, during Biennale, artistic exhibitions are on display.

In the one-time refectory (dining room), we saw the rare presentation with the capacity to interest and excite us both: It is the re-creation through state-of-the-art laser projection technology of a painting literally cut from the walls of this room by Napoleon's conquering armies. Artist Paolo Veranese's "Le Nozze de Cana" ("The Wedding at Cana") is made to come alive by filmmaker Peter Greenaway. The painting, meticulously reconstructed in a light illusion, is projected on the very wall at the end of the room where it once hung. It was created for this space. With moving musical accompaniment, Greenaway then proceeds to a) pull the painting apart, projects bits of it in panels between the windows on either side of the room and b) bring it alive, positing often hilarious conversations between the wedding guests.

This is one of those things better experienced than described and, anyway, I've got to get ready to leave for Bologna, where we'll be for a couple of days. (I'm not blogging while I'm there, BTW.) But it was fascinating to see how Greenaway remained true to the painting's original nature while catapulting it into a world Veranese could not have imagined. It was a perfect intersection both of the artwork and of Bonnie's and my interests and we left chatting happily.