Venice For my Birthday

I guess I just wanted my birthday to be different this time. I never really did anything special or had anything out of the ordinary done for me, I don’t even remember my 18th, 25th or 30th – and not because I had too much to drink, but because my birthday celebrations never seemed necessarily relevant to those around me and because of that, to myself. They always came and passed. People called to congratulate me, people came to visit, people gave compliments, people brought gifts and flowers, people drank a little, people had a little dessert, people told jokes, people laughed, people spilled red wine on the white tablecloth, people broke a glass or two, people said “We should do this again soon”, people left.

 

 

All I remember was I was either at school, or at work or buying a few friends some drinks and taking a few group pictures to remember ourselves by. Oh, what about my 32nd, you ask? Well…I spent that birthday in a London jail, visiting a friend. And if you think that seeing the inside of a prison must be a very heavy experience in itself, imagine doing that on the single day of the year where everything should be about you enjoying your growth and past experiences with a glass of rose and a much deserved slice of cake at your surprise party.

I never had a surprise party, by the way, except from that time in highschool when my best friend (who once left an anonymous Valentine’s card in my notebook in Spanish class so I’d think it was from a blue-eyed boy I had a crush on) invited me at her place where she had gathered a few other girls, there was chocolate cake that read “Happy birthday Raluca” (straight to the point, no comma), we talked about Vin Diesel, R&B music – especially Aalyah, for some reason – I guess we were really into black culture back then, boys at school and teachers who didn’t like us, like me with my homeroom & Spanish teacher, Miss P., always calling me by my surname and welcoming my grammar errors with a condescending smile…but it didn’t matter, because I never liked Spanish or her anyway and many, many years later, I can still make it through a whole conversation with a Spaniard and get compliments on my linguistic talents, so thank you for that, I guess, Miss P.

But most of my birthdays were spent at work, having left a box of chocolates at the reception, cause that’s what you ought to do so everyone in the office would know it’s your birthday and they’d come to congratulate you even if they hadn’t previously been introduced to you, but there’s music and some hors d’oeuvres and you get to leave early…and you’ve put on a new dress and bore a few hours in high heels, something you wouldn’t normally do, but, hey, it’s not every day that you turn 27, so you might as well just suffer a little for it, right? But no one at the office actually knows you and what you like, so they get you some flowers, a scarf that is wouldn’t represent your style if you dipped it in chocolate and sprinkled colourful beads all over it – and a Hallmark card with a photo of a puppy. A lot of birthdays, a few vague memories, but nothing to hold on to, except for that time he took me to Sketch and I ordered marrow.

And I don’t even know why Venice, of all places. Why now, after seven years. It kinda felt like I deserved a honeymoon and that is the only place in the world would lose myself in, again and again. Maybe this would be my last chance to step on Venetian ground. You know, with all the floodings. I also wanted to take a close look at Lorenzo Quinn’s hands sculpture displayed for the 2017 Biennale, but I was about three years too late for that.

But one of my greatest wishes was to take my new self to this very old tavern adorned with all kinds of subtle and romantic details, embroidered vintage tablecloths, made with old, Venetian giupure lace, white, small, almost uncomfortably small tables for two lit by long, red candles elegantly sitting in candlesticks made of wine bottles almost entirely covered in layers upon layers of hardened wax, on Calle della Madonna, a very crowded street towards Rialto Bridge. I’d been dreaming about this place for seven years, wouldn’t it be marvelous to find it in the same place I’d left it seven years ago and treat myself with a birthday dinner? Now how random would that be?

 

 

Of course it never happened…It took me a while to remember where it was and what the street was supposed to look like and when I finally decided I’d found the location, there was a spaghetti fast food instead. I should have expected that resolve, but I felt a little disappointed – once again, it was a spaghetti fast-food. But that didn’t stop me from making the best out of my 34th and reconnecting with the city as a whole, the new and the old, after seven years.

To be continued…

Green Eyed Kisses,