Ruins.

Sometimes you go somewhere and the world stills. Regardless of noise and surroundings, the mind becomes quiet. Your core opens and tells you, you are home. This ‘home’ could be thousands of miles away from your everyday life, in countries you can't speak a word of the language, and customs so unknown that all you can do is look on in wonder. Time stops mattering to you, regardless of the pace of those around you (if any).

I have a handful of these places, perfect ‘homes’ away from my life, some I have been to only once, others I make the pilgrimage to again and again. And I have always made the pilgrimage alone. Until last year.

Last year, I took someone I loved with me. And I was able to show him my most visited ‘home’ - Venice. I’ve been many times, with the islands not far from my actual home, and every canal shaped by ocean waves and legend, Venice stands to be one of my favourite places on earth. A beautiful, and tragic place, full of art and ambition, stories and history, and an uncertain future that makes each step on the stones above the water feel as though you are tracing the last moments of a forgotten empire.

I know some of the islands very well, and others I’ve yet to tread a foot on. I can make my way from st marks square, through the back streets south/south-east until I hit my favourite park, where the water fountains are filled with colourful tortoises, and cats hug the shadows, a quick walk through the gravel flagged by stretches of green/yellow grass (depending on the time of year) and a large glass building emerges, at least a hundred years old beautiful iron and glass weave upwards and arch in, creating a small glittering cathedral. It’s in here, my favourite coffee shop and botanical store, that is my Venitian home.

Last summer as we fell in love with each other, he fell in love with Venice too. But the Venice we shared was different, museums, guidebooks, and the quest for the perfect piece of glass. For him, the exploration of the city could not be done by people watching from a local cafe, but he needed to See the things to be Seen, Do the things to be Done. He wanted every moment from the guidebooks, every famous artwork he wanted to see regardless of if it had been reprinted and remade in a thousand different ways. He wanted chapels and great halls, from behind velvet rope. And on finding out the infamy for Venitian glass, had no interest in seeing the glass be made or trying it himself, instead, he wanted to find the perfect little piece. Affordable, beautiful, and unique (or unique to the 50 or so tourist glass shops on the main islands).

Then one evening, we got word a storm was coming in. Summer storms are incredible things, ripe with lighting and colour, and in a place, as mystical as Venice we decided that would be our evening's entertainment. We headed to our balcony on Lido and with a couple of bottles of wine, we watched the north. Slowly but surely the Sun began to fade, not from the horizon but behind the ever-burdening clouds heavy in the sky. The humidity in the days earlier had been sweltering and a storm would be a welcome break. With anticipation, we watched as the skies opened on the mainland and tracked the horizon for cracks of lightning. Whipping our heads from east to west chasing the cracks of thunder and guessing where the next would land. Surely enough the storm rolled in. Majestic. Explosions of light dance through a summer twilight. And we stayed there in that storm for hours. We held each other, and drank good wine, and marvelled at the sky and waves and nature and art.

The storm passed.

And we ended.

And I wonder if my ‘home’ will ever be just mine again.