Day 659: Sinking Cities Tour: Dénouement

I’m back from Italy.  Did you miss me?  The post title refers to New Orleans -> (Rome, Florence and) Venice -> Amsterdam -> New Orleans, in a span of ten days.  Water, subsidence, human intervention, canals, varying levels of competence and civic pride, culture, the cost of living where nature didn’t intend for us to – you know, the usual stuff.

A visitor to Europe since childhood, it didn’t dawn on me until this first trip back after Katrina and the flood, what makes a city a city.  I’m not talking about Los Angeles or Houston.  Instead, I refer to age, the buildings, personal interaction, organic growth, the grit and wear that renders a mature metropolis a living, breathing entity in its own right.  The dirt and grime are a part of the cobblestone pavements, not on them.  Just as the imprints of hands and soles on a building or sidewalk are the freckles, lines and dimples of a human being.  We forget the there there while encapsulated in the homogeneous new constructions of modern America. 

We walked, took trains or rode vaporetti everywhere, giving us ample time and opportunity to observe people and their places, or is it places and their people?  This is one aspect of civic culture lost on our nation.  Americans are obsessed with cars and driving to the point that the Me generation has extended to a Me national identity.  How does one people-watch and think about life and its living beyond the boundary of self, when contained in a vehicle for hours at a time and concentrating on getting from point A to B?  This fostered self-centeredness has come to define us as a people.  Hence, I’ve made a solemn promise to myself: I will never live in a suburb or anywhere that requires more driving than walking, and will use my bicycle and public transportation more often.

This is why New Orleans is worth saving.  For, where else in America can you live in a European city?  Manhattan and downtown Chicago come close but lack the history, art  and architecture that act as the foundations of Europe.  Where else does one learn that America is more than the land of the gas guzzler and home of the McMansion?

D and I meditated upon staying behind in Venice to open a Creole-Indian-Irish bar and restaurant, but reconsidered due to our current American obligations like, say, family, friends, work and all that entails.  Southern Europe has been mighty tempting for the past few years, though.  Do not be surprised if, one fine day, my posts come to you in Catalan from a Barcelonan hilltop outpost.

There is a lot more introspection on this recent Italian job.  Florentine art, the Vatican and a compare and contrast of the canals of Venice, Amsterdam and New Orleans all require their own posts.  Also, between us, D and I took 600 pictures of Rome, Florence and Venice, which will be shared just as soon as jetlag and my octopus of New Orleanian obligations make hasty departures.

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard