A visit to the Canaletto exhibit at the National Gallery of Art left me feeling nostalgic for Venice….

When I lived in Europe, I couldn’t go longer than three months without a trip down the Grand Canal.

Is it possible to love a city as much as a human being? In my case, the answer turned out to be yes. I left Italy kicking and screaming, only when I was forced to by job circumstances. And I went back every chance I got, just to prove my love.

Cities have human characteristics –something in the air that tells you everything you’ll ever need to know about them: Paris is a young man in love with an older woman. Venice is a strawberry blonde past her prime.

I’m convinced no one can truly know me without knowing Venice as well, so I left my fate in her hands. In a moment of youthful romantic exuberance, I swore I’d only marry the man who proposed to me in Piazza San Marco. I figured if a man knew to do that, then he probably knew everything there was to know about me, so I’d better marry him. Of course, there’s no way in the world a man would know to do this, but maybe that’s the point: to ensure singledom, set an impossibly high bar for marriage.

© 2011, Ithaka Bound. All rights reserved.