Heading Back to Italy to Complete "The American of Venice"

I need to walk the streets and float the canals of Venice once more to bring The American of Venice manuscript to a close.

I wonder where its protagonist, Elliott Pembroke, will lead me in Venice’s misty, cool, wet November?

I’m departing at the end of the week. I’ll be in Umbria with family for a while to remember one of our own who has passed, then I’ll head north, first to Florence, and then to Venice, where I will wander.

Alone. No agenda. Just narrow alleys and canals.

I am confident Venice will speak to me.

Will rain or acqua alta deter me? No. That is where Elliott lived, and it did not deter him. What if Portia or Shylock emerge? What will the widow, Nonna, say if I run into her? Might I encounter the blind bookseller, or the wise old abbot at San Zaccaria? Will there be lessons for me, as there were for Elliott?

Perhaps this trip is more of an inside journey. But if I do my job, and do it well, it will become a journey for you, too.

I truly hope that what I see, hear, and witness will find its way into your own journey. After all, each of us is on one, whether we know it or not, and whether it is a journey of principle, joy, grief, or healing.