Insularity

I know this feeling well. Cape Cod, where I once lived, is in some ways remarkably like Venice. It is a long spit of sand jutting out into the sea, dividing it into two areas, of sea and of lagoon. The lagoon is shallow, like this one, its color and waves are much alike, and so are the birds and the fish. And so is the combination of light and mist and colors of the sky. Like Venice, Cape Cod is a man made, or rather man-enhanced island: a deep sea canal cuts it off from the mainland at the base.

Like Venice, Cape Cod has a small year round population, with limited income opportunities, positively swamped by the summer time visitors, who bring with them trash, and traffic, and who elevate the prices for everything the locals must buy, from bistros to housing. As is the case in Venice, the relentless land grab by the nonresidents elevates prices of real estate far beyond anything the locals can afford, only to board it up for most of the year.

All these factors make the locals feel special, unique, and – under siege. On the Cape everyone always talks about blowing up them bridges; only the other day I saw a piece of graffiti here announcing, in Venetian, a similar sentiment: if the Bridge of Liberty were to be blown up, Europe would be cut off from Venice. Like Cape Codders, Venetians, too, feel that the rest of the world is a mere appendage. God knows they don’t go there much. Cape Codders confess to feeling sadness wherever they cross the bridge in the wrong direction, and a feeling of relief when doing so in the other. Venetians are contemptuous of the Campania. In Vincenza, they say, they eat cats.