Rising From the Ashes

fenice

Thinking about the ashes of La Fenice, Venice's burned operahouse: the Phoenix.

phoenix:
1. bird in Egyptian mythology that lived in the desert for 500 years and then consumed itself by fire, later to rise renewed from its ashes.
2. A person or thing of unsurpassed excellence or beauty; a paragon.

Thinking that perhaps renewal requires transformation, as Michael Lewis suggests
in his NYT mag article this week about going home to New Orleans. It's true that nothing can remain static--we are organic, we do thrive and decay, at the very least. Been reading John Berendt's new book about the fire that destroyed La Fenice, which was legend when I arrived in that city in 1999. It's basically ridiculous--the name and the means of destruction--but sometimes ridiculousity leads to blam-bang lessons over the head that don't get through any other way.

One year in Venice and five years since, I am hoping that this latest incarnation will lead to the never-realized project I've had in my head related to that city. Or to any other project in my head not-yet realized. Or to sprouting the wings of a bird, even one that does not fly.

Maybe just the word "phoenix" is worth meditating on. Or "fenice."

Ph, ph, ph, f, fffffffft.