Thick Description

                When travelling to Venice one of the biggest differences I noticed was the absence of cars. However their absence had more of an impact than just the few differences I discussed in my A Reminder of Reality blog. Their absence impacted how life works in general not just how everyone gets around. The biggest example of this I saw was how school pick up functioned differently than here in the states.

                Where I grew up pick up was a staggered and rushed event. There were essentially three groups of students. Walkers, bus riders, and parent pickups. The first group that was released was those whose parents were picking them up. To make the parking lot less crowded this group was broken into three subgroups depending on how far away you lived from school. Looking back it operated almost like a drive through. Parents would pull up to the curb, wait for their child to come, and pull away once they got in. The walkers and bus riders also operated with the same kind of disconnected feeling. Waiting for the group of kids you walked home with or waiting in lines for the buses to get there was a daily event that was retaught since the first day of school. Every day was the same cookie cutter routine that operated with optimum efficiency. To sum it up picking your kid up from school was a success if you got in and out as fast as possible and moved on with your day.

                In Venice however there weren’t cars to promote this drive through behavior. Everyone either walked or brought scooters to ride home. Since they weren’t confined to their cars, everyone was able to mingle and chat with the other parents waiting for their kids to come out. It promoted this sense of community that’s strengthened by the interactions the lack of cars create. Watching everyone interact without the feeling of being in a rush to get to their next destination was refreshing to say the least. From what I observed just the act of picking up their children was the priority for that time; not figuring out what’s for dinner, not driving the car pool to soccer practice, not grabbing the dance bag for class. This created an opportunity for variety from day to day. The whole idea seemed very flexible and relaxed and everyone flowed from pick up to their next events when the time suited them.

                After the kids came out they too would gather and talk to everyone for a while before heading out. Then slowly everyone would start to leave travelling in groups because there were a limited number of paths to take. Therefore the sense of togetherness would extend beyond right outside the school building and into the surrounding community, and it had an almost domino effect on the routes they would take home. While I was sitting in my campo observing it for the Campo blog, a group of students came through after they got out of school. Their effect was immediate as they began socializing with various people they knew in the square. It was amazing to see these kids focused on something other than rushing home to watch TV or play video games. This doesn’t mean that they don’t do these things when we get home but it wasn’t on the top of their priority lists.

                These small differences lead me to wonder what it would have been like growing up in that kind of environment, to feel like I should live in the present instead of constantly moving on to the next event on my calendar. It would be interesting to see if I would have the same perspective on what I find most important. I think the main difference I would see would be a greater probability of focusing on the task at hand and the journey instead of the next destination. However I wonder if this could be attained in the United States with only the removal of cars. I don’t believe it is just the lack of cars that makes Venice operate the way it does. I believe it is a learned behavior that comes from not feeling like the next event on your list is the most important. Instead the practiced behavior is to focus on the task at hand and be fully involved in it. School pick up embodies this idea and observing it allowed me to observe an aspect of Venice that tourists don’t always get to see.