“Let’s see if we can find some flam-IN-gos!” Alessandro announces with a grin, as we pull away in his small motorboat. I nod obligingly, sure something’s been lost in translation. I thought we were headed to the furthest reaches of the Venetian lagoon to take photos – I didn’t even know there were flamingos here. But still, something about the way Alessandro names the birds in his Venetian accent is affecting. I want to trust him. I wasn’t sure I would – a man I’ve never met before, in a boat, with no means of raising the alarm should something go wrong. “You can always cancel.” I’d told myself as I waited in my hotel reception, my new camera between white-knuckled hands. “See what your gut says when he arrives.” It’s late February, but already warm enough to go without a coat, even out on the water. Alessandro tells me he’s taking me to one of his favourite spots, beyond the islands of Burano, Mazzorbo and Torcello, but cautions his boat may not make it as the water is unusually low – a contrast to Venice’s more infamous acqua alta, but climate-change influenced nonetheless. The wooden, channel-marking bricole tell a related, salt-sculpted story of decades of boat waves; waves that are also eroding the city’s very foundations. Out here, though – with the small islets, the tall skies, and the whispers from the lagoon’s original fishermen and salt gatherers – the Venice of cruise ships and unsustainable tourism seems centuries away, and my shoulders soften with it. This morning I got up while it was still dark to photograph the sunrise over San Giorgio Maggiore; arriving at Piazza San Marco at 6:30am to find it already lined with tripods, and models in full carnival attire. I navigated the settings of my camera to capture the rising sun’s starbursts through the arches of the Doge’s Palace, but with rising irritation at how overexposed the city felt, even at that hour. “You’ll love the islands;” the manager of my small hotel commented later over breakfast – “they feel like a Venetian’s Venice.” And I felt I’d been welcomed into a new level of intimacy with La Serenissima. ~ I’ve been coming to Italy for the anniversary of my father’s death for almost a decade now. Dad wasn’t Italian; I just wanted to celebrate life, and picked Venice for my first trip based solely on dad’s love of opera. The night before he died, I’d acknowledged the adventure dad was setting out on himself, and implored him “Don’t forget to send postcards.” And on each of my anniversary trips to Italy since, I’ve experienced such rich serendipity – chance meetings, campanile bells ringing out across cities – I know dad’s keeping his word. But last year, on the island of Procida off the coast of Naples, all that changed. After an anniversary lunch on Marina Corricella’s tiny quayside – a ginger cat pestering my ankles for a share of my swordfish pasta and fishermen genuinely mending their nets alongside – I was sexually assaulted by the restaurant’s owner, a man the same age as my father. As I stumbled back out into the bleached afternoon, my napkin wasn’t the only thing left stained and crumpled on the table. ~ Alessandro’s boat is as low against the water as the neighbouring marshland. He’s showing me how to lean over the side to get my camera as close to the waterline as possible, and the care he’s taking is almost fatherly. As we take pictures, Alessandro tells me the lagoon is his therapy. I can see why. But then, suddenly, the boat rocks so hard I almost lose my camera overboard. I flinch as Alessandro’s hand touches my shoulder. “Look!” He exclaims, the glee in his voice so thick I can’t make out if it’s him I’m hearing or my dad. “Look!” I look skyward just in time to see the most startling arrowhead of birds high above. There must be hundreds of them. And even at this distance their calling wings sound from another world entirely. “Flam-IN-gos!” Alessandro confirms with another grin. “I wasn’t sure we’d find them.” He exhales, like an answered prayer. “Me neither.” I think. “Nor so much else besides.“