by Victor Caneva
All photographs courtesy of Victor Caneva
Hello, I’m Trieste. You have said and written many things about me, and have twisted your heads trying to figure me out. Some have been thrilled with me and others bored by me, but a common theme in the musings of those who’ve attempted to capture my essence is that I am melancholy. I make people sad.
One would suppose I should find comfort that some of you have endeavored to explain that my melancholy is a “sweet melancholy” – a sort of inexpressible sadness melange with overtones of affection, whimsy, and tenderness. Even the president of France has remarked that he loves my “beautiful melancholy.” Honestly, however, that can feel a lot like hearing, “Oh Trieste, yeah…she’s got a great personality.”
Other odists have been less delicate, likening me to a greedy, blue-eyed delinquent with big hands (How rude!). In the eyes of some, I’m encircled by a “strange and troubling,” yet familiar air which swirls and swoops among my somber streets. Visitors have described me as solemn and serious.
May I suggest that I have been blessed to host an inordinate number of talented and prolific tortured souls within my proverbial walls who have helped shape this concept of melancholy. If these esteemed literary figures, complete with the same troubles and temperaments they brought to my shore, had, in some alternate reality, resided in Bora Bora, perhaps we would be reading about the ironic gloom of palms darkening the sand with their infernal shade.
Disquiet spirits, despondent and wrestling with untold sorrow, roam the cities of the world from Shanghai to Quebec, but mine tend to be better at expressing themselves than most. I, however, can only take so much responsibility for their existential search for significance or meaning. I will concede that my own uncommon qualities could very well help to mold and refine their struggles and artistry.
Now I’ll weigh in on this morose portrait of myself. I’d like to submit that, possibly, it’s not so much that I am melancholic, but that I am particularly adept at bringing your own melancholy into focus.
The blissfully unmindful might not be able to (or want to) take notice, but my monuments memorialize jarring truths. Those clinging to the illusion that they alone control their destiny and the deceitfully self-assured are particularly resistant to my whispers, even as they take in a sunset on the Rive or pause for a capo at a cafe established an empire ago.
I am a graceful reminder of the impermanence of man and the capriciousness of life. Heart-wrenching tales of unfulfilled potential are interspersed amongst the glories of my past. The periods I was considered great by man never endured for too long, usually for reasons well out of my inhabitants’ control. Men, industries, kingdoms and ideals, all snuffed out prematurely, have marked me indelibly.
As sublimely as Miramare sits, stately by the sea on my lone promontory, its true story is one of loss. All the power and wealth of an ambitious archduke could not guarantee the short-lived Emperor of Mexico the reign he so desired. The beautiful abode of his dreams, designed and anticipated with passion and expectation, punctuates my shoreline – never having been made a loving home for the executed Maximillian and his tragic Charlotte.
Examine the sumptuous structures that comprise my center. Soon, exquisite palaces, magnificent opera houses, ornate theatres, and majestic villas will evoke romantic intimations of an extinct empire. My Austrian past is palpable, like a mist hanging in the air, but you will never truly experience the bygone “Vienna of the Sea.” The best you will be able to do is have a coffee in a cafe wonderfully frozen in time, look out the window, and dream. I am lavishly dressed for a throneless king, who is never to return. All it took was an angry 19-year-old armed with a sandwich and a pistol in Sarajevo to forever close this chapter of my story. But, although the emperor is no more, my raiment suits me, and I think I’ll keep it.
More recently, adapting to novel contexts, I have remade myself as a capital of science. My residents waited in anticipation as I was honored with the distinction of being named the European City of Science. The year, sadly, for this accolade was 2020 and to the dismay of many, my big scientific moment in the sun was eclipsed by the tenebrous clouds of a global pandemic.
Forcefully, the bora cries, “Control is an illusion! Life is unpredictable!” All the planning, pragmatizm, confidence, and resources in the world can not ensure life will look the way you hope it will. This is a bitter pill to swallow. This is melancholy. Maybe you are reminded of your own failures by my lost significance. Perhaps the crumbling walls hidden among my splendor call up scars you work hard to veil or fears you dare not give voice.
These sober concepts are no less true on Wall Street or Lombard Street, on Pennsylvania Avenue or Downing Street, than they are within my limits, but they are easier to ignore in other more “successful” locales. Like a potent specchio, I clearly reflect these truths as you get to know me. Vital freedom comes from accepting that control is a mirage and moving forward, as harsh as it may seem.
I am not Vienna or Rome or Venice or New York or London, nor do I care to be. Simultaneously civilized and wild, cosmopolitan and tight knit, planted at a crossroads of culture, climate and cuisine, I am unreservedly content to be myself. Despite unforeseen changes in flags, fortune and fame, I forge ahead, periodically reinventing myself, penning fresh chapters of my enigmatic story.
My hope is that you too, regardless of unanticipated woes, wounds, failures, or disappointments – or the fear that these could befall you – move on unabashedly as yourselves. I remain a stunning city and my blemishes and various periods of supposed importance or irrelevance only supplement my story and prepare me for the future. Likewise, your myriad experiences, good and bad, mold you and beauty still dwells amongst your scars. You will never be able to control the entirety of your life, but hope, beauty and tomorrow endure.
And, finally, for those of you who find me dreary or gloomy. May I ask if you’ve ever walked the lungomare of Barcola on a crisp spring day? If so, I’d like to offer you a trip to Detroit or Cleveland. We’ll resume the conversation when you return.
Beautiful, Grazie, Charlie Parker with all His advance technique, never forgot where He came from, the Blues. New Orleans has many problems, but there is a Vibe here Aesthetics.
Beautiful, Grazie, In the Nineteenth Century, Baudelaire and the other Artist of Paris called it Spleen. Baudelaire paid the ultimate price for his Melancholy,but out of His suffering came Les Fleur de Mal.