We have been away for a week -- first in Venice and then in Portugal -- seeing loved ones. And the point of seeing loved ones, of course, is to see them and not necessarily the background scenery, which is properly inconsequential.

But.

Having said that, if you are in fact seeing loved ones, you might just as well see them standing in front of crashing waves on the Portuguese shoreline or sitting next to the filigreed palaces of Venice.

Going on a boat through the Grand Canal one night, with the moon almost full and the lights glittering on the water and fleeting glimpses inside gold and red and crystal-chandeliered rooms, holding Jonathan's hand in the sway of lapping waves, Venice seemed like a fairyland -- like we had finally found our way through that small hidden door usually kept locked with a golden key.

It is impossible to photograph this (at least for me) because a flat image of darkness with specks of yellow light, though accurate, is not truthful. There are things that are never like the pictures of themselves. The pictures are only markers to help us remember what we saw with other eyes than merely the ones in our heads.

And so the best picture of our nighttime boat ride through the Grand Canal that I could think of is James Abbott McNeill Whistler's painting, Nocturne in Black and Gold -- The Falling Rocket, which is currently held in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Because I am apparently still in middle school, naturally this reminds me of "The Detroit Rule" for food, which is that putting any place name in front of it makes everything sound more delicious -- "Tuscan Sun-dried Tomatoes," "Viennese Pastry," "Maine Lobsters" -- with one exception.