Bleeding on San Marco
Victim of Venetian construction debris and my own spectacular inability to watch where I was going.
The fragments lay scattered across the ancient stones of San Marco — my meticulous plans, a loose diamond, droplets of blood, and what remained of my dignity. Our sausage dog would later blink knowingly in Lake Como sunlight, as if he’d witnessed the entire cosmic joke from the beginning. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We designers sometimes exceed our own expectations, don’t we? Determined to make everything just a little more special, we craft elaborate schemes that teeter precariously between brilliance and catastrophe. This is the story of one of those times — when good design and careful planning collided with the universe’s apparent sense of humor, leaving me face-down on consecrated ground, bleeding and inexplicably furious.
The plan had been flawless, naturally. Once I decided to propose to Kelly, I immediately sketched ideas for the ring and commissioned a jeweller to bring them to life. Two prototypes emerged, but one was the clear winner. Everything would be fully recycled — gold from an old ring, not too yellow in tone, and a small but beautifully tinted yellowish diamond. Perfect fragments of the past, reformed into something new. Those who know me understand how deeply I care about this. In a world growing more wasteful, it felt important to do my small part.
Then came the choreography of the moment itself. Venice beckoned with our upcoming trip, and I envisioned the proposal unfolding inside the Basilica of San Marco. The plan was elegantly simple: collect the ring from a disguised courier in the bathroom of the famous Caffè Florian, then place it in the holy water stoup where Kelly would discover it. What could go wrong with such careful orchestration?
Everything, as it turned out.
We arrived in Venice and wandered the maze of bridges and piazzas before stopping at Caffè Florian for a quick Venetian bite and espresso. Right on cue, the predetermined “passerby” appeared, gave me a subtle nod, and I slipped away to the bathroom to retrieve my carefully crafted future. Ring safely pocketed, I returned to the table, paid the bill with the satisfaction of a director whose actors were hitting their marks, and invited my beautiful bride-to-be to step into the Basilica just a few metres away.
That’s when the universe decided to heavily edit my script.
Beaming with delight at the prospect of my perfect proposal, I failed to notice the construction debris at my feet. In an instant, I took a spectacular fall — flat on my face, with no hands up to protect me, too surprised even to react. As I hit the ancient stones, I felt the ring pierce my leg. The carefully set diamond, freed from its setting by the impact, went skittering into the corner of my trouser pocket like a tiny, expensive refugee.
Bleeding from a gash on my forehead, I realised with mounting horror that my perfect moment lay in pieces around me — literally. By the time worried church assistants rushed to help, I was not only hurt but consumed by a simmering rage that surprised even me. I was furious at the terrible timing, at the near loss of the diamond, at the construction debris, at my own clumsiness. Furious, really, with the cosmic injustice of it all.
Here I had crafted this beautiful moment, assembled all the fragments with such care, and the universe had scattered them across the stones like some cruel art installation titled “The Futility of Human Planning.”
My future wife, of course, was taken aback, not understanding the true source of my volcanic anger. All I had to show for my elaborate scheme was a bloodstain on the pocket where the ring had been and a gash that would require immediate attention. After a quick pharmacy run, I emerged looking like a soccer player recovering from a particularly brutal match — half my head wrapped in gauze, topped with a cap that screamed “sporting accident” rather than “romantic gesture gone wrong.”
For days afterward, she puzzled over my inexplicable rage at what seemed like a simple stumble. I offered half-truths and mumbled excuses, desperately concealing the real story: that I had been carrying the ring, that the proposal was meant to happen in that very sacred moment, that all my careful planning had been reduced to fragments on Venetian stone.
The plan had to be abandoned. My head had to heal. And I was left wondering: what now? How do you reassemble the pieces of a perfect moment once they’ve been scattered?
The answer came quite literally across the street. Back home in Amsterdam, I walked into a jeweller’s shop in the Jordaan, the broken ring in my pocket like evidence of my own hubris. “Can you fix this?” I pleaded, and with it, began planning the resurrection of my romantic intentions.
Ring repaired, diamond safely reset, I focused on the next attempt. This time: a boat ride on Lake Como, complete with food, the mountain views we both love dearly, and our beloved sausage dog as witness. Would I drop the ring in the water this time? The possibility haunted me, but sometimes you have to trust that the universe might, occasionally, show mercy.
The rest unfolded bathed in sunlight and blessed simplicity. We left the small dock in San Giovanni, crossed the lake, and let the fresh air and surrounding mountains carry us away from all the careful choreography that had failed before. After a few minutes, I slowed the boat in the beautiful coves along Limonta and handed Kelly a small red box, grinning with the relief of a man who had finally learned when to stop directing and start living.
Not only was I finally able to make my proposal, I could confess the first failed attempt — giving us both laughs that would last for months. Our sausage dog blinked in the sunlight, as if he’d known all along how hard it had been for me to keep such a ridiculous story hidden, how the fragments of that first disaster had somehow reassembled themselves into something even better.
All of this to say that sometimes our spectacular failures yield unexpected treasures. The scattered pieces can be gathered into something more beautiful than our original design ever imagined. So if something like this has happened to you — try again. Failure isn’t the end; it’s how we learn to create our most heartfelt successes.