Beauty
Is
What you love
Without
Knowing
Your
Goal is
To reach
A point in time
Where you were
Expected
To be
Then taste it
As if a morning
Chocolate in Bruges
Before you take
The midnight train
From somewhere
To go
To somewhere
New
Do not avoid
Do not forget
At that point in time
Expect to become
Who
You always were
For poetry
Does not have to
Rhyme
To make you
Feel good
In your
Skin
As long as
Your skin
Of travels parched
Enjoys
Wrapping
You
January 17, 2026
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026
A few days ago, and to my surprise, as I was making
tea in the kitchen I remembered a professor of physics I had in college. Since
I had not drunk my tea yet, I could not accuse green tea for playing games with
my memories.
… My undergraduate studies were in biology and
chemistry, but I had always a fascination with physics. Perhaps it was my
curiosity, like with biology and chemistry, to know more about worlds that I
could not immediately see or touch with my bodily senses. Perhaps I believed
that I could learn more how to co-exist with what I could see and touch if I
knew more about microcosms and celestial orders.
The immediate consequence of my curiosity was to
take physics courses as electives, when everyone else was opting for “easier”
social sciences classes to raise their grade average.
The teacher I had for my second course, Advanced
Electricity and Magnetism (E&M II) was a notorious renaissance man. Not
only he often introduced Schrödinger’s Equation to sessions on Maxwell’s
Equations, but found a way to wet our appetites by explaining Quantum Physics’
Wave-Particle duality when talking about electric fields and magnetism.
And his view of the world went beyond science. One
day when he was explaining quantum events, he said:
“These exist
outside of physics and observation. They exist in our ways of facing new
challenges and opting for our path to understanding them. I want you to read
the book "The Garden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges.”
We were overwhelmed with our courses so most of us
did not go to the library to see what book he was talking about. But a
classmate and I decided to find the book. Maybe talking about it in class would
help us get that better grade?
And we read, wondering about what we were reading. I
recall my friend stating “I think he made
a joke – this book has nothing to do with what he was teaching in class.”
Still, we decided to catch up with the professor and
let him know that we read the book, even if we never really read the entire
book.
“I am glad you did” he said. “What jumped at you?”
Well, we told him we did not know what the garden
was all about, and my friend read aloud a line he had scribbled in his
chemistry lab sheet book
“When the game
is chess, what is the only the forbidden word?”
The professor laughed.
“How does the
book make you think about quantum physics ?” he asked
We had no idea.
“Well, the
book is about multi-dimensional thinking as if giant a chess board of 4, 4
dimensions. And it is about a key concept – that of time. If you had read the
book in toto, you should have noticed that Borges never mentions the word “time”
– because it is the forbidden word.”
We received average grades for that elective course
we had taken.
… Decades later, when making tea, I recalled that
since forgotten moment. Always out of curiosity, I downloaded a copy of Borges’
book and read it after dinner, as now, I had time to read and see how an entire
life experience later, I could perhaps understand the chaotic story Borges’
told in 1941.
It did not take long to feel comfortable with the chaos
Borges proposed we have avoided in our daily lives. Indeed, the predictable is
perhaps our daily goal to comfort, even serenity. And what can be more
comforting than knowing that our watches’ prediction that 4 o’clock always
comes after 3 o’clock; that we make choices because we know what the
consequences would be; hence our will, free or not, is based on our ability to
become who we want to be.
The garden described in this book refutes and
rejects all predictability by proposing that time between our actions is never
linear, and that it bifurcates, forks into new unknown paths. Into new universes
as quantum physics frames it. That 4 o’clock is not assured to come after 3 o’clock
but it depends on what happened at 3 o’clock.
As such, the garden is a multi-dimensional chess
board, time is the forbidden word, and no player wins the game. Instead, we
explore new moves during the game with each move we choose and make.
Yet, I could not dissociate myself from the basic
need of every living creature to seek comfort. At least for a short period of “time.”
Perhaps between two bifurcations.
To achieve such a state of anti-chaos, I wondered
how I personally have experienced that halt and moment of relief. How did I experience
that stillness between two bifurcations.
The answer seemed simple: through photography.
Indeed, as a photographer I always stood between the
fleeing moment and my decision to frame that moment and make it still. All changed
after I pressed on the shutter release; all got affected by that click from a
vintage film camera; but all stayed on the film strip inlayed in silver and my joy
of preserving stillness. Women I photographed were older after that click; men
had already grown longer facial hair; and countries have disappeared.
Of course, another way to keep moments and decisions
still, is by forgetting them, hoping that our future decisions would not be
affected by past ones, especially if we felt they were the wrong ones. But
Borges, through one of the book’s characters, Dr. Stephen Albert, proposes
that:
"To
eliminate a word is perhaps the best way of drawing attention to it".
If the word is time, then we may not forget about
that moment. If the word is forbidden to use, we will remember it even more
vividly.
… This concept is challenging but it was not originally
created/expressed by Borges. Indeed, it was Edgar Allan Poe who in his book Marginalia (November
1844), wrote:
"If
you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be
remembered."
And, in a funny way, I wondered if my 60 years’ love
of photography was aimed to forget the trajectory of time or to remember when I
kept it still!
... I assume my professor of physics is not among
the living anymore. If he were, I would like to send him a note that reads:
“ I finally read the entire book.”
PS/ I took the photo atop this post in Marrakesh,
Morocco. I was walking in one of the souks looking to freeze moments on B&W
film when I saw this older man looking through the opening of la large paneled wooded
gate.
I turned my Minolta Autocord TLR camera side wise,
guessed the focusing distance and froze the moment without his knowing I was
taking a photo.
Hence, neither I interfered with his demeanor, nor
he changed his curious expression because he saw me taking his photo.
Time was frozen, and linear with no bifurcation or a
forking path.
January 12, 2026
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2026
My dog is getting old. No, he is old already.
When he was a puppy, I had to learn about him so I
can keep up with his stubbornness. An Akita expects you to understand him.
There is no compromise – he knows he can get what he wants given his size,
strength and street smart.
And for 6 years, I was the one who searched. And he
patiently waited for me to find.
… It will be
Christmas Day soon, and a new year will show up. My dog will be older and I
will wonder if I learned enough.
So, this morning very early when he woke me up by vocalising
his dreams, I got up, made coffee and sat by the window to count the stars. It
seemed like all the stars were brighter at 3am, and the cold desert night had
frozen them into their usual places in the high skies.
I do not look back at an ending year and wonder what
happened, what I did make happen, nor what has happened to me. I just keep my
sails tight and continue upon that river. But I do secretively return to the
shore of that personal interior river, we all have. Where upon its banks we
recall the mossy rocks we climbed barefoot. Where we have left prints walking,
alone or with others. With someone who did not mind walking along.
It is that interior river Heraclitus described best:
“No
man ever steps in the same river twice
For
that river is not the same river and he’s not the same man”
… My dog is getting old. And after almost a decade
of daily experiences, I have come to realise that while he helped me appreciate
that discovering and celebrating the eccentricities of present moments can be
achieved best through routine behaviors.
Because we know we can return to routine for
respite, while getting ready for the next eccentric discovery. Or thought. Or
behaviour.
December 18, 2025
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025
It was winter outside and I sat by the fire. I have
my favorite seat, one that has taken my shape over time. This time, I chose a
rocking chair that has its own swing pattern no matter who sits in it.
And I looked at the fire. And this time, at a new
angle, the fire looked new, and the wood log showed me its new face.
It was a face I might have known. It was a face that
looked away from me, pensive and capricious. And the fire played with the long
hair that adorned that face. In red and gold, as warm as a frigid memory.
And I saw a woman's face, a body I might have seen once. On
a warm August day, when the summer rain became the earth’s aroma.
And made me who I always was.
December 13, 2025
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025
The smallest pebble
Makes a lasting ripple
In the river if
The water remembers the promise
To take the summer rain
Drops
To the
Sea
About the photo: When my dog and I came back from the morning walk, there was a young buck atop my house’s river stones wall. We all looked at each other waiting to see who would make the first move. During that short time span, I “wrote” those lines in my mind…
December 13, 2025
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025
Every tear secretly
Keeps
The memory
Of a name
To which
We once gave
A space
To escape time
And where time goes
When it gets lost
In the present
And the presence
Of what we thought
Lost
Atop a stony wall
Or in cities of steel
Yet our eyes
Kept the sound
Of that name
And on an August day
Made a tear
Of fluid walls
In white and blue
Within which
That name echoed
Loud
Inviting
Like the murmur
Flow
Of a
Siren
PS/ Kako Mati is “Evil Eye” in Greek
November 30, 2025
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025
My book was tired
From being
Read
So I left it
Open
To whisper
New lines
And in the cold
Night of
October
I woke up
My dog
And we left
For a silent
Walk
November 14, 2025
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025
