Boussole

It was perhaps the simple moment of a few tears over dinner.  The fluted wine glasses were almost empty then, asking for more wine.  And soon the wine was gone, asking for more questions.

It was perhaps the way streets meandered into the soft bed of the river while purple neon lights inundated the facade of the museum, in front of which a band played into the early morning.

Or, it was perhaps the loss of that inner compass which takes dreamers astray, into old dreams, into new questions, and into unknown fears, as that compass lead us to that river which never invited passersby for a swim.  Chestnut trees were in blossom, somewhere, but we walked the shores of the river searching for that compass.

The compass was disoriented but never lost.  It was still showing the North, the South, the East and West.  But, the space of an uncompleted poem, it seemed to show direction capriciously – the North was a bit more East; the South was much Northerly than before. A bi-polar, whimsical compass.

It was simple.  Sometimes, not finding the right bubbles in a fluted glass makes it less of a promise and more of an expected surprise. But a Cava wine, no matter how good, will not be accepted en lieu of a bottle of Veuve Cliquot. I learned that when chestnut trees were in bloom, somewhere.

{Date Not Recorded}

Both pictures were taken from the Buda Castle on a misty evening in December. The Danube separates Buda from Pest.

© Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Gravel Road

I would give little

To be young again

The large chair holds me tight

My beret makes me smart

And my dog sleeps

His head upon my slippers

I have seen sunsets

Upon fields of hay

And I have walked in the gentle rain

Among cities with simple names

Often alone, sometimes arm in arm

With the passing, unforgiving time

I will give nothing

To gather, piece by piece

My heart after brown eyes

Have looked for somebody new

I will give nothing

For what I got was a summer storm

But not hurricanes I had hoped for and asked

Moonshine or warm beer

I gladly still keep by near

When turning pages

Of a silly book late at night

As my slippers feel  warm

And my dog, a cataract in left eye

Dreams, sighs, and chases chipmunks

Trembling, like I once did

When chased by those brown eyes

I will give little

For perhaps

I have given it all

August 20, 2010

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

The Artfulness of Flight Attendants

I had not had white wine for almost 30 years.  It was the cheap wine we had in college.  It was college, the simple and pleasurable time when all limits were reached; when there were no limits.

Since then, having white wine seemed to defeat the purpose of having wine.  A rosé is still acceptable on a hot day in Lisbon.  But white?

… It was a warm day in November.  I was leaving from San Francisco to Taipei.  A long trip, but I was looking forward to it.  My life had been a total race for months and, somehow, being away from email and phone, at 36000 feet in the clouds felt like a mini vacation!

I placed myself the best I could in the seat, smiled at the man who was going to be my travel companion for almost a day, then put my earplugs in to be transported by Silk Road Ghazal music, and then by religious Gregorian chants.  These are my favorites on long trips- they take me where I have not yet been and I identify with the moment.  Not the past.  Not the future.  Just the moment, at 360000 feet in the clouds, over some ocean or snow capped mountain chain.

… There was a decent selection of wines for dinner- a 2004 Tempranillo from the Toro region; a same year Trepiche from Mendoza; and a 2005 Pouilly Fumé Sauvignon Blanc.  And then, I noticed the unthinkable- a 2005 Chablis Champ Royaux!  Chablis probably tasting of old mushrooms, tart fruits and unknown minerals!  Chablis we used to buy by the gallon for cheaper than a hot dog and Coke!  Chablis that reminded me of the long and cold nights of Michigan. 

That was 30 years ago, and I had not had Chablis wine since.  Yet, on this pleasant November day, I was tempted.  I wanted to remember the taste of that wine, as simple as that.  I wanted to live a past time in a no-time zone, somewhere over a vast ocean or a snow topped mountain range. 

The flight attendant was a man in his late 50’s.  I am sure he could detect a red wine drinker from a white one habitué within minutes.  He could even guess how many drinks they will have before putting down a management or oncology book and try to sleep for a while.  He could, I am sure.

So, he came near our row with his little cart and asked:

“The Merlot, the Trepiche or the Spanish Tempranillo?”

Without looking at him, I almost murmured “A glass of Chablis, please.”

There was a moment of no communication.  At least without words.  I continued to look away from his eyes (he also reminded me of the Arabic teacher I had in high school…)

Then, “Did you say Chablis?”

“Yes, a full glass of that very nectar” I tried to joke.

… I stopped the Gregorian chants and dialed into the in-flight music, channel 12.

“I wished on the moon for something I never knew” sang B. Holliday.  We used to listen to Jazz in Detroit.  We used to drink Signature beer in Detroit.  We used to also drink Chablis, which was cheaper than a hot dog sandwich and a Coke.

… The over steamed mushrooms were there!  And the unpleasant minerals!  They seemed to have never changed.  It was a taste I once knew and now I could relive within a single sip.  Chablis was college students, and I was not a student anymore.  Yet, I recalled that young man, who wanted to learn so one day he may apply.  So that one day he may teach, to those young man and women ready to learn.  Yes, I was that young man again, living for the unknown, for the moment only.

I do not recall the last time I shut my eyes while taking a sip of wine.  I do not recall when it was that I kept my eyes shut after swallowing the sip of wine.  But I did.

The feeling was intense.  It had nothing to do with the wine.  It had nothing to do with memories.  It was one of those moments when as B. Holliday sang “half-love never appealed to me.  If it is love, there is nothing in between.”  Well, it was love.  Love of what I had learned while I watched 30 years pass by.  I recalled buying Chablis and pipe tobacco on a snowy night in Ann Arbor.  Because I was writing my dissertation and needed to work into the night.  It was Chablis and the first MAC computer circa 1983!  And I thought I had everything (especially when I had enough wood to keep the fireplace working overtime…).  Perhaps I did.  Everything was not that much, then.

… I practically forgot to eat my “Asian Vegetarian Special Meal”.  And the flight attendant came to check on me.

“You do not like the meal?”

This time, I looked at him.   And without shame I said:

“I like the Chablis better.”

His facial expression was priceless.  Then he regrouped, put on a fake smile and said:

“It is a special type of wine, isn't it?  Has its followers.  Almost like a cult.”

Ah!  I felt proud to be a “Chablis Cultist” while over a vast ocean or a snow capped mountain range.

November 17, 2010

San Francisco to Taipei

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013  

The picture is of Taipei at night, taken with a Yashica 14 rangefinder.

Parallel Lines

Oddly

You are free

In mid-sentence

And in her frozen embrace

Stroll slow

Beside your own shadow

The silence of the shallow river

Is now a new season, and old reason to shiver

There is no order

Leap; pursue pleading, or just meander

In the snow you will leave your steps lost to her feelings

While the river runs shallow, you feel free, you have wings

Fly!

November 14, 2013

 ©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Table for One

The wait.

It is an art that we learn to first reject, and then cherish. For someone, an idea, or the sharing of a thought. There has to be a reward in waiting, but maybe not for waiting.

As a writer, the empty page or a blank electronic screen have promised me the visit of my muse. And I have waited.  I have looked at empty pages on long plane flights, in lonesome hotel rooms, on crowded trains, or in shelters during war times. These pages are all the same – empty spaces full of promises. What will it be this time? A poem about brown eyes? A Scandinavian city full of sun at midnight? The story of a genocide I was told as a kid? The page remains empty, flat, and I wait.

Amazingly, as I have looked at empty pages in every corner of the world, somehow my muse has found my hiding place. A space where I did cache myself from the moment I had promised to others. Sometimes students, sometimes government representatives. I was there to be a healthcare professional, and yet, always found the space to be just myself. Facing a blank page.

And when my muse arrived, wearing dream and shiny tear drops, I saw the page eager to surrender. My words would now break the silence of the emptiness; my fears would make the page tremble. My muse, wearing shadow and without make up, was near me now to give permission. Not a story, not hope. Just the permission to write. What I wrote was always my choice.

… Waiting is an art, which becomes a craft in daily life. This time, we wait for cycles to complete themselves. It is not about writing anymore but the readiness for what is to happen. One cannot be impatient or forceful, time is an unforgiving lover.

Like empty pages, the wait is faced with empty moments when we hear the seconds tick at the pace of our inner resonance. The artfulness of being patient becomes the resilience of surviving these empty moments. Because their bare timescape is also filled with promises. Because we believe it is.

An artist becomes a craftsman by sharing his art. A writer becomes at peace by waiting for his muse. And an empty page just learns to wait.

November 7, 2013

© Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Paradox and Uncertainty

A big storm outside.  The wind was moving the clouds at a speed that changed the horizon over the ocean as I contemplated from my window.  But I knew it was temporary—the forecast was for sunshine in a few hours.

Why would I believe the forecast though? What I see now is a low and dark sky, and water everywhere.  I played with my pencil for a few minutes, and then wrote parapluie, French for umbrella. As I looked at that word, I realized that it really means “beyond the rain”—para and pluie. Ha! I had not thought about that before.  Did it mean that the person under the umbrella was beyond the rain? Or that the umbrella eventually leads to sunshine and takes upon it the role of shading the person? Can there be ombre (shadow) in umbrella?

Clearly my mind was not focused on that academic article I had decided to dedicate my morning to editing. And after a few jousting movements with my #2 pencil, I wrote paradox.  That was it, my mind was eager to play with words and concepts. So I let it do so.

Para and doxa, in Greek mean “beyond thought” or beyond what we can rationally understand. What was paradoxical this morning? Was it that the clouds defined a horizon that otherwise does not exist? Was it that it was my observing the clouds made the horizon real? After all, the horizon is just an illusion.

Illusion. After thinking about it I wrote Maya, the Buddhist term for illusion. Now I was in a different sphere of thought, and took my glasses off to see the horizon better.

… Since my college days I had an attraction to physics, especially quantum mechanics. Heisenberg’s contribution to the imprecision of knowing where an atom is and where it will be seems more than physics to me. It is philosophy, and it is Zen. Indeed, that we cannot measure the position and the momentum of an electron at the same time has been verified by calculation and experiment, but that “the path of a particle comes into existence only when we observe it” is beyond formulae and mathematics. To me, it is synonymous to the Zen teaching that it is all about grasping – the world around us exists because we decided to grasp it, to reach for it. Otherwise the path of things be that of particles, desires or fear does not have a meaning. Nor will the particles, desires or fear have a meaning. And if they do not have a meaning, they do not exist. Or do they?

The big picture versus the sub-atomic. The big picture versus the sub-conscient. Is there a parallel? Newtonian principles are valid for the big picture, most of the time. His assumptions have been that the real world exists despite us. Then Heisenberg challenged the applicability of the big picture assumptions to the sub-atomic world. He proposed that the particles exist at a position because we are observing them. If we do not, not only they do not exist, but they have no meaning. Specifically, he said that orbits do not exist in nature. They acquire a meaning, or “exist” only when we observe the electron.

What gives a meaning to the clouds framing the horizon? With my glasses off, I cannot see the horizon but I know it is there. Or is it? As a parallel thought I wondered what gives a meaning to my desires. Is it the existence of another person? Another goal in life? Another path to my curiosity?

I looked at the page on my desk:  paradox, parapluie, Maya. Then I added uncertainty.

Put my glasses back on, and before I returned to my computer and the paper I was supposed to write, thought about all the electrons I cannot see and the quantum mechanics principles that I partly understand which made it possible to build a computer. Which gave a meaning to my moment. Which therefore exists.

Then remembered a line from Albert Camus “In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion."  I am glad I did.

November 1, 2013

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

I took this picture many years ago and I have only a tortured, damaged print of it. As I wrote this piece I wondered if the picture represented a single woman reflecting in another. I recall taking it at a circus show, hence the pony. Still, is it paradox or illusion?