Indeterminism

And I observed what could have been when I was distracted by the desire for discovery. On a snowy evening, I fell upon the veil I had avoided finding. It was unhidden, perhaps in await, yet calm. Neither cold nor warm, it was a veil of predictability.

… Observing my passage through time and people’s expectations, my own fantasies have given me the peace of accepting. “There are no mysteries”, I often told myself “just our inability to lift a corner of that veil.” Because we avoid the veil in fear that we could indeed lift its corner. Not because we do not know where that veil patiently awaits for us.

It is not fear of discovery, therefore, that stops us from acting upon the impulse of wanting to know what is beyond. For the veil is not the curtain in a theater, nor it is the stage itself.  Instead, it is the comfort of the predictable that makes us lovers and warriors, jealous and indiscreet, even indifferent.  For the predictable has a past, hence a future, and we are at our best along a continuum.

What we learn from our observation of what could have been, is that what is beyond that continuum is the very continuum itself. So why discover the predictable that builds upon what one already knows?

… Observing my passage taught me about the very path upon where countless others had left a print, dropped a tear, stole a kiss, and continued. A passage needs a path, and there, some had seen the veil, neither cold nor warm, during a sunset or on rainy days. Yet, many had not lifted a corner; they had not peeped through. They just continued, for the continuum is where we find our predictability.

All mysteries disappear when we feel at peace with discomfort.  When our continuum gets interrupted by observations of expectations, and they make these expectations real. When drops of tears left behind by those who did not lift the veil become a promise in need of action. That is when we interrupt our continuum and become less than predictable.

We become curious, lonely and disappointed.

We become part of the veil.

December 29, 2013

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2103

The Comfort of Old Slippers

It is to know that you will come back to old slippers and to that curve in the bed that makes you wonder how it feels to run barefoot again, upon hot asphalt streets.  The sunsets you missed holding a child to your breast make your breast the color of sunsets you would like to see, there in the mountains where the air is different.  And you run your finger over the lip of the cup, while remembering that you have not touched a trembling lip since the last time you did. 

It is to fancy the smell of garlic jumping in cold pressed hot olive oil, for it makes you recall the dusty roads shaded by pine trees.  For now, it is to accept that cities of stone cannot grow a secret garden.  A city where unshaved men have a story to tell and women of no age have time to listen to stories since they lost theirs. 

And you hide in your coat, as you want to keep the name you once had given to the one who told you he would be back.  Yet, you missed the sunsets, and you missed the early morning fog on summer days.  For you did believe that he would come back. You just remained where you had left him go.

It is the blond kids of Gottingen who run in your open mind.  And the Henna upon deep eyes reminds you of a girl you knew.  The wine is stronger now because you are not as free; and it takes a Gypsy violin serenade to cloud your eyes.  And you look in those clouds, and look through them, as you did during the walk you walked in Prague, near the Danube, of the winter angry.  You wore red shoes on that day, while a proud woman tried to sell you the two heads of cabbage and four sugar beets she had harvested from the piece of land she called her garden. Yet that land was not hers, and that land was hardly larger than the scarf you were wearing, that winter day, near the Danube.  And you walked away in your red shoes.

It is now simple, and it is past already.  Your return is to a place you never left before, because you can leave only yourself behind.  Your comfort is to throw the old slippers out of the windows upon which you once hung curtains of Egyptian cotton to remind you of places you did not visit.  And you prepare a dish from a recipe your mother did not teach you.  And you eat alone.

… It is then that through the curtains you once hung that you see a sunset of pleasant colors.  A few pastel shades upon your bedroom wall, and the sun disappears behind the walls of stone where unshaved men have a story to tell.  It is then that you touch your breasts and it feels good.  The smell of golden garlic in Moroccan olive oil reminds you of the places you do not want to visit anymore.  And you approach the window, look upon the street where you threw the old slippers.

It is the joy of walking barefoot on that street that makes you smile.  And you pick up the old slippers, dust the day off of them, and walk back.  It is the comfort of that curve in the bed that brings you back.  And you smile again, because now you know you can watch another sunset tomorrow.  A sunset upon your secret garden.

December 19, 2013

© Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Intemperence

The thin dampness of a stone, upon which I reposed my head, made me smile today.  It was not the thought of a cuddled name, nor was it the share of the theatrical life we lead.  No.  I was aloof unto myself, as sunsets help me to celebrate, upon that stone where I lowered my front.  There I met the tremors which had escaped me, and I called them home.

I stressed a grin in resignation and undertook the simplest road to the troubled bay, hoping it would remind me of a distant blue sea.  It did not.  Yet, in the silly tempest of ordinary things, I learned how to meet the whirling of goodbyes.

The purpose of each day is not to survive them.  The ennui of protracted benevolence to the slow passage of pleasures is the fear of having them.  It is folly, or at least untimely entrapment, to forego the colors and richness of sunsets without a poem to share.  And the fires of verse cannot hold your heart for long without the depth of brown eyes, near the troubled bay where you bathe your chaste tremors, and let them escape you.

You will let your heart forget its cunning but you will not share it with the Muse asking to bathe in the froth of your day. Friend, let her play your harp, let her sound your lyre, let her fall in those pleasant places where you hide your anti-self.  Sorrow is silent only when you know her; till then, sorrow is pain and pleasure, and distractingly so.  Let her play your harp, all anguish ends in intercourse with yourself.

… The thin dampness of a stone, upon which I had a dream, reminded me of the frivoly all quarrels eventually display.  And I imposed, in a fateful way, my verse upon her memory, as if the sweep of my fear from lonesome eyes, at sunset.

December 11, 2013

©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Zayy El A'assfura

Muddy, black shoes on the carpet

The room still acrid of Gitane smoke

Folly in age, or fury perhaps

For the feel of a lazy noon

And the balm of a dusty summer rain

           Boats do not dream of ports

           Nor of times in distance lost

           But of an old deluge, now a tremolo

           Shy, as dressed in tender thoughts only

           Awaiting that tremor of silent mornings

           Free of dew and yet untouched by frost

                 The black shoes are still on the carpet

                 As unrushed, I watch an old port city wake up to the taste

                 Of a name, that like a bird on a weak pine tree branch

                 Rests, without malice

                 Upon a pale moment of grace

                                                                              December 10, 2013

© Vahé Kazandjian, 2013

Absolutely Relative

“Learn what people take for granted before you meet them. Never challenge these deep beliefs the first time you meet. All is relative to people in time and place. Do not propose standards.”

I was a junior health care professional on my way to my first international assignment. That was my advisor’s response to my “What should I know about where I am going?” Many decades later, I somehow think that I made that advice a practical road-map during my vagabondage around the globe.

What people take for granted is what builds their expectations. Unreasonable expectations are never unreasonable to those who believe they deserve what they expect. Many expectations are reasonable when there is no absolute value about what a person or a group can expect from life. About life.  About how they compare to others.

These are thoughts I had when reading an article on psychological research during WW II which stated that the term “relative deprivation” originated during that period of conflict.  It is now a solidly anchored concept when psychologists and sociologists try to interpret or even predict behavioral change. When dealing with groups and societies, it is proposed that it is the perceived relative deprivation that leads to action for social change when people want to have or forcefully acquire what others have. Because they believe they should have it too.

As a health care professional, my experience equates relative deprivation with “lack of access to and receipt of good medical care.” That is what I have tried to promote or support since my advisor said “learn what people take for granted.”  Indeed, what do people take for granted regarding their ability to get good care?

In every corner of our round world I have heard the same argument “People should have the same basic care available to them. If they need more, they should pay for it.” Is this what people take for granted? Will they experience relative deprivation if they do not? How come we do not have patient revolutions where patients of all ailments and maladies unite and ask for access to good care? Is it because they are too sick to do so? Or will that be the case of “absolute deprivation”, a state of poverty in health more than in wealth? After all these two statuses are correlated.

Or perhaps people take for granted that they are supposed to suffer more than others, and accept it? Is that possible?

…“The rate of suicide is higher in richer countries than in poorer ones” the article reported.

I stopped again and looked out of the window. A rainy day. But I do have a roof above me and it is not leaking. I do have the luxury to read an article, for my dog to take me on walks. Am I at a higher risk for suicide than one with a leaky roof? Even if my roof is not leaking, it is just an ordinary roof. Should I compare it to the roofs of those who have them in slate, cedar wood, bronze or even gold?

The answer seems to be again in the term “relative”. The argument is that disadvantaged populations within a richer country see a bigger gap to overcome than those in poorer countries. And that state of despair leads to suicide more often. The thesis is that when everyone is poor there is less discontent or the sense of deprivation, hence less suicide. So if the world were divided into populations with “absolute deprivation” and those with “absolute non-deprivation”, there would be less tension, conflict, war, suicide and perhaps even more health and joy!  People would then take only relative things for granted!

As far as theory goes, I could understand it. But that is not our world anymore.Geography itself has become a relative term. Even virtual.

.. It was still raining when I put down the journal and thought about the importance of everyone having the basic health care, facing narrower gaps, and how any new idea should first consider what the recipients take for granted.

Then I invited my dog to go for a walk. He looked outside, listened to the rain, and ignored my invitation. So I took my umbrella and went out for a walk alone.

December 5, 2013

© Vahé Kazandjian, 2013