I was born an immigrant and lived in three countries as
an immigrant even when I was a citizen. I lived in the Arabian Desert for a
while, and now in the high desert of Arizona. My professional work took me to
four continents and I learned enough languages to feel at home in every place I
visited.
The decades of travel across and through time and space seemed
a forward path to me. But now time seems to have curved, and I think more about
a circle than a straight line. Specifically, about closing that circle.
And in this state of mind, the nagging question of
“returning” surfaces at every step. Specifically “returning home”. It is nagging because for an immigrant, “home”
is an escape to identity.
… Returning home. It is an emotional pursuit that goes back
to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus (535 BC – 475 BC) who proposed
that while change is central to the universe, that there was a fundamental
order to that change. He called it Logos (λόγος). But in the Western
philosophy, it is one of his statements, as quoted by Plato, which has had the most
impact. It is:
“You
could not step twice into the same river.”
Why? Because a river is defined by its waters and with the
flow of the waters it is not the same river again. And more, you are not the
same person again.
… Returning home. The philosophy of Heraclitus may be best
translated in our times by Thomas Wolfe who titled his book "Don't you know you can't go home again?”
While it may be said that since most
rivers reach a sea or an ocean, they do indeed go home. That the ocean is the
home of the river. That every drop of rain that falls upon the waters of a
river eventually goes home to the sea. That the clouds are never home to rain
drops. But when it comes to us humans, Wolfe says:
"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your
childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back
home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things
which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home
to the escapes of Time and Memory."
…Returning home. As a kid I was told the story of a girl
called Mytyl and her brother Tyltyl. They wanted to look for happiness,
represented by The Blue Bird of Happiness. A good fairy named Bérylune helped them in
their search. After spending a lifetime seeking happiness in vain, Myrtyl and
Tyltyl return home in old age. And to their surprise, the Blue Bird of
Happiness was perched on a tree behind their childhood home.
Belgian author Maurice Maeterlinck wrote The Blue Bird
(L'Oiseau Bleu) in 1908 as a play and my father told me the story, many times over,
when I was a child. It was the story of a blue bird then, and my father always
ended it by saying “one day you will understand about that bird.”
I do today.
…Returning home. Is it always to the Blue Bird of Happiness?
Staying within the avian metaphor, the saying “Till the chickens come home to
roost” has an interesting origin. I learned that it was a motto on the title
page of Robert Southey's poem The Curse of Kehama, published in 1810 and it
reads:
"Curses are like
young chicken: they always come home to roost."
…Years later I told the story of the Blue Bird of Happiness
to our children but they belonged to an era when Hannah Montana was their idol.
In the movie of the same name, Miley Cyrus sang "You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home". It was a hopeful message
and our kids grew up believing that one always goes back to one’s roots and
identity.
Will they?
…Returning home. Perhaps the most eloquent statement is by
the Persian philosopher and Sufi mystic Rūmī who admitted:
“It may be that the
satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I have gone and come
back, I’ll find it at home.”
The “satisfaction I need”. Is that what we search for when
our straight path through time starts shaping like a curve? Like a circle? Is
the satisfaction to be found in closing that circle? By going home? Is home a
place? A person? A history?
…Or, Heraclitus, Rūmī , Wolfe and Maeterlinck may all be
wrong or misguided. Perhaps one should find the ultimate comfort in the words
of Zorba, the immortal character created by Nikos Kazantzakis who from
Heraklion, Crete, gave my generation the epicurean optimism for those who did
not know where was home. The optimism of Zorba shaped my teenage years as I
reread Kazantzakis’s works endless times, and still keep a VCR tape of the 1964
B&W movie by Michael Cacoyannis “Zorba the Greek” for moments when I
need to watch it again.
The last scene of the movie shows Zorba and his boss on the island’s
beach after losing loved ones to local customs and failing to start a new logging
industry. They had failed in every attempt and lost what they had. It was time
for his boss to go back to England, to go home to his books. Between two mouthfuls of roasted lamb and a
gulp of red wine Zorba looks him in his boss’s eyes and says:
“A man needs a little
madness or else he would never cut the rope and be free.”
And his boss, a stoic Englishman suddenly relaxes, loosens
his tie, takes his jacket off and replies:
“Would you teach me to
dance?”
…Perhaps the circle is just an illusion. One only needs to learn
to dance like Zorba.
August 30, 2015
©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2015
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