Mano a Mano with Mother Time

A couple of days ago I got news from France that a friend I have known since the mid-1970s, had passed.

We last met in Paris. After a short walk, we sat at his favorite café trottoir on the 6^ème, “Les Deux Magots”, for a beer.

He took out what looked like a tree branch from his side bag, and filled it with tobacco.

“It is a pipe from the 1940s” he said. “Made in Vienna from Austrian cherry wood. They call it “Weichsel”. Tobacco tastes better when burning in a cherry wood pipe from the shores of the Danube.”

To my surprised look, he added “It is like the antique cameras you use – its part of history you hold in your hands.”

“Talking about history” I replied, “it has been 35 years since we played soccer near the Mediterranean sea. And we still enjoy being different!”

He puffed on his pipe and said:

“Yes, we have always enjoyed being different. And we took many a journey just to prove that we are explorers of sorts, just for the joy of the journey, no?”

“Yes, but  sometimes these journeys took us to unexpected endings.”

“Sure” he whispered with the huge pipe in his jaw. “Yet, we took the journeys without worrying about expectations or outcomes. We did it just to enjoy the journey.”

“Do you still do that?” I inquired.

He was pensive for a moment and his face veiled by the tobacco smoke.

“I think we now have one more journey, but this time the outcome is known” he proposed.

“Yes?”

“It has always been mano a mano, my friend. Sometimes we got a second chance and we continued. We always did! But now, we are faced with a fight where there are no second chances, and the outcome is known. It is the mano a mano with Mother Time. You know she will win, but we cannot give up the fight. Perhaps because the journey is still what boils our blood.”

 

… This morning I recalled that last meeting although I could not recall the year. But I remembered that I took a few photos during our walk. And that his Austrian cherry wood pipe attracted many looks by patrons of the café trottoir.

Then, realising how futile his statement “we always did” sounded now, I thought about a poem Pablo Neruda wrote in 1955, that seemed to address the issues of personal history, time and the hope for second chances.

Here is the poem in Spanish titled “Siempre”

Antes de mí
no tengo celos.

Ven con un hombre
a la espalda,
ven con cien hombres en tu cabellera,
ven con mil hombres entre tu pecho y tus pies,
ven como un río
lleno de ahogados
que encuentra el mar furioso,
la espuma eterna, el tiempo!

Tráelos todos
adonde yo te espero:
siempre estaremos solos,
siempre estaremos tú y yo
solos sobre la tierra,
para comenzar la vida!

 

And a translation by Brian Cole (https://allpoetry.com/poem/8496855-Always-by-Pablo-Neruda)

 

 

Always

I am not jealous
of what came before me.

Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!

Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth,
to start our life!

 

And we never refused to ride that surf, no matter how rough were the seas.

January 24, 2025

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025

 

PS/ I went searching for those photos I took that day with my “antique” Mamiya 645 1000. I had scanned a couple of them. The one I chose to include suddenly had a new meaning – reminded of my friend, his journeys, and his final surf. And, now I know that our last meeting was in 2009.