Atop the Empire State Building

I think I'm really kinda getting ahead of myself in my desire for Spring to arrive. Leaving for lunch today, I put on my blue "FRANCE" t-shirt, a pair of blue jeans, and my favorite pair of flip-flops. Ten minutes later, with my lips looking like my t-shirt and my feet looking like stumps of ice, I decided that Mother Nature didn't care what I was ready for; the weather was gonna get warm when it damn-well-pleased - and if I wanted said luxury of warmth I could, as my mother would say, "stop walking around like a cowboy."

Stopped.

On a different note, the season of weddings (both this summer and in these, my 20s) is starting: Derek Slagle is engaged, which was decided atop the Empire State building. I think it's pretty clever to have your girlfriend at such a height when you pop the question. "No pressure."

For them, and wishes for their permanent joy, I post the following, which is one of my very favorite love poems:

"You loved me first: but afterwards your love" by Christina Rossetti

"I lov'd you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drown'd the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And yours one moment seem'd to wax more strong;
I lov'd and guess'd at you, you construed me--
And lov'd me for what might or might not be
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not "mine" or "thine;"
With separate "I" and "thou" free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of "thine that is not mine;"
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one. "


Congratulations, guys!

Otra Vez

I'm not sure anyone's reading this blog anymore - and I can't say I blame you. Although the idea of returning to it has come in and out of my mind lots of times, I didn't decide to add another post until about this very moment.

This past week I spent mostly traveling in between cities in Spain, and my travels took me to Madrid (where I saw La Guernica by Picasso - and it's one of the paintings I've seen that is better than I heard it would be), Toledo - which we toured so quickly, most of the conversations went like this:

"What does the book say this is?"
"A must-see monument"
"Wow - it is gorgeous, no?"
"Actually, it's the one behind you"
"Oh. Wow - it is gorgeous, no?"

Not so long later, we were on our way to Cordoba where we spent a night laughing more than I've laughed since I've been in Spain trading stories about the crazy things that have happened to us this year.

The next two days were full of warm sun and even better food in Sevilla, eating with Matt's coworkers and friends at little tapas bars near the city-center, sharing foods like eggplant in a tomato curry, chicken with bechamel sauce, and chicken in a sweet-raisin and almond sauce with french fries.

Back here in Burgos, I'm thinking right now about how thankful I am to have so many good people in my life. It's seems like everyone I've met here has a treasure of information about how to live life well.

Been to Salamanca

That´s right: last weekend found me in the really rather enchanting city of Salamanca. I´d try to put the picture of what it looked like to me into words, but previous attempts to do just that in anticpiation of this blog post have failed. I won´try again, lest I reduce what it looked like to something icky, like the bottom of a pool in winter.

What sticks out in my mind the most is the first morning after I arrived, I was having breakfast with Matt in this stacked-stone cafe with mahogany wood trim, and enjoying how the place made me feel like I was ensconsed atop some snow-peaked mountain when I started talking about all the things that had happened since we last spoke. Half-an-hour later, I had talked so much for so long, so quickly, I felt really, actually dizzy. Thinking back on the trip, the fact that I had so much to say to someone spreads light across the whole memory.

On a different note, I´m including a Rumi poem that I´ve been reading everyday without the law of diminishing returns having taken effect. It´s good.

_____________________________________________

"One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked.

A voice asked, 'Who is there?'He answered, 'It is I.'

The voice said, 'There is no room for Me and Thee.'

The door was shut.

After a year of solitude and deprivation he returned and knocked.

A voice from within asked, 'Who is there?'

The man said, 'It is Thee.

'The door was opened for him."

_____________________________________________

I´m sorry that I haven´t gotten back to some people with my address, but I include it here:

Rahim Manji

13 Avda de la Paz Piso: 3A

Burgos, Spain 09006

On Joy and Sorrow

I´ve been thinking so much while I´ve been here about Kahlil Gibran´s chapter on "Joy and Sorrow" from his book, The Prophet. In it, he says, "Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. "

I was with my boss, America, this past weekend walking around Burgos on a day that was so cold that one might be led to suspect that here was a place where even Santa Clause would lose his elves to frostbite. Round about two hours after walking in this city-sized igloo, we were ready to go back to America´s house for some coffee and and maybe a stint in a kiln. As I got off the elevator and rushed to open the door of her house, America held my arm and said, wide-eyed, "Rahim, waaaaaaaaait." She extended her arms above her head and told me, "It´s gonnnaaaa be waaaaaaaaaaarm." And I thought about Gibran: the cold which had moments ago been so burdensome had brought with it the opportunity to appreciate warmth.

Madre Mia!

So I managed to coerce the other lecturers into coming to learn salsa dancing with me at this little club called "Tribk" about 20 minutes from my house. I thought it would be fun, what with having been invited by my boss´ niece. And it was quite a lot of fun for the first couple of hours as everyone learned to move and spin just like you see on TV. 12:30 found me thinking that I just might keep this up as a permanent hobby. I´m not quite sure how it all changed around that same time, but all of a sudden, the dancers had been replaced by a small, square pleather ottoman over which was draped a young woman, covered by two not-as-young latin-american gentleman. And before the other lecturers and I could decided whether now was the time to call somebody, despite the fact the crowd was clapping, I had seen more than my mother would ever want me to....even after I get married.

It didn´t end there: one of the girls that was with us, a sweet young lady from the north of france, was abducted (yes, abducted) by these hoodlums (and this despite the fact that we had retreated to the furthest, darkest corner of the club) and danced on in front of the pulsing crowds. All she could say upon release was, "Madre mia. Madre mia."

Cutting a Spain Key

Three things:

I've been thinking quite a lot since I've been here on just how we change as we accummulate life experiences, and I've come to think that experiencing new things is quite a lot like making a new key-hole in the door of your personality. The proposition comes alive for me when I remember how my mom is able to talk to any British expatriate about her years in London, or how Matt lights up when somebody in a three-hundred mile radius talks about Machu Pichu, or how Jennifer can still recall near-perfectly everything she loved about Stonehenge to anyone with anything close to a foreign accent. And so, I've been thinking quite a lot about how delicious it is that our life experiences enable us so many locks to fit people's keys.

On a different note, I managed to get yelled at while trying to buy a Spanish-verb book at the bookstore because the woman couldn't understand me. I couldn't help but register the irony that, had I the book already, I just may have been able to explain to her what I needed.....

Lastly, I wanted to include a snippet from Virginia Woolf's book, "To the Lighthouse" which I've been reading with appetite (thanks to Mark Luprecht). I think the following quote is perhaps the best contemplation on the experience of time I've ever read in my entire life: "With her foot on the threshold she waited a moment longer in a scene which was vanishing even as she looked, and then, as she moved and took Minta's arm and left the room, it changed, shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past."