My first stop last summer traveling with my daughters in
Turkey and Greece was the Roman ruins of Ephesus. We came in straight off a
red-eye from Beijing into Istanbul, changed planes and flew to Izmir. From there we cabbed it over to the nearby town of Selcuk, still
early in the day. I’d secured a load of new music for the trip.
New music listened to in a new location fuses somehow and is stored in the brain differently than music you listen to in a familiar location. Then, forever when you listen you ignite an aural memory of that place.
I got the front seat with the pleasant Izmiry driver, who
didn't quite understand how I could be an American from Beijing. Outside the summer sun and barren, scrub hills off to each
side that remind one of California. The girls crashed out and I enjoyed the music of Gusatvo Ceradi who hails from Argentina and presumably
also knows a thing or two about barren scrub hills. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Cerati This, his solo release from 1999 entitled “Bocando.” It seemed an appropriately optimistic way orchestrate an
initial encounter with Turkey.
We arrived
mid-morning. The hotel room wasn't ready
and the proprietress, a lovely woman, sent us around the corner to have a look
at the local mosque, the Isa Bey:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0sa_Bey_Mosque
Our travel callouses were not yet hardened when a pleasant
older man approached and introduced himself as the imam. Explaining that he
too, was a father, the girls punned that he was in fact an “im-dad.” Irreverent
punning gives me great hope for the next generation. He showed us around and later wrote out my
daughter’s names in Arabic. And as folks
do, the imam pointed out that he was also the owner of a small stall. After a lovely tour about, where he pointed
out that this group and that group and this
group too, who looked as though they were from the Paramus Mall, were all in
fact from Iran, he showed us his wares.
There many lovely tiles with Arabic script upon them: one
for "strength", one for "wealth" etc., and at some point he
pointed to one and said "Sabr" صبر,
"patience". My girls jumped on
it and said "get that for you and momma!" “What? But that was mom’s fault.” Just kidding. Indeed. Guilty, as charged, I bought it.
And it sits now on a table by the Bose speaker in the living room, where
it will hopefully "inshala"
do us all a bit of good.
I’ve already referred to it more than once when
things got hot and sabr was wanting. Sabr,
somehow, is always wanting, I’m afraid. Patience, the virtue, is the
counterpoint to the deadly sin anger, the second chapter and first sin explored
in the Seven Deadly Starbucks. Anger is set in Beijing, rising up like a
bubble to explode. I’m angry, China’s angry, and at home, in the
street, navigating otherness in particular, it is easy to feel its 忍无可忍[1]. The im-dad probably gets angry too. “Hey,
you broke my tile.”
I feel the fall air ride up my nose and fill my
lungs May we all cultivate great reserves of sabr.
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