52. "Things I Didn't Know I Loved" by Nâzim Hikmet

A poem today, one that Mark Doty mentioned yesterday in our workshop (a new session just begun) in response to the poem I offered up for critique. 

Nâzim Hikmet (1902–1963) is considered the first modern Turkish poet, with his interests in Futurism and avant-garde free verse. Raised in Istanbul by a Turkish father and German-Polish-French-Georgian mother, he shifted back and forth between Turkey (some of that time spent in jail for his radical politics) and the Soviet Union and Eastern Block, leaving Turkey for the final time in 1951. He died in Moscow in 1963. (The photo here is from 1956.)

(As a side note, His poem "Kız Çocuğu," or "The Girl Child," also known as "I Come and Stand at Every Door," "I Unseen," and "Hiroshima Girl," conveys a plea for peace by a seven-year-old girl, ten years after she perished in the atomic bomb attacks on Japan. It is the basis for an antiwar song that has been recorded variously by Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and the Byrds.) 

Things I Didn't Know I Loved

it's 1962 March 28th

I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train

night is falling

I never knew I liked

night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain

I don't like

comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn't know I loved the earth

can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it 

I've never worked the earth

it must be my only Platonic love

and here I've loved rivers all this time

whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills

European hills crowned with chateaux

or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see

I know you can't wash in the same river even once

I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see

I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow

I know this has troubled people before

     and will trouble those after me

I know all this has been said a thousand times before

     and will be said after me

I didn't know I loved the sky

cloudy or clear

the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino

in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish

I hear voices

not from the blue vault but from the yard

the guards are beating someone again

I didn't know I loved trees

bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino

they come upon me in winter noble and modest

beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish

"the poplars of Izmir

losing their leaves . . .

they call me The Knife  . . .

     lover like a young tree . . .

I blow stately mansions sky-high"

in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief

        to a pine bough for luck

I never knew I loved roads

even the asphalt kind

Vera's behind the wheel we're driving from Moscow to the Crimea

             Koktebele

       formerly "Goktepé ili" in Turkish

the two of us inside a closed box

the world flows past on both sides distant and mute

I was never so close to anyone in my life

bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Geredé

         when I was eighteen

apart from my life I didn't have anything in the wagon they could take

and at eighteen our lives are what we value least

I've written this somewhere before

wading through a dark muddy street I'm going to the shadow play

Ramazan night

a paper lantern leading the way

maybe nothing like this ever happened

maybe I read it somewhere and eight-year-old boy

         going to the shadow play

Ramazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather's hand

 his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat

  with a sable collar over his robe

 and there's a lantern in the servant's hand

 and I can't contain myself for joy

flowers come to mind for some reason

poppies cactuses jonquils

in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika

fresh almonds on her breath

I was seventeen

my heart on a swing touched the sky

I didn't know I loved flowers

friends sent me three red carnations in prison

I just remembered the stars

I love them too

whether I'm floored watching them from below

or whether I'm flying at their side

I have some questions for the cosmonauts

were the stars much bigger

did they look like huge jewels on black velvet

      or apricots on orange

did you feel proud to get closer to the stars

I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don't

 be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract

 well some of them looked just like such paintings which try to

 say they are terribly figurative and concrete

my heart was in my mouth looking at them

they are our endless desire to grasp things

seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad

I never knew I loved the cosmos

snow flashes in front of my eyes

both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind

I didn't know I liked snow

I never knew I loved the sun

even when setting cherry-red as now

in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors

but you aren't about to paint it that way

I didn't know I loved the sea

      except the Sea of Azov

or how much

I didn't know I loved clouds

whether I'm under or up above them

whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts

moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois

strikes me

I like it

I didn't know I liked rain

whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my

 heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop

 and takes off for uncharted countries I didn't know I loved

 rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting

 by the window on the Prague-Berlin train

is it because I lit my sixth cigarette 

one alone could kill me

is it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow

her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue

the train plunges on through the pitch-black night

I never knew I liked the night pitch-black

sparks fly from the engine

I didn't know I loved sparks

I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty

 to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train

 watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return

            19 April 1962

            Moscow

51. Time capsule

This evening we watched the second episode of the newest season of the Great British Baking Show, with a focus on biscuits (i.e., cookies). The showstopper involved creating a time capsule plus five self-defining things to plant in said capsule. Many of the bakers included dogs (we all love our dogs!); there was a fish for enjoying fishing; one woman had a marvelous articulated figure of herself on the GBBS; another included a portrait of her parents, back in Sri Lanka. 

Which got me to thinking about what I might include. 

Milo—of course: we all love our dogs!

a pair of hiking boots—for my love of climbing, mountaineering, hiking, walking 

a book—for my career as an editor, for my love of reading

an airplane—for all the travel I've done, most of it by plane

I'm not sure about number 5, though. 

What do I love? It's a real question.

I asked David what his five would be, and he began with Milo (of course!), on to music and math, then for his fifth he went for a heart—a heart for his love for me. Um, no. Maybe a heart for being alive and, hopefully, appreciating that fact. But for me? 

Sure, sure, sure, we're each other's helpmeet, support, partner, love. But it feels somehow trivializing to try to render all that as an object in a time capsule. Plus, what does the fact that we're each other's spouse really say about us? (Okay, I suppose you could say the same of putting Milo as number 1. But then again, maybe Milo represents something bigger, that is also encompassed by a heart: love, caring, our capacity for connection and devotion.)

Okay, I've given it two seconds of thought, and I think my number 5 will be a cloud. A cloud for beauty, for life-giving rain and blanketing snow, for evanescence, for the hugeness of the sky, for the cooling shadow that's created when the sun moves behind a cloud on a hot day, for all the creatures and stories we find in clouds when lying on our back on a hot slab of granite letting our imagination fly, for this amazing earth without which I wouldn't exist. 

Though like a cloud, I might change (my mind) entirely if I ever actually have to do anything as taxing as plant five tokens of my self in anything as optimistic as a time capsule.

50. Brian Eno, artist

As I cooked dinner this evening (savory greens in phyllo), I listened to the Ezra Klein podcast—something I have not been doing lately because (a) I've been traveling and haven't been listening to any podcasts and, more relevantly, (b) I have been needing a break from political programming, including Ezra, who is sounding more and more conciliatory lately, and that troubles me. Apparently others feel similarly, because he said he's getting "email from a lot of you saying: Can we do a show that’s off the news? Can one show not be on the grim march of events?" 

And so he offered us a delightful conversation with the "sonic technician," music producer (Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, U2, David Bowie), and philosopher Brian Eno. Here it is, if you are interested. Me, I'm sure I'll be listening to it again.

I have of course heard of Brian Eno, mainly, I suppose, because of Talking Heads, and as a collaborator with David Byrne on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981). (Here is an interesting story about an unwitting act of appropriation on that album, of a Lebanese artist's music.) More recently, I sometimes use his set of prompt cards, "Oblique Strategies," aka "Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas." (The link here is to an online version, for a taste, but I think the physical cards are more satisfying.)

Their conversation went all sorts of places, but one part I liked—which was sort of about the "collaboration" between maker and consumer of art—concerned the work Eno reckons he's best known for, an album of ambient music called Music for Airports from 1978. Klein zeroes in on the second track, "2/1," asking Eno about music as a "cultivator of different forms of attention." 

As I looked a little more into Eno, I ran across someone saying that when his dog died, he spent some time every day for a year listening to the album Thursday Afternoon, and the comments are all something along the lines of "I've done some of my most productive work on this planet to this" and "On some rainy days I brew myself a cup of cardamom coffee, turn on this video and read a book about Astronomy for a while. Always improves my mood" and "You don’t find this album, it finds you when you need it the most." 

I have just dipped a teaspoon into the sea that is Brian Eno, and I am looking forward to learning (hearing) more. Reading, too: he recently released a new book, What Art Does: An Unfinished Theory. 

Here he is playing the tune "By This River" with his brother Roger at the Acropolis:

I also was taken with the books and records he offered at the end of the interview with Ezra:

Printing and the Mind of Man, a British Museum exhibition catalog from 1963 (this will need to be a concept piece in my mind, but I do love the concept)
A Pattern Language by the architect Christopher Alexander
Naples '44 by Norman Lewis

and for music that has influenced him:

The Rural Blues, a 1960 Folkways release
the Velvet Underground's self-titled third album, with the song "Pale Blue Eyes"
the Consolers, an old-school husband-wife gospel duo (here is their song "Lord Bring Me Down")

I so enjoy intelligent, wide-ranging, eclectic chat about the stuff that makes life interesting and important. This was one of those conversations. 

49. KL + WA: the recap

As I do, I posted a daily array of photos from our recent trip to Kuala Lumpur and Western Australia on Facebook. And as I also have learned to do, I provide links here. I enjoy going back and revisiting. Even now, although I've just returned (yesterday), I am finding it challenging to recall a few of our stops with clarity—they begin to run together. So I'm glad for the photo reminders. (Click on the links to go to FB and see all the photos I posted for any given day, complete with captions—just click on the individual pictures.)

9/12 Travel day: SFO-HKG-KUL
9/13 Arrival in Kuala Lumpur

KL is a colorful, cultural place

9/14 First full day in KL

A beer break at the restaurant next door
to our hotel

9/15 Walkabout through Bukit Bintang

It's a neighborhood of murals

9/16 Bird Park, National Mosque, and the reason we were in KL, David's Test of Time Award

Being presented with his award

9/17 Batu Caves and a last walk through KL, followed by the conference banquet

Our restaurant host had mentioned 2,000
maybe 3,000 steps—fortunately, there were
only 270-some

9/18 Onward to Western Australia

9/19 A day out in Perth

A view from Kings Park and its marvelous botanical gardens

9/20 Long driving day north to Kalbarri on the coast of the Indian Ocean

Our first kangaroos! At the Pinnacles,
Nambung National Park

9/21 A day around Kalbarri

The shoreline part of Kalbarri National Park

9/22 Driving to Coorow

A good day of wildflowers

9/23 And on to Dalwallinu, via a place called Camel Soak

This was a bit of a detour, but worth it—a place built by
the men constructing the rabbit-proof fence in the early 1900s

9/24 To Toodyay

Got a good eyeful of orchids here

9/25 On to York

The wheatbelt with its primary colors

9/26 And another long drive, south to Bremer Bay on the Southern Ocean

A 50-km long string of shallow lakes, Grace Lakes

9/27 A day in and around Bremer Bay, including Fitzgerald River National Park

Royal hakeas and a few lovely banksias

9/28 And on to the town of Albany for a few days

Our eclectic B&B, hosted by a twinkly-eyed gent named Craig

9/29 Met up with a friend we met 20 years ago in Costa Rica, Keith, and his wife, Carolyn

The four of us

9/30 A wander day—no driving!

Craig had recommended the botanical illustrations of 
a local artist named Maxine Holman, who started painting at
age 63; she's now in her 80s. She does birds too.

10/1 On to our last stop, Margaret River

Visited the giant tingle trees

10/2 A day of caves and karri forest

Mammoth Cave, self-guided with headsets

10/3 One last driving day, back to Perth and our flights home

Stopped at the Art Gallery of Western Australia

10/4 Eight-hour layover in Tokyo's Narita Airport

This cat epitomized the consumerist excess

And journey done! Now, back to real life. I think I'm ready.

48. Travel

I am presently in Kuala Lumpur. No guidebook, no strong idea of what is here. I am a bad tourist, for sure. But somehow we've gotten out and enjoyed ourselves the past couple of days—failing repeatedly to get on the Hop On Hop Off tourist bus, mostly because of crowds (it's a four-day national holiday), which means we've been walking. Just walking, just looking around. Occasionally stopping to take a photo or get something to drink. The city feels quite intimate, really—despite the bustle. Today, we'll try for the bus again, maybe hop off at the Bird Park and the National Mosque. Not too much.

Yesterday I came across this post on FB, which resonated (click on it to read it):

And then just now in my inbox, a poem by George Bilgere, which is somewhat in the same vein:

Once Again I Fail to Read an Important Novel

Instead, we sit together beside the fountain,
the important novel and I.

We are having coffee together
in that quiet first hour of the morning,
respecting each other’s silences
in the shadow of an important old building
in this small but significant European city.

All the characters can relax.
I’m giving them the day off.
For once they can forget about their problems—
desire, betrayal, the fatal denouement—
and just sit peacefully beside me.

In the afternoon,
at lunch near the cathedral,
and in the evening, after my lonely,
historical walk along the promenade,

the men and women, the children
and even the dogs
in the important, complicated novel
have nothing to fear from me.

We will sit quietly at the table
with a glass of cool red wine
and listen to the pigeons
questioning each other in the ancient corridors.

I'm more interested in sipping wine and listening to the pigeons than in cramming it all in. It's still all of it, in any given moment, no matter what we're doing.

And to close—speaking of being randomly in the right place at the right time—check out this fabulous flash mob performance in, yes, Paris. Oh to have been wandering through that square at just that moment!

47. A few days before our big trip

I typically get anxious before a big trip, but not this time. (So far.) Today I had two chores on my radar: clean off the card table in the living room (done) and go to REI to shop for a pair of pants (done) and return a bear vault—the smallest model, it's not allowed in the Yosemite backcountry because bears have been known to pick them up in their jaws and carry them away (also done: $78 refund, baby). 

I keep thinking: I've got all the bookings—airport shuttle, flights, hotels, car—printed out and in my blue plastic folder; I've got my passport. I've even got 40 colorful Australian dollars, from a long-ago trip. What more do I need? Even if I somehow lost my suitcase, I could pick up whatever I lacked in Kuala Lumpur—which surely is a shopping mecca? 

Tomorrow I may clean out the fridge. Put away the jigsaw puzzle that's been sitting on my desk for months. (One of our housesitters came by yesterday for "the tour," and he noted the puzzle with interest. So maybe they're into jigsaws. I'll get the place ready for them in that regard.) Do some dusting. (Dusting is one thing we're pretty bad at, generally. Oh! Look at the huge pile of insect corpses under those lovely floaty webs! I will be investigating all the corners tomorrow.) Vacuum.

The housesitter who came by, Josh, didn't flinch at the "lived-in" look of our house. So whatever cleaning up I do will probably be more for me than for him and his wife. Something I'd like to come home to.

I don't enjoy the travel part of travel. (That is, I don't like being in-transit. I love being wherever I'm going.) This upcoming in-transit day will be very, very long—and I'm too cheap to spring for business class. I don't get on an airplane to be comfortable. Maybe one day before I die, though, if I still have any money left (a dubious notion in this country at this time), I'll book a luxury flight to... somewhere. The last place on my list, maybe. 

What would that be? What is my list? It's certainly changed over the years, as I've checked places off and as my boundaries have shrunk. Because yeah, I find that as I age, I'm less adventurous. I hate that. I'm glad Kuala Lumpur jumped into my face and yelled, Come to me! And then nudged me into continuing on to Western Australia—which I visited some thirty years ago, but that was on a tour, and this time we're winging it. Wheeee!

What is my list? What places would I still love to visit?

New Orleans
Prague
Spain
Greece
Tasmania (this would be a good destination for that first-class booking)
South Africa and the Western Cape (ditto)
Namibia (again; and again ditto)
Berlin
Japan (again: I lived in Japan in 1965, and in 1982 David and I spent two and a half months there on our honeymoon; I bet it's changed and hasn't, both)
the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and also Quebec (both Quebec City and Montreal)

There's still some exploring to do. And I'm not getting any younger. These ten places, before I die. It's a mission.

9/12/26 I have now crossed Berlin off the list. And I forgot that Brazil's Pantanal should have been on the list, but it has now also been crossed off. I'll get these!

46. Favorite movies

Every so often, I google "long-term apartment rentals in ______"—typically some locality in Europe, because anywhere in Europe is surrounded by Europe, meaning travel opportunities; plus, I more or less can get by in some of the European languages. Tonight the winning city was Bruges, Belgium, where I found small but cozy flats in the €1,000 range. I could afford that. Why Bruges? Because it's a charming city, the climate might be not quite so hot in summer as southern France, I can speak some Flemish, and... why not? In any case, it's important to dream. 

That brought to mind the movie In Bruges, which is one of my all-time favorites. And that got me to thinking about other all-time favorites. So here's an off-the-cuff list, just because. (Not in any particular order. The numbers are meaningless, but I feel they're needed for "a list.")

And need I say: "all-time favorite" doesn't necessarily mean a masterpiece. It's just something that if I were stranded on a desert island (with electricity and a TV) I could watch over and over and over and, yes, over again. I have certainly done that already with all of these.

(I did have a little help, after I got to #9, from the iMDB list of the Top 250 movies. The rankings below reflect that list, which also explains the order of titles after #9. But then occasionally another favorite title, one not in the list, would hit me, disrupting the flow.)

1. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
2. Strictly Ballroom
3. Wings of Desire
4. Dirty Dancing
5. Looper
6. African Queen
7. The Music Man (I like to sing along)
8. The Matrix (#16)
9. Rashomon (#169)
10. The Usual Suspects (#48)
11. WALL-E (#56)
12. Singin' in the Rain (if only for the title-song scene) (#89)
13. North by Northwest (#105)
14. Die Hard (#115)
15. Mad Max: Fury Road (#184)
16. Perfect Days 
17. The Great Escape (#159)
18. Bridge over the River Kwai (#174)
19. Fargo (#177)
20. The Sound of Music (again, to sing along) (#229)
21. The Wizard of Oz—of course (#234)
22. Back to the Future (#30)
23. Se7en (#20)
24. Casablanca (#45)
25. Diva

Btw, the iMDB rankings are calculated thus:

• The list is ranked by a formula which includes the number of ratings each movie received from users, and value of ratings received from regular users
• To be included on the list, a movie must receive ratings from at least 25000 users

As you may have noted, many of my favorites that came straight out of my head, not from a list, are not on said list. I'm not sure what that means. If anything. But it definitely makes me wonder what other favorite movies just aren't popping into my mind. I'll add any that do.