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Hewn from a single slab of limestone, such sculptures have the head of a man, the wings of an eagle and the hulking body of a bull or a lion. Endowed with the best qualities of each of their three species, they represent anthropoid intelligence, avian insight, and taurine or leonine strength.
Epic of Gilgamesh.
Heart, liver, stomach, lungs, neck, eyes, soul…It is as if love, by its fluid nature, its riverine force, is all about the melding of markers, to the extent that you can no longer tell where your being ends and another’s begins.
Grown-ups are not good at masking their concerns, although they can hide their delight and curiosity surprisingly well. Whereas with children it is the other way round. Children can tactfully mute their anxiety and conceal their sorrow, but will struggle not to express their excitement. That is what growing up means, in some simple way: learning to repress all expressions of pure happiness and joy.
“That is what happens when you love someone—you carry their face behind your eyelids, and their whispers in your ears, so that even in deep sleep, years later, you can still see and hear them in your dreams.”
A tattoo is like a promise, they say, an oath inscribed into your skin, and you need to be sure you can keep it before you commit to it.
“Not anymore, my heart—now that we are all here on earth. Every time we utter His holy name, He hears us. Every day we must pray to God, who is merciful, full of love and compassion. He is the judge of kings and beggars; the sovereign of the moon, the sun, the fire and the water. Prayer is not about asking for things. It is a conversation. When God is less lonely, we are less lonely.”
The water inside us communes with the water outside us. A good diviner can tell the depth of an underground stream, and even whether it is contaminated or clean. Grandma is a water-dowser. Grandma is a spring-finder.
“Words are like birds,” says Mr. Bradbury. “When you publish books, you are setting caged birds free. They can go wherever they please. They can fly over the highest walls and across vast distances, settling in the mansions of the gentry, in farmsteads and laborers’ cottages alike. You never know whom those words will reach, whose hearts will succumb to their sweet songs.”
those who hardly, if ever, see beauty, even when it strikes them between the eyes; those who recognize it only when it is made apparent to them; and those rare souls who find beauty everywhere they turn, even in the most unexpected places.
Books, like paper lanterns, provide us with a light amidst the fog.
Studying how it responds to growing threats—overpopulation, chemical pollution, habitat alteration, acidification and biodiversity loss—has brought Zaleekhah to the conclusion that every drop of rain that emerges through the aquatic cycle is, in its own way, a tiny survivor. If she’d had a streak of spirituality, she would have called it sacred.
Her mind numbs, arriving at an emptiness that allows her to hold every fear and sadness without hurting. In that liminal state in which the border between the present and the past disappears, memories, no longer contained by gravity, float like feathers in the air around and above her. She remembers things she wanted to believe she had forgotten. Before she knows it, the feathers are smothering her, covering her mouth, blocking her nostrils. She gulps air, chest heaving. She knows that if she does not run fast enough, she will drown in her past.
An old awkwardness that she thought she
He may have become British, and turned his life into a success story, but there is something about him that eludes even those closest to him.
It is still there, his otherness, under the varnished image, like a splinter that cannot be pried from beneath his flesh.
toe the line—that’s
Why? Because people need songs like they need bread and water. People need poetry, beauty, love! So long as the sun rises and rivers flow, there will always be weddings and celebrations and music. Even fanatics cannot change that.”
It occurs to him, in that moment, that poverty has its own scent, an odor that emanates from his pores, easily detected. It is an awful, debilitating thought. Drawing in a sharp breath, he turns around and hurries in the direction he assumes to be the exit. The man calls after him, perhaps in sympathy, but the boy does not wait. The divisions that make up class are, in truth, the borders on a map. When you are born into wealth and privilege, you inherit a plan that outlines the paths ahead, indicating the shortcuts and byways available to reach your destination, informing you of the lush
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So it begins. Rain, snow or hail,
an unbidden excitement growing deep inside of him.
spartan
He argued that, under certain circumstances, water—the universal solvent—retained evidence, or “memory,” of the solute particles that had dissolved in it, no matter how many times it was diluted or purified. Even if years passed, or centuries, and not a single original molecule remained, each droplet of water maintained a unique structure, distinguishable from the next, marked forever by what it once contained. Water, in other words, remembered.
They are all there. The lost rivers of time, out of sight and out of mind but notable in their absence, like phantom limbs that still have the power to cause pain. They are here and everywhere, eroding the solid structures on which we have built our careers, marriages, reputations and relationships, evermore flowing onwards—with or without us. Zaleekhah knows she may not be one of them, but she will always be attracted to people who are pulled toward something bigger and better than themselves, a passion that lasts a lifetime, even though it will consume them in the end.
It doesn’t occur to him that we are drawn to the kind of stories that are already present within us, germinating and pushing their way through to the surface, like seeds ready to sprout at the first hint of sun.
“It means it’s still roiling inside. We don’t hear it but there’s water underneath, churning. There are cycles in nature, cycles in history. We call them dewr. Between the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, there’s always a period of confusion, and those are the hardest times, may God help us all.” “Are we now in one of those periods?” “I think so, that’s why we must carefully study the past. The stories of our ancestors are the roots that hold us up through tempests and high winds.”
“What happens after catastrophes? Those who survive nurse their broken hearts and start all over again, as one always does, as one always must.”
Remember, though, what defies comprehension isn’t the mysteries of the world, but the cruelties that humans are capable of inflicting upon each other.”
There is an emptiness in her gaze, the irises almost swallowed up by the darkness of her pupils. A brokenness to her expression, which reminds him of the cracks cutting deep into river mud.
There is a sluggishness to her posture, a listlessness so palpable that he doubts whether the doctor has any right to call her state of mind restless. If anything, she looks quiescent, sedated.
But instead he finds himself relating the story of Gilgamesh and his insatiable quest, his sense of disquietude, which carries him to the ends of the world.
“I want you to be proud of me,” Arthur says. And, even though he can see his mother is slowly drifting off, her movements and gestures sluggish, he cannot help talking animatedly, as if words might have some power, an invigorating influence upon the soul.
Khider is a protective spirit. He is also the patron of travelers, learners and lovers—which, Grandma says, often amounts to the same thing.
“When someone gives you the food they’ve prepared, they give you their heart.”
“Remember, for all its pains and sorrows, the world is beautiful. How can it not be, when it is painted in the iridescent colors of the plumes of Melek Tawûs? If we know how to look, we can see beauty even with eyes closed.”
‘Oh my Home, my Home, you are my Home!’ ”
Home is where your loved ones are, but the reverse is also true. Those you love are your sanctuary, your shelter, your country and even, when it comes to that, your exile. Wherever they go, you will follow.
“You speak like a riddle.” “Riddles are how Lady Truth cloaks herself.” “Why would truth need to cloak herself?” “Because if she were to walk about naked, people would stone her in the streets.”
“People think a tattoo is an act of rebellion or something, but, actually, it’s a form of storytelling. That’s what most customers come in for—not just some random image or word in ink. They come because they have a story to tell.”
“He was, but he made a big mistake toward the end of his life. He became obsessed with a hypothesis he couldn’t quite prove—” “You mean he failed—like any other human being.” “I guess you can put it that way. I was brought up to think differently, though. Uncle always says people like us cannot afford to fail. Immigrants, I mean.” Nen jams her hands in her pockets. “I don’t know your uncle, but I respectfully disagree. I’d have thought especially an immigrant would understand what it feels like to meet loss and still not be defeated.” —
Why did you endow my son with a restless heart? You have moved him to travel…face a battle unknown.”
Unlike the people at the embassy, the fishermen do not engage in small talk; they are content with silence.
Home is where your absence is felt, the echo of your voice kept alive, no matter how long you have been away or how far you may have strayed, a place that still beats with the pulse of your heart.
The past, no matter how remote or unknown, is not bygone. It is alive. The past is a clay tablet, worn and chipped, but hardened by the heat of centuries.
After a while, nowhere feels foreign to someone who has woken, day after day, in unfamiliar rooms and unknown places.
L’Orient. “We must go East. All the great men of the world have there acquired their celebrity.”
For he has no language, even with a translator by his side, to explain how, ever since he was a boy, he has been pulled by a ghost river, a flow so strong it doesn’t let him rest or take root. The current that carries him along is stronger than matters of the heart—or so he believes.
“We believe an onion shared with guests tastes better than roast lamb.”
“For me, the epic is primarily about both the fragility and resilience of being human, and, also, it is about the possibility for change. Learning to care for others, not just yourself. Gilgamesh, let’s admit, is an awful person in the beginning, and it is only through love and friendship and loss that he becomes more humble and gentle. So it is a story in which there is no hero in the traditional sense, and everything is either fractured or fluid—like life itself.”
“Where you have set your mind begin the journey Let your heart have no fear, keep your eyes on me.”
