dear life 79

dear life,
this is the report of one day of my work, a day i really enjoyed.

The day was a day of mixed feelings. I went out to do this report - my first reporting in the country they call the land of opportunities and for TV- on a festival held in an American museum on the Persian poet, Mowlana, or as the world know him, Rumi. So right at this point you may guess where the mixed feelings boiled from (considering my bad history with homesickness and all that stuff) but it is interesting to hear the rest of the story too.
On the way to the museum … no let me start from the very beginning, from how I actually found about the festival.
One day as usual, I was checking out the website I once worked for, chn.ir, and there, I found the news of the English translator of Rumi poems traveling to Iran, to Isfahan; I read the article and noted the guy's name down to search more on him, and find his English books and to check them out. I was interested to know how the translations had come out.
The CHN reporter had made a delicate point, to rephrase her: "The Rumi the Americans know lives in the 21st century, you know why? Because Coleman Barks translates him into free verse and into modern language." As such, Barks' translations are actually considered recreations, recreations that have sold more than a quarter of a million, making him one of the most-read poets in the Unites States.
On his website I read that he was going to come to Baltimore, a city at one-hour driving distance from us, for a festival on Rumi. One search led to another, to some phone calls, and to arrangements to cover the festival and actually talk to the guy in person.
So we set off to meet the guy who through Rumi has built a bridge not only between the two languages, but also between the two cultures, the two eras, and the two worlds.
The museum exterior is decorated in a contemporary fashion, with little broken-into-pieces mirrors and colorful glasses covering one of the walls, a huge metal statue of a guitar forming the surreal body of a bird on another wall, and an inspiring artificial tree made with the same mirrors and glasses on the sidewalk, the articles hanging loose, letting themselves embrace the wind that blew in the hot humid weather of Baltimore.
And then there were posters of the festival with the picture of Rumi on the doors, and the tickets with the picture of Sama dancers carried around by the attendants of the festival, most of whom were Americans in love with the poet and his beliefs.
Entering the hall where Barks was to recite some poems, we were welcomed by the sound of musical instruments getting ready to play to the hearts of the audience, taking them out of this world to the void of the lyrics hand in hand with the universal language of music. Even the preparation was spiritual enough to make you forget about where you were, where you were from, where you were to go, what mattered was just listening. The point was that you could feel love, right then, right there.
There were posters by an artist named Michael Green, whose hands and nails, I noticed when later on I interviewed him, bore witness to his work, or shall we say to his identity? Works that belong to no other time and era but to the 21st century, as they have been created by use of old methods and digital technology combined, that are surreal and sometimes too modern, but all of which carry the message he has got from Rumi, the message of unity, as is most prominently shown in the picture of a Jew and a Muslim embracing each other at the feet of the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem.
As I sat with Coleman Barks, he told me, with the same passion of his storytelling and poetry reciting, how a friend had introduced him to Rumi, asking him to free the words from the cage of their previous literary translation, and how he had sat everyday for seven years after teaching classes in university in a restaurant alone with Rumi words to reincarnate them; he told me about the mystical dream he had had one year after he had set off on the mission, of the man with a white shawl expressing to him his love in the dream, and he to him. And laughing in high spirits, he told me of a childhood memory, which he now believed was a joke of synchronicity the universe had played on him.
With a great passion for geography, the little Coleman had known the name of capitals of all countries around the world by heart, except one, presented to him as a challenge by a Latin teacher: Cappadocia, and that place became his given name, a name he is still called with. "I was named after what I did not know, my ignorance" as he himself puts it, just for him to find out years later in life that the place had Rumi's hometown as its central city.
Before Barks started his program, an Imam said Azan in the balcony over Baltimore port. لا اله الا الله ... حی علی الصلوه، حی علی الفلاح ... لا اله الا الله and I sat there on the sit behind the piano of the hall – that according to one of museum officials was once a whiskey brewing place – facing the sun going down, tilting toward his voice, as if his words were spreading, as they were branches of a tree suddenly growing, inside my body.
When Barks started his reciting with his humorous soft voice, the message of Rumi was amplified by music, music so different from the Iranian traditional one, so different from the ones the Sama dancers dance to, yet penetrating the heart of those sitting and listening with closed eyes, those standing, and the one brought into some kind of a ritual dance.
Barks read, "Where have I come from, Why am I here?" and the band followed in a hymn. Barks read and the band played Blues. Barks read a phrase and Kabir, the young lead singer who was actually the son of the artist, sang accompanied by notes played on his guitar joined with those of his percussionist, his violinist…
People had gathered to share an already shared experience with Barks and those who had Rumi in their hearts; these people's appearances revealed their not being attached to materials, their demeanors were proof of their being filled with love and respect for each other, and their movements made you feel their lightness, their being free of the weight so many carry around these days. The lady with a white scarf, the man with the dervish-like beard, the hippy young girl, the all-American-looking boy, the man in the wheelchair, the husband and wife with their kid, all were there to commemorate the 800th anniversary of a poet who in their own words had been there for them in time of sadness and sorrow, who had been their refuge, who had saved them, who had shown them that there were no real boundaries when you go inside.
The smile on the face of the museum director, that Azan, that poetry recitation, the interviews, the day … the report had come to me to lighten me up, to open me to a new understanding.
On our way to the museum with the cameraman, we had listened to Daryush, his sad yet mesmerizing voice filling us both with the burden of being so far away from home; on our way back home, we listened to Coleman Barks reciting our poet with the music of two other American musicians at the background, thinking to ourselves that maybe love can really conquer all the barriers, maybe there are no barriers after all, surely there is none ….