Sunday, November 25, 2007

Enjoying The Bridges In Our Lives

Certainly in Europe and the Middle East, the two places in which I have spent the most time outside of the United States, one cannot help but marinate in the past. When I studied abroad as a junior in college in Salzburg, Austria, I lived that semester in a house that, at one time, had boasted of a mistress of Napoleon as its mistress. The night I moved in, Renate gave me a tour of Linzer Bundestrasse 3, and at the end of a hall, stated plainly, “in former times down that way was the other wing of the house, but the bombs in the war took care of that.” All that history entails—pain, struggle, rebounding, catharsis, monument—is all over the place here, there, and everywhere.

I spent Thanksgiving vacation in Budapest, Hungary—a city that has weathered its share of storied historical episodes, and found myself, once again, enjoying the metaphors of seeing history and life all around me. Oh, I gotta tell you of a poster I saw in the Budapest airport: "After 400 years of the Romans, 150 years of the Ottomans and 45 years of the Soviets, you will be the first who is welcome to stay longer. So enjoy an extra night on Eurotel!"

I went to Budapest with Elizabeth, an indispensable friend I have made in the last four months, to visit my friend Sharon and her family, an indispensable friend for over 20 years. Budapest might not be the first place one thinks of for Thanksgiving! (What? No parade down the grand Andrassy Ut like in New York?? What? No canned pumpkin available to make pies?? What? No family to bore with travelogues??) But if Thanksgiving is a time for reflection, for gastronomic pornography, for escaping the routine of regular life, for reveling in the fellowship of a treasured circle, Budapest fit the bill quite nicely.

Budapest is a spectacular city—actually, as purists will tell you, it is two cities combined in the last 150 years—Buda and Pest, that gleam as jewels on the Danube. There are a number of commanding bridges that provide crossing points over the mighty Danube; my favorite of the many bridges is the Szécheny Bridge, with these great impressive lions—the kind you used to see at the beginning of an M-G-M film—standing tall and proud.

Within an hour of our arrival in town Elizabeth and I had gobbled our first pastries, and headed off toward the thermal baths, famed since the Turks discovered the ancient burbling hot waters circulating under the earth. In the next few days we took in the opera (Sharon’s husband got us seats in a box—very see and be seen—for Madame Butterfly) and we went on a tour of the Art Museum (on Jazz Night, no less!) and tackled many of the historical museums and monuments in town. I enjoyed seeing the alphabet I know and love in signs everywhere, and felt a pang of homesickness at seeing cleavage and bacon cheeseburgers advertised in billboards (umm…just to be clear: the cleavage and the bacon cheeseburgers were not on the same billboard). I got to ramble around a city that actually had an urban plan, and thrilled to see Greco-Roman architecture again.

Sharon had had plans to prepare a Thanksgiving feast for embassy folks on Saturday. However, Elizabeth and I needed to be back in Jordan by Saturday night to show up for school today, so we had to miss her Turkey feast. Sharon felt so bad that we would miss the actual Thanksgiving dinner that she decided to surprise us with an unexpected treat on Thanksgiving morning. She had hired a masseuse to come to her house and give each of us an hour-long massage! What a great idea—maybe a new tradition born this Thanksgiving morn!! It was heavenly, and not nearly as caloric as a Thanksgiving feast.

Besides the exquisite trip with Anne (I hate to be repetitive, but a truly indispensable friend) in the summer of 2006, I had been to Budapest once before, in 1987. These were still in the dark days of the communist hold on Eastern Europe, and in my memory Budapest shriveled a bit—a city of such wasted potential, drab and shabby. How exhilarating to visit in 2006 and see the vibrant city Budapest has re-discovered. We visited two historical sites that commemorate the shameful and tragic periods in Hungary’s recent past. One is a park about 30 minutes outside of bustling Budapest, a place where local historians gathered the statues that had once stood in city parks and squares touting the benefits of socialism and the chauvinism of the Soviet state. In the early 1990s, instead of junking these lying dinosaurs, city officials moved them here to bear witness to the artistic propaganda of the postwar era. There were maybe 30 statues in this park, and there were examples from the late 1940s to the late 1980s reflecting the values of the Moscow-mandated Hungarian thanks for the Soviet liberation.

Of course, it was seen as liberation by many in 1945. The Soviets did reach Budapest, and freed the Hungarians from the gruesome domination of the Nazis. For the next 5 decades the Soviets tightened that iron ring on the Hungarians. It was eerie to walk around the park and see these hulking reminders of what Hungarians had seen everyday before.

Another new museum is known as “The House of Terror”—one of the most creatively designed museums I have ever experienced. The H of T is a museum now, but it was once the party headquarters for the Nazis and then the Communist secret police. The museum helps us understand and empathize with the victims of such terror, and also reminds us of the shameful acts of terrorist dictatorships. In a stunning piece of education this museum reminds us that we must acknowledge the past.

But of all the things in Budapest, I most enjoyed staring at the bridges. I have a thing for bridges. I absolutely loved giving tours in New York of the Brooklyn Bridge—marveling at the engineering feats, as well as the design of incorporating schemes of old and new in the bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn. In another flashback, I have a beautiful memory of standing with my friend Mary (dare I use the word indispensable again? Have you met her? Then you have to!) in London, savoring a moment on Westminster Bridge.

My mother cultivated in me an appreciation for bridges—for the poetic, metaphorical, emblematic quality of bridges. As she did with so many things, she made even a simple bridge an encounter with Wonder and Serenity. A bridge to her was always more than a means of physical transport, it was a reminder of worlds we hoped to reconcile, problems we needed to cross, sorrows we hoped to leave, and triumphs yet undiscovered. It might be of Sighs, or over Troubled Waters, but my mother always saw the beauty in views from bridges both in spiritual and metaphysical terms.

While in the Terror Museum, I saw a wall-size photograph of Nazi-ravaged Budapest in 1945—all the bridges utterly destroyed and submerged in the Danube. Can you imagine the hopelessness of the citizens that spring? Or can you imagine the hopelessness for the next 5 decades as they limped along as a mere satellite in the Soviet orbit? But of course, bridges can be re-built, lives can be re-vivified, and palpable change can re-invent. A dismal present does not dictate what bridge you next cross, or what bridge you next build.

Thanksgiving should be a time of reflection—and of course this Thanksgiving invites a large helping of that dish on my plate. I had no idea last Thanksgiving at this time I would be here this fall. As many of you know well, the last three years I have trod a somewhat treacherous road, but here I am on a bridge savoring new views, new perspectives. Who knew this bridge was being built for me?!

A couple of weeks ago I taught a lesson (the Arab students actually call them “lessons” and not “classes” as American students do—frankly, I like the more didactic semantics of “lesson,” don’t you?) on Chinese art. The Chinese adored depictions of roads and bridges, especially embracing the ambiguities and mysteries of the roads and the bridges—purposely obscuring the ends of these paths! It is unsettling not seeing the precise end of any road or bridge, but charge ahead we must, confident that we are prepared to meet the other end of the journey.

As Elizabeth and I walked along the Danube (even my company for Thanksgiving is a remarkable bridge—from the fine-wine-Denison-friend Sharon to the not-even-ripe-new-friend Elizabeth), we noticed that one of the major bridges in Budapest is under major reconstruction. They have torn out the guts of the bridge, and are practically re-building it. How interesting to look upon this significant work, seeing how skillful the engineers must be in making this bridge passable and safe.

We marinate in our own tangy history to be sure, but we are not prisoners of one road, one situation, one quagmire. We can take a hop and a skip over a familiar bridge, or re-build an old bridge, or dare to engineer a new bridge, looking back at the genesis, excited by an unknown terminus.

1 comment:

Mary said...

Hey, Johnny!!
My, you have a way with words!! that was just wonderful to read. You made me think of so many things in my own life--many involving you!! I remember that view from the bridge very clearly. And we were there for FREE!!!! Do you remember the bridge in the woods playing Pooh sticks? I'm not sure you do. But I do. You went on quite a journey with me from "As long as he beats me" to "Not alone and not afraid."
You have a very special mother, Johnny. She taught you so well and gave you such life lessons to carry with you. I am just privileged to have known her--and YOU. I never thought I wanted to go to Budapest--until there was you. You make every journey sound like such an adventure. I am proud to know you and to go along with you even if only in cyberspace!!
Blessings on you at this holiday season. Do you have some good Christmas music to listen to? I hope so because that will be something I can't imagine you doing without.
I love you and your musings,
Mary