Autumn Campfires and the search for home
I just spent a week greeting/hosting/entertaining a friend visiting from High River, Alberta. When I was living out west, we played Greek Rembetika (the greek blues) together in a band called: The Rembetika Hipsters. To this day, he is one of the greatest collaborators I've had the chance to create music with. Let's call him Eleftarios...he chooses to be somewhat anonymous.Here he stands, in the shadows, at Quai des Brumes...enjoying the equally mysterious and elusive Montreal band: "Phantom Power"...
Anyways, he arrived at the airport at 0h30h. That same evening I was invited by some people to go have a campfire on the mountain. I was told that there would be balalaikas, guitars and they needed a violin or two at least. Although I hadn't really met any of these people (except for Mirjana...who shares some of the same circle of friends), and being the curious creature that I am I decided to go for it...I enjoy meeting new people. Being the horrible hostess that I am and leaving everything to the last minute, I texted (sms) Eleftarios to tell the cab driver to drop him off somewhere in the middle of nowhere...downtown - I hadn't had the chance to tell him about the campfire before he caught his flight.
So around 01h00 I ran down to get him, and made him drag his stuff up the mountain, saxophone included. He complained about his old knees but once at the top and in front of the view, it all dissipated. It was a beautiful autumn evening...perhaps the last evening of 2008 that brought us perfect weather to have a campfire before the temperature would cool down drastically and the snow would come. We sat around eating random snacks (from poppy seed muffins, to rye bread and sausages) and drinking wine, rum and vodka. Since we were a mix of Russians, Serbians, Canadians, Mexicans and one American, the same old Montreal topic came up: Notions of Home. And I now leave you with a text that Eleftarios wrote, as a Canadian, about his ideas of what home is:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ELEFTARIOS wrote in responce to the CBC radio broadcast of "Mashup": "Listened with interest to your 24 June program. I too have been culturally dislocated by paths taken in life, but I have never emigrated to a foreign land. It's natural to feel "homesick" for your place of origin, to wonder about your true identity amongst a new culture. But have you ever been homesick at home? I have.
I am a musician and I have travelled and performed in many places far from Canada. I have had the great joy of working alongside artists from Mexico, Jamaica, Venezuela, Granada, Poland, India, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Africa and other places I seem to have forgotten at the moment. I speak only English and a bit of bad Spanish. Most of the artists I've worked with have had less English ability than my bad Spanish. Nonetheless, we are able to interact through a universal language: music (plus knowing how to say "beer" and "please" in about 20 languages).
Whenever I return to my home in the foothills of Alberta after one of these journeys, I have the distinct feeling of not belonging, that it is not "home". In fact, I am homesick for something other. I am dislocated from the world beyond, my real home. At various times of my life, I have felt home to be the Mexican city of Merida, a village in the French Pyrenees, the mountains of Epirus in Greece, and the upper Rhine valley from whence my ancestors fled the devastation of the Napoleonic wars, sojourned for a century in southern Russia, then came to Canada to flee the devastation of the Bolsheviks.
From these Teutonic ancestors, I have inherited some genetic condition of homelessness. I am a point on a very long thread, one of the great human migrations of history. But I'm not the end of the thread because I own a nice house in Canada and hold a steady job with RSP's and dental benefits. My children continue the journey, living and learning in far away places, and cultivating friends from all corners of the world.
This is where it starts, when you grow up and exit the house where your parents maintain your bedroom, just to see what is out there. Emigration can be within your own culture, indeed within your own little village. It's not about place, it's about place of mind.
A long time ago, on another CBC program about Roma people, I heard a story of how the gypsies find the place where they stop roaming. At marriage, the couple is given two different colours of lentils and an empty jar. Everyday they each put a lentil in the empty jar: one colour represents a good day, the other a not-so good day. When the jar is full, it is emptied and they start over.
Eventually, a day will come when the jar is full of mostly good-day lentils. This is the time when husband and wife will cease wandering and put down roots. This is where home is found, and it may be a patch of ground next door to where you were born.
I realize your program is about immigration (arriving) and less about emigration (leaving). But the two words are opposite sides of the same coin. I doubt that I will ever come to a full stop in some far away land, unless I am overcome at last by a bottle of retsina on some cafe patio in Metsovo."
Anyways, he arrived at the airport at 0h30h. That same evening I was invited by some people to go have a campfire on the mountain. I was told that there would be balalaikas, guitars and they needed a violin or two at least. Although I hadn't really met any of these people (except for Mirjana...who shares some of the same circle of friends), and being the curious creature that I am I decided to go for it...I enjoy meeting new people. Being the horrible hostess that I am and leaving everything to the last minute, I texted (sms) Eleftarios to tell the cab driver to drop him off somewhere in the middle of nowhere...downtown - I hadn't had the chance to tell him about the campfire before he caught his flight.
So around 01h00 I ran down to get him, and made him drag his stuff up the mountain, saxophone included. He complained about his old knees but once at the top and in front of the view, it all dissipated. It was a beautiful autumn evening...perhaps the last evening of 2008 that brought us perfect weather to have a campfire before the temperature would cool down drastically and the snow would come. We sat around eating random snacks (from poppy seed muffins, to rye bread and sausages) and drinking wine, rum and vodka. Since we were a mix of Russians, Serbians, Canadians, Mexicans and one American, the same old Montreal topic came up: Notions of Home. And I now leave you with a text that Eleftarios wrote, as a Canadian, about his ideas of what home is:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ELEFTARIOS wrote in responce to the CBC radio broadcast of "Mashup": "Listened with interest to your 24 June program. I too have been culturally dislocated by paths taken in life, but I have never emigrated to a foreign land. It's natural to feel "homesick" for your place of origin, to wonder about your true identity amongst a new culture. But have you ever been homesick at home? I have.
I am a musician and I have travelled and performed in many places far from Canada. I have had the great joy of working alongside artists from Mexico, Jamaica, Venezuela, Granada, Poland, India, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Africa and other places I seem to have forgotten at the moment. I speak only English and a bit of bad Spanish. Most of the artists I've worked with have had less English ability than my bad Spanish. Nonetheless, we are able to interact through a universal language: music (plus knowing how to say "beer" and "please" in about 20 languages).
Whenever I return to my home in the foothills of Alberta after one of these journeys, I have the distinct feeling of not belonging, that it is not "home". In fact, I am homesick for something other. I am dislocated from the world beyond, my real home. At various times of my life, I have felt home to be the Mexican city of Merida, a village in the French Pyrenees, the mountains of Epirus in Greece, and the upper Rhine valley from whence my ancestors fled the devastation of the Napoleonic wars, sojourned for a century in southern Russia, then came to Canada to flee the devastation of the Bolsheviks.
From these Teutonic ancestors, I have inherited some genetic condition of homelessness. I am a point on a very long thread, one of the great human migrations of history. But I'm not the end of the thread because I own a nice house in Canada and hold a steady job with RSP's and dental benefits. My children continue the journey, living and learning in far away places, and cultivating friends from all corners of the world.
This is where it starts, when you grow up and exit the house where your parents maintain your bedroom, just to see what is out there. Emigration can be within your own culture, indeed within your own little village. It's not about place, it's about place of mind.
A long time ago, on another CBC program about Roma people, I heard a story of how the gypsies find the place where they stop roaming. At marriage, the couple is given two different colours of lentils and an empty jar. Everyday they each put a lentil in the empty jar: one colour represents a good day, the other a not-so good day. When the jar is full, it is emptied and they start over.
Eventually, a day will come when the jar is full of mostly good-day lentils. This is the time when husband and wife will cease wandering and put down roots. This is where home is found, and it may be a patch of ground next door to where you were born.
I realize your program is about immigration (arriving) and less about emigration (leaving). But the two words are opposite sides of the same coin. I doubt that I will ever come to a full stop in some far away land, unless I am overcome at last by a bottle of retsina on some cafe patio in Metsovo."
posted by BRIGA at 11:18 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home