Call me Ishmael

[Danoz]

This evening I walked through campus, bundled up in my fleece, my wool coat and hat—insulated gloves and waterproof hiking boots while cupping a hot mug of earl gray just… thinking. It’s true my days this winter have been quiet ones. Over break I worked in the wax paper factory for the 6th consecutive year, the place where I gather my thoughts and focus the vision of my life through the art of raw, manual labor. These days I do little but spend my mornings in class, my late afternoons and evenings at the Rec and my midnights studying. Lately I’ve been reading “Moby Dick or the Whale”, Herman Melville. This isn’t for a class; those readings are generally on transitional justice, political economy or democratization. Let’s just say I get enough of the “real world” in the field I’ve chosen for myself. No, I’ve always wanted to read this novel and I decided I would do so in the smallest hours of the night before I generally find my way to blissful unconsciousness around three or four in the morning. I was caught immediately by this poignant line,

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”

And I stopped… where is my sea? Where is yours? When every facet of life seems to tear at you piece my piece… where do you go for solitude, where can you breathe a sigh of relief and inhale nothing but contentment. Sometimes I sit and ponder as why I chose this degree. Over the next several weeks I will study the terror of the Armenian Genocide in detail, for the second time—but more importantly it will focus on the victims today whose people weren’t just ruthlessly murdered—but their culture, history, art… their very souls exterminated, erased, disallowed to continue even in memory of their greatest achievements. It’s actually rumored that Adolph Hitler tried to ease his men, encouraging them to be ruthless because “who, after all, remembers the massacre of the Armenian peoples”. Allow me to take three or four steps backwards…

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When I was a child I was part of a traveling choir, the Phoenix Boys Choir, all under the age of 13 with soprano voices. On one such tour we were in Mainland China, touring the Great Wall. I remember standing and wondering how amazing it was that the builders of this incredible feat of engineering were pelted by the same, relentless summer sun that I felt on my skin at that moment. Granted, I was a something of a dreamer, and I standing unflinchingly at the front of the line I had somehow become completely separated from my group. Now, I need you to actually picture this. A twelve year old version of me with big, brown eyes lost in the middle of China at the Great Wall in a red polo shirt. I was separated for hours, and strangely was more afraid of “getting in trouble” than anything else. And so I walked, my head spun and the sun felt hotter. People stopped and smiled, nodded their heads and tried to understand me—but it was to no avail. I was lost. I saw a man, a tourist and asked him for help. I remember his face distinctively, it was cold and bitterly aged, and he took a drag of a cigarette and said while passing, “I can’t fucking help you, kid”. I continued my way up the wall, but it’s hard to explain the clutter of people so closely huddled together moving along this structure. I struggled to remember the Chinese words for “I am lost” from the orientation but it seemed any and all useful knowledge had been melted away by that hot, Mandarin sun. There was no “finding” my group.

Suddenly, I felt a touch on my shoulder. I turned to a see a beautiful, Chinese woman and she smiled with a touch of a concern, probably noticing my frantic pleas for help she calmed me and spoke carefully, “Are you lost?” Her English was accented but not broken and I told her everything that had happened. She quietly took my hand and began to walk me up the wall. She asked me questions about my group, and told me patiently that I was safe—and that they wouldn’t leave without me. She walked me up and down the wall so I could see the wondrous, magnificent view from the higher points. Imagine stone that doesn’t look constructed, but as if it grew out of the earth to curve along its every glorious imperfection. I had to remember the history my mother insisted I knew before leaving… people died building this wall. Finally the woman walked me to a guard at the front gate and told me she would return shortly, she spoke briefly to him in Chinese and then left—I wouldn’t see her again because I would find my group only moments later after hours of separation. I remember the guard’s smile perfectly, as if I had taken a picture of it. And then, several hours later, I saw “Ed Hurd”, the director of operations at the time smoking a cigarette (far from the group) that he quickly tried to hide. I never saw that woman again, but she had given me her card, and while I can’t remember the name I have since always remembered her title, “International Relations; Communications”. Today, after exploring many areas, “International Relations/Communications” will be my degree come December. Through the power of language a person with good nature helped me, even if only for a few hours, in a way that changed forever my outlook on life. Imagine it, through the art of language she had managed to break down barriers of culture and ethnicity with sheer kindness, with something I could describe only as altruism.

This semester, I will be reminded of the evils of this world—but I will not forget the kindness of one person, the smile of a guard, the ability of humanity to do incredible acts of goodness—the potential and desire we have to improve both individually and as a collective. My “sea” is that craving to explore and understand worlds so very different than our own, and to somehow build a bridge—a connection, the way she did. I don’t know why I wrote this, I suppose I just needed to. If you’ve read this far I suppose you know a little more about me, and why I spend so many hours studying, drilling vocabulary and reading night after night. Cheers-- Daniel
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