Following Friedrich

"He attempts... to introduce allegory and symbolism into shadows and light, into nature, living or dead, into snow and water, and also into living figures." - Ludwig Tieck, (1773-1853), poet, critic, translator

Wanderer über den Nebelmeer, 1818

In my early twenties I had the good, if not genuine fortune of attending Professor Derek Knight's third year art history lectures at Brock University, 'Art in Revolution' and 'Modernism'. The two courses, which weren't offered every year, focused on the political, philosophical and socio-economic forces behind the great masterpieces of 19th century art, beginning in the late 1790s with the French Revolution and the neoclassicism of Jacque-Louis David and ending, in the second class with the First World War and Picasso's cubism.

To get into the two courses, one had to have a reasonable background in art history and have a credit in the first year introductory class. 

I had studied art in high school and spent the summer voraciously reading all the Taschen artist series books in the Brock library. This, with my passion for the subject helped me by-pass the prerequisite so long as I still signed up for the first year class while attending Prof.Knight's lectures. 

In the first semester, I was a quiet, reserved student. I sat at the back of the class, taking notes, secretly falling in love with the works of David and Delacroix in France, Goya in Spain and Constable in England.

And when we arrived at German Romanticism, Prof. Knight's always enlightening and eloquent lecture did not disappoint, as he delivered a stunning, indispensable talk on Caspar David Friedrich and his contemporary, Philipp Otto Rung. 

The former was especially important to me. I had seen Friedrich's paintings on the covers of classical music albums. (Wanderer Over a Sea of Mist was a personal favorite, appearing on a box set I had bought when I was nineteen). I had lived with them before attending this class. I conjured up his images whenever I listened to the piano sonatas and symphonies of Franz Schubert, a Viennese contemporary of the artist. 

So when deciding on a subject for my term paper, I devoted my research solely to the works of Friedrich, writing about the figures in his painting, their backs to us, what they meant, what they signified to the artist and how they went from solitary and lonely in his earlier works to accompanied in his later pieces. 

I received an 'A' (85%) for my paper with the inevitable comment that I should speak up more class. My professor was impressed with my use of language as I employed the word 'bodeful', a term coined by Thomas Carlyle in the 19th century, in describing Friedrich's works. I knew of Carlyle at the time but had no inkling nor idea it was his word. I suppose I was searching for something and 'forbidding' and 'foreboding' simply missed the mark for me.

Over the years, I thought I had lost my essay but before leaving for Europe, I suddenly rediscovered it amongst old papers and letters. I scanned my argument once again, I read certain paragraphs, glossing over the descriptions and interpretations but for the most part, I was simply happy to have found it again.

Though I had misplaced the essay, I always kept Friedrich in my thoughts. He was one of the reasons I was now going to Germany. Prof. Knight routinely commented on how his slide-projector in a darkened, basement room of the Schmon Tower did no justice to the great masterworks of the past. One had to see them live, in person to truly appreciate their nuances and genius. 

Kreuz an der Ostsee, 1815

After visiting Holland this year, seeing the great Rembrandts and Van Goghs, I arrived in Germany in late May. My Friedrich search got off to a solid but rather slow start. In Köln I had the opportunity to come face-to-face with my first Friedrich at the Wallraf-Richarz Museum. A lonely sea-side landscape, people-less but dominated by a solemn, wooden cross standing tall against the sunset, rooted in a stern, outcrop of rocks. The ghostly ships in the distances, I noted were almost too ephemeral to seem real and the sun could almost be mistaken for a moon rising over the Baltic waters. In no way was I disappointed and felt the experience to have a spiritual connotation. 

The other two were equally sublime but this one in particular had a certain pull on me.

After spending an otherwise lonely and restless week in Köln, I booked a place in Nürnburg. On my day of departure, looking for my platform at the Haupbahnhof, scanning the blue rectangular screens hanging from the ceiling, I saw one whose final destination was Greifswald.

I grinned. Friedrich's birthplace. He was born there in 1774.

I said to myself, somehow, sometime I would get there and visit the local museum. 

But things and life got in the way. While in Freiburg I tried to make plans for Greifswald but I couldn't find any cheap nor reasonable accommodations and decided to book at a later date.

While in Freiburg, however, I took the train to nearby Karlsruhe in hopes of seeing a Friedrich in the Staatliche Kunsthalle. Though I was impressed with the collection, from seeing Anselm Feurbach's famous Das Gastmahl des Plato (Plato's Symposium) to Rembrandt's Self-Portrait, not to mention the other masterpieces from the Dutch Golden Age and the works of French art from the late 19th century there was, unfortunately, no Friedrich that I could find. I asked about the piece, Felsenriff am Meeresstrand (Rock Reef near Seaside). One museum employee directed me to the top floor. Another shook her head, said no, no, it was amongst the German Romantic pieces on the main floor. Having searched the museum top to bottom, I finally asked a woman at a computer. After a few seconds of typing, she said the Friedrich was on loan for an art exhibit in Madrid, Spain. Shaking my head, chuckling, I thanked her, buying the catalogue as a quasi-souvenir of my lunch bag let down. 

I wouldn't see another Friedrich until I arrived late afternoon in sultry Munich some two weeks later. I got off the train at 4:00, deposited my suitcase and side satchel in a locker and made my way to the Neue Pinakothek, buying my ticket at 4:40, leaving me less than an hour and a half to explore the art gallery. I tried to be patient, visiting the museum floor by floor. But with time running out, I began to seek out the German master's works. 

Once again, upon finding the right room, I was in awe. There were seven pieces to behold this time. I went from one to the next, slowly trying to absorb as many details, to see the nuances Prof. Knight had advised his students to look for should they encounter their favourite works in person. I also had my camera though the images I digitally captured couldn't compare with the originals.

Reisenberglandschaft mit aufsteigender Nebel

What always astounds me about Friedrich is the very depth and solidity of his work. In his youth, he studied in Copenhagen under the then famous artist, Nicolai Abildgaard. Friedrich worked directly from nature, learning to draw models in chalk. There are many watercolours and sketches from this period.

When his career began in earnest in the early 1800s, he rarely if ever produced any sketches. His friend, fellow landscape painter Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869) noted Friedrich was not typical of many artists. According to his peer, Friedrich did not 'commence work on a painting until its image presented itself in his mind's eye in a vivid manner, then he drew directly onto the stretched canvas, at first quickly with chalk or a pencil, then he reworked everything properly in detail with a pen and wash before finally going back to the first layer.'

Carus's Wanderer - compare with Friedrich's above.

Carus goes on to say that this is the reason Friedrich's landscape are so well organized and executed. Not only this, from my perspective, they appear more tangible and yet haunting compared to his peers' work. Carus, like Blechen, Dahl, Koch and Richter are all accomplished painters in their own right, many of them inspired by the same philosophers and poets as Friedrich, though rarely do they possess the truly sublime or symbolic touch so well-embodied in the latter's paintings. Carus, for instance, speaks the same language of Friedrich - note his 'wanderer' - though he doesn't have the same eloquence or depth, let alone vision. 

Friedrich, simply put, has something more. In the Neue Pinakothek, one could feel the alpine wind in his Reisenberglandschaft (mountain landscape), hear its howl. The lone, bare tree, too, seemed anthropomorphic, almost human. Standing in front of such a painting, I sensed the harrowing and sublime loneliness but there was less fear, more wonder, as if being a viewer I was more or less a visitor drawn into a strange but familiar land.

Friedrich himself once wrote that the artist must not only paint what is before him but inside him. Moreover, the true, genuine source of art is the human heart. 'A painting which does not surge up out of that is mere jugglery.' He wrote. 'Every authentic work is conceived in a sacred hour and born in a blessed one: created by an inner compulsion of which the artist is often unaware.'

'The divine is everywhere' Friedrich would comment. Even in the artist himself which might explain his  propensity for things distant and mysterious.  

'The sacred and the profane', is what Prof. Knight routinely said and reminded us during his lecture of long ago.

It is also true what my professor said, one must see the works in person. 

When I visited the Hamburg Kunsthalle in early July and stood before the famed (for me numinous) Wanderer Über den Nebelmeer (Wanderer over a Sea of Mist) I could distinguish a haze of pink in the clouds, something I failed to detect when I first described the painting in my art history essay. In my paper I wrote about the figure's stance, his clothing; in addition, I described the row of sandstone rocks, the large granite crag and the hazed mountain. I wrote that the painting had an aura of chill to it, that is, it felt cold, and the figure stood against the landscape, in opposition to it, alone. 

But the pink, I had to admit, undetected in classroom slides or art history texts, added an element of warmth and hope. 

I sat before the painting for almost twenty minutes. I felt a shift within me. For many years I had interpreted the picture as man's agon with nature. I had only seen the figure solely as a resolute but lonely, contemplative man. The painting always struck me as romantic and melancholic. The wild solitude surrounding the figure both wintry and harsh.

And yet this hint of pink. There was something to it. The painting, I realized felt more welcoming and in turn, I saw the great distances not as obstructing or daunting but even welcoming. Seeing the painting from the figure's perspective, I felt invited into that greater world. The unknown wasn't necessarily 'bodeful' as there was a trace of kindness and peace in the clouds, that a sun was glowing behind the ephemeral veil of the mist. I sensed hope and I could understand truly what Friedrich indicated when he said he painted from his heart.

Shortly thereafter, I fell sick in Hamburg after a weary, forced trip to Lübeck (where as it happened, I came accidentally upon four Friedrich's in the Museum für Kunst and Kulturegeschicte). Instead of taking the train further east to Greifswald, which would have been a two-hour trip, I had already contacted a family friend in Berlin and was heading there to visit and recuperate.  

I had terrible congestion and the chills. I wore a coat though it was thirty degrees. Upon arrival, my nose became severely plugged and that night, alone, my host off, drinking beer with his friends in the park, I could only sleep while sitting up.

I had to leave. Beyond my present physical condition, I found the said friend's place far too chaotic to handle. Books and clothes everywhere, his recording and d.j. equipment took up much of the space. Thankfully, I found accommodations far from Kreuzberg, renting a vacation apartment east of the city, in a quiet suburb.

There, I recuperated in peace, albeit slowly, my congestion easing, my body purging itself of the illness. I took baths, I coughed most nights but was still able to get my rest, lounging out on the couch during the day, watching the first three seasons of Two and a Half Men and enjoying every guiltless moment (yes, I know it isn't a great show but I have a soft spot in my heart for it...).

For the length of my stay, I was only able to get out for groceries; I had no real hope of visiting Berlin's famous Museum Insel (Museum Island) where the Alte Natialgalerie housed some of the most famous German Romantic pieces.

My last day in Berlin I decided to make a go of it, to make it count. My throat was still rough but my energy had returned. After three transfers (one bus, two trains), I walked from Alexanderplatz, passing under the famed Fernseherturm, that postmodern icon of Modern Berlin to the Insel. I bought my ticket at the art gallery and headed directly to the top floor to find the 'Friedrich Room.'

I would have to describe this room as the climax of my search. From the first sprinkles of Friedrich in Cologne, to missing out on one of his minor masterpieces in Karlsruhe, to Munich's generous offerings and Hamburg's excellent collection (one room over from Runge's works), Berlin had by far the best on display.

Der Mönch am Meer, 1810

Toteninsel

Besides the Wanderer, I would describe Der Mönch am Meer (Monk by the Sea) as the most emblematic of Friedrich's works. The monk stands on the shoreline, and like in many of his paintings, the figure is dwarfed by his surroundings. One might say he appears helpless against the tumultuous backdrop of the sky and sea. Either a storm is approaching or a storm  has passed, the clouds are nonetheless dark in their appearance though there is a glimmering of light blue. And though he is small, the monk doesn't lack for significance.

Purchased by Crown Prince Fredrick of Prussia in 1810, one can trace this important piece to Arnold Böcklin's Toteninsel (Island of the Dead) to Rothko's expressionist masterpiece, Rust and Blue. In the former, we see the lone figure against the vast backdrop of nature, the monk transforming into the white cloaked figure in the boat; in the latter, if we squint our eyes, the three troubled bands of sky, sea and sand become the murky strips of brown, light blue and navy. 

Without the monk - again like many of the figures in Friedrich's works - to anchor us in the piece we would have no point of reference. While he meditates on existence, life and death and the mysteries of the world, we are drawn in to contemplate with him. I wrote in my essay of long ago that we as viewers place ourselves in Friedrich's paintings. 'The sensation of emotion we feel is not for the pensive individual but for ourselves' is how my twenty-year old self put it.

Looking at the monk in Berlin, I saw my surrogate self, the other that was me. And in this me, the twenty-year old who first fell in love with Friedrich's paintings, the one who wrote the paper, influenced by the artist but also equally devoted to the works of Dostoevsky and the films of Ingmar Bergman. A serious soul with a touch of arrogance, scholarly and lonely, sitting at the back of his lecture halls; always the same longing in his heart to belong to something greater but too afraid to reach out, to go after his dreams. 

Between writing the essay of long ago and the European trip, he moved eight times in ten years. He had also been severely ill and hospitalized three times, the last to receive a blood transfusion in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Before that, at the height of the illness, two doctors informed him he had less than two weeks to live.

He was also the twenty-year old who first wanted to go to Germany, to study Friedrich and art history. In 2002 he applied for a year aboard and a scholarship with DAAD. The scholarship didn't fall through but it didn't matter as the illness had taken over by this point.

I suppose one must be grateful for the little tragedies and disappointments. In Berlin, I saw beyond what the twenty-year old might have seen, that is the great painting became for me a sombre, sober homage to all the unanswered questions. The scene is quiet, but not calm and yet it is grand, the figure alone and occupied and me, the viewer, occupied with all my own questions, both personal and philosophical, continually struck by the simplicity of the layout.

For me there are some things I cannot let go like, why did I have to become ill and why did it take so long to heal? Other questions feel rhetorical, impossible to answer like Why haven't I fallen in love? And of course, beyond the void of the future, what is waiting for me now?

Who is really satisfied with their life? I wondered, my hand cradling my chin. Yes, sometimes I wish my life was different. I have a few regrets but they don't weigh heavily on me (well, not always). Not really. I try to regard the regrets as just solemn moments of curiosity, the time when I considered the what ifs and the whys?, my own answers leading my imagination to conjure up another path that I didn't take. If the circumstances had been different, what would I have done, what would I be thinking now?

Friedrich lived through his own upheavals and hours of distress (what artist hasn't?). His mother died when he was seven. He lost two sisters, one to typhus. Perhaps the greatest tragedy came when he was thirteen years old when his brother Johann died trying to rescue him, falling through the ice of a frozen lake.

From family to the great events on the world stage, he came to his career during the years of Napoleon's occupation of the German territories. He was once severely ill, so sick he couldn't work, worried about another brother then staying in France. And though he had his faith to fall back on, one wonders by looking at such a picture if he felt certain of salvation.

For one, the monk isn't praying.  For me, he is, in a sense, living the questions, to quote Austrian poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. The answers are never there because we must creatively search for them inside ourselves. And creativity, one must remember, according to Friedrich is divine and from the heart.

But one must be open to such an approach, I feel. And there is always hope, some kind of way to make life better.

Frau am Fenster, 1822

In the same room as the monumental Monk by the Sea, there is a painting aptly entitled Frau am Fenster (Woman at the Window). It was completed in 1822, twelve years after the former, four years after Friedrich's marriage to Christiane Caroline Bommer. 

'Much has changed since "I" became "we" he wrote following his wedding. On the surface, his household became cleaner and welcoming, 'unrecognizable' according to him. 

He married relatively later in life (being forty-four) giving his heart to a woman nineteen years his junior. But it would eventually change the way he painted.

Mann und Frau den Mond betrachtend, 1830-35

Following 1818, the lone souls, the wanderers and philosophers, are no longer alone. Directly across from Frau am Fenster, there is a man accompanied by a woman in a twilight picture. It is a new departure, wholly new, a reworking of his figures. The single is coupled. There is no isolation. It isn't one man's agon against the universe. No. It is far more peaceful, far more tender, a togetherness. The same contemplation, the same aura of wonder and observation but fittingly shared. Here, the couple is joined by their affection for each other but also by their their curiosity: together they stare at the moon together, they are living the questions, albeit lovingly. 

Nearby, in the same Friedrich Room, a dark forest. At the bottom of the painting, in a kind of shallow grotto, one sees two souls warming by the fire. And the figure of the one is unmistakeably a woman. Man doesn't have to be alone in the wilderness, the artist is implying. He can find a partner, someone to share the hours, to share survival, the ordeal of existence. 

In my university essay, I had noted the changes in the artist's life. For me it had always made sense. Friedrich had to work solitary in order to gain enough recognition and money. If the artist wants to achieve success, the less distractions the better. But how lonely.

Last year I attended a wedding. My friend's daughter was getting married outside my hometown. I wasn't in a relationship so I had no date so I came as a single. After the ceremony and open bar, everyone was seated. The father of the bride placed me beside an old poet friend of his, Elizabeth. I had met her once and had quite a heated discussion about writing. It was quite the argument (how often does one yell at elderly woman?) and to this day, I'm not entirely sure how it started, just to say Elizabeth irritated me. 

During dinner, we were friendly. She knew I was writing a book. Actually two, one of them a kind of memoir, the second a verse novel. When I talked about my progress on the latter, she remarked that I had so much time, that I should be grateful I had no girlfriend or wife or family to distract me. I knew this but resented the fact. 

I had lost my twenties to illness, to my own close calls with death. In the years where I should have been drinking and partying, I had been recovering. There were no trysts or sexual adventures, no long lost loves or exotic romances that bring on the yearning and idealism of memory.  No. Instead I was sick. 

But even during the years of my illness, I still wrote and read. I persevered. I remember living in Vancouver, poor, still bleeding internally but reading the Sturm und Drang plays of Schiller, the otherworldly poetry of Hölderlin and the critical works of Nietzsche. It was this time I discovered Anna Akhmatova and read Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Yes, even in the most dire of hours, I was still educating myself, reaching for the future that always seemed a little uncertain and feeble. I figured I had to live and somehow, somewhere, I would find healing.

Returning to my trip, I left Berlin early the next morning. I wouldn't see another Friedrich until I reached Madrid (a beautiful piece though I couldn't find the one on loan from Karlsruhe). When I returned to Germany in late summer I revisited the Museum der Bildenden Künste in Leipzig, twice with my mother. I had seen the collection in late June but wanted to share my observations with her. 

Die Lebenstuffen, 1835

There are only three Friedrich's in the collection but one happens to be a favourite of mine. Another later Friedrich, often referred to as Die Lebensstufen (Stages of Life). In it, we see five figures. Behind them, five ships upon the sea. Each figure is likened to a ship. There is a boy and a girl playing with a Swedish flag, a man and woman and an old man approaching with his cane. Some have interpreted the main ship, the one closest to the shoreline to be the old man's, that is, he is nearing his end as the ship is nearing its destination. Others view the ship in the far right, the furthest from the viewer to be a symbol of the older man.

Looking at the old man I could see the great Wanderer of the Kunsthalle in Hamburg. It made me smile. For even the wild and melancholic souls must have their families, get old and prepare for the beyond they spent their youth romancing about. It made sense, as the work was part of a natural progression, a fitting masterwork which would be one of Friedrich's last.

In my paper I wrote about  Der Abendstern (The Evening Star), a similar piece completed about the same time showing a family walking up a hillside near Greifswald. Like Die Lebensstufen, Der Abendstern is filled with an orange evening light. Here too is a sense of journey's end, though instead of ships, the sun is setting and one sees homecoming over the hill.

For Friedrich, the city often stood for the city of God just as the open sea stood for the vast unknown after life.The little boy at the top of the hill, greeting the twilight like a future monk by the sea.

Leaving the museum, walking the streets with my mother and step-father, I realized I had fallen in love with Leipzig, this beautiful, quaint city in Eastern Germany, less touristy than Berlin. I had stared at the Friedrichs knowing it would be awhile before I could return to them or any of his pieces in the other cities I had visited. In a week, I would have to go 'home', to another continent far from the art I loved.

And I thought of the twenty-year old, how I had done this trip for him, for us. The quiet soul at the back of the class. Yes, he was arrogant and stubborn, proud and lost but he was humbled for a reason.

I felt for myself. The youth of my twenties has passed, though I know it never existed. If I had been able to make this trip earlier, I might have been be able to return with the hopes of returning the following year with plans on finding a job. As it stands, I have debts but also hope. 

Looking back I was never able to finish school because of the illness but I did manage to see Germany. I still have my two books. The memoir is ready for publication and I am actively searching for an agent. I hope to publish the book, make enough money and return to Leipzig.

Reading and re-reading my book, I see Friedrich's influence in my writing, how his sunset and solemn landscapes shaped how I remembered my childhood scenes which I painted reverently with words, my canvas being the digital pages on my laptop. Though there was always something in me that was looking for Friedrich's paintings. Even as a child I had seen in nature and life at an early age something already haunting and mysterious but in finding his work at nineteen, it was like coming home to what I already knew and sensed. That someone else saw the same things and made sure no one was alone in the experience of life by relating to the same unanswered questions. 

I am proud of my book. Like Friedrich, I have come to my art from the same source, and without the illness, I would never have discovered it, namely my heart.

The twenty-year old still had a lot to learn but he was aware of what was needed. At the end of the art history essay, he wrote about Russian poet and statesman Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky (1783-1852) who urged and assisted the Russian Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich, the future Czar Nicholas I in selecting several of Friedrich's paintings for his home. 'Zhukovsky's opinions are fitting of Friedrich, the twenty-year old noted, and in conclusion we will finish with a quote by the poet:

"His paintings please by their truthfulness, because each one of them awakens in the viewer's soul memories of something familiar. If you find in them more than what the eyes see, that is because the painter looked at nature not as an artist, who seeks only a model for his brush, but as a human being with feelings and imagination, who finds in every aspect of nature a symbol for the human soul."

Cordoba at Night

"Do not let yourself be conquered by anything alien to your spirit."

- Seneca the Younger, Stoic philosopher, native of Cordoba (4 B.C. to 65 A.D.)

Plaza de la Tendillas

There are some cities that should be seen at night.

Amsterdam is one. By day, one wanders the canal-side streets with strangers, many of them tourists hoping to see a Van Gogh, learn about Heineken or down some herring like a seasoned native. At night, however, the world belong more to the locals. It's almost another city, more small-town-like, the cafes and bars bustling, friends and family buying each other another round of Amstel or Wieckse.

Cordoba is another such place meant for nightfall, especially in the summer. During the day, the heat is unyielding and extreme and though, yes, there are slender shadows of respite in the alleys, it never seems enough. One can take refuge under a cafe umbrella or beside a fountain but the sun is white, resilient and intense. The beer from the taverns is cool but the ice cream melts fast.

And during the day, of course is the only time you can explore the museums, or fully appreciate the architecture but there is something more vivid and yet dream-like about the lantern lit streets and courtyards. I don't know, maybe one feels spiritually closer to the ghost of the past, catching a glimpse of another century, whether Roman or Moorish. 

Seneca statue

The famous philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born here when the city was the capital of Hispania in the Roman Empire. Wandering the calles and quarters, one can find his statue near the old gate and in a small square not far from the Tendillas. And not far from the latter, an old Roman ruin, cut off from the public by a steel fence, a lone orange tree growing amidst the rubble. 

The orange tree was brought to southern Spain by the Moors. 

The city's fame rests more perhaps on the Moors than the Romans. Not long after Abd al-Rahman I of the Umayads left his home in Damascus, his family slaughtered by the rival Abbasids, he made his way west. The land of southern Spain which fell to the Vandals after the fall of Rome now fell to the Berbers, followers of Mohammed in north Africa. It was said Abd al-Rahman's mother was a Berber, a tribeswoman of what today would be Morocco.

He amassed support in Malaga and by 755 became a threat to the rulers of the city. They tried to marry him off. But no. He would have Cordoba.

Six years after his family's murder, Abd al-Rahman proclaimed himself emir in Cordoba (instead of caliph, which he could have rightfully done)

It was Abd al-Rahman that set the standard for the city. Though he wanted peace, it would be a long road to his own tranquility. As emir, he helped build the first great mosque of Cordoba, the Mezquita inspired by the Mosque of Damascus.

Interior, Mezquita

During the summer days, the mosque (now a Catholic church) is quietly mobbed by tourists. One walks through the Door of Forgiveness, buys a ticket in the Orange Tree Courtyard and heads to the Door of the Palms. Upon entering, one encounters the first nave, constructed in the emir's time. The mosque was built on the remains of the San Vicente Basilica and through a glass window in the floor, one can see the lost, brief world of the Visigoths who were vanquished in 711.

Amidst the over-lapping arches and the endless array of columns, there is a a kind of quasi-evening peace in the mosque. Abd al-Rahman, before his reign, was said to have written a poem in which he compared himself to a palm tree, lonely and in exile. Standing in the solemn, subdued light of the Mezquita's interior one could liken the experience to standing in a forest of palms at dusk. It is something fitting in that he made the lone palm of his melancholic poem into an icon of perseverance and strength, turning the one into many, building strength from the solitary.

Mezquita and Tourists

At night, the mosque is lit up, the walls a bright golden-brown. There are a few tourists and amidst the ledges, one can see the pigeons have found a place to rest for the night. 

In Cordoba's Golden Age, at the height of the 10th century, the city was a centre of vast wealth and culture. There were said to be 900 baths, tens of thousands of shops, running water from aquaducts and a library containing some 400,000 volumes (this at a time when the largest library in Christian Europe housed a mere 400 manuscripts). 

Hrowsitha of Gandersheim, a German canoness under the Emperor Otto I described the city as the 'brilliant ornament of the world' shining in the west. Perhaps she had seen the city at night. The streets were well-paved and public lanterns provided illumination. 

At night in modern Cordoba, the one Arabic bath and the many shops are closed (no where near the number of ten thousand). But the streets are certainly lit up. One can get a feeling, if not an archaic echoing of the what it must have been like to visit the great 'ornament of the world'. It is said that when London was a dark city of muddy streets, Cordoba shone.

The Moors introduced citrus fruits to what is now Southern Spain as well as rice. They were the first to perfect irrigation in agriculture, allowing the dry dessert lands to become fertile fields of abundance. They were ahead of Europe in the sciences and math, philosophy and literature. Deodorant and perfume were first introduced in al-Andalus. 

Sadly, the Golden Age, like so many in humanity's history came to an end. By the eleventh century, warring factions within the Moorish community weakened and tore up the great Andalusian world of tolerance, culture and peace. Like the Vandals who had fallen before them, they too were plagued with civil strife and corruption. Cordoba would suffer. King Ferdinand III, after a siege of several months took control in the thirteenth century.

'Flamenco Fountain' - Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos

In the south, along the banks of the river, you can find the great former palace-fortress of the Catholic Monarchs, the Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos. In the day, for the tourists, it is a lovely, tranquil garden to visit. Despite the piped-in world music, there is a fountain to sit beside in the shadow of leaves. You can smell the lovely olive trees in the noon-day heat.

However, when you return at night with your ticket, you are plunged into another experience.

First, you watch a light show displayed on the interior walls of the castle courtyard, showing the history of Cordoba with accompanying music. Following this, you are treated to a fountain show. There are three fountains with the water dancing to the rhythm of the Moorish tunes of al-Andalus, the Medieval flutes and strings of Medieval Spain and the Flamenco guitar of modern times.

Though there is an aspect of kitsch involved, it never feels fully tacky. In a way you can appreciate the diversity of such a lost world. Today, most European cities are centres of multi-culturalism. Cordoba was one of the true firsts, whether through policies of tolerance (the Muslims of al-Andalus were accepting of the peoples of 'the book' meaning Jews and Christians could live and worship as they pleased) or its history. 

The aura of times past may have a resonating charm. Still at night, there is the atmosphere of relief from the sun. In many countries throughout Europe, children are fast asleep by midnight. In Cordoba, because of the mid-summer sun, many families take a siesta. Shops are closed, only a few places are open to satisfy and placate the tourists. By four or five, they re-open. This means, people are still wide-awake at midnight. The children too, many of them playing in the fountains throughout the city.

As for the bars, they stay open late. But it is never feels wild. Patrons sit and drink outside, smoking their cigarettes, eating their tapas. They down their cool wines and beers. They converse.

For me Cordoba is suited for night. Its glory days are past, good memories within the nocturnal walls and along the streets.

In a sense, history is a story of ghosts. The old heroes, the great victories, the wondrous libraries and the downfalls all belong to the dust, their weight on our lives is no more than just a wonderful, passing if not entertaining tale, a distraction really.

In the place where armies met, there are houses and suburbs.

In the old Jewish quarter, a statue of Maimonides rests. In front of him passes the slap of sandals, the chatter of voices, the snapping of pictures. Women with sun bronzed shoulders go by with their boyfriends. They hold hands, they point at something interesting. In a few minutes they will have a cerveza at the tavern around the corner and go off to the shops to buy a scarf for her, some local olive oil or sherry for him. 

At night, it can only be different because of the dream of the past is more alive. With enough imagination and wonder, you can feel a tremble there in your skin, as if remembering a life you might have lived. To stand on the Roman bridge and look towards the city, to see the ancient pontoons still holding up a legacy, the Catholic church facade of the converted Mezquita, the distant tower of the Alcazar and of course, the nearby tanned skin of an Andalusian beauty one might feel time to be a hopeless illusion, a tool we try to tell ourselves is useful when really it distracts us from the symbiotic beauty of existence. How everything is all at once and never quite real.

Yes, how Cordoba is a symbol of what is, what remains and what isn't.

Meeting the Dislexyc Grapes

My last night in Cordoba I really didn't know what I was going to do. I had spent many of my evenings wandering the city, crossing and re-crossing the river using the old Roman bridge, passing through the park where locals walked their dogs and socialized. Beyond that, I had my ample share of paella and tapas, wine and cerveza and if I needed entertainment, there was a young violinist playing Bach and popular international pieces nightly by the triumphal arch. 

I had visited the famous Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos for the elegant, if not touristy fountain display. And I spent the latter parts of my evenings down at the Plaza de Tendillas, my feet in the fountain, drinking beer, watching the kids skip and jump and splash, and the visiting university athletes drink from large Amstel bottles.  

Puta caliente!

The last night was also the hottest. At quarter to nine, it was 43 degrees C. I shook my head, snapped a picture and wandered down the old streets of the eastern quarter, slowly making my way back to the bridge for one last sultry, sunset glimpse of Cordoba. I wiped the sweat once more from my neck, airing out my shirt for the fifteenth time. Certainly the guidebook had advised against traveling in July and August. But I figured there would be less tourists and I was right. I suffered in the night, I sweated and drank umpteen bottles of water but the crowds were small in the streets. Manageable, really. And for me that  was a plus. Less people to deal with. At the Mezquita, the famous Mosque of the 8th century, now converted into a Catholic Church, there were spaces of relative peace. Tourists held up their digital cameras but you could take pictures of the pillars and the beauty without knocking elbows.

Overall, I never once felt like I was jostling with others as I had in Madrid's more bustling plazas. The squares of Cordoba were comparably quiet and at night, beyond the babbling of the fountains, one could hear the moderate hum of conversation and giggles of children. 

I stayed in the old part of the city above a local restaurant. My host and hostess owned the establishment where they served middle eastern fare and I spent four out of my six nights dining and drinking there. Following my last walk through the city, making sure to avoid the street of brothels, I found myself back at the tavern. 

My host, welcomed me, shaking my hand, a cigarette in his other. He was a slim, bearded Turkish man with long curly, black locks who spoke only his native tongue and Spanish. Besides the restaurant, he was a locally-famous flamenco musician who fused the world of Istanbul with Andalusian. I practiced my Spanish with him the first night I arrived and even sat with him and his friends and the server, Marie's friends. 

It was in the tavern three nights previous that I met Beatriz. I'm sure I might still be there if an obstructing angel hadn't gotten in the way. It was around ten o'clock. After a plate of couscous, I was drinking my third beer when she arrived on bike, visiting her friend. Marie and her chatted and then she sat with me. Beatriz knew a little bit of English and I enough Spanish. I learned a bit more with her help but mostly my impromptu lessons were forgotten. I enjoyed far too much gazing into her Andalusian, almond eyes. Her knee knocked against mine now and then and a  cursory, shoulder-length strand of black hair kept falling away from its place behind her ear. Her cheeks were high and her lips lovely. I loved watching her speak Spanish.

In our Spanglish we talked about music; I said I played and I recorded some songs while living in Vancouver. I was also writing two books, one about my childhood, the other a verse novel about an Austrian winemaker that falls in love with five women (cinco mujeres). She seemed impressed. As for me, I nervously flipped through the pages of my Spanish phrasebook to find the right words. I remembered what I could.

It seemed that anyone else who might join our conversation was only interrupting or annoying us. I wanted to learn more about her. She was a pharmacist and worked long weeks. That weekend, a three day holiday. She had tomorrow, the Monday off. I asked for her email address. "I don't do email," she said to me. "Then your phone number?" I responded.

I passed my pen and journal over to her and she took them with her light-olive hands. She jotted her number down and told me to call her.

"I'll do my best. I want you to be my personal tour guide."

And I did try. I tried to call her the next day. I went to several pay phones but they wouldn't work. One stole my euro, the other kept spitting my money back out, the metallic clink of rejection causing me several times to slam down the pink T-mobile receiver in disgust and frustration. 

What could I do? I didn't have a cell phone so I couldn't call her that way. And that night, both my host and hostess didn't return to their apartment so I had no to ask for their phone. I figured it wasn't meant to be and left it at that. My romantic side was effectively invaded by the practical one and all my fantasies of a mid-vacation tryst vanished into the banality of acceptance.

So it was interesting to meet Marie's boyfriend tonight, my last night in Cordoba. The Turkish man promptly introduced us, asked if I was hungry (I was fine) and went back to the kitchen, probably to prepare some more couscous. 

Marie's boyfriend and I sat outside in the heat, the sky darkening, the synthetic orange glow of lights glowing sadly, drably from their wall lanterns. We drank beer. He knew a little English but he was impressed with how much Spanish I had picked up in the last two weeks. 

He also asked about Beatriz. I told him: tell her I did my best but the phones in Spain don't like me. I wanted to say that the first night I met her I could have kissed her right then and there but it was getting late and we were both tired. I also wanted to say she had the kindest and most beautiful face I had seen since my arrival. But I wasn't proficient enough for such poetics. Ella no tiene correo electrónico y no tiene un teléfono celular (She didn't have email and I didn't have a cell phone.) It was fate, yes and my obstructing angel.

It was then that two guys, one of them on bike pulled up. They spoke the rapido Spanish of the south with Marie's boyfriend and when I tried to offer my basic conversation, they said it was okay if I wanted to speak English with them. My eyebrows jumped up. Wow, actually English-speakers. I had encountered one or two on my travels in Spain.

They were hungry and we went inside the tavern so they could order some couscous. Joining them, I had another beer as did they. They asked where I was from, what I was doing in Spain. Mostly traveling and wandering, I explained. Brandan had spent some time in Dublin which explained his distinct English-Irish accent and when he said 'fuck' he reminded me of Colin Ferrel in In Bruges. As for Andrés, he had a more American-sounding accent.

They ate pretty quickly when their food arrived. I commented on their appetite. 

"Well, we're high," Brandan said smiling, nodding his head, his mop of curls shaking. 

I chuckled. "Well, I'm drunk."

And the conversation continued on. They told me they were part of a band. What was the band called?

"Dyslexic Grapes" Andrés proudly announced.

I nearly shit myself laughing. It wasn't so much that it was funny but it was just the best name of a band I had ever heard. It was the kind of brilliance best associated with a Monty Python skit. And because it was so brilliant, I found it humorous. 

Then, when Brandan slid a sticker of their band logo across the table I started cracking up again: they reversed the 'i' and 'y' of their band name to enhance the beauty and irony of it all - Dislexyc Grapes. (I proudly wear this sticker on my notebook computer).

We had more beer and chatted for awhile, mentioning bands we liked, books we read. I told him Spain attracted me because of the literature - Lorca, Cernuda, Salinas, Aleixandre and so forth.

As for philosophies, we shared them. The idea of success, for instance, being famous. They claimed they just wanted to party and have a good time. I confessed my whole trip was a means of just having a good time, but also escape, getting away from the locked-in self I was back in Canada. I could have spent the summer working my job, doing the same thing but I decided to take a risk. And it paid off. I could meet people like Andrés and Brandan and that made my vacation more of an experience than just a distraction. 

Marie wanted to close up the bar. We were the last to leave so we paid our share and headed out. Branden grabbed his bike and we walked through the late night streets of Cordoba. They still wanted to drink and so did I. I had a train to catch in the morning (the infamous Renfe episode related in a late August blog) but it was only one a.m. and with the heat and the fan in my room that hardly kept me cool, the chances of falling asleep, no matter what, were relatively slim. Another beer or so and then bed or whatever.

We strolled along the Calle Claudio Marcelo, passing below the old Roman monument from a forgotten century. I had seen the Seneca statue and fountain in my wanderings and I knew this city's history stretched further back than the Moors of Abd al-Rahman I's time. But it was interesting, being in such a historically important place, entering the vast square of the Place de Corredera, a place reminiscent of Madrid Plaza de Mayor to have Andrés comment on how sick he was of his hometown. 

My eyebrows jumped up again. Why was that?

He wiped the brown hair falling low over his brow. "It's always the same people, the same crowds, the same things." He said. "The tourists and the flamenco. The government puts all the money into promoting flamenco. All the arts grants of the south go to flamenco. And I don't mind flamenco. I think it is good, but there is more to Spanish music than flamenco."

I nodded. I felt the same about Canadian literature. It was always old women writing about the prairies or another story by Alice Munro about the distance between a woman and a man in marriage. If not that, some story about immigrants in Toronto who happened to be from Pakistan or India.

And like Andrés, I didn't really mind some of it, but I understood. Money always goes towards enhancing the cultural stereotype so when the tourists arrive, they can find their preconceived notions easily and feel satisfied in their search. And I suppose every country is guilty of allowing their iconic image of themselves to take centre stage in tourism booking offices. Germans have Bavaria and bratwurst, the Dutch have Zeeland and the windmills and the French Paris, the Eiffel Tower and the idea of Parisian, Bohemian Romance. Complexity of culture is hard to sell.

I also mentioned that I self-published a book. Andrés said he wanted to read my book.

We stopped for beers in a small bar on the far south-west corner of the square. The crowds here too were spare, the conversations, like the candles on the tables, almost out. It was only a matter of time before this place would close up. We stood outside at a tall wooden table. I had my tenth beer of the night. After my failed attempt at smoking marijuana ("you're not inhaling right, man..." Brandan cautioned, "it's good shit, don't waste it..."), Andrés asked if I wanted to hear some of their music. Of course, I said coughing. 

I listened and was surprised at how amazing it was. While eating couscous earlier, Branden moaned he wasn't a good drummer. But with the over-sized earphones on my head, listening to the first track of their music on his small mp3 player I had to think otherwise. I wasn't prepared for how good they were.

I loved it. The square disappeared, the night was less intense in terms of heat. Of course, their music was nowhere (thankfully) near flamenco in style. I couldn't quite put my finger on it but I know it was incredible. They had their own distinct style though I could hear some blues and alternative music flowing through the guitar riffs and drum beats. It wasn't typical of anything but it was playful like their band name.

But sadly, the beer had to be consumed because the small bar (really almost a closet with alcohol, beer kegs and a bathroom) too was closing. I walked with Andrés and Brandan back to my host and hostess' apartment. The heat hadn't really let off and I was eternally thirsty. I shook their hands above the wet, hosed-down streets, regretting that I had not met them earlier in the week. I would have loved playing guitar with them, jamming with the Dislexyc Grapes.

For those of you read this, I highly recommend them. Check out the link above. And though I have no Spanish beer on hand, I raise a glass of Dutch jenever to them and their future success or however they want their recognition. To Andrés and Brandan.

And can't forget, Beatriz, wherever she might be, the Cordovan beauty that got away and didn't believe in email.

Brandan y Andrés

That Lost Sense of Home

It's raining in Kingsville. Apparently it hasn't been like this all summer. Which is nice to know, considering last year. But a light rain after a dry summer, a kind of gift. 

I hope the autumn is dry and cool and there are few days of showers to mar the smoky air. I look forward to watching the corn fields come down with the harvest. I am looking forward to seeing the leaves yellow and orange. 

I am looking forward to this. And following it, winter. 

But I can't help but say I'm a little bewildered. Leaving Europe was like leaving the comfort of something so familiar. Almost as if I was saying goodbye to a beautiful woman, walking away from her presence and bed to return home to another woman, a kind, but unloving wife. And it's not that I've cheated myself or anyone, just seen something new, something different, a way of life that I would say makes more sense. 

In Germany, you can drink beer in public, on bridges, on park benches, in the streets, on trams and trains. And why not? I rarely if ever saw violence break out. No moments of publich intoxication where the cops had to be called in. The parks are filled in the summer. You can smell the aroma of BBQ. Picnic blankets lie on the grass. There are coolers, bottles of wine. There is nothing really to fear.

Here, the parks are empty, even on the most serene of days.

Spestraat, Haarlem, The Netherlands

In Amsterdam, Haarlem and other Dutch cities it is easy to get around. The trams are so easy to negotiate. The bike lanes are well-paved and amazing. You don't need a car, really. (But be aware of the rules of the road, just because you're a cyclist doesn't mean you can ignore them - and the everyday Dutch are hard on those who defy their regulations.)

Here, the bike lane is the pebbled shoulder in most cities (though some of the bigger are more accommodating of two-wheeled, methane free travelers).

I felt at home in that world. And now I'm 'home'. 

And though it is familiar, I have forgotten the names of some towns and places. I know the roads still but the small differences are there, I can feel them. And it's not all bad, no. But it's not the same.

Before Kingsville, I was in my hometown of St.Catharines. I stayed with friends of mine. They were kind enough to host me for a few days. I didn't really contact family. The old tensions don't seem to go away. We are Dutch so being stubborn (hardnekkig in Nederlands - or thick-necked, how appropriate) and habits like that are hard to be rid of.

But Kingsville, as if the rest of Canada was another continent and in between vast corn fields and wind farms, highways that give one a preview of the prairies. Kingsville where public transportation doesn't exist. Either you drive or bike (on the above-mentioned shoulder). Kingsville where the quiet is continually interrupted by the crickets, the sound of lawn mowers. Kingsville where the liquor store closes at six most nights, where the books on the library shelves are basic bestsellers, literature and art and poetry rare.

Kingsville, the home I would never had expected. Had you told the proverbial previous self of two years ago I would be living here, he would have chuckled and then asked, Kingsville, you mean Kingston, right?

St.Catharines like the other cities of my past are closed doors. I lived in them long enough to discover I didn't feel at home there. But in Germany, I found home. Curiously enough, in Leipzig where yes, the parks are filled and bicycles are seemingly everywhere. Leipzig where it felt like leaving a familiar, loving room where now someone must now touch the other side of the bed and let out a sigh in my absence.

Toteninsel - Arnold Böcklin

The Leipzig of Bach, Schumann, and Mendelssohn. The Leipzig Wagner didn't think too highly of but now he would probably would, what with both the beautiful opera and symphony house facing each other on opposite sides of Augustuspatz. The Leipzig of the silent revolution on Nikolaistraße. The Leipzig where nearby in the late 1700s Schiller wrote his famous An die Freude ('Ode to Joy'). The Leipzig of Klinger and the art museum where you can find my favourite version of Arnold Böcklin's Toteninsel (Isle of the Dead).

Yes, that Leipzig. The Leipzig of friends Sebastian, Mira, Kevin, Tom and crazy Marco who during the volleyball game one Sunday flirted with his teammate's wife. Albeit accidentally and innocently but Marco isn't too innocent.

The Leipzig of trabbi tours, their motorboat, methane-like exhaust and the Stalin building and the Panorama Tower and the grand Promenaden in the Hauptbahnhof where Sundays the groceries stores are overrun. And in the south, the Cospudener See where some parts are for naturists. There on the sand you can find untanned bottoms and love handles without swimming trunks to accentuate their folds. And for one shining, transcendent moment, you might see someone attractive strip down after her bike ride to cool in the waters. Yes, for once, but rare... because you soon learn that most public nudists are overweight, over-tanned men who consume far too much beer, their bratwurt proudly (and unpardonably) on display. In Germany, one needs to misquote the adage and shake your head realizing yes, 'if you don't have it, flaunt it.'

Leipzig for a month and half and I felt more at home than all the collected cities I resided in while in Canada. And like the confused astronaut in a Stanislaw Lem novel, having returned from the stars, he finds it hard to reconcile the then with the precarious now. Where it made sense is behind him and where he is now is a whole another planet. The rules are the same but he feels the unease, unable to fulfill himself with his new predicament. He'd rather be alone and lonely up there, out there than be here.

Home, always a question, a reaching, an enigma. For some home is the kept and complacent lawns of suburbia and the flower gardens and impromptu front porch conversations. There is always that polite wave to a passing car, a recognizable face but still a stranger, a neighbor around the corner, familiar but foreign. You know they have a corgi and take a walk around dusk but that's it. Nameless and you nameless to them.

For others, home feels cosmically misplaced, as if God and his aimless band of angels wanted to tempt the solemn, modern Job, asking him, can you feel settled here when there is something more out there that is more suitable? That lost sense of home, can you live with it?

Of course, it is hard to put roots down in places that don't offer the comforts and cultural richness of a city like Leipzig. One would assume it to be a task in futility to feel at ease in a place like Kingsville when home was briefly there, over there, across the pond in Eastern Germany. Home in the earthy aroma of parks, in the flat tire near the university and the lemony taste of a weiss bier on the Markt. Home, Faust's golden, lucky foot, Mephisto mocking the troubled student above Auerbach's Keller. Rub the lucky foot, the German couple said, and it means you'll return to Leipzig.

One prays this to be true. Otherwise, for now there is Kingsville (and no, it's not bad). At least there is the lovely, verdant scent of nature, that smell of trees in the evening, of wet earth after the rain. And again, let the autumn be a dry one.